the book opens with kristy's krushers winning their first ever game againast bart's bashers. they are elated, though kristy is concerned that bart will be upset that her ragtag collection of misfits beat his little league-caliber players. but bart's not upset, & even offers to walk kristy home. they have a really nice talk & bart suggests that they might see each other soon. they also decide to stage a "world series" between the krushers & the bashers...which will consist of exactly one game. kind of defeats the idea of a SERIES, no? i also wonder what other teams these kids play. do they only play against each other? how boring.anyway, the next day, shannon calls kristy because she discovered an envelope addressed to kristy in her mailbox. it's covered in stickers in the shape of hearts & flowers, & there's no stamp or anything. she brings it over, & it turns out to be a secret admirer note. kristy is embarrassed, but pleased. shannon immediately suggests that bart wrote it, but kristy doesn't believe it. she thinks maybe her brother sam is behind the notes. until she gets several more, all of which seem very sincere. she acknowledges that it's not like sam to play out a joke so long before looking for some credit. she starts to toy with the possibility that bart wrote the notes, & even invites him to the halloween hop. he accepts.but this doesn't stop her from bringing the notes to school & hollering about them in the cafeteria where anyone can hear her. so surprise surprise, the notes suddenly take a turn for the weird. stuff like, "violets are blue, roses are red, i'll remember you when you are dead." kristy is freaked. she worries that bart wrote the notes & that he's a psycho, & then she worries that he DIDN'T write the notes, & some random psycho is after her. she suspects that maybe someone wants to kidnap her & hold her for ransom, since watson is so wealthy. not that any of this encourages her to, you know, say something to her parents. she doesn't want to worry them. even though if she is actually a target for a kidnapper, any of her other siblings could be as well, including small children that would have a harder time fighting back against an abduction. kind of a child safety oversight here.then shannon suggests that bart wrote the notes to psyche kristy out & cause her to be too distracted to lead the krushers to victory in the upcoming world series. shannon stops speaking to bart at school, & kristy rebuffs his invitations to walk home together & won't take his calls. but she also doesn't make the effort to cancel their date to the halloween hop. she is still concerned that the scary notes are actually from a psycho kidnapper.finally bart ambushes her at home & makes her tell him what's going on. he admits that he wrote the nice notes, but he too is freaked out by the scary notes. kristy notices cokie mason & her clique at the world series game, & goes over to ask why the hell they're there. an extremely labored & unrealistic conversation ensues. cokie says she came to cheer on the krushers because kristy has looked sad at school lately. kristy says, "i'm not sad! i have a boyfriend." what? cokie says, "aw, you must really like each other," & kristy bafflingly says, "we plan to spend our lives together." what the fuck? this is just a set-up so cokie can say something about "eternal togetherness," which is a line from one of the scary notes, hence incriminating herself. kristy forces a confession out of cokie, she coaches her butt off during the world series, & the krushers win. she lets her friends know that there's no kidnapping plot afoot after all, & that cokie was just trying to get kristy back for embarrassing her in the graveyard the previous halloween in front of logan (book #17 call-back). bart finds some lobster costumes in his attic, & he & kristy wear them to the halloween hop. they win for "most unusual costume," & bart kisses kristy on the cheek in front of everyone. happy endings all around.kind of a yawn. but i'm sure i was on the edge of my seat when i was like nine years old.
Kristy gets notes from a secret admirer. At first they’re sweet, if sort of simplistic ("I think you are nice") and Kristy wonders if they are from Bart, the rival kids’ softball coach she likes. But when the notes get creepy ("Violets are blue, blood is red, I’ll remember you when you are dead"), Kristy hopes she doesn’t have a crush on a psychopath. It turns out that Bart did write the first one, but the rest were knock-offs made by (guess who?) Cokie Mason, as comemmoration of/revenge for the Mary Anne chain letter debacle (Mary Anne's Bad-Luck Mystery).The weirdest thing about the solution to the mystery is that Bart wrote any at all. I was sure it was going to be a kid (the original writer, I mean; the knock-offs were obviously Cokie, since Cokie only appears in a book in which she is a villain.) Major sins commited by this book include: (1) a heterosexual love story centered around Kristy; (2) a glaring continuity issue (I mean, they all have them, but you can’t reference last Halloween in a book about this Halloween in both Halloweens occurred in the same year; and (3) a complete and utter knock-off of a previous book’s plot. (Not even a good one.)Timing: It’s Halloween Hop time once again! (Kristy and Bart go as lobsters.) This is one of the books for which the revised timeline makes sense, since it does seem as though the years are proceeding one after another--it's not like this and Mary Anne's Bad-Luck Mystery are alternate possibilities for eighth-grade Halloween, they both happened. In the same year. Only a year apart. It's a mystery. Don't question it. Revised Timeline: This is where I figure out how old the baby-sitters would be if they aged. Halloween of tenth grade
What do You think about Kristy's Mystery Admirer (1996)?
