Mary Jane 2 (Spider-Man) (Bk. 2) (2024)

This book provided a lot of entertainment for my friends and me as I essentially live tweeted every ridiculous thing through the group chat. Nothing quite as memorable as the infamous six-pack scene, but still bad enough to be fun. Good times.

Some quotes:

"Peter Parker's handsome, yet somehow not extraordinary, face..."

"Out of nowhere, it seemed, he went from geek to Greek god"

"All the background noise dropped out as everyone else in the auditorium stopped whatever they were doing to listen to Wendy. A few smiled. The custodian stopped his sweeping. It was just so unexpected to see a normal kid, not one of those freaky theater kids, get up on stage and really do well."

[On an upcoming dance:]

"Of course, there were the theater kids, who always made a big deal of dancing together in the center of the floor. There were the jocks, who hung around the sides and made comments about people as they passed. And the smart kids, who would spend the evening talking about college applications and who was likely to win the school essay contest."

[My friend has a theory that this was written by a former high school cheerleader/mean girl and honestly that doesn't seem too far off]

"Today the poor thing was wearing a bulky orange and brown sweater with a pink turtleneck underneath. Was her entire family colorblind, or just fashion-challenged? And she was wearing those same square glasses. They looked as if they belonged to an elderly man with a very large face and very bad eyes. As for her hair, well. Between the monster glasses and the color barf sweater, it didn't seem to matter that her hair was the shade of cafeteria-brown gravy, and that it had all the body and style of last Wednesday's spaghetti special.
Poor Gwen Stacy."

"Gwen turned to her, her arms held at her side. Without the hideous sweater, with just the tight pink turtleneck, Gwen Stacy had a knockout figure! The shirt was tucked into very okay jeans, hip-hugging and revealing her more-than-okay form.
Mary Jane was about to say something, when she looked up at Gwen's face.
Was it possible? Behind those big, square, man-glasses was...a really pretty face!"

[And after MJ gives her a makeover...]

"She wasn't simply cute, or passable. Gwen Stacy was nothing short of total babedom."

"...the major gossip was about the new hot chick with Mary Jane Watson. The boys' locker room was especially buzzing.
'Wait a sec, I thought the new hot chick was Mary Jane Watson.'
'Well, sure. But there's this other new girl, a total hottie. Wearing a bright pink turtleneck.'
'Dude, I love turtlenecks on chicks!'"

[But of course, MJ doesn't judge anyone based on appearance, or their "color barf" sweaters or "cafeteria gravy" hair. That's simply not a thing that she does]

"Mary Jane Watson had always promised herself she'd never judge people solely on their looks. She had known enough wealthy, beautiful people in her early childhood to learn that what was reflected on people's outside didn't always match what was within. She prided herself on her belief that it was a person's inner qualities that made all the difference. Physical appearance should be secondary to personal integrity, to intelligence and humor, to wisdom and kindness. And yet, as she stared at the front page of the Daily Bugle, she couldn't help but wonder...was it terribly wrong for her to notice how fantastic Spider-Man looked in his tights?"

"But clearly there was more to this person than just a great body and cling wrap attire."

"Still, there was something more to Peter. Something deeper and elusive, secrets he was reluctant to reveal. Sometimes she would catch glimpses of deep sadness that would cross his features at odd times, then disappear just as quickly. Sometimes it was a darkness that would suddenly flicker in his eyes, so ephemeral that she would often think it was her own imagination. Yet she knew it wasn't.
But that only made sense. What kids whose parents were killed in a plane crash, and whose uncle had just been murdered on his own front steps wouldn't have a few issues to resolve?
So Mary Jane pushed those thoughts from her mind and determined instead to concentrate on the more important issue at hand. Namely, how very great Spider-Man looked in tights."

