Sweet Valley High Revisited - Kidnapped!

GUYS. I'm so sorry to have left you hanging for so long there - although seeing as there are like a hundred SVH books in the series, not to mention the University ones and the ten years later book, we can probably all agree that Elizabeth was going to be grand. However, I only realised after finishing #12 that I didn't actually have a copy of the next in the series, so eBay and the Bear came to my rescue and now we're all set for another while. Hooray!

Sweet Valley High #13: Kidnapped! 
 

Our story begins with a typically creepy exchange between a Wakefield twin and someone they're related to, in this case it's Jessica asking Steven to zip up her dress. Ok, well that's not too weird, you might be thinking. He was however, just out of the shower and wearing nothing but "a green towel wrapped snugly around his waist". Ohkaaaaaay.

"He bent his six foot one body over her zipper"

"Steven inspected his sister carefully"

"She really thought her brother was the most handsome guy in Sweet Valley"

WHOA THERE HORSEY. I'm telling you, Wakefields = Lannisters of Westeros Valley.

Anyway, the reason Jessica is getting all dressed up is because there's a big party being thrown by the Morrows, a fancy new super-rich family in town with a sexy eighteen year old son and a daughter the same age as the twins. Steven mentions that he's off to see Tricia that evening and Jessica manages to "hold back the distaste she'd always felt for her brother's girlfriend". What a martyr. Although we are told that "she felt she owed her brother the courtesy of silence on the issue". Christ on a bike Jess, YA THINK? I love how she makes it sound like she's doing him a massive favour by not slagging off his DYING GIRLFRIEND, rather than it being, you know, common human decency or anything.

Elizabeth is supposed to arrive home any minute so she and Jess can go to the party together, but of course she's busy being chloroformed in the back of a van. Jessica is eventually left alone in the house and gets fed up of waiting so she calls Cara Walker who picks her up on her way to the Morrows' super-mansion. While they're on the way, we learn that Jessica and Cara have an unwritten rule, Thou Shalt Not Chase After The Same Boy As Your Best Friend, which pretty much leaves Winston Egbert for Cara, so yeah, good luck with that, Walker. Although Jessica does suggest that when Tricia dies, Cara and Steven could have another go at dating. Which is pretty cold, even for noted sociopath Jessica Wakefield.

They arrive at the mansion and a tiny old butler brings them past "the dining room, the library, the billiards room" (CLUEDO, ANYONE?) to the room where the party is on. They meet Regina Morrow there, who's beautiful and statuesque and has dancing blue eyes. She speaks to Cara first, directing all her attention to her and doesn't answer Jessica when she butts in to introduce herself, or asks about her brother, Nicholas. Regina then trips on a rug, so Jessica's train of thought goes thusly:

"The stumble, the lack of response to Jessica - it was only natural to conclude that the Morrow girl was drunk."

WHICH IS HILARIOUS. Of course that's what Jessica would think, seeing as people normally grovel before her luminous blondeness and kiss her hand like she's a fucking bishop, so the only reason someone wouldn't automatically give her their FULL AND UNDIVIDED ATTENTION is if they're shitfaced. I just love her reasoning.

It turns out that Regina is actually deaf, so Jessica can rest easy, she’s still as fascinating and amazing as ever. Although she does then enquire whether Regina’s brother is also deaf, which is a pretty weird thing to ask. To her relief, he isn’t, oh and he’s model-handsome to boot, because residents of Sweet Valley must, above all else, be insanely fuckable. I bet there's a hotness checkpoint just outside the town.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth is still in the back of the van and trying to remember what happened to her. She realises that her hands are tied behind her back and that she’s gagged and blindfolded, so she panics and passes out. 

This cover is stagey and terrible, and therefore awesome. The disembodied hand! The weird position of Liz's arm and fingers! The fact that the colours she's wearing are completely wrong because the book clearly states that her work uniform has pink and white stripes on it!

After her shift at the hospital, Elizabeth was supposed to call over to Max Dellon’s house to help him out for his upcoming English test. When she doesn’t show up after a few hours he starts to worry because Elizabeth is super reliable and pretty much The Best Human Ever, so it’s not at all like her to just blow off an appointment. It eventually gets so late that he decides that something must be wrong, so he takes off on his bike towards the hospital to look for her.

Back at the party, Jessica is busy hogging Nicholas’s attention all evening and is none too impressed when Todd interrupts her charm offensive to ask whether she’s seen Elizabeth anywhere. She decides to fob him off with a lie about Elizabeth babysitting for Mr. Collins, because if she tells him that she doesn’t actually know where her sister is, she’ll have to release Nicholas from her sex-grip. Todd walks off feeling uneasy and thinking that Jessica’s story doesn’t add up.

Elizabeth wakes up again, still gagged and blindfolded only this time she’s tied to a chair. A vehicle pulls up outside and her kidnapper comes into the room, creepily undoes the plait in her hair and takes off the blindfold, at which point she realises that it’s Carl, the weird orderly from the hospital. He says he’s not going to hurt her and when he removes the gag, Elizabeth screams for help.

Since talking to Jessica, Todd has been miserably skulking around the party and eventually decides to call Mr. Collins’s house. When Roger (who looks like Robert Redford, you know) answers the phone and says that Elizabeth isn’t there, Todd tells him that there must have been a misunderstanding and hangs up. We’re told that Mr. Collins is still holding the phone after Todd hung up and hoping that Elizabeth is ok, because this book can’t stick to one point of view and has to tell us how immediately worried everyone is about Elizabeth, in case we'd forgotten how wonderful and amazing she is.

