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Girl Talk #22
Problem Dad
Randy's father is here from New York City!
When Randy's father comes to film a commercial near Acorn Falls, Randy can't wait to introduce him to her friends. But Randy soon discovers that she's got a lot to learn about her father and her friends.
When Randy's father comes to film a commercial near Acorn Falls, Randy can't wait to introduce him to her friends. But Randy soon discovers that she's got a lot to learn about her father and her friends.
- GenresYoung AdultChildrens
114 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1991
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April 15, 2023
Problem Dad
Randy’s mom (M) tells her about a guy (Terri) that she ran into that’s now a history teacher. They’ll be going out to an art lecture. Randy’s cool with it, but she’s surprised by it. She then gets a call from D. Randy tells her friends the next day at lunch, D is coming to visit. Not only that he’ll be shooting a commercial. Sabs gets all excited. Randy says they’re all invited to the shooting for one of his jeans commercials. Randy is hoping to pick up some video tecniques. Sabs is hoping ot be an extra. D has also broken up with his girlfriend. Sabs is about to say that maybe M and D could get back together. Randy’s been thinking the same thing. M tho, doesn’t seem particularly interested in a romantic way.
Randy decides to check out the new guy (hoping to find something negative) but Spike and Luke say he’s cool! D shows up at Fitz’s in a limo. He gives all the girls a ride back home. Randy can’t help showing off in front of Stacey. He all invites them to the commercial shoot. When they get to the house Terry is there. Randy thinks it’ll be awkward but D doesn’t seem all that threatened by Terry. They have a conversation about Randy being in Iron Wombat. She invites D to see her perform. D later invites Randy and her mom to dinner, but her mom declines. So, he tells Ran she can invite her friends. At dinner, D invites Al to star in one of his commercials when the model schedule comes down the mumps. Randy and Sabrina are disappointed but at the same time happy for Al because D says the job will pay a thousand dollars and she can use that for college. D apologizes after they drop off Randy’s friends and asks her to go shopping at the record store the next day.
M and Randy talk over breakfast. Randy points out that D and his girlfriend broke up. She tells M he made a big impression on her friends. Sabs was in heaven hearing about all the stars he worked with and he offered Al a job. M says that’s nice but asks what they thought of Terry. Randy says they said he was a good teacher. She tells Randy that it’s great she thinks no man can compare to her Dad but she really wants Randy to give Terry a chance. Randy just thinks there is no comparison. At school, rumors are flying around about D that for the most part aren’t true. Randy spends the day correcting the untruths. After school, Randy’s dad stands her up. But the limo driver gives Al a packet of forms to fill out for the shot.
On the way to the shot, D picks up Randy and all her friends in his limo. To make up for being a crap dad he gives Randy an exclusive Broken Arrow CD and she forgives him. But that’s not all the surprises D has in store. He surprises Ran when they pull up to a hangar and they take a plane to the shot. At the shot, while Al gets ready Katie is instructed to practice throwing snowballs at a tree. Before the shot, Al knows Randy is jealous and offers not to do the shot if it bothers her. But Ran tells her it’s fine. The shot is Al walking in the snow, being hit by a snowball in the face, falling down, smiling, and acting like it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her. It takes twenty-four takes to get it right. D invites Randy to go to a party to debut Broken Arrow’s new video.
Terry shows up but D is late. The party starts at eight. Terry brings something to tighten up M’s canvas and Randy thinks it’s nice. D doesn’t show! Terry brings over a special release of Randy’s all time fav artist (Buddy Rich) and this wins him some points, It turns out he has quite the collection and for a minute she forgets about D. But when she starts to think of it again she gets mad. All in all Randy admits it wasn’t so bad spending the evening with her mom and Terry.
