Don't Forget Lara

Making Out #25

by Katherine Applegate

After years of lying, scheming, and manipulation, Lara has decided to turn over a new leaf, but at the same time she finds herself haunted by terrifying dreams.

Genres: Young Adult, Romance, Fiction, Teen

169 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 1998

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 3 out of 5]

I’m pretty annoyed by this Making Out episode because of Lara. She seems to be on the verge of some kind of artistic success, she’s finally got Zoey out of her hair, she’s pretty much off the sauce, everything’s coming up Lara! But she dreams throughout the book about screaming and fires and is ultimately burned to a crisp trying to rescue Jeff and Darla from a house fire. I think it would’ve been a bit more interesting for me if Jeff and Darla were the casualties of the Passmore house fire, but I guess whoever was writing the books at this point just couldn’t do that to sweet, beautiful Zoey. UGH.

The upside is that Zoey’s unbearably smug Berkeley-life is going to be cut short. No more wholesome bike rides or surfing trips or making ethnically diverse friends wherever she goes or free concerts. Oh, she is truly unbearable.

Claire and Aisha are in Boston.

Claire is assigned a huge dorm room which she ends up secretly sharing with Jake, who’s homeless because he was assigned to an all-female dorm and was not allowed to continue to live there because he isn’t Winston Egbert and this isn’t Sweet Valley University. Claire is uncharacteristically homesick and keeps calling all her old island friends like, “whatcha doin’?” Also Claire and Aaron break up for real. See ya, pillow lips.

Aisha is a college freshman engaged to a jackass.

Lucas is working his dad’s fishing boat, but he doesn’t enjoy it. He gets some extra work restoring an old lighthouse at the weekends. He is working 7 days a week. This makes me feel old because I used to do this and think nothing of it, but now the thought of working more than three days in a row makes me want to take a nap. Just bed down right here on the floor. The feeling of oldness intensifies when I remember the first time I read this book I’d never worked a day in my life, because I was a child.

Anyway I love this series. Nina is my favourite. Kate has thankfully disappeared. RIP Lara.

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow 😲 Definitely the best one of the series so far!

* So, Zoey, Jake, Benjamin, Claire, and Aisha have all gone off to college.
* Zoey ikes her new roommate, but she's upset over what happened with Lucas and Nina. When she receives letters from them, she just puts them in the bin, and tries to get on with her new life.
* Benjamin doesn't like his roommate at first, but learns to live with him. His eyesight is still causing him issues, and he goes to see a specialist. The specialist says that his retina is detatching in his left eye because he didn't take it easy enough. He tells him he's got to go and see Dr Martin in Boston, which is a long train ride. Dr Martin then says he's got to do some sort of therapy which means he has to come to Boston once a week for 10 weeks. Whwn Benjamin complains, Dr Martin tells him it's that or go blind again.
* Jake gets to college to find that someone thought he was a girl, and that he's been given a room in an all-girl dorm, and they don't have another room available. He ends up sleeping Claire's room which is also in an all-girl dorm, and she makes him dress as a girl when leaving the room. Someone knocks on the door at like 3am asking if she's got a boy in her room, but thankfully Jake hid in the wardrobe. The second time someone knocks it's Aaron.
* Claire is more home-sick than she expected, but happy that she ended up with a single room. She lets Jake stay, even thoughif caught she would get kicked out. When Aaron turns up drunk, gets jealous and punches Jake, Claire ends the relationship.
* Aisha doesn't like her roommate who constantly has people calling her and expects Aisha to take messages. Things seem okay between her and Christoper though.
* Lucas gets a job at weekends helping to repair an old lighthouse. His boat won't start while out catching lobsters one day, and he tells his mother that the boat needs a lot of money spending on it, and his mum gets angry with his, telling him that his father looked after that boat, and Lucas is ungrateful. Lucas knows that it would take more money than they have to keep the boat running.
* Nina misses Zoey, she writes a letter but gets no reply. She realises that she just wants her best friend back.
* Lara has stopped drinking, and she's learning to love the Passmores now that Zoey is out of the way. She starts working more shifts at the restaurant to help out her father and Darla, she starts drawing pastel pictures for a contest that a friend of the Passmores wants her to enter, and looking into getting her GED. Her life is finally looking up.

Until...
* A fire breaks out in the kitchen of the Passmore's house in the middle of the night. Lara wakes up smelling smoke, and realise she's got to get Jeff and Darla out as well. She manages to drag them out of bed but they're both unconscious.
* Lucas sees the fire from his house, tells his mother to call the fire brigade and runs down the road to help. He has to break down the front door and realises the extra oxygen might be feeding the fire and making it worse. He goes up the stairs and finds Jeff, he drags him out and goes back in. He finds Darla and drags her out too. He sees Lara as he's dragging Darla out, but the house explodes before he can go back in for Lara 😲

[Saadia Y · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a tragic and cruel end for Lara.. I guess she wasn't lying when she claimed she was psychic. She wasn't my favourite character in the beginning but I grew to appreciate her presence and mischief (reminded me of the villains on Sunset Beach). I hoped she would get over her obsession with Zoey but I guess that would have been too much to ask.

Hmmm does Lucas' actions redeem him in my books.... 💭 I guess I can forgive him now.

On another note, Claire making Jake cross dress is something I never saw coming lol 😂

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love that this book made me start to really like Lara and that she is finally not just portrayed as an alcoholic maniac. I do hate how things ended because I feel she could have become an even stronger character. I love the final chapters of this book and the suspense, and definitely felt more emotional about it than the first time I read this.

Could have done without all the focus on Zoey's life at Berkeley because I just don't care about these new characters. I do like how things are turning around for Lucas and he's finding some purpose on the island. Also, bonus points for barely any mention of Aisha and the fact that Kate is no longer in the picture. Seems like Aaron is going to fade out of the series as well. (Interesting that the non-original characters all seem to be leaving as the series is nearing the end.)

"There was one thing Lara was sure of. She'd never been afraid to live on the edge. And now, she realized, here weird kind of courage might turn out to have a purpose after all."

[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.

[Lizzie the Book Hoarder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lara is starting to make something of her life.
Lucas is finding a new passion in his life while missing Zoey.
Nina is trying to find some meaning is her life and missing Zoey.
All the others are starting their new lives at college.
A disaster strikes one of the families.

[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.

[Isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0

[Nadine · Rating 4 out of 5]

diese Buchreihe hat mich während meiner Teeniezeit begleitet. ich habe sie so geliebt...