Todd is furious when he realises that Jessica was lying, so when he finds her sitting by the pool in a tiny bikini and flirting with Nicholas, he shoves her into the water, which is just brilliant. People should be shoving Jessica into pools all the time. Nicholas is about to throw him out, but when Todd makes Jessica realise that it’s half nine and Elizabeth should have arrived ages ago, she cops on and jumps out of the pool in a panic, to ring home.

Back at the house, Ned and Alice have just arrived in the door after a dinner with Alice’s new business associate, who “didn’t stop telling jokes all evening”. Which sounds tedious as fuck but they seem to have enjoyed themselves. Ned answers when Jessica calls, and when everyone realises that Elizabeth is missing, Jessica, still just in her bikini, rushes out with Todd to drive home and check the roads on the way in case Elizabeth’s car broke down. BUT WE KNOW IT DIDN’T.

Elizabeth is still tied to a chair somewhere and screaming didn’t do any good, as they’re in Carl’s manky little house in the middle of nowhere. It turns out that weird ol’ Carl is in love with her and kidnapped her so they could be together. And he loves her because she was nice to him at the hospital and helped him pick up some stuff he dropped one time. She talks him into untying her and makes a break for the door, but unfortunately for her there’s another door after that one, which is all boarded up. So Carl catches her and flings her onto the couch “eyes now bright with anger” and we’re left assuming that Elizabeth is now in big trouble.

Ned Wakefield has been ringing around, trying the hospital and Max Dellon’s house to see if anyone has seen Elizabeth. When there’s still no sign, he decides to call the police.

Max Dellon arrives at the hospital and finds Elizabeth’s car with the driver’s side door open, all her stuff inside and her scarf on the ground. When he realises that something must have happened, he gets into the car to rummage around for clues as to where she might be. But next thing you know, the cops arrive and arrest him for trying to steal the car or something.

But back to Elizabeth! Carl doesn’t hit her or anything like we were led to believe might happen, he just starts crying and reties her to the chair for the night. Also, there’s no threat of sexual violence or anything of the sort, because it seems that the girls only get almost-raped by hot guys they already know.

The next morning he makes pancakes for her, because he overheard her one day in work saying how much she likes her mother’s pancakes. But he bought frozen ones that taste terrible and he forgot to buy syrup, so they’re nothing like Mammy Wakefield’s light, fluffy pancakes, sprinkled with Aryan goodness, but Elizabeth eats them anyway because she’s starving. Afterwards, Carl heads off to work, which deflates Elizabeth’s hope that he’d stay home for the day, which she figured would arouse suspicion and lead to her eventual rescue.

The police let Max Dellon go free, but people are all suspicious of him anyway because he scowls a lot and wears spiked wristbands. Gasp! Well that kid MUST be bad news, then. The police suggest to the Wakefields that Elizabeth probably ran away, despite the fact that her bag, her car and ALL HER STUFF was left in the hospital car park. Worst. Cops. Ever.

Carl comes home from work that evening and tells Elizabeth all about his plans to leave his job and bring her away to some place in the mountains, where they’ll live together and she’ll bathe in a stream and he’s planning to leave the following night. Ruh roh!

In school on Monday, Todd confronts Max, convinced that there’s something he’s not telling them, and ends up punching him. Jessica breaks the fight up and tells Todd to cop the fuck on, in so many words, and the three of them decide to launch their own investigation and head to the hospital to see if there’s anything they can find out.

The new gang split up and each cover a different section of the hospital, to talk to anyone who was working when Elizabeth was there last. After asking at a nurse’s desk about Elizabeth, Max makes his way further down the corridor to talk to a dark, stocky orderly (spoiler alert: it’s Carl) at the same time that Jessica emerges onto the corridor.

Carl freaks out, thinking she’s Elizabeth, and runs over to her in a panic, asking what she’s doing here. You see, he never realised that Elizabeth had an identical twin, which is just really shoddy stalking, if you ask me. Go big or go home, Carl.

Anyway, Max trips up Carl before he can get to Jessica and pins him to the ground. Jessica, in fairness to her, does some quick thinking and pretends to be Elizabeth so he’ll stay calm and reveal his dastardly plan until the cops arrive. Once he gets handcuffed and taken away, he confesses everything to the police, so they all head out to rescue Elizabeth and everything is fine and she’s not even the tiniest bit traumatised, because there’s no such thing as PTSD in Sweet Valley. Grand so.

Notable outfit:

This book was severely lacking in hilarious outfits, the only amusing clothing we hear about isn't even worn. 

While Jessica is laying out clothes for Elizabeth before the big party at Regina Morrow’s house, she chooses “a long, red velour skirt”, “an off-white, high-necked blouse” and “her sister’s turquoise tank suit”. 

Whatever the hell a tank suit is.

Things I counted:

Number of pages: 149
References to the twins' blue-green eyes: 5
References to the fact that the twins are blonde: 1

Magic twin-sense shivery feelings that something is wrong with the other sister: 2

Sweet Valley High Revisited - When Love Dies

Lads. This blog post was nearly the end of me. I had the whole thing written and ready to go over the weekend. I saved it and closed it, in order to squirrel it away for a day or two and then post it today, only to find that Blogger somehow managed to eat the entire fucking thing apart from the first paragraph. What followed was a period of some pretty creative swearing if I do say so myself, and the Bear looking on, slightly worried and not quite knowing what to do. Anyway, there didn't appear to be any way to recover it, so I had to start all over again and begrudgingly try to recall every instance where I called Jessica a psycho bitch.

I was briefly tempted to just go FUCK THIS and leave book 12 as a blank space in my Revisited list, but I powered through and rewrote the whole thing. Pain. In. The gee. Anyway. Here we go.

