Bass Ackwards and Belly Up [Unknown Binding]

Elizabeth Craft (Author), Sarah Fain (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2007

Hitching the dream train isnt easy. Harper, Sophie, Kate, and Becca are four best friends who are in for a whirlwind ride of hope, humiliation, romance, tears, and laughteras well as amazing self-discoveryin the year that changes everything.The path: Graduate high school, head to college. The dream: Try something daring and exciting. The plan: Help each other realize their greatest dreams.This smart and commercial first novel will appeal to readers of the New York Times bestselling Gossip Girl and A-List series.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up–Harper, an overconfident high school grad who has only applied to one college, is (surprise, surprise) rejected. To make matters worse, she lies to her three best friends, convincing them that she has chosen to postpone college to live in her parents' basement in Boulder, CO, and follow her dreams by drafting the Great American Novel. Adding to her guilt, she inspires two of the other three to also ditch their college plans to follow their dreams. The story bounces back and forth among the four girls and their adventures as an actual college freshman, an aspiring author, an aspiring Hollywood actress, and a backpacking European tourist. Heavy on adjectives, the book drags a bit at the outset, but the pace quickens as each young woman develops a romantic interest, and the multiple story threads help maintain readers' interest. Although it lacks the novelty of a magical pair of jeans connecting the narratives, this novel might be another good choice for readers who have exhausted Ann Brashares's Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series (Delacorte).–Leah Krippner, Harlem High School, Machesney Park, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Gr. 8-11. After high-school senior Harper is rejected from NYU, the only school to which she applied, she is too ashamed to tell her friends and family. Instead, she announces that she rejected NYU, choosing instead to stay at home in Boulder, Colorado, to pursue her dream of writing. Her decision sparks an unexpected, explosive reaction in her three best friends, who decide to join the "Dream Train," too: Sophie heads to Hollywood to act; Becca flies to Middlebury College, where she will ski for a top coach; and Kate defers her Harvard admission (and the expectations of her high-achieving parents) to travel through Europe and discover herself. Alternating chapters follow the girls throughout their first months of independence, heartbreaks, upsetting setbacks, romance, sex (not explicitly detailed), and thrilling self-discovery. There are some far-fetched scenarios (Sophie dates an A-list Hollywood star) and some stereotypical characters (particularly Kate's parents), but many teens, particularly fans of Jodi Lynn Anderson's Peaches (2005), will delight vicariously in the brave journeys and fierce friendships. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Unknown Binding
• Publisher: San Val (April 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1417826061
• ISBN-13: 978-1417826063
• Shipping Information: View shipping rates and policies
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book -- I couldn't put it down., April 18, 2006

By 

Gretchen C. Rubin (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bass Ackwards and Belly Up (Hardcover)

I started reading this novel on an airplane, read the whole flight, and kept reading at every available moment until I finished it.

Bass Ackwards switches between the stories of four best friends, three of whom decide to postpone their freshman year at college to pursue their dreams. Usually with books like this, with several main characters, you're engaged by some of their stories and bored by others. Here I was equally interested in reading about all four of the main characters.

It's engaging and fun, but it's also well-written. I'd compare it to Ann Brashares's books about the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, but aimed at a slightly older group. College students or adults would like Bass Ackwards as much as teenagers.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Four Square, January 17, 2007

By 

Little Willow (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bass Ackwards and Belly Up (Hardcover)

Despite their vastly different personalities and families, Harper, Sophie, Becca, and Kate have been best friends for years. No matter what, they tell each other everything.

Well, almost everything. Harper was rejected from NYU, the only college to which she applied, and has been keeping this a secret from her friends and her parents for months. Right before her friends plan to take off for colleges all over the country, the truth comes out.

Well, kind of. Harper acts as though she has decided not to go to NYU, preferring to stay home and write the next Great American Novel. She thinks this quasi-admission will shock her friends, but their reactions shock her even more: two of them decide to follow her example and take a year off from college to chase their own capital-D Dreams.

From there on, the story follows each girl in turn. Each storyline is given equal time and attention, switching back and forth every few pages. This format will be familiar to fans of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Sophie wants to be a famous actress. As luck would have it, her mom's old friend lives with her husband in Beverly Hills and allows Sophie to stay at the guesthouse rent-free. Sophie's landlords are quite busy and have good connections, giving her total freedom and helping her snag some auditions. Sophie befriends Sam, an aspiring actor who takes care of the pool and does odd jobs around the place, and Trey, a famous actor who gets her a line in a movie and steals her heart. If you like Sophie's storyline, read The 310 series by Beth Killian.

