Reviews for Theatres

The average rating for Theatres based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-11-23 00:00:00 G Fisher Pat and Lolly didn't start out as best friends. In fact, when they met in kindergarten, the first thing Pat did was bite Lolly. Things improved, however, and their friendship continued--with some rocky patches--all the way through their senior year of high school. Pat tells the story with one chapter per year. She follows her strapped-for-cash, single-parent family in which her grandmother is raising Pat and her brothers because their feckless mother--who later admits she doesn't even know who Pat's father is--isn't interested in being an adult. Lolly's family, on the other hand, is wealthy and tidy and Lolly's mother doesn't entirely approve of Pat, until Pat gets into the gifted class in fourth grade (Pat hates it). Things change in seventh grade--as they usually do--with Pat discovering her love of science, and Lolly becoming beautiful. Throughout, Pat continues her friendship with her mentor and third grade teacher Mr. Evans, who never fails to encourage her. Will they stay friends as they grow so different? Someone recommended this to me, and I thought it was a good, realistic character and friendship study. I was never really sure where it was going; it was almost more memoir than fiction, with things just happening and not necessarily leading to anything in particular. It does represent well the ups and downs of friendship through the various developmental stages, and how you can dislike or feel ambivalent about a best friend more often than you'd like to admit. It's also a good portrait of how Pat's family functions and how she feels about it. Overall, though, I just didn't love it. I didn't love the characters and thus wasn't too invested in what would happen to them. I think this would be a tough sell to kids today, having been published in the early 1980s.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-02-27 00:00:00 Michael Tazelaar I only remember this book because of a description someone gave of it on a thread in the What's the Name of That Book??? group. Joanie said, "Don't the two girls meet when they're little and Pat bites Lolly's cheek because it's red and round and looks like an apple?" I totally remember that cheek biting incident, but that's all.