Sweet Valley High #12: When Love Dies


Poor Steven Wakefield is miserable. So miserable in fact, that it takes him a second or two to realise which of his sisters he's talking to. It turns out it's "tempestuous" (psychotic) Jessica, rather than "levelheaded" (boring) Elizabeth. And the reason Steven is so sad is because his girlfrenn Tricia Martin has broken two dates recently and has been giving him the cold shoulder. So naturally, instead of showing the tiniest bit of sensitivity towards her brother, Jessica gets annoyed that he's hung up on someone from such a white trash family, suggests that Tricia probably doesn't care that he's upset and then angrily eats a banana.

Later that evening, Todd decides to go to Tricia's house to confront her and find out what's going on, but not before Jessica goads him some more and implies that Tricia might be cheating on him. Jesus, Jessica. And this is what she's like with someone she claims to love. Imagine what she'd do to an enemy? Oh yeah, she tries to ruin their lives, humiliates them until they change everything about their appearance and bullies them until they try to kill themselves. Charming girl, really.

Steven drives from the “beautiful green area of Sweet Valley” where the Wakefields live, to Tricia’s neighbourhood, which has discarded cans and broken glass and weeds everywhere, not to mention the “uneven road”. And the Martins don’t even live in a split level house. Bloody peasants.

Him and Tricia have a big fight because she won’t tell him what’s wrong and when he asks if she’s met someone else, she says nothing. They break up and he storms out, at which point Tricia falls onto her bed “like a dress slipping from a hangar” (because she’s so delicate), under the bare bulb on her bedroom ceiling (because she’s so poor).

It turns out that Tricia has recently been diagnosed with leukemia, which is what her mother died of years before and what drove ther father to becoming a messy drunk. She's only been given a few months to live, so she decided that she didn’t want the same thing to happen to Steve, so she’d rather have him think that she’s cheating on him and leave her, instead of telling him the truth.

At school, Cara Walker gets the news of the breakup from Jessica and is delighted, because she thinks Steve is “a genuine, certified hunk”. Jessica decides that she’s going to set Cara up with Steve and also learns that local TV celebrity Jeremy Frank is in Fowler Memorial with a broken leg after a skiing accident. She then hatches a plan to convince Elizabeth to sign up with her as a hospital volunteer, so she can, I dunno, flirt the hot guy or whatever.

The next day, the twins pull up outside the hospital and Jessica is silent, thinking back to two books ago and the time that Annie Whitman attempted suicide.

“Jessica never passed by this hospital without feeling a twinge of guilt. She remembered how agonising it had been to admit that she was just a teensy bit responsible for driving Annie to it.”

A teensy bit. A MOTHERFUCKING TEENSY BIT. It was ENTIRELY your fault Jessica, you deranged bitch. JESUS.

So they go sign up to be candy stripers, because that’s what hospital volunteers are called in America, due to the uniforms they wear. I Googled candy stripers to see what the clothes were like and in amongst the highy flammable sexy Halloween costume versions, there was this great photo of some candy stripin’ ladies in 1976, which probably wouldn’t have been too far off from what they would have worn in 1984 when this was written:


Ah god. Even the Wakefields with their perfect size six figures and aquamarine eyes and swishy blonde hair couldn’t make those uniforms look good. Nice hats.

Jessica’s plans to ogle Jeremy Frank are put on hold straight away though, as she’s assigned to the maternity ward and ends up spending all her time there finding vases for flowers and having newborn babies and photos of babies thrust in her face. I have to say, I actually feel for Jess here as there’s few things more boring than being cornered by someone intent on showing you photos of some baby you don’t know. Needless to say, she’s none too impressed when Elizabeth gets to meet Jeremy and sign his cast, so she sneaks her way to his room, convinced for some reason that once he meets her he’ll put her on his TV show.

Jessica enters the room, asking if there’s anything she can get for him, makes some small talk about the fact that she’s not actually Elizabeth but her twin and is about to sign his cast too, when she loses her balance and goes crashing into his banjaxed leg, stabbing the other one with the pen. Morto for her. Also, while at the hospital, Elizabeth spots Tricia looking frail and unhappy, but she runs off when Elizabeth calls out to her. HMM.

Steven is moping around the house over his now former lady love, so Jessica lets on that Cara Walker has a load of gossip about Tricia and that she’s having a party that night and he should come. While convincing him to go, she slags off Tricia’s trampy sister Betsy for hanging out with “that dropout Rick Andover”, because clearly it’s fine for Jessica to do it, but not for someone who isn’t from the lovely green area of Sweet Valley.

Cara’s party is actually a ruse in Jessica’s mision to get her brother and Cara to hook up, so the only other people there are Jessica, her date Aaron Dallas, Lila Fowler and some rando dude called Jim that Lila brought who no one knows. Cara tells Steve that she heard Tricia has a new boyfriend and was seen draped all over some guy at a pharmacy recently. Steve gets all angry, or as the book puts it “Steve felt himself stiffen.” Ay ohh! Down boy. So in an attempt to drive thoughts of Tricia away, he gets all up on Cara, who is delighted and they proceed to score the faces off each other.

I think the real problem here is that Tricia is actually a Victorian ghost.

Back at school, Liz sees Tricia looking all miserable so she goes over to her and asks what’s going on and why she ran off at the hospital. Tricia tries to fob her off with a story about how she was there to visit a sick friend and Liz is all like who is she and what room is she in and what’s wrong with her and it’s like, shut up Liz, she obviously doesn’t want to talk about it so leave her the fuck alone and stop prying, you nosy wench.

The twins are back on candy striper duty and Jessica is determined to win Jeremy Frank over, so she sails into his room with a jug full of water, on a mission to make a better impression. But uh oh! Jeremy is getting a sponge bath and is TOTALLY NAKED. ACTUAL COCK IN SWEET VALLEY, YOU GUYS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. On seeing a dong for the first time, Jessica screams and spills the cold water all over him before fleeing from the room. She’s essentially having a Carry On Doctor subplot with him.

