Well friends, we have come to the end of my re-adventures with the misadventures of Miss Georgia Nicolson! I thought, incorrectly of course, that it would be a fight to finish this series. I bought it during an “online shopping under the influence” session, and I thought that it would be a bit of a laugh down memory lane- but one that ended far short of the destination. When the ten-book set bounced onto my porch one morning, my first thought was “what have I done?” (Second thought: “what else did I buy?!”)
Reader, I was roped back in to the magic of Gee and the Ace Gang. While some things have not stood the test of time (whoaaaaaa so much Gay Panic! So many MUCH older boyfriends! So much fat shaming!), the overall feeling of goofy abandon remained, and I was transported back to my own ridiculous teenage self on more than one occasion.
I thought that I would bundle up the whole package and deliver it to the nearest Little Free Library…or spread them out to the four within walking distance…but upon coming to the close of Are These My Basoomas I struggled with a change of heart. I don’t think I’m ready to say goodbye to my pals! While it was just a few weeks on this go-round, the series kept me in stitches for a decade straight. Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging hit our shores in 1999. I was 13 in 1999, and these books kept me company from the end of middle school through all of high school and undergrad. Georgia and her mates didn’t age too much; the ten books covered roughly two years of time, but the Ace Gang held my attention, kept me laughing, and delivered a FAR better will they/wont they then Friends ever did! I am positive that plenty of things that I thought about/liked/disliked at 13 also did not stand up to the test of time, but there are still bright memories to hold onto none the less.
Time slows down quite a bit in these last two books; Stop in the Name of Pants! starts moments after the last scene in Love is a Many Trousered Thing, and Are These My Basoomas jumps in seconds after the end of Pants. The first few books allotted for time off, and some journal entries caught up the reader before getting back on board with the Ace Gang, but these hit the ground running!
Georgia is, as always, caught in a quagmire. Should she be young, silly, and have fun with her friends and Dave the Laugh, or should she “become full of maturiosity” and spend her time following Massimo off to London? SITNOP catches her right in the middle of Dave and Massimo. ATMBISBM brings everything to a satisfactory end (for Georgia and the reader, I think). I remember being let down the first time that I read through ATMBISBM, but I think the let down came from coming to the end of the journey, not from the contents within. There’s plenty of Shakespearean hijinks (this time it’s Romeo and Juliet. You can imagine how that goes), Scottish wild cats, mad disco dancing, giant Viking boyfriends, three-wheeled cars, stripper uncles, flabbergasted teachers, toast-based meals, and false beards galore. Our girls go out in style.
I want to send this series off into the world, but with the current state of the world I may need to hold onto them like a safety blanket just in case.