Kate's post-high-school plans were supposed to be set in stone: Go to Harvard with her long-time boyfriend, study hard and get good grades in an effort to live up to her parents' high expectations. Harper's big plan makes Kate realize she has no plan of her own. Europe calls out to her, so she books a plane ticket and packs her bags. As her boyfriend drops her off at the airport, he breaks up with her. She heads off to her big trip feeling more alone than ever. While she travels, she attempts to work her way through a list of 100 tasks ("Touch the Berlin Wall," "Take the water," "Stomp grapes") created by her friends and her younger adopted sister Habiba. If you like Kate's story, read 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson.

Becca heads off to Middlebury as planned, wanting to wow the school's coach with her skiing ability. He coached an Olympic team and she wants to impress him more than anything. She ends up getting on his bad side during the first practice and staying there for quite some time. Not only that, but small pratfalls evolve into bigger disasters, snowballing into something she never could have seen coming. Somewhere along the way, she manages to do the one thing her friends challenged her to do: fall in love. If you like Becca's story, read the Love Bukowski series by Emily Franklin.

Meanwhile, Harper finds herself staring at a blank computer screen. Now living in her parents' basement and told that she must pay rent, she takes a job at a local coffeehouse. An old classmate, Judd, becomes an unlikely friend. The twenty-three-year-old English teacher she crushed on in high school becomes a regular customer - and maybe something more. Now if she could only manage to actually write something . . . If you like Harper's story, read That Summer by Sarah Dessen.

The book covers three months in the lives of four teenage girls. As any teenager can tell you, that is both a very short and a very long period of time. During those three months, the characters are each granted a new kind of independence, but manage to come back together. If only all friendships were truly this strong, and we were all afforded the freedom (and, for the most part, incredibly good luck and easy resolutions) these girls were given.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bass Ackwards and Belly Up, May 7, 2007

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Bass Ackwards and Belly Up (Paperback)

It is the time for their lives to truly take flight. Best friends Harper, Kate, Becca and Sophie have graduated high school and are going to separate colleges to pursue their separate careers. But to Harper's disappointment, her future is crushed when she received the rejection letter from NYU and rather than tell her friends the truth, she decides to spend the year writing America's next Little Women. Although her gambling journey was not to be taken alone, for Harper inspired both Kate and Sophie to chase their dreams as well. Sophie blindly stumbles into Hollywood in search of the perfect audition that will propel her into the movie business, but instead finds love with the wrong actor. Leaving home with only a passport and an open road, Kate bails out of Harvard to explore the world and its broad opportunity where she hopes her dream is hidden. The only one to stick to her plan, Becca hits the ski slopes on the Middlebury team content with the only thing she feels good at, which keeps her company when her friends are far. Love comes to each girl that year and with it decisions that could change their lives, and though apart, the four friends manage to find ways to hold each other close. Bass Ackwards and Belly Up, by Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fein, is a heartfelt novel that defines the love that is intertwined in the friendship of four girls who experience their first steps into the real world.

Bass Ackwards and Belly Up is made up of the four stories of the four friends Becca, Harper, Sophie and Kate. The tales of each of their separate lives makes the book a more intriguing read, one that's difficult to put down. From each girl, the reader can sometimes relate and because there are separate stories, it is easier to compare with.

Thorough the hard times, together or apart, the authors do a great job of defining each character by their experiences. For instance, when Kate is robbed and Harper finishes the first fifty pages of her book, each girl is changed and reacts a different way to the events. The characters are very well developed and it makes the story much easier to imagine.

Bass Ackwards and Belly Up focuses on each friend's dream, whatever that dream may be. In this way, it gives teens the incentive to chase their dreams, but still to think out what this change may hold for their futures. Through this story, the authors send a great message for teens that shows you can accomplish whatever you wish if you just give it a try.

This story of four friends and their adventures as young adults is an incredible story of love, determination and the freedom to make your own choices with the burden of the consequences. I highly recommend Bass Ackwards and Belly Up to teenage girls and young adults for I highly enjoyed it myself.

E. Knipp