All her friends play phone tag and they agree to all go check on Randy and cheer her up. They all agree they hope Randy and her Dad make up. The next day, Randy goes out to blow off some steam. When she gets back D has replaced her old drum set with a professional one. He says he lost her mother because he thought work was more important but he refuses to lose her too. D says he knows he hasn’t been the best father to her. He’s not a normal dad but Randy says that’s ok she’s not “normal” either. But he’s the perfect dad for her. She just wishes they could have more time. The drums belong to the drummer from Broken Arrow’s drummer (Dune). Dune says that maybe if he gives him a tape he can give her some advice. Dun wanted to know if Randy was any good and D admits he hasn’t heard her play in a while. So, Randy plans for him (with no excuses from him to leave). After an hour D leaves and Ran sees him kiss her mom on the cheek.
M says that seeing her ex again made her realize she made the right choice. Ran asks about Terry and her mom says don’t rush it. He’s a nice guy but love is a long way off. She does say they’ll have to do something about his plaid shirts. D leaves the next day. All of Ran’s friends come by to cheer her up. D arrives and tells Ran he’ll see her for Christmas vacation. The phone rings and he tells the driver they can wait. They he says his goodbyes and leaves. Al says they still have some business to take care of. She makes a snowball and hits Katie in the face. She plans to hit her twenty-eight more times (my fault I didn’t say that correctly. It took Al twenty right takes not twenty-four).
My Thoughts
It shouldn’t take your daughter getting mad at you for standing her up repeatedly to get the picture that you’ve been a crap father to your kid. Particularly so long after you lost your wife for the same reason. Don’t get me wrong. My dad has dropped the ball a time or two but this is what I had to learn with not only my family but with some “friends”. I had this “friend” that was pretty much like Randy’s dad. She use to make all these big promises of what we were going to do. As a matter of fact, she still does to this day. And just like Randy on the day she said we were going to do something or go somewhere, I’d put on my clothes and wait for her to call. GUESS WHAT? No call! No show! So with people like this eventually you learn to take what people say with a grain of salt. Certain people that is. You just don’t get your hopes up. On that day you don’t even put your clothes on UNLESS they call or either you can call them. Nine times out of ten if you *do* call and ask them they’ll say “Something came up”. And it’s really a shame that some people do that. But fathers you kinda just give them a lot of rope .. sometimes. Or you can let it turn into resentment and build up and build up over the years until you’re a damaged adult in your fifties that still has “Daddy issues”. So I do really hope Mr. Zak gets it together for Randy’s sake.
Rating: 5
Randy’s mom (M) tells her about a guy (Terri) that she ran into that’s now a history teacher. They’ll be going out to an art lecture. Randy’s cool with it, but she’s surprised by it. She then gets a call from D. Randy tells her friends the next day at lunch, D is coming to visit. Not only that he’ll be shooting a commercial. Sabs gets all excited. Randy says they’re all invited to the shooting for one of his jeans commercials. Randy is hoping to pick up some video tecniques. Sabs is hoping ot be an extra. D has also broken up with his girlfriend. Sabs is about to say that maybe M and D could get back together. Randy’s been thinking the same thing. M tho, doesn’t seem particularly interested in a romantic way.
Randy decides to check out the new guy (hoping to find something negative) but Spike and Luke say he’s cool! D shows up at Fitz’s in a limo. He gives all the girls a ride back home. Randy can’t help showing off in front of Stacey. He all invites them to the commercial shoot. When they get to the house Terry is there. Randy thinks it’ll be awkward but D doesn’t seem all that threatened by Terry. They have a conversation about Randy being in Iron Wombat. She invites D to see her perform. D later invites Randy and her mom to dinner, but her mom declines. So, he tells Ran she can invite her friends. At dinner, D invites Al to star in one of his commercials when the model schedule comes down the mumps. Randy and Sabrina are disappointed but at the same time happy for Al because D says the job will pay a thousand dollars and she can use that for college. D apologizes after they drop off Randy’s friends and asks her to go shopping at the record store the next day.