"She stood for a while and watched him as his figure grew smaller, his impossibly graceful gait. He jumped over three bicycles piled by the flagpole without missing a step."
[Keep in mind that this is Peter Parker MJ is watching and at this point as far as she knows he is just a normal ordinary person and somehow she doesn't pick up on the fact that this is not a normal ordinary thing people do]

"'What about Spider-Man? What was he like?'
'Well, he was fast. And he did look great in those tights.'
'Tell me about it! I spent about an hour going over Peter's contact sheets just to check out his...' She cleared her throat. 'Now, did he say anything to you?'"
[check out his what
CHECK OUT HIS WHAT, GWEN]

i regret nothing about this experience

I think the important thing to do while reading the Mary Jane books by O'Brien is to take them as their own entity. Do they follow the backstory from the Spiderman comics exactly? Absolutely not. Are they fun chapter books for the female Marvel reader making Mary Jane a believable character and not just Peter Parker's hot love interest? Totally. Just accept it to be so that O'Brien is going to change some things around and give Mary Jane a bit more then a "Go Get em Tiger!" attitude, and there is a good chance you can enjoy these books.

As someone who occasionally enjoys being a girly-girl and who is (always, not occasionally) a huge Spidey fan... this was like a big tub of ice cream. I owe many things to this book, such as the intriguing idea of tuna casserole with cheese doodles in it, the phrase "they're ski leggings!", and the use of the word "embossed" to refer to one's abdominal muscles.

Plus, the logo is amazing. It sums up my feelings very well.

I can't believe Mary Jane still doesn't know that Peter is spiderman but it was a good book. Too bad there won't be a third book

Another simple read to take my mind off things. To anyone who is a big Spiderman or Mary Jane fan or just nostalgic for the early 2000s, I recommend this. Edit: I just realized, Spiderman never revealed his identity and yet here we are, at the end of this series. It would've been interesting to see Mary Jane's reaction.

Picking up a little after events in the first novel, Mary Jane is struggling to balance the demands of ballet and keeping her grades at Midtown High.
This story introduces Gwen Stacy as the new girl and rival for Peter’s affections.

This is a classic and I am now annoyed that I don’t have my copy from childhood

This book starts off slow and drags. Nothing that happens has any excitement to it. This girl is dull and boring, even though she is dating Peter Parker who is secretly Spiderman.

There is actually a part in the book where Mary Jane says something like:
"Peter just asked me to go the the winter formal" and then the person she was talking to responds "Well, he's your boyfriend its not a surprise, who else was he going to go with?"

Retyping is this makes it seem like it could have been funny or ironic or a joke, but in the book it wasn't. It was just a statement of dry boring facts. A boyfriend would go to the dance with his girlfriend, there is no reason to talk about it in a book like it's a shock. Mary Jane gets offended by the persons' response thinking, well if I can't talk about how excited I am Peter asked me to the dance what's the point of having friends. So this begins a conflict with the person she is talking to. This is the moment I thought what is the point of reading this dry boring book.

Peter and Mary Jane go to a restaurant together and the bill turns out to be something like 400 dollars. This doesn't result in any kind of fight or argument. That would be interesting! This book just has Mary Jane thinking she is responsible, so she must pay this. The things that she does to do so cause her more trouble through out the rest of the book, which would not have happened if she had acted like a normal person when she saw the bill. She was on a date with Peter, why would she think she should pay the bill?????? They could at least go half!

At the end of the book in the happy wrap-up conclusion where everything is wonderful Parker says to her something like "if they charged us for beer and wine then they are responsible for serving alcohol to minors and that's a great story for the newspaper!" He also says something like "Of course I am not breaking up with you for another girl, you're the only one for me."

But its too late NOW, who cares! Mary Jane has spend the whole book going from one boring stupid thing to another dealing with paying the restaurant bill and thinking Peter was cheating on her. Mary Jane and her mother almost lose their apartment because of money issues set in motion by Mary Jane trying to pay the bill.

I only wrote this review as an exercise in 'typing' because I actually feel this book was to dull, boring and stupid and annoying to deserve this length of review.

I'm sorry.

El libro empieza justamente al principio del segundo año de preparatoria de Mary Jane, quien ahora está saliendo con Peter formalmente, tiene una relación excelente con su madre y con su mejor amiga y está lista para empezar un nuevo año escolar. ¿Que podría salir mal? TODO.

