Senior (Class of '88, No 4)

Rating:
Summary: The final chapter
Review: Cooney brings things to an understandably too-neat conclusion in this, the last chapter of the tumultuous high school career for our heroes. The only surprise is the bizarre, spread-out anticlimax of the Meg/Nick frustrated romance subplot, which has been building for four years. Sean, whose story was essentially wrapped up with his happy relationship with Brooke Appelbaum during Junior year, is given an absurd "complication" to face, and Allie, whose improbably compelling emotional breakdown in the last book is largely glossed over, is only given an obvious excuse to make up with Celie, the series' undeniable fifth wheel. That said, the conclusion is as sentimentally warm as you could ask, and the would-be college Casanova who woos both Celie and Allie is an eminently dislikable character. Given the overwhelming misery of the last installment, it is perhaps with an eye towards comforting the audience that Cooney made this book so bland, but it is all in all an unsatisfactory conclusion to one of the seminal teen-heartbreak series of the 1980s.

Rating:
Summary: The final chapter
Review: Cooney brings things to an understandably too-neat conclusion in this, the last chapter of the tumultuous high school career for our heroes. The only surprise is the bizarre, spread-out anticlimax of the Meg/Nick frustrated romance subplot, which has been building for four years. Sean, whose story was essentially wrapped up with his happy relationship with Brooke Appelbaum during Junior year, is given an absurd "complication" to face, and Allie, whose improbably compelling emotional breakdown in the last book is largely glossed over, is only given an obvious excuse to make up with Celie, the series' undeniable fifth wheel. That said, the conclusion is as sentimentally warm as you could ask, and the would-be college Casanova who woos both Celie and Allie is an eminently dislikable character. Given the overwhelming misery of the last installment, it is perhaps with an eye towards comforting the audience that Cooney made this book so bland, but it is all in all an unsatisfactory conclusion to one of the seminal teen-heartbreak series of the 1980s.