M and Randy talk over breakfast. Randy points out that D and his girlfriend broke up. She tells M he made a big impression on her friends. Sabs was in heaven hearing about all the stars he worked with and he offered Al a job. M says that’s nice but asks what they thought of Terry. Randy says they said he was a good teacher. She tells Randy that it’s great she thinks no man can compare to her Dad but she really wants Randy to give Terry a chance. Randy just thinks there is no comparison. At school, rumors are flying around about D that for the most part aren’t true. Randy spends the day correcting the untruths. After school, Randy’s dad stands her up. But the limo driver gives Al a packet of forms to fill out for the shot.
On the way to the shot, D picks up Randy and all her friends in his limo. To make up for being a crap dad he gives Randy an exclusive Broken Arrow CD and she forgives him. But that’s not all the surprises D has in store. He surprises Ran when they pull up to a hangar and they take a plane to the shot. At the shot, while Al gets ready Katie is instructed to practice throwing snowballs at a tree. Before the shot, Al knows Randy is jealous and offers not to do the shot if it bothers her. But Ran tells her it’s fine. The shot is Al walking in the snow, being hit by a snowball in the face, falling down, smiling, and acting like it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her. It takes twenty-four takes to get it right. D invites Randy to go to a party to debut Broken Arrow’s new video.
Terry shows up but D is late. The party starts at eight. Terry brings something to tighten up M’s canvas and Randy thinks it’s nice. D doesn’t show! Terry brings over a special release of Randy’s all time fav artist (Buddy Rich) and this wins him some points, It turns out he has quite the collection and for a minute she forgets about D. But when she starts to think of it again she gets mad. All in all Randy admits it wasn’t so bad spending the evening with her mom and Terry.
All her friends play phone tag and they agree to all go check on Randy and cheer her up. They all agree they hope Randy and her Dad make up. The next day, Randy goes out to blow off some steam. When she gets back D has replaced her old drum set with a professional one. He says he lost her mother because he thought work was more important but he refuses to lose her too. D says he knows he hasn’t been the best father to her. He’s not a normal dad but Randy says that’s ok she’s not “normal” either. But he’s the perfect dad for her. She just wishes they could have more time. The drums belong to the drummer from Broken Arrow’s drummer (Dune). Dune says that maybe if he gives him a tape he can give her some advice. Dun wanted to know if Randy was any good and D admits he hasn’t heard her play in a while. So, Randy plans for him (with no excuses from him to leave). After an hour D leaves and Ran sees him kiss her mom on the cheek.
M says that seeing her ex again made her realize she made the right choice. Ran asks about Terry and her mom says don’t rush it. He’s a nice guy but love is a long way off. She does say they’ll have to do something about his plaid shirts. D leaves the next day. All of Ran’s friends come by to cheer her up. D arrives and tells Ran he’ll see her for Christmas vacation. The phone rings and he tells the driver they can wait. They he says his goodbyes and leaves. Al says they still have some business to take care of. She makes a snowball and hits Katie in the face. She plans to hit her twenty-eight more times (my fault I didn’t say that correctly. It took Al twenty right takes not twenty-four).
My Thoughts
It shouldn’t take your daughter getting mad at you for standing her up repeatedly to get the picture that you’ve been a crap father to your kid. Particularly so long after you lost your wife for the same reason. Don’t get me wrong. My dad has dropped the ball a time or two but this is what I had to learn with not only my family but with some “friends”. I had this “friend” that was pretty much like Randy’s dad. She use to make all these big promises of what we were going to do. As a matter of fact, she still does to this day. And just like Randy on the day she said we were going to do something or go somewhere, I’d put on my clothes and wait for her to call. GUESS WHAT? No call! No show! So with people like this eventually you learn to take what people say with a grain of salt. Certain people that is. You just don’t get your hopes up. On that day you don’t even put your clothes on UNLESS they call or either you can call them. Nine times out of ten if you *do* call and ask them they’ll say “Something came up”. And it’s really a shame that some people do that. But fathers you kinda just give them a lot of rope .. sometimes. Or you can let it turn into resentment and build up and build up over the years until you’re a damaged adult in your fifties that still has “Daddy issues”. So I do really hope Mr. Zak gets it together for Randy’s sake.