No les voy a arruinar la lectura por si alguien esta interesado, pero debo decirles que a la pobre Mary Jane le pasa de todo, desde pelearse con su mejor amiga, hasta encontrar a una rival por el amor de Peter, una rival rubia conocida por todos, que ella misma ayudó a embellecer, ya que es una super nerd . Y hasta teniendo una experiencia algo incomoda con el nuevo amor de su madre, que resulta ser nada mas y nada menos que..., mejor dejo que lo averigüen ustedes.

Como en el libro anterior, la caracterización está excelente. Sinceramente yo se poco de problemas de chicas y me sentí muy involucrado con los de la pobre Mary Jane, que, como si fuera una buena "telenovela" cada vez son mas y cuando uno piensa que ya no le puede pasar nada peor, la trama hace vernos que tan equivocados estábamos. Pero a diferencia de una telenovela (por lo menos en lo que a mi concierne) es que jamas se hace cansado, al revés, te deja picado con ganas de saber ahora que mas va a pasar.

A diferencia de la entrega anterior, aquí no hay una "historia" para que el publico meta (niñas en la adolescencia o en la pre-adolescencia) se de cuenta de algunas cosas, como fue el caso de la anorexia. Tal vez un poco la sub-trama de Harry, que ahora se está juntando con malas compañías, pero en realidad es contada muy brevemente.

El único pero que le pondría a esta historia es el final. No, no se los voy a revelar, pero si les puedo decir que siento que fue algo apresurado. No se si la escritora tenía que hacer solo cierta cantidad de paginas, pero siento que le hicieron falta puntos importantes que se pasaron muy, muy rápido.

Ojalá hubieran continuado con estas novelas.

I was glad I had gotten this book along with the first volume so that I could jump righ into it. This was another excellent book, about first loves, family problems and committments, and what it means to find out things about yourself. In this story, MJ and Peter are going to the winter formal together, but this only leads into a big problem for MJ.
She also tries out for the school musical, and ends up in the chorus, while her best friend, Wendy, gets the lead. This of course causes strife between the two girls, which only adds more stress to MJ's already-stressful life.
This another winning book that I encourage all Spidey fans to read. Spider-Man does make appearances in it, but again, he is not the main focus. The book revolves around MJ and her high school and home life, including Peter Parker, her boyfriend, and her group of friends.
Excellent book, excellently written, and highly recommended.

I'm not usually a fiction kind of person, but I liked Mary Jane 1 and 2. It's the story from MJ's point of view. She never finds out that Peter Parker is Spiderman, and you see things from her side. She has real life problems (father leaving the family, battling an eating disorder, her mother loosing her job, etc). Both books were very well written, I thought. :)

I'm not going to tell you that this is the best book I've ever read, but I really love it for what it was. It was the story of Mary Jane, and how life looks from her eyes. I would have liked more about spider-man and I'm forever frustrated that she wasn't more suspicious of peter, but I still feel like it's fairly on point for the way there lives would be.

v surreal. why did i care about the 400 dollars mary jane had to pay back her mother after peter f**cked up the restaurant date??i'm not sure but i did. i cared a lot. i cared about mary jane and her school play and her strange job that she had to wear a ball gown to a little TOO much maybe,,

Not as much of a plot as in the first book. Another fun, quick read. Seeing things from Mary Jane's perspective is so intriguing. Everyone knows how much Peter Parker loves her, but it is truly beautiful to see how much she loves him, too.

I really liked the whole concept, I love spider man so much, and on the back of the book people say she looks like me. Kind of annoying sometimes.

The story of Mary Jane Watson, part two. Introducing Gwen Stacy. Despite playing free-and-loose with Spider-Man canon, I dug it.

Great book for people who enjoy Spiderman. This time, it's from Mary Jane's perspective. The concept may seem a bit childish, but overall it's a pretty mature book.

This book had a little more teen angst than the first, but I liked a little better. The characters a little more developed. Too bad there this was the end of the story by this author.

It was slightly better than the first one but still not a favorite for me.

I think its a very interesting book and we get to know Mary Jane more than just watching the movie of spider-man .