Meanwhile, a weird lonely orderly called Carl keeps staring at Elizabeth and her perfect face. She tries being friendly to him and says hello, even though he creeps her out. She tells herself to stop being so silly. “What could he possibly do to her?” she wonders. Well hello there, foreshadowing. I bet if Elizabeth was in a slasher film she’d be the one idiot running upstairs.

Elizabeth has also been cooking up a scheme with Jeremy in order to prevent Jessica from causing him any further bodily harm. Apparently as soon as a guy she’s into actually starts paying attention to her, she loses interest, so he’s going to pretend like he fancies her so she’ll calm the fuck down.

There’s a new patient on Elizabeth’s floor, so she calls in to see if she needs anything and it turns out to be Tricia. She tearfully confesses her illness to Elizabeth, as well as her plan to keep it from Steve and makes her promise to keep her secret.

For the next week, Elizabeth is miserable as she feels like Steve should know what’s going on with Tricia, but can’t talk to anyone about it. She can’t tell Jesscia, she can’t tell Todd, or Enid, or her parents, so whoever can she talk to? Why sexy Mr. Collins, of course!

She goes to his office and and tells him and his sky-blue eyes the whole story, asking what she should do. Mr. Collins puts “a comforting hand on her shoulder”, tells her to follow her instincts and probably took a few moments for himself afterwards with the office door locked.

Over in the hospital, the whole Jessica-Jeremy scheme has been bubbling away and comes to a head when he gets her to come to his room and asks her to marry him. Jessica panics and runs away, so I guess the plan was a success. Jesus, if a guy Jessica is chasing after isn’t too busy trying to rape her, then he’s fake-proposing to her.

That evening back at home, Elizabeth fills Mammy Wakefield in on the Jeremy scam she’s pulling on Jessica and Alice is all “The things you girls come up with! One thing about having twins – it never gets boring!” She’s not like a regular mom. She’s a cool mom.

Elizabeth doesn’t get a chance to talk to Steve that night before he leaves for a party with Cara, so he’s all distant for the night and keeps thinking about Tricia. Especially when he smells Cara’s perfume, because Tricia didn’t need to wear any, as “the scent of her skin and hair was naturally delicate and sweet”. Yeah Steve. I suppose she pooed bottles of Chanel No. 5 as well. Anyway, Cara gets fed up with him constantly thinking about Tricia and angrily calls a halt to whatever thing they had going.

Meanwhile, Jessica has been considering Jeremy’s pretend proposal and has come around to the idea of being engaged to a celebrity. She goes to see him at the hospital and tells him she will marry him after all, so he bursts out laughing and explains that the whole thing was a ploy to get her to back off, while gallantly leaving out the fact that it was Elizabeth's idea. She’s all annoyed but he makes it up to her by having her on his TV show. So everything is grand there, I suppose.

Elizabeth eventually gets to talk to Steven and tells him everything that’s been going on with Tricia. He immediately drives over to Trica’s house and tells her he knows what’s happening and that he loves her and is going to be there for her so they have a big teary reconciliation and it’s all very sad. :(

A few days later, Elizabeth is leaving the hospital and sitting in her car, about to leave when Carl the creepy orderly shows up. He tells her that she’s needed back inside but when she gets out of the car, he chloroforms her ass and drags her into his van.

UH OH! CLIFF TO THE HANGER GUYS. THE END.

Notable outfit:
There was a very disappointing lack of hilarious clothes in this one, in fact the only proper outfit we get (apart from a mention of Elizabeth’s LOVELY tailored cordoury skirt) is Cara’s dress at the fake party.

“She was wearing a splashy Hawaiian print halter dress. It was cut so low in the back that Steven could see the white lines from her bikini crisscrossing her dark tan. She had pulled her long brown hair into a ponytail over one ear so that it snaked seductively down her bare shoulder.”

It actually sounds pretty nice, apart from the tan lines. Boo.

Things I counted:
Number of pages: 136
References to the twins' blue-green eyes: 5
References to the fact that the twins are blonde: 2
Amount of times Tricia is referred to as pale/delicate/fragile: 12 Because she's a porcelain doll-ghost, you see.

Sweet Valley High Revisited - Too Good To Be True

Ok, I know I've been ridiculously remiss in posting for the last while, but between holidays and a wedding and the superfun weekend that was Electric Picnic, I just haven't been able or inclined to get around to it. But here I am! And I'm making it up to you all with a Sweet Valley High post. Because yay! Also, at a slightly drunken work night out from a while ago, I promised some people that I would say hello to Karen, who is in either North Korea or Wellington, NZ (sure why not) and the ladies who play ultimate frisbee in Dublin. These are the details I found in the notes bit on my phone the next day anyway, so hopefully that still makes sense. Anyway, hi! And onwards we go!

Sweet Valley High #11: Too Good To Be True


House Wakefield is in disarray! Ned's old college roomate, Tom Devlin has suggested an exchange for spring break. His daughter Suzanne is going to fly out to Sweet Valley, while either Jessica or Elizabeth will go to New York in her place to visit the Devlins and stay in their swanky apartment. Needless to say, Jessica is declaring that she'll positively DIE if she can't go and is already imagining herself out at "some impossibly chic Manhattan disco" where she'll hook up with Mick Jagger (really) or be discovered by a modelling agency and become the next Cheryl Tiegs, because the references in this book are fucking gas. They end up flipping a coin for it and Elizabeth wins, so Jessica graciously congratulates her sister and tells her how happy she is for her, despite her disappointment. No wait, she bursts into tears and wails like a spoiled brat when Elizabeth tries to comfort her. Of course.

