Skip to main content

Sleepaway Girls

Image result for sleepaway girls publisher
Sleepaway Girls
Sleepaway Girls by Jen Calonita is the perfect spin on a classic summer camp filled with friendship, hilarious situations, and sweet romance.

Plot Summary:

Samantha Montgomery, or Sam, is fed up with Malomark. (Malomark is her ship name for her best friend, Mal, and her new bad boy boyfriend, Mark.) She couldn’t stand another “No, baby you’re cuter” or another instance where she ended up the third wheel. Sam decides she will be a CIT, counselor in training, at Whispering Pines sleepaway camp in the Catskills. (2 hours away from her home in New York City Suburbia.) To camp, she brings a small palm recorder that she plans to record message to send back home to Mal.

At camp, Sam meets Courtney, a beautiful, boy-crazy girl, who likes to be called Court, Grace, a super athletic, outgoing young lady who reaches out to Sam and holds the group together, and Emily, a girl who loves romance novels and wishes she has a boyfriend like most of those characters. These four girls form the Sleepaway Girls. They talk about everything together and they record their conversations on the palm-recorder. There conversations range from how bad the food is at camp, to Sam and some of the other girls’ crushes, love problems, and personal qualities. Sam gets closer to these girls than she could imagine getting with Mal.

Author Praise:

Jen Calonita hit this one out of the park. The writing is hilarious, but when things get serious, she knows exactly how to change the tone. The character development is phenomenal. The setting of the camp is so well described one can almost taste the nasty food and smell the lake water. The reader feels as if she is part of the Sleepaway Girls’ conversation. The novel is based off a common story. A new girl comes to camp; she is not a “lifer” and that bothers the mean girl. Said mean girl gets jealous and starts scheming against said new girl. New girl starts to make very close friends and forgets about some of her old ones. Many boys are interested in the new girl. New girl likes one, but gets into a sticky situation and kisses another. How will she tell the boy she actually likes the truth? Even though the premise of the story is very simple, Jen Calonita fills the plot with color and paints a wonderful picture. This is truly one of my all-time favorite books.

Rating and Reasoning:

I give this book five stars because of the astonishing character development, realistic plot, and adorable love story. I read this book twice a year and I have been reading it since the summer between fifth and sixth grade. I truly love this book and wish Whispering Pines summer camp was a real place. If this place was truly real, I would sign up to go in a heartbeat.

Audience: Sixth to Seventh graders
Publisher: Little Brown
Date Published: January 1, 2009
ISBN: 9780316017176
Format: Hardcover
Genre: Realistic Fiction and Romance

Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 23, 2018 at 6:25 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMay 19, 2021 at 8:21 AM

    I loved this book!!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Author Spotlight: Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley At my school, I am a Library Leader. (Library Leaders promote reading in the middle school and recommend books for the younger grades.) The Library Leaders had the fortunate opportunity of eating lunch and meeting with Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. We got to ask her questions and just talk with her. Mrs. Bradley also spoke to the whole seventh and eighth grade in assembly about her research. 1)      When/How does she write? Mrs. Bradley writes in the morning, but this depends on her chores for the day. She got into her routine when her children, now graduating college and out of college, were small and went to school. She would always wait until her husband took them to drop them off at school. She likes for her writing space to be very quiet. She prefers typing when she when she writes as to writing. (This may be pretty common; I do not know what the common format among writers is today. I just thought I would include eve...
Post a Comment
Read more

Long Way Down

A Long Way Down Written in verse, A Long Way Down by J ason Reynolds is a novel about making a moment’s decision. *DISCLAIMER: The story deals with grief, mild cussing, and gun violence. Plot Summary: Will doesn’t live in a so great part of town. This African-American teen’s brother, Shawn, is shot and killed by a member of gang member in a near-by part of town. Will decides to follow ‘The Rules’. (‘The Rules’ are passed on through generations of members of this community and they are: 1. DON’T CRY 2. NO SNITCHING 3. ALWAYS GET REVENGE.) Will decides to kill the gang member who killed Shawn. He HAS to follow ‘The Rules’. He gets on the elevator to go down to the Lobby and the elevator stops at every floor. People that have been shot in the past and were in his life get on the elevator at every floor. This thriller is written over one minute and nine seconds. Author Praise/Critique: Jason Reynolds is a very talented poet. The book is very visually pleasing because ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Reading and writing, reading and writing, reading and writing: that's what I hope to keep doing all summer (with some swimming and seeing friends mixed in there too!). Here's another review! This is Stuart Turton's The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle,  and it's a doozy.  SUMMARY THE RULES OF BLACKHEATH Evelyn Hardcastle will be murdered at 11:00 p.m. There are eight days and eight witnesses for you to inhabit. We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer. Understood? Then let's begin... Evelyn Hardcastle WILL die. And every day Aiden Bishop WILL try to identify her killer and break this neverending cycle he has somehow found himself in. But every time a new day begins, Aiden inhabits the body of a different guest at Blackheath. Some of Aiden's hosts will be more helpful than others. Some of Aiden's hosts are more capable than others. Some of Aiden's hosts start to overcome Aiden's true personality. Then again, who is Aiden? A...
Post a Comment
Read more