Rating: 5
April 7, 2022
As always, we are breaking from Animorphs during the week after a special edition book and as we sometimes do, I'm throwing in something else in this Thursday slot. And this time we are sticking Katherine Applegate but not what you'd expect. Yep, I had to read something else by her someday. Maybe eventually we'll cover Everworld, or Ivan and the like. For now, I pulled a fast one and did something different.
This is Girl Talk, a series from the 90's that was one of the BSC-ish series for girls from around that time. It says L.E. Blair of all of them but much like MT Coffin, they do not actually exist, and it's just a bunch of ghostwriters. One of them was Applegate herself, this was one of the things she was a ghostwriter on, which I brought up way back when I talked about the first ghostwritten Animorphs book. She was also a ghost on some Sweet Valley stuff, so maybe I'll do one of those someday.
I had to do digging to find out which she did and this seems to be the first, so here we are. I knew very little about the series beyond what Wikipedia told me, so I had no idea what to expect. And in the end, I liked it. It wasn't great but it was decently enjoyable for what it was.
The set up of the series is just about a group of girls...doing stuff I guess. Sometimes they talk on the phone, and that's really all the title comes from. There's one chapter that is just their call, done in script style. RL Stine's Phone Calls reduce to one thankfully short chapter.
This one centers on Randy Zak, who used to live in New York and is super hip and cool. Her parents are divorced and her dad comes to visit. He's a big shot Hollywood type, and is here to film a commercial. It all seems swell but he starts flaking here and there, and Randy wonders if there's a chance of the parents getting back together.
So off the bat, it's here to detect where Applegate's influence is. The writing is a typical style for things like this, not far off from BSC. There are bits here and there that feel a bit like her, some of the dialouge, and a few nice moments maybe have her influence. Either way, the writing generally worked. It has some of those "how do you do fellow" kids bits but thankfully it's not as frequent or bad as in some others of the time.
It kinda adds to the charm honestly. Randy has a decent "voice", even if they beat you over the head with her nature. Never expected another female Randy, this one's real name is Rowena, who do you get Randy out of that? Anyway, there's decent humor and Randy worked as our narrator. The characters don't seem too deep based on this, but they stood out enough. Mostly since they point blank tell us their deal.
This has some recap stuff early on, but since this is my first it was actually quite helpful. For long time readers, it could be annoying like it was in BSC and Animorphs. As for the story itself, it's typical but it works. It doesn't go as deep into the deadbeat/workaholic dad stuff as much as I expected, until the latter half where it does.
They have a good thing going on, with mom and dad being cool with each other. BTW, Randy calls them M and D for some reason. They are sympathetic to him about the work he does, and she isn't super bratty when he flakes a couple times. It's balanced alright, it gets into "he should spend less time on work", yes, but in context it works okay. And the resolution is decently sweet. Plus, them being split up means he can do work stuff all he wants on average and it's only an issue when he's visiting for this period.
As far as flaws, again some dialouge can be clunky, and it is slow to start story-wise. It could have explored some of this more up front. There's a thing where Randy getting jealous of Allison as dad puts her in a commercial and starts focusing on her, but that is resolved quickly and not much comes of it beyond an amusing ending gag. Otherwise, this worked fine.
There is one minor thing to note. Randy describes both parents in weirdly creepy ways at times, calling each hot at least once. There's a few lines like that which are odd. Now, line that up with the constant Jake/Rachael bits in Animorphs...you've got problems Kathy Apples lol.
I don't know how it compares to others in the series, but as a one off read, it was cute. It's mostly what I want out of a these, a cute little slice of life story with a decent plot that wasn't too boring or dry. After Twelve Candles Club, it's welcome.
It's not one everyone should rush out to read, but it was enjoyable. I may read others she's done, we'll see. And it was short and easy to get through. also a plus. And yeah, that's it. This was a fun little break for me, but yeah, we'll be back to morphing next week. See ya then.