Later, Elizabeth even tells a still mournful Jessica that she can wear her new culottes while she's away (awesome!), but instead, Jessica manipulates Elizabeth's doubts about being away from Todd for two whole weeks (GOD she's so lame) and convinces her that Lila Fowler is going to get all up in his bizzniz while she's not there to stand guard over his crotch. Predictably, Elizabeth caves and then convinces herself that she never really wanted to go in the first place, and anyway "her sense of adventure and fun was far different from Jessica's". As in, Jessica, actually HAS fun every once in a while.

The Wakefields drop Jessica off at the airport and collect Suzanne when she arrives and half a page is spent detailing how hot she is.

"The most beautiful girl she'd ever seen"
"The girl had to be a professional model"
"Her features couldn't have been more perfect if they'd been sculpted by Michaelangelo"

Hyperbole, much? Also, she's got glossy black hair and enormous violet-blue eyes, so she's basically a sixteen year old Elizabeth Taylor. Suzanne and Elizabeth go for a swim when they get back to the house and Suzanne is so sexy looking in her bikini that "suddenly Elizabeth felt self-conscious about her own lovely size six figure". Oh boo fucking hoo Liz, are your diamond shoes too tight?

The next day, everyone goes along to a class picnic at the lake, chaperoned - of course - by Mr. Collins, who never seems to have anything better to do than hang around with a bunch of horny sixteen year olds. Get a hobby, dude. Naturally, everyone is in awe of Suzanne and Elizabeth notices that her buddy, plain ol' Enid is even attracting some stares of her own in her candy striped bikini.

"Though she wasn't stunning like Suzanne, with her shiny, shoulder length brown hair and enormous green eyes, she had a prettiness that was all her own."

Ouch! A prettiness that was all her own? Why don't you just slap her in the face and be done with it, Liz? Anyway, while Elizabeth is busy comparing Mr. Collins to Robert Redford, Suzanne gets into trouble while swimming. Mr. Collins springs into action, rescuing her and carrying her out of the water in his arms, dripping wet and ripped, like a goddamn hero. Elizabeth briefly wonders what the fuck is going on, as Suzanne was a super amazing swimmer in the pool back at the house, before engaging in some vom-inducingly cheesy canoodling with Todd. i.e. "I may need more mouth-to-mouth resuscitation." Bleh. Those guys suck.

Liz's stink-face here is a thing of beauty. That's some quality smell-the-fart acting.

Over in New York, Jessica has been left alone in the Devlins' swanky apartment, only for Suzanne's twenty year old fancy man Pete to pay a visit. He's super handsome and wearing a tight blue Lacoste shirt and says wanky things like "Chopin should come from the heart, don't you think?" So obviously Jessica is smitten and manages to wangle her way into a piano concert date with him that night.

However, her excitement wanes somewhat when Pete is half an hour late and doesn't even have the decency to fall to the ground and involuntarily come in his pants when he sees her in one of Suzanne's sexy black dresses and fancy make-up. In fact, the only comment he makes about how she looks is to point out that she's wearing Suzanne's dress. Jessica is most unimpressed, but still convinced that this rude douchebag is "the most exciting guy she'd ever met". They go for dinner and the concert bores the tits off Jessica, who is getting ever more frustrated that Pete won't make a move on her. He doesn't kiss her when he drops her off at the apartment, which leaves Jess utterly furious, as "she'd never been more humiliated in all her life" and could probably do with getting a bit of fucking perspective, to be honest.

Back in Sweet Valley, Elizabeth can't find her gold lavaliere and Suzanne tells her she'll help her find it. They're going to the beach for the day and Liz tries to get Steven to come with them, as he's been moping around the house over the problems he and his girlfriend Tricia are having. He declines and they tease each other for a bit, she calls him puny and he says "Who's calling who 'puny'? If you turned sideways and stuck your tongue out, you could probably pass for a zipper." Which is...what? She'd be all silver and shiny? Even more confusingly, she answers with "Don't I wish!" So...she WANTS to look like a zip? What is with all this zip nonsense, guys?

Anyway, as they're leaving to head to the beach, we get a little Suzanne POV, where she "reached into her shorts pocket with her other hand, fingering the gold necklace that lay coiled inside. A pretty little trinket, she thought with satisfaction."

OH. NO. YOU. DI'INT.

You do NOT fuck with the Wakefield lavalieres. This bitch is going down.

Elizabeth wants to stop off at Mr. Collins' house on the way to drop off some stuff for the school paper, but Suzanne insists on delivering the envelope so she can thank him for saving her drowning ass at the lake. Mr. Collins is out the back of the house watering the plants with his great big garden hose "wearing only a pair of white jogging shorts and a red bandana to keep his longish strawberry-blond hair out of his eyes." Not to mention "his bare, muscular chest, which was deeply tanned and slick with perspiration." Goodness. Suzanne turns on the charm, but is getting nothing but gruff politeness from him, so she goes on about how hot it is and asks to drink from the hose, as if she's some kind of labrador. What follows is so hilariously over the top, it sounds like something from a Whitesnake video.

"Suzanne laughed merrily as the cool water bubbled over her lips and nose. She let it dribble down her chin until the front of her thin t-shirt was soaked, making it cling to her very brief bikini top."

If only there was a car bonnet nearby for her to writhe around on! Mr. Collins blushes at the sight of the underage girl in the wet t-shirt, so Suzanne chalks it up as a small victory in her quest to, I dunno, bone the teacher, I guess.