Out of not so many BSC books I have read, this is one of the most entertaining ones.The story started with a match between Krushers and Bashers and I immediately fell in love with these non-athletic kids. It was a good alternate to the usual book opening of describing the Babysitters Club itself.Despite of obvious storyline (yes I know, this is not an adult detective novel), I found the storyline very enjoyable, and I couldn't put down the book till I reached the end.My little bit of disappointment was when BSC girls decided to give Bart silent treatment when they thought he was the one sending all the creepy letters to Kristy, even before finding any proof (regardless of whether he was or was not the sender - I'm not going to spoil the story here). I would have thought that BSC girls who should be wiser and more mature than any other girls their age would know better than accusing someone without proof.But again, they're a bunch of 13 year olds. So I won't hold it against them!PS: I love Claire's "nofe-air! nofe-air!" (she meant 'no fair')
—Rina
Usually I love Babysitters club books - even ones I didn't first read as a child - but this one didn't do much for me. In fact, it seemed like a cheap rip-off of the book about Mary Anne's bad luck charm. Still, it was all I had the chance to read during Fresher's week as it didn't require a lot of time or concentration! 6/10---Upon my second reading of this book in on 16/01/10 (this time during exam week) I found that I enjoyed the book more. The mystery admirer plot was a bit boring since it was so similar to the previous one about Cokie and Halloween - except far more anti-climatic. But I did like the presence of Shannon in the book and the Kristy/Bart interaction. I prefer the Kristy books that aren't ghostwritten because she seems much more like a normal teenage girl. Sure, she doesn't like wearing make-up and she coaches softball, but she still gets crushes on guys and enjoys getting secret love notes. I find that the ghostwritten books make her into too much of a tomboy. Not the best BSC book but still enjoyable. 7/10
—Rachel Brand
Kristy's getting secret admirer notes and she thinks they might be from Bart--she doesn't really have anyone else to suspect, and he's the natural suspect, considering they both coach softball teams and have been having some positive flirty interaction lately. But then the anonymous notes start to sound threatening, as if the person involved wanted to sweeten her up and then scare her silly. If Bart was behind the sweet notes, how can she face him now that they've taken such a disturbing turn?The huge plot hole in this one is that Kristy eventually discovers the sweet love notes are not from the same person as the death threats are, and yet the love notes stop appearing exactly at the same time the horrible notes START coming. And yet when the "mystery" is solved, neither of them had anything to do with each other. Kristy is able to celebrate having a boyfriend now that she can respond to the anonymous notes that came from an actual sweet guy in her life, but the evil notes? They're not taken seriously once the girl who sent them is found out. Even though the messages were deliberately stalking, harassing, threatening messages that suggested she should watch for attempts on her LIFE. Point a finger and I guess this girl's possible murderous intentions will be exposed and abandoned. KRISTY. HONEY. IF SOMEONE EVER THREATENS YOUR LIFE, TELL THE POLICE AND YOUR PARENTS. DO NOT SIT AROUND TRYING TO SOLVE THE MYSTERY AND IN THE MEANTIME ASSUME YOU KNOW WHO'S BEHIND IT AT WHICH POINT YOU TREAT HIM TERRIBLY AND GIVE HIM THE COLD SHOULDER. Why do these kids who think their lives might be in danger--kids who have written evidence--not tell grown-ups about murder threats?
—Julie Decker
