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Publisher's Weekly
Those who admire Cooney's deft weaving of plot upon subplot exhibited in her other novelsincluding this book's predecessor, Saturday Nightwill be entertained by this sequel, though not completely satisfied. The five girls who starred in the last book are back, with romances going awry or not going anywhere at all. It's the Last Dance of their junior year: one has had a baby, one has terrible family problems, etc. The names become a muddle, there is a now-predictable disaster theme (last time: flood; this time: fire), and the girls' lives are open-ended enough to leave room for, perhaps, another episode. Better-than-average romancing is going on here, but not up to Cooney's usual much better-than-average standards. Although this book still has the froth, it isn't as fun as the first one.
School Library Journal
The last dance of the year provides only a temporary lull in the battle of the sexes. ''As always, the girls seemed to be at one event, and the boys seemed to be at another one altogether.'' The main theme is the vast distance between girls and boys; this gap is patched over at the end with a haze of romance. But in the meantime, there's a raging fire, a nasty troublemaker in a tight purple dress, and problems far heavier than usual, like unwed motherhood and ugly divorces. The boys and adults in this book are many times more developed than is usual, but the view of romance is decidedly jaundiced. Complicated, fast-moving, and an ultimately depressing book.
Genre: Young Adult Romance
Those who admire Cooney's deft weaving of plot upon subplot exhibited in her other novelsincluding this book's predecessor, Saturday Nightwill be entertained by this sequel, though not completely satisfied. The five girls who starred in the last book are back, with romances going awry or not going anywhere at all. It's the Last Dance of their junior year: one has had a baby, one has terrible family problems, etc. The names become a muddle, there is a now-predictable disaster theme (last time: flood; this time: fire), and the girls' lives are open-ended enough to leave room for, perhaps, another episode. Better-than-average romancing is going on here, but not up to Cooney's usual much better-than-average standards. Although this book still has the froth, it isn't as fun as the first one.
School Library Journal
The last dance of the year provides only a temporary lull in the battle of the sexes. ''As always, the girls seemed to be at one event, and the boys seemed to be at another one altogether.'' The main theme is the vast distance between girls and boys; this gap is patched over at the end with a haze of romance. But in the meantime, there's a raging fire, a nasty troublemaker in a tight purple dress, and problems far heavier than usual, like unwed motherhood and ugly divorces. The boys and adults in this book are many times more developed than is usual, but the view of romance is decidedly jaundiced. Complicated, fast-moving, and an ultimately depressing book.
Genre: Young Adult Romance
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