Meanwhile, Jessica is starting to feel homesick and isn't having as much fun as she'd hoped for. She feels uncomfortable around Mrs. Devlin, who has an icy bitch demeanour, thinks the maid will steal from the drinks cabinet unless she locks it and calls taxi drivers "dreadful little men", so it sounds like she's also kinda racist. Mr. Devlin is hardly ever home, what with all the embassy functions he has to attend, so really I don't understand why they offered to look after one of Ned's daughters in the first place when all they do is leave her alone in the apartment.

Jessica goes to a dinner party thrown by Suzanne's BFF Evelyn, but the place is full of arsey, unpleasant heirs and heiresses taking about diamonds and Maseratis. Jessica ends up drinking too much wine during dinner, trips on her way to the bathroom and passes out to the sound of the rich kids being assholes. I actually feel kinda bad for her here. The people at this party are dicks and drinking so much that you're knocking shit over and passing out isn't exactly a superfun place to be.

Over on the West Coast, Elizabeth is supposed to be babysitting Mr. Collins' son Teddy, but Todd got last minute tickets to a Lakers game and she really wants to go. Suzanne steps in and offers to babysit Teddy, says that she'll call Mr. Collins to let him know that she's filling in for Liz, but DOESN'T because she's ulterior motive-ing all up in here. Mr. Collins is a bit put out when she turns up, seeing as he's leaving his child with a relative stranger that he's already suspicious of, but she purrs at him and charms Teddy so he goes off to a social occasion that for once doesn't involve his students. As soon as he leaves though, Suzanne ignores Teddy and proceeds to root around Mr. Collins' underpants drawer for the hell of it and is disappointed not to find even so much as a Playboy in his bedroom. Which I don't buy for a single second. That dude has a porn stash somewhere, she obviously didn't look hard enough.

When he gets home, he finds Suzanne pretending to be asleep on the sofa, with her blouse strategically unbuttoned. She asks for wine and starts to press herself against him in an attempt to lob the gob, but Roger is having none of it. She storms out, furious, and stomps back to the Wakefields' house, formulating a plan. Which is to rip her blouse and tell everyone that Mr. Collins attacked her. Jesus fucking Christ. These kids.

Back in New York, Jessica is out on another date with Pete, flirting outrageously with him, but it doesn't appear to have any effect. But then he comes back to the apartment with her, pours them both some brandy, turns off the lights and suddenly, to Jessica's surprise, starts wearing the face off her.

She's delighted for all of ten seconds before she realises that "Pete had much more in mind than kissing" and is getting a bit too insistent. She tries to stop him but he pins her against the couch, gets all simultaeneously rapey and victim-blamey and tells her she's asking for it, as dudes in these books are wont to do. Jessica is freaking out and decides that it's all Elizabeth's fault for letting her take her place in New York and essentially giving her what she wanted. Because she's crazy. Again, same as All Night Long. She's nothing if not consistent. Anyway, some brandy glasses get smashed and it's all a bit horrible, but suddenly the lights are switched back on and ta-dah! The Devlins are actually home for once.

Meanwhile, Suzanne runs crying to Elizabeth, with her torn clothes and damn filthy lies and after two days, it's the biggest scandal to hit Sweet Valley since, I dunno, the last scandal that hit Sweet Valley. It's a ridiculous town, who can keep count? Elizabeth and Todd secretly doubt Suzanne's story, because Mr. Collins is so super and brilliant and looks like Robert Redford, in case you didn't know.

Anyway, it's Suzanne's last night in Sweet Valley and everyone is going to a big party at Lila's mansion for her birthday. While she's getting ready to go, Elizabeth puts a present into Suzanne's packed suitcase as a surprise for her, but DUN DUN DUUUN...she finds the holy grail lavaliere in amongst Suzanne's clothes.

While in the car with Todd on the way to the party, Elizabeth tells him where she found her necklace and they begin to wonder if maybe Suzanne made up the whole assault story. Elizabeth wonders why anyone would do such a "hideous thing" and when Todd reminds her of some of the shitty things Jessica has done in the past for sheer divilment, Elizabeth, in a spectacular feat of doublethink, replies:

"But that was just Jessica. She's never done anything really bad."

(I don't normally use gifs in these posts, but I feel like this warrants one.)


She has previously done EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE SO HORRIFIED ABOUT RIGHT NOW. TO YOUR BOYFRIEND.

Anyway, she and Todd decide to make a detour to Mr. Collins' house, and find him "a pale shadow of the Roger Collins she knew." He looks like he hasn't slept in days and he's got STUBBLE on his jaw. And as we all know, in the world of Sweet Valley, beards = despair. She realises that Mr. Collins is innocent and decides that Suzanne isn't going to get away with what she's done. When they arrive at Lila's place, she gets Suzanne alone in the coatroom (what, your house doesn't have a coatroom? Fowler style, bitches!) and confronts her. Suzanne confesses to everything, but before Elizabeth can reveal the truth to anyone, Suzanne spreads a rumour via gossip queen Cara Walker that Elizabeth has been acting all strange, like the time she came out of her coma after the big motorbike accident. It's actually pretty impressively devious, how quickly and efficently she discredits Liz. That's some top-notch villainy, Suzanne.

Before long, everyone thinks that Elizabeth is going nuts, so when it gets back to her, she confronts Suzanne again, in public this time. While she's calling her a liar, Winston Egbert (who overheard the coatroom conversation) comes along to hand Suzanne a drink and accidentally on purpose trips over, spilling punch all over her white satin, off-the-shoulder dress. Ruh roh! Suzanne freaks the fuck out, showing everyone The Real Her, i.e. a rampaging bitch and everyone dramatically walks away from her, leaving her alone, crying. Wah.

Jessica returns home after the Devlins told Pete that they never wanted to see him again, Mr. Collins gets his job back and everything is fine and dandy. Hooray.

