#barbara dee

[whilereadingandwalking]

Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee is a superb, readable, well-written story about bullying and harassment—specifically gendered harassment, the kind that groups of young teenage boys do to girls. When the boys in the band first start messing with Mila, she thinks she's overreacting with how badly it makes her feel. But when it keeps happening, she doesn't know what to do, and her friends, teachers, and even the guidance counselor don't seem to help. It feels like whenever she tries to defend herself, she just ends up getting in trouble. So…now what?

I'm a huge fan of middle-grade and YA books that talk about issues that adults are uncomfortable to admit are relevant and necessary to those audiences. This book was intensely familiar to me, and I think it will be to just about everyone. In 7th grade, I actually got in trouble for bullying. I was confused by it. For years, he and his friends had been harassing and bothering my friends and I. Adults kept telling us "maybe they just like you" or "that's just how boys are" or "just ignore them." Since I couldn't ignore them, I internalized it instead, and started giving them their energy back. But now, he was so upset, he'd gone to the guidance counselor. I realized three things: One, that what I was doing wasn't ok. Two, if it wasn't ok now, it wasn't ok when they did it to us. And three, that unlike when we had told adults, when /he/ had told an adult, they had believed him, and there were actually consequences.

The gendered politics of bullying and harassment are a huge problem. From a friend being persistently cyberbullied to my 6th grade obsession with hiding my body under the baggiest clothes I could find, the internalized shame and fear that girls have to deal with is unacceptable. Dee's book is massively important as well as compelling and well-written. It should be in every library and on every young kid's bookshelf. It covers what isn't ok, what it feels like to go through it, shows how to handle it, and will empower people dealing with it—as well as the young boys feeling like it's ok to do it—to challenge and speak out against it.

Content warnings for sexual harassment, misogyny, bullying.

[the-dust-jacket]

LET'S PUT ON A SHOW: six novels about playing Shakespeare!

(Pictured: Romeo and Juliet Together (And Alive!) At Last; Foolish Hearts; King of Shadows; Star-Crossed; Hag-Seed; Station Eleven)

I love a good let's-put-on-a-show story, especially a Shakespearian one, and I feel like it's been ages since I've picked one up. If you've got recommendations please let me know!

[middlegradeeveryday]

Star-Crossed by Barbara Dee

Summary: Twelve-year-old Mattie is thrilled when she learns the eighth grade play will be Romeo and Juliet. In particular, she can’t wait to share the stage with Gemma Braithwaite, who has been cast as Juliet. Gemma is brilliant, pretty—and British!—and Mattie starts to see her as more than just a friend. But Mattie has also had an on/off crush on her classmate Elijah since, well, forever. Is it possible to have a crush on both boys AND girls? If that wasn’t enough to deal with, things offstage are beginning to resemble their own Shakespearean drama: the cast is fighting, and the boy playing Romeo may not be up to the challenge of the role. And due to a last-minute emergency, Mattie is asked to step up and take over the leading role—opposite Gemma’s Juliet—just as Mattie’s secret crush starts to become not-so-secret in her group of friends. In this funny, sweet, and clever look at the complicated nature of middle school romance, Mattie learns how to become a lead player in her own life.

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Book Type: Novel

[galaxianpatrol]

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Maybe He Just Likes You | Author: Barbara Dee | Publisher: Aladdin (2019)

[middle-grade-book-reviews]

[a-a-a-anon]

absolutely fascinated by young dee who is criminally under-discussed so here is my dissertation on what happened in her college years (ft. dr. gainer, setting her roommate on fire, being institutionalized)/my idea for a fic that I will almost certainly never write/my way too serious take on a few throwaway dee lore lines

timeline background: we know that dee majored in psychology ('charlie got molested') and got "three fourths" of the way in (meanwhile dennis finished his psych minor.) assuming this was a four year program, I'm gonna guess that in her third year she got institutionalized and most likely had to drop out ('gun fever too: still hot'.) we also know that she had her back brace until she was twenty ('underage drinking'), so I'm guessing that means she got her back brace off in her third year.

we know that dennis fancied himself a psychologist since he was young, but I think dee did too. in particular I think she was wary and interested in her brother's psychology; she seems very aware of his psychopathy and bpd in 'making dennis reynolds a murderer' and 'psycho pete returns.' in my head she's been interested in dennis' psychology since they were kids and she saw him snapping crows necks. so instead of forcing her way into acting school, she studied psychology to better understand her brother (and also deep down, herself, who is very much the other side of the same fucked up coin.) it also meant she could tell herself she could study her characters even better when she became an actress.

