THE GENUINE, INGENIOUS, THRIFT SHOP GENIE, CLARISSA MAE BEAN & ME

by Beverly Keller ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 23, 1978

To have gringy, weirdly dressed Clarissa Mae Bean choose you for her best friend is to be assured that all the other girls at school will drop you, and that's what happens to Marcie. Worse, Marcie's snobbish mother engineers a move to a classier neighborhood and school, ""surprising"" Marcie with new gold-on-white bedroom furniture and forcing her to associate with cousin Laurel who clearly doesn't want her. But as Clarissa has gone off to New York on a scholarship to the School of American Ballet, and as Laurel and her friends are all wrapped up in after-school practice at Clarissa's old ballet school, Keller's ending is as predictable as it is unconvincing: Clarissa, now a sort of celebrity among the very young dangers back home, shows up for the Nutcracker cast party and, by virtue of their evident friendship, transforms Maxcie from outcast to unimpressed popularity queen. But Clarissa as a character never lives up to her freaky promise, and Keller's sociology throughout is as cliched as her plot.

Pub Date: Dec. 23, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1978

Categories: FICTION