Notable outfit:
"She [Elizabeth] was wearing her favourite velvet skirt and a high-necked, lace Victorian blouse. Suzanne had helped her fix her hair into a fancy French braid, into which she'd tucked a fragrant sprig of honeysuckle."

Boom. Ingalls Wilder swag.

Things I counted:
Number of pages: 150
References to the twins' blue-green eyes: 3
References to the fact that the twins are blonde: 1 (Poor show.)
Appearances of the word "muscular": 5

Sweet Valley High Revisited - Wrong Kind of Girl

Well hello there. I know it's been terribly quiet around here of late, but work and real life and trying to read as much of A Storm of Swords as I possibly can has all been getting in the way, you see. As well as being traumatised by the Red Wedding episode of Game of Thrones. Actually, wouldn't Jessica Wakefield make an amazing Lannister?

Anyway, onwards to the next book!

Sweet Valley High #10: Wrong Kind of Girl
 

Ok, the first thing you need to know is that this book gets off to an amazing start. It's a first line that deserves to be up there with "Call me Ishmael", or "It is a truth universally acknowledged.." STRAP YO'SELVES IN, FOLKS.

As she looked over the list of girls who had signed up to try out for the cheerleading squad, Jessica Wakefield purred like a satisfied cat.

Miaow! We're immediately off to a great start. Excellent work, ghost writer. Anyway, Jessica is all aroused because seventy three girls have signed up, so we can only assume that there must be like a bajillion students in that school. There are two spots open, because Cara Walker and awesome bitch Lila Fowler were booted off the team for turning on the sprinklers during a rival squad's performance. Because soaking wet cheerleaders means a ruined routine. Yeah. Sounds legit.

So Jessica has essentially promised Cara that her old place on the squad is guaranteed, but suddenly the sight of Annie Whitman's name on the list serves as a massive bonerkiller for Jess. And why is that?

You know what they call her. Easy Annie! She's been with every guy at school.

Well now. There's the pot calling the kettle a whore. Jessica is furious that Annie has the nerve to sign up and reckons that her trampy reputation will give the whole squad a bad name. Which is hilarious, because LOOK IN THE MIRROR YOU CRAZY BITCH.

Apparently, being a cheerleader means keeping your grades up and Elizabeth has been tutoring Annie after school. While consoling her after a test that didn't go well, Annie confesses to Elizabeth that she sometimes feels worthless.

"What?" Elizabeth said, truly surprised. "You? Why, Annie, you're just about the most beautiful girl in Sweet Valley High."

You're RIGHT, Elizabeth! Beauty DOES equal worth! EXCELLENT MESSAGE.

Elizabeth calls over to Annie's house after school to help her with maths and learns about what a hard life Annie has had. Her mother had her when she was sixteen, her father left when she was two and threw her down a flight of stairs when she was ten. While Elizabeth is being told all of this, she thinks about how amazing and perfect and good-looking (really) her own parents are and it's impossible not to imagine her with a smug grin on her face while she does so.

Meanwhile, Jessica is coaching Cara through all the new moves and cheers that she'll need to know for the try-outs and there's a really odd bit where Steven Wakefield appears in front of them, doesn't really hear them when they both say hello and then hurries back into the house. So he just wandered out into the garden, stood in front of his sister and her friend and then fucked off back inside. It turns out that he's just heard the news that his girlfriend's dad is in jail for drink driving, but it's still quite a weird little scene.

The day of the try-outs arrives and Annie is brilliant, but Jessica tries to stop her from making it to the last twenty five because she's a cheertator (if you know what I'm talking about, then we should totally be friends) and freaks out at Elizabeth for saying in her gossip column that Annie is one of the favourites for the squad.

There's a Beach Disco a few nights later and pretty much everyone from school is there. A band called The Surfers' Waves are playing (not the Droids? The fuck, guys?) and Annie enrages Jessica by turning up with Bruce Patman. Suddenly there's a dance contest, because the denizens of Sweet Valley appear to living in the musical Grease. It ends up being a draw between Jessica and her date and Annie and Bruce, which Jessica takes a personal affront and is furious that Annie seems to think that she's "as good" as her. Silly Annie! Doesn't she know that The Glorious Wakefields are the pinnacle of hot sixteen year old girls the world over and should NEVER be challenged? Clearly not.

Jessica and Elizabeth have a row over Jessica being a cunt to Annie for no good reason, and things get worse when Jessica discovers that Elizabeth is the one helping Annie to pass all her maths tests and keep her grades up. It's the day of the cheerleading semi-finals, and Annie is amazing again, with the whole gym applauding her. Jessica has been telling the rest of the squad how unsuitable Annie would be every day since the first round of try-outs and is aghast to find that they've dared to defy her and all voted for her to be in the final eight.

It's no surprise that everyone did vote for her though, the way her routine is described. "Out she dashed, creating an immediate electric excitement in everybody watching." "Zest and perfection", "she was quite simply a sensation." Oh and she "blushed prettily" at the end when the crowd burst into applause. That's the other thing about Annie, literally every time she appears in the book, we're informed of how gorgeous she is. We've already had "Annie tossed her lovely head", "the gloom returned to her pretty face", and "a becoming blush rose in Annie Whitman's cheeks" and we're only halfway through the book. We get more hotness reminders for her than we do for the Wakefield twins combined. Actually, no wonder Jessica hates her. She's stealing all her sexy thunder!

Annie's progress through the cheerleading rounds is boosting her self confidence, and she tells Elizabeth that the reson she hooks up with so many dudes is because she needed the attention and felt empty inside. Poor Annie has no idea that half the school calls her Easy Annie and thinks she's a tramp. Seriously, is that school working under some kind of mass delusion about Jessica, as if she HASN'T dry humped half the dudes in Sweet Valley? Or is a girl only a tramp if she lives with her single mother in an apartment, rather than a split level ranch house with hot parents? HMMM.