This is Girl Talk, a series from the 90's that was one of the BSC-ish series for girls from around that time. It says L.E. Blair of all of them but much like MT Coffin, they do not actually exist, and it's just a bunch of ghostwriters. One of them was Applegate herself, this was one of the things she was a ghostwriter on, which I brought up way back when I talked about the first ghostwritten Animorphs book. She was also a ghost on some Sweet Valley stuff, so maybe I'll do one of those someday.
I had to do digging to find out which she did and this seems to be the first, so here we are. I knew very little about the series beyond what Wikipedia told me, so I had no idea what to expect. And in the end, I liked it. It wasn't great but it was decently enjoyable for what it was.
The set up of the series is just about a group of girls...doing stuff I guess. Sometimes they talk on the phone, and that's really all the title comes from. There's one chapter that is just their call, done in script style. RL Stine's Phone Calls reduce to one thankfully short chapter.
This one centers on Randy Zak, who used to live in New York and is super hip and cool. Her parents are divorced and her dad comes to visit. He's a big shot Hollywood type, and is here to film a commercial. It all seems swell but he starts flaking here and there, and Randy wonders if there's a chance of the parents getting back together.
So off the bat, it's here to detect where Applegate's influence is. The writing is a typical style for things like this, not far off from BSC. There are bits here and there that feel a bit like her, some of the dialouge, and a few nice moments maybe have her influence. Either way, the writing generally worked. It has some of those "how do you do fellow" kids bits but thankfully it's not as frequent or bad as in some others of the time.
It kinda adds to the charm honestly. Randy has a decent "voice", even if they beat you over the head with her nature. Never expected another female Randy, this one's real name is Rowena, who do you get Randy out of that? Anyway, there's decent humor and Randy worked as our narrator. The characters don't seem too deep based on this, but they stood out enough. Mostly since they point blank tell us their deal.
This has some recap stuff early on, but since this is my first it was actually quite helpful. For long time readers, it could be annoying like it was in BSC and Animorphs. As for the story itself, it's typical but it works. It doesn't go as deep into the deadbeat/workaholic dad stuff as much as I expected, until the latter half where it does.
They have a good thing going on, with mom and dad being cool with each other. BTW, Randy calls them M and D for some reason. They are sympathetic to him about the work he does, and she isn't super bratty when he flakes a couple times. It's balanced alright, it gets into "he should spend less time on work", yes, but in context it works okay. And the resolution is decently sweet. Plus, them being split up means he can do work stuff all he wants on average and it's only an issue when he's visiting for this period.
As far as flaws, again some dialouge can be clunky, and it is slow to start story-wise. It could have explored some of this more up front. There's a thing where Randy getting jealous of Allison as dad puts her in a commercial and starts focusing on her, but that is resolved quickly and not much comes of it beyond an amusing ending gag. Otherwise, this worked fine.
There is one minor thing to note. Randy describes both parents in weirdly creepy ways at times, calling each hot at least once. There's a few lines like that which are odd. Now, line that up with the constant Jake/Rachael bits in Animorphs...you've got problems Kathy Apples lol.
I don't know how it compares to others in the series, but as a one off read, it was cute. It's mostly what I want out of a these, a cute little slice of life story with a decent plot that wasn't too boring or dry. After Twelve Candles Club, it's welcome.
It's not one everyone should rush out to read, but it was enjoyable. I may read others she's done, we'll see. And it was short and easy to get through. also a plus. And yeah, that's it. This was a fun little break for me, but yeah, we'll be back to morphing next week. See ya then.
April 3, 2008
ok i was bord
July 4, 2013
This was the first series I read as a child and it brings back so much great memories!
July 9, 2013
these books were like reading a diary each book was different though it was like you were in school again.
June 24, 2016
all books from this serial were with me in my childhood and puberty-time ;) and in that time it was great. One time...I will read it with my daughters
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews