Boys Wanted!

I won about 15 of the pen pals series books on ebay quite a while ago and I've been slowly reading them and reliving my childhood. I thought I'd start with number one and just do them sporadically as Cher says.

I loved this series as a kid, it was so cool imagining what it would be like to go to an all girls boarding school where your main interaction with boys was through letters. Seeing as I was of absolutely no interest to boys in school anyway, you'd think it wouldn't be that different but there was also the aspect of living away from parents at such a young age - I just couldn't imagine it.
This book introduces the main series concept and introduces 4 very different main characters. Lisa, the outgoing (in my opinion bossy) one, Amy the asian american who dresses pretty funky and loves music, Palmer the rich blonde one, snobby pretty often and Shanon the quiet youngest writer type roommate. They all live together in Fox Hall and it's their first year at Alma Stephens school for girls. It was written in 1989 and those late 80s/early 90s outfits feature really heavily on the covers and its awesome. My favourite character was always Shanon, i suppose I could relate to the more shy girl although I really hated the relationship she had with Lisa who seemed to boss her around and Shanon worshipping her got a bit old.
The cover has Palmer rocking some kind of cape which you know if you're rich you can get away with that. Amy (who dresses a lot in black) stays true to form with the spiky hair. Shanon looks a bit bitchy in her various blue demin ensemble and Lisa is too engrossed in her letter to even acknowledge the reader.
Anyway Lisa comes up with the idea that they should advertise for boy pen pals from the nearby boys Ardsley academy, they eventually decide to write to 4 roommates who call themselves the unknown. Through various hi jinks we get to the climax (not before finding out Amy's favourite artist is Cyndi Lauper :P)- the first meeting. Shanon is nervous when they are taking pics to send that she sends one of her older sister who is apparently gorgeous. Did she think they would never meet? They invite the boys to a halloween mixer and she tries to get around it by wearing a spaceman suit which covers her entire face...hot. Anyway Mars (her pen pal) gets angry but they make up with some wholesome honest letter writing. Amy dressed as Joan Jett, that's actually pretty cool. Lisa goes as a peasant which is sort of my fancy dress staple (more hippyish though). Palmer went as She-Ra which is also actually great and well modern for the time if you can pull it off. "a sleeveless white leotard and a short silky skirt made out of a scarf. She also had on a gold crown and a borrowed sword from the theatre prop shop. The short shimmering cape..set off the costume as did the stunning gold dyed boots." Well if I need an idea for next year I know where to look..

This series is not as good as I remember..they rarely are but its still good old fashioned fun re reading it and having different opinions of some characters (I think Amy's probably the coolest now).