Jessica and her lavaliere being all smug and blonde while plotting Annie's downfall. Rumour has it that Courteney Cox was the model used for Annie Whitman. She's the absolute head off tampon ad-era Courteney. See?

Anyway, Jessica goes full on Regina George and rigs the voting process by mind fucking one of the other cheerleaders, Helen Bradley, into keeping Annie off the squad. Meanwhile, Annie has noticed that the cheer squad's manager Ricky Capaldo fancies her, and she's starting to feel the same way. I should say that Ricky is a student too, which seems a bit odd, but I guess it's better that way as otherwise it'd be an adult wanting to bone a fifteen year old girl, which would be hella creepy.

Then, ooh THEN, we get an amazing scene so melodramatic it'd make Linda Gray's eyes water. Elizabeth is over at Todd's house, watching an old movie with him. Her mind keeps wandering to the Jessica-Annie dilemma so she unwittingly lets out a sigh, which causes Todd to jump up and demand to know if she's in love with someone else. Because she sighed. He's TOTALLY serious, it's hilarious.

He asks her this while looking away from her, so there's even an impassioned "Todd, please look at me!" thrown in, before he calms the fuck down and puts his big boy pants on. He asks her what's been on her mind and guesses that it's something to with Jessica being a duplicitous, cruel wench (in so many words) which causes Elizabeth to get all angry and defensive. Todd's ma then comes into the room, and Todd says "Mom, we're having a discussion", without looking at her. The fucking brat! Imagine your mammy letting you talk to her like that! Not a hope, lads. She actually leaves the room without so much as a HINT of a wooden spoon in Todd's direction and he and Liz make up, of course. YAWWWN. Someone should have ended up in a swimming pool. Go big or go home, Francine.

The day of the cheerleading finals arrives and Annie is spectacular as usual, which results in a stand off between Jessica and the rest of the squad, who want to vote Annie in. Jessica demands that they vote in Sandra, a girl who fell during her routine. When the rest of the cheerleaders won't back down, Jessica gives them an ultimatum and says she'll leave if they allow Annie in, the power mad harpy. Apparently she's the "heart and soul of the team", so as usual she gets her way. Ugh. STOP HUMOURING HER.

When Annie finds out that she didn't make the cut, she's distraught and cries on Ricky until he tells her that it was Jessica who screwed her over and did so because she thought Annie's reputation would
taint the whole squad. When Annie doesn't show up for the next three days of school, Ricky goes to Elizabeth, begging her to talk Jessica into letting Annie on the squad. Jessica doesn't budge and the next Monday, Elizabeth gets a call from Ricky, telling her that Annie tried to kill herself. Elizabeth rushes to the hospital, dragging Jessica with her, who at least had the decency to protest and say that Annie wouldn't want her there.

They find Ricky in the waiting room, and Jessica, suddenly realising that being a horrendous bitch can actually have consequences, bursts into tears, sobbing about how it's all her fault, and making it all about her. The doctor eventually comes to Annie's mother and tells her that her daughter appears to have "no will to live". Dun dun DUUUUN. Jessica blurts the whole story out to the doctor to let them know why Annie overdosed on pills and the doctor, FOR SERIOUS, prescribes....letting Annie be a cheerleader. Amazing. Jessica stays up all night at Annie's bedside, telling her that there was a mix-up and she's on the squad after all. Annie eventually comes to and her first words are "Where are you? Please...Jess." Oh get ta fuck.

Annie wakes up and later that day, the twins and Ricky bring in her cheerleading uniform and tell her to go to the window. The cheer squad are outside and shout "Get well Annie!" and then everyone is happy and a fifteen year old girl's depression and suicide attempt are all forgotten about. Because cheerleading. Yay.

Notable outfit:
Amid not-too-remarkable dresses with thigh-high slits (Annie), black and red striped tops (Jessica) and a total lack of Dana Larson, I'm giving this one to Elizabeth's bit of man candy.

Todd looked especially handsome that night in his gray cords and burgundy shirt.

Good for you Toddington.

Things I counted:
Number of pages: 137
References to the twins' blue-green eyes: 3
References to the fact that the twins are blonde: 3
Amount of times Annie is called pretty/beautiful/lovely: 12

Sweet Valley High Revisited - Racing Hearts

Blammo! It's book nine o'clock!

Sweet Valley High #9: Racing Hearts
 

The book begins with Elizabeth Wakefield discovering her sister Jessica trying on their mother's "chocolate-brown suit" which sounds just LOVELY. Elizabeth has no idea what the hell is going on with her sister, as she seems to have abandoned her plans to become a famous actress, isn't going to the beach with Cara Walker like she was supposed to, and is all talk about responsibility and the future. It's all very boring and un-Jess. It turns out that she wants to work in their father's legal office after school, as she has decided she wants to be a hotshot lawyer. Grand so.

The next day at school, it's been raining in Sweet Valley but worry not! Both Jessica and Lila Fowler still have perfect hair, as we’re informed that Jessica’s hair is “frizz-proof” and the rain has given Lila “a fullness to her wavy hair that Jessica could seldom achieve with her curling iron”. PHEW. I’m so glad that the beautiful popular girls remain flawless regardless of weather conditions. Jessica fills Lila in on her grand plan to work in Ned's office, and Lila's all "ewww, work" because Daddy’s Girl don’t need no stinkin’ job.

They run into Roger Barrett who's in love with Lila, but the hallway is slippery and he falls and lands on his arse in front of his dream girl. Poor Roger! And actually poor