i think she put in (her version of) genuine academic effort to get in, fuelled kind of by spite (remember the way she studied that thick medical book in 'hero or hate crime' or her very quick math in 'boggs: ladies reboot'). she studies books and gets cricket to quiz her and she still fails to get into penn. but frank always pitied her (i think she was his favorite of the twins-remember "let your sister into the gang", "that's my girl!", "i'm sorry the grift didn't work out, sweetie") so he shells out cash to get her in, but also to get her away from home so he has to deal with her even less.

dennis wants to do anything dee does but better and he wants to keep her close by (to watch her crash and burn, and also because he's weirdly possessive-see 'the gang broke dee' "i'm your select!"). and obviously he's barbara's favorite. so barbara gives him money to get in too. she also gets him into a frat and pays for his classes and his rent and everything he needs. dee has to live in a dumpy dorm with a female roommate.

but college presents dee a chance to moult her previous place in life where she was known as a monster (remember how insistent she was that "people can change!" in 'franks pretty woman'. I think dees always wanted to believe she can shed that feeling she's inferior, but she never has). in my head her female roommate is basically normal-has real friends of her own, mentally stable, attractive-which is exactly what dee craves. dee wants to be popular and well liked and she wants to infiltrate her roommates life, imitate her, be in the Cool group. and she places all her hopes on a friendship with the roommate but dee has never navigated real female friendships before, not with someone like her. deep down she also wishes she found what dennis found in mac, whatever it was, because ever since dennis met mac he's never been as close to her. and i do think dee is some flavor of queer. and the roommate is well liked in the way that dee admires and envies. so there is that blurriness between wanting to be her and wanting to be with her. in my head her roommate looks like the woman from dee's fantasy in 'the gang saves the day' (and they both represent that promise of escape from dee's shitty life).

dee is so desperate for the roommates approval and her love and her life that she goes insane, copying and flattering and competing with her. ever the shitty actress, she tries to emulate her, but comes off as manic and creepy. and maybe her roommate is nice enough to not completely shun her, recognizing that she's struggling. maybe in dees mind they actually are becoming friends when her roommate asks things like "are you okay?"

and dee has to talk about her plan with dennis because he's the only person who would Get It. and she makes it sound like it's almost working. dennis feels jealous and worried and threatened that maybe dee might actually be seen as normal, especially when she gets her back brace off in the third year. so dennis fucks her roommate, more of a show that he owns and controls each and every pathetic part of dee’s life than anything else. and so that dee knows she'll never be as good as him, she'll never as easily charm people as dennis does. (or at least he tells her he does).

to prove that To Someone dee is Good Enough, and so desperate for attention, dee (who's been groomed all this time) enters a sexual relationship with her professor dr. gainer. she tells herself she has the power in it, that she seduced him ("he didn't molest me. i had sex with him 'cause i wanted to.") and she has a mental break, because the thing she told herself held her back from being loved (her back brace) is finally gone by now and yet she still feels like a monster, and the only scrap of "love" she can get is from her professor.

and then she can't take the fact that she can steal her roommates clothes, can emulate her sexual prowess (in dee's own fucked up, delusional way), and still neither be well liked like her nor be loved by her. so maybe dee will always be a monster. so dee tried to burn her roommate in her bed, because she represented the promise of change and popularity, and that promise was a lie and dee's effort was for nothing. and she's institutionalized.

and i think there was kind of a falling out between the twins and their parents, because barbara wants to abandon dee but dennis can't help but visit her. and frank doesn't even step foot in a place that reminds him of his traumatic childhood, and avoids dee even more than he used to because she is his childhood mirror image. so the family becomes even more fractured and estranged.

and maybe dee becomes medicated and slowly crawls her way halfway to normal by the first season (her acting classes are so well-adjusted, taking part in healthy hobbies of her!). until her father comes back into her life and everything falls apart <3

side note, even though dee is crushingly lonely-"I just got a cat 'cause I wanted something to hang out with. I don't have, you know, a roommate or anything, and I don't really have anyone to talk to..."-AND she struggles to pay rent whenever frank cuts her off, i hc that she refused to ever get a roommate in particular female roommate again after this because both her internalized misogyny got worse and she was afraid of what would happen (what she would do) again.

