What Zoey Saw

Making Out #6

by Katherine Applegate

They've all grown up together on a tiny island. They think they know everything about one another...but they're only just beginning to find out the truth.

What Zoey saw is turning her life upside down. She used to think her family was perfect, that her parents were really in love. But what she saw changed all that. And it's making Zoey think about love in a whole different way.

Genres: Young Adult, Romance, Fiction, Teen, Contemporary Romance, Contemporary, Childrens

231 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

#1 New York Times bestselling author Katherine Applegate has written many books for young readers, including THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN, winner of the 2013 Newbery Medal.

Katherine’s picture books include THE BUFFALO STORM, illustrated by Jan Ormerod (Clarion Books); THE REMARKABLE TRUE STORY OF IVAN, THE SHOPPING MALL GORILLA, illustrated by G. Brian Karas (Clarion Books); SOMETIMES YOU FLY, illustrated by Jennifer Black Reinhardt (Clarion Books); and ODDER: AN OTTER’S STORY, illustrated by Charles Santoso (Feiwel & Friends).

She’s written or co-written three early chapter series for young readers: ROSCOE RILEY RULES, a seven-book series illustrated by Brian Biggs (HarperCollins); DOGGO AND PUPPER, a three-book series illustrated by Charlie Alder (Feiwel & Friends). With Gennifer Choldenko, she co-authored DOGTOWN and MOUSE AND HIS DOG, illustrated by Wallace West (Feiwel & Friends).

Books for middle-grade readers include HOME OF THE BRAVE (Feiwel & Friends); THE ONE AND ONLY series, illustrated by Patricia Castelao, including THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN, THE ONE AND ONLY BOB, THE ONE AND ONLY RUBY, and THE ONE AND ONLY FAMILY (HarperCollins); the ENDLING trilogy (HarperCollins); CRENSHAW (Feiwel & Friends); WISHTREE (Feiwel & Friends); WILLODEEN (Feiwel & Friends); ODDER (Feiwel & Friends); and the forthcoming POCKET BEAR (Feiwel & Friends).

With her husband, Michael Grant, Katherine co-wrote ANIMORPHS, a long-running series that has sold over 35 million books worldwide. They also wrote two other series, REMNANTS and EVERWORLD, and a young adult novel, EVE AND ADAM (Feiwel & Friends.)

Katherine’s work has been translated into dozens of languages, and her books have won accolades including the Christopher Medal, the Golden Kite Award, the Bank Street Josette Frank Award, the California Book Award Gold Medal, the Crystal Kite Award, the Green Earth Book Honor Award, the Charlotte Zolotow Honor Award, and the E.B. White Read Aloud Award. Many of her works have appeared on state master lists, Best of the Year lists, and Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and New York Times bestseller lists.

Katherine lives in Nevada with her husband and assorted pets. She is represented by Elena Giovinazzo at Heirloom Literary and Mary Pender at WME.

Reviews

[Nicky (burialshroud) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t think I ever read these books in order when I was a kid. I read each one multiple times and got a pretty good (read:encyclopaedic) handle on the sequence of events but I never read from book 1 to book 28 one after the other, my reading of the books always depended on what I could get from the library, how much pocket money I had, skipping books because I didn’t want to read about a particular subject at the time. Anyway my point is I read this one after only having read books 1 and 4 and it was part bummer, part delightfully scandalous and at the time I felt it was a very mature volume due to Zoey’s grim (read:hilariously self-pitying) behaviour.

The last book ended with Zoey fleeing Lucas-and-condom filled Vermont only to return home to find her mom banging Jake’s dad. She spends this book being melodramatic and cynical, tearing down the post-it quotes above her desk, hurling various possessions into the trash, barking with laughter at Lucas’s reconciliation attempts and finally confronting Jake’s dad at his place of work, “Stay away from my family!” etc, and this is how Jake finds out about the affair. Ouch, another blow for poor, sweet Jake. At least his sister appears to be alive in this book, being driven around Chatham Island, smiling at passersby.

In my review of Claire Gets Caught, I said that Lucas was no longer conscious of Claire’s presence, let alone holding a torch for her. I feel foolish now, because in this instalment the pair have not one, but TWO make-out sessions after they see Zoey and Jake comforting each other. This’ll end well!

In the end, Zoey’s parents break up and her father reveals that he has an illegitimate daughter. Ooooooh, scandalous!

I’m not totally sure what happened with the other characters in this book so I’m guessing it wasn’t anything important.

I don’t have any stand-out favourite bits in this book. I burned through it so quickly I don’t know if I even put it down. This series rules!

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

* So Zoey catches her mother in bed with Jake's father 😲 but her mother lies and says she was watching soap operas (because lying will obviously make things better). Zoey feels shocked and lost, and begins to throw things away - her journal, some letters from her mother, her quotes etc. She looks in the loft and finds some letters to her mother from Jake's dad, which seemingly cast doubt on who Benjamin's father was.
Zoey goes to see Jake's dad, and tells him to stay away from her family, but Jake catches them, and Zoey feels forced to tell him the truth about what was going on. Claire and Lucas see Zoey and Jake hugging and jump to the wrong conclusion 🤦
Zoey's mother confesses to her father and they hear them arguing. The next day they tell them they're separating, and also drop the bombshell that her father also had an affair years ago, and has a daughter somewhere!
* Jake tries to keep the truth about his drug taking from Zoey, but he thinks she knows when he sees her talking to his father, obviously that wasn't what they were talking about though.
* Lucas is apologetic about his behaviour in Vermont, but gets annoyed when Zoey doesn't immediately accept his apology, especially when he sees her with Jake.
* Nina tries to get the truth out of Benjamin as to what has happened, and he realises that Nina is better for him than Claire was.
* Claire gets annoyed with Jake when she sees him with Zoey, especially because she also knows he had sex with Louise. It seemed like she would be trying it on with Lucas just to her her own back.
* Christopher buys a gun to get revenge on the boys who beat him up. Aisha sees and tells him to get rid of the gun. He borrows a school van and goes out with the gun and Aisha takes her parent's car and tries to stop him. She gets pulled over by the cops though.

[Saadia Y · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely the most dramatic so far! I wonder, are people this stupid in real life...? Probably. Have I mentioned how much I hate Claire?

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was THE MOST DRAMATIC. :O

Things! All the things! So many things!

But I guess really two major things and one less major thing.


The big one was Zoey and Benjamin's mom hooking up with Jake's dad :( So sad :( I felt bad for everyone :(

Although I really liked this book, I do have to say that a large number of the situations/problems cropping up in this series could be either solved or heavily fixed if people would just communicate with each other. Specifically Zoey. I wish she had've told Benjamin when she found out about her mom instead of keeping it from him. Having someone else to talk about it with would've helped her think rationally and they could've talked about things as a family instead of Zoey feeling like she had to single-handedly fix the problem. I understand that she wanted to protect Benjamin, but still... she's gotta know that sooner or later he's going to find out, especially since he's so perceptive.

Secondly, I really wish she would just communicate with Lucas. That's probably the more annoying part. If she loves Lucas she needs to understand that he deserves to know what's going on. Why won't she tell him? Instead she's just super cryptic about it. It leads to Lucas seeing her with Jake and getting the complete wrong idea because she refuses to say listen something bad happened with my family and Jake's family. She doesn't even have to tell him what exactly happened, but it's ridiculous to leave him out of it. And it lead to the end of the book where it appears Lucas is going to hook up with Claire to somehow get back at Zoey.

As well, I wish Lucas had've told someone about knowing who the guys were who beat up Christopher. He doesn't necessarily have to tell Christopher, but the reason he isn't saying anything is because he's worried for his and Zoey's safety. I feel like Zoey (and her family) have a right to be involved in this decision. It's going to bite Lucas in the ass because inevitably people are going to find out he knew, and I'm most worried about Christopher finding out.

The other big thing that happened was Christopher just going way off the deep-end. Like, holy fuck. Christopher needs some serious, serious help. I don't even think I like him even a little anymore. I get that Aisha wants to help him but she is going to seriously put herself in a lot of danger. She tried and he didn't listen and if something happens to Aisha because of Christopher I will be pissed.

Some other things that happened:
- Apparently Zoey and Benjamin have a sister from when their dad cheated on their mom awhile back.
- Nina was pretty amusing and awesome the whole time. If I was going to be friends with one of these girls, I would hands down pick Nina. I especially love her catty hilarious comments about Claire, and her trying to get her dad to date while simultaneously throwing Claire under the bus.
- Speaking of Claire, she needs to be more communicative with Jake too. And I will be VERY unpleased if she and Lucas end up hooking up. Not that they'll actually have sex because this series seems pretty determined to continue hammering down the message that sex = bad which is probably my #1 biggest complaint about the whole thing.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the more emotion filled installments of this series. It was full of angst and revelations. So sad about the developments between one of my favourite pairings. Claire is still the worst!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fave part of this book was realising me and Mr Geiger would probably get on really well

[Taylor Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Im really surprised with this series. I didnt think id like it as much as i do, but its soooo good! Onto the second last book

[Jenn N · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another reread of a classic series I first read when I was like 13.

[Dori · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucas, I'm very disappointed.
Also I realized I don't care about Aisha and/or Christopher, so I just skipped the parts focusing on them.

[belindag26637 · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Elaine Mullane || Elaine and the Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feeling nostalgic for the books of my youth, I revisited Katherine Applegate and her Islanders omnibus editions (first released as the Making Out series way back in 1993. Yes, I am that old...).

While I found them to be overly-dramatic and a little bit cheesy on second reading, I think they would be loved by teenagers today. YA has taken a much-welcome step in the sphere of fantasy, science fiction and Dystopia, largely, in recent years so for teenagers looking for the traditional romance novels filled with teen-angst and buried secrets, these are a good series to turn to. A little bit Dawson's Creek in it's setting and it's drama, The Islanders is the perfect teen soap opera.

[C. B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I remember being obsessed with this series when I was 14! I made my mom buy me all 29 books (in Germany a 29th book was published, there is no English translation) after borrowing the first one from my then-best friend.
Looking back, the plots got wilder and wilder with time: A lost half-sister, Claire's stalker, Ben miraculously being able to see again etc. I don't think I would enjoy it as much now as I did ten years ago, but it will only have a special place in my heart.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zoey is an annoying narrator. She really does need to grow up.

Other than that, I loved the book. Nice edition to the series. =]

[Isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0

[Katelynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is so juicy and so upsetting. More please!