Shelly: Hey do you like this hideous shirt that none of us would ever wear but makes a good reference to the plot device?
Dana: Well, a a sophisticated gal from New York City whose mother is a fashion buyer, I am truly offended this is in my presence. I’m going to call Laine Cummings.
Faith: I am a sassy black girl, so you need to talk to the hand!
Shelly: Really y’all, why won’t you humor a country bumpkin like me? Remember, we PROMISED to tell the truth for the whole weekend!
Dana: Wait, why did we promise to do that again?
Shelly: Shelly, don’t you remember? Allison, who is our dorm mother, had her cousin visiting. She was doing a sociology experiment to see what happens when people tell the truth all the time.
Faith: is that even ethical? And is that even sociology? Why is our dorm mother using us so her cousin can do her homework?
Dana: Who cares? it will be sure to get us into some hijinks that will create drama for us and make us the center of attention in our dorm.
Shelly: Yea, like how I’ll just happen to be walking by the headmistress’ house when she has a heart attack, and then I drive her to the hospital and drive her car home, people will think I stole her car and I’ll be grounded, but I won’t tell the truth because I promised someone’s cousin I wouldn’t!
Dana: yea, and it will probably cause some sort of love triangle for me, which I love being known for.
Faith: Fuck that noise. I just need to get through the weekend without revealing to Shelley that her dumb country girl act is getting old.
Shelly: Well, whatever happens, we certainly won’t be doing any homework, and life suuuuure will be more interesting here at Canby Hall! Where we live! Where all the fun happens!
Dana: Well, despite not being ethical and causing so much trouble, we should probably stick out the experiment, because I am sure we will all learn a big lesson and it will just make our friendship stronger.
Faith: I know! And did we mention that it’s amazing how the three of us are all great friends, even though we are so different?
Shelly and Faith both look about 35 years old. Is this some kind of rule for crappy YA lit covers?
What small country town finds retina-searingly fugly hawaiian shirts beautiful and stylish? Is Shelley from Coon Lick, Tahiti?
The title sucks. I know that’s the least of this book’s problems but just wanted to say so.
And what’s with the tagline – who did say that being honest is easy? No-one, that’s who. If the tagline read, ‘Who said that honesty is the best policy?’ that would at least make sense, because it refers to a well-known phrase or saying. But then there might be the worry that no reader would know what ‘policy’ meant.
I love this blog.
Shelly was supposedly from Iowa. I hated this fact when I was reading these books as a kid because I lived in Iowa and I wasn’t as hopelessly backwoods as Shelly. I attributed it to the fact that she lived in a (fictional) town that supposedly had 5000 people, while *I* lived in a town of 25,000. This naturally made me a rather cosmopolitan 10 year old.
I’m laughing out loud at these two lines:
“I am a sassy black girl, talk to the hand.”
“This naturally made me a rather cosmoplitan 10 year old.”
hahaha, funny!!
That is one ridiculously ugly shirt. And RollingStone is right, those two characters look at least thirty, esp Shelly…however I did enjoy their imagined dialogue
Laugh all you want at the clothes on the cover…those styles are all coming baaaccckkk!!!!! Who knew that the Girls from Canby Hall were fashionistas (excuse my spelling)? Personally, I’m looking forward to the return of shoulder pads so I can look like Brett Farve…a washed- up 40 something…
Is it just me, or does the bumpkin holding the fugly shirt have a lazy eye?
In this installment, Dana will be played by Justine Bateman.
I know the covers don’t normally coincide with the books anyway, but the books always keep harping on how faaaaat Shelly is, and she looks the same as the other two. No wonder she has issues.
Who knew Winnie Cooper looked so good in orange?
Had to swing in, Ihatewheat, to let you know we’ve both been namechecked over at Agony Booth! It’s in the first page of their latest DeGrassi Agonizer review, “What A Night!” Gosh, I feel like a celebrity!
The only Canby Hall book I really remember is the one where Shelly (I think) gets kidnapped. Do you happen to have that one in your arsenal? Yeah, I like kidnapping stories, and no YA series is complete without one.
Dana looks kinda like Katie Holmes in the Joey Potter years.
I’m recapping this series at http://girlsofcanbyhall.wordpress.com/ and can’t wait to get to this one. Always thought it was totally insulting that they kept drawing Shelley as thin but calling her chubby!