[itsalwayssunnyinhollywood]

I was never really a fan of genderbends but an iasip genderbend has such good implications. My favorite of which is a male barbara impregnating a female bruce then gaslighting fran into thinking she's pregnant, stealing the babies from bruce, make fran think she is going into labor with the baby twins hidden in a bag or something and then paying off the docters to fake a birth. The thing is, I think any version of frank could have fallen for that.

[spaghetti-l0v3r]

MEET THE REYNOLDS //

frank and barbara are actually the worst

[dailyabbottelementary]

ABBOTT ELEMENTARY Season 2, Episode 5: Juice

[gayclubsoap]

[trouticide]

drawing a frame from every episode of it’s alway sunny season 2 episode 2: the gang goes jihad

[pollencoveredman]

thinking about how dennis doesn’t like to talk about his dreams. thinking about little dennis, waking from a fitful sleep after a particularly bad nightmare. stumbling out of bed into his and dee’s parents’ bedroom, likely only inhabited by barbara while frank was made to sleep on the couch, or maybe he’s not even in the house at all. out banging another one of his whores or away on some business trip, as always, ruining the lives of others while convincing the kids he was making theirs so much better.

dennis, shaking and scared and utterly pathetic, crying to barbara while stammering his way through a hurried explanation of what had happened. mr. tibbs hanging limply from one hand as he stands trembling in her doorway, swiftly being pushed away when he goes in for a hug because he’s just being such a baby, and barbara needs her beauty sleep.

she hasn’t got time to comfort her son after a bad dream, of course she hasn’t, no less hear about what was so terrible within said dream to have him this distraught.

the noise wakes up dee, because barbara’s dangerously close to yelling as dennis walks out sobbing, shaky on weak legs that threaten to buckle with every step he takes. she isn’t concerned, absolutely she isn’t, why would she be? it’s her brother, being a baby as usual, and she’s trying to sleep. and yet, as he walks back to his room, the crack of low light in the door that separates dee’s bedroom and the hallway widens slightly. she pokes her head out, beckons for him to come in. asks if he’s okay, and isn’t surprised when he shakes his head.

she doesn’t ask anymore questions, because it’s late, and she’s tired. merely hands him a tissue, pats the bed beside her, and she doesn’t complain when dennis curls up and starts crying against her. because of course, it’s her brother, being a baby as usual, and though she’s trying to sleep, she can’t help but rub his back gently and tuck him in, eyes full of the kind of affection that could only belong to an only-just-big sister.

he never properly talks to her about these dreams, because they only get scarier as he gets older, and the older he gets the more ridiculous it feels. but they hurt just the same every time, and dee understands this all too well. she won’t push him to tell her what happened, only nods knowingly as her hand rests on his shoulder in a comforting squeeze. gives him a seemingly reluctant hug that, deep down, really has no second thought to it, mocks him for being pathetic but comforts him just the same. and that’s always the ritual, because when it’s only the two of them, who else is going to help out?

as he’s gotten older, of course, mac has been the one to comfort him through these dreams. but it’s different — he prods and pushes, asking question after question in what he hopes is reassurance but only serves to stress him out further. he appreciates it, of course, but dee knew just how to help him through it, just what made him tick. it’s a kind of connection, almost telepathic, that could only come from being twins. but dennis doesn’t believe in that psychic bullshit, of course not.

the night after digging up barbara, however, these nightmares come back worse than ever. and dee knows this, and she stays with him for a day or two, perhaps a week — she’s lost track. because mac, quite frankly, doesn’t know what to do, and dee really is the only one who understands him in times like this.

and dennis hates to admit it, because she’s his stupid sister, and she’s ugly and she’s annoying, but she makes it better. though he’d never tell her that.

[cutemeat]

victoria would be SO old hollywood... im just thinking about all the movies stolen from their parents' collection that the twins mustve watched as kids, in between the lull where the maid leaves for the night and thinks the kids are asleep and just before barbara comes home... yeah... that's where victoria began

[rrrauschen]

Monika Treut & Elfi Mikesch, {1985} Verführung: Die grausame Frau (Seduction: The Cruel Woman)

[cauldronofmorning]

the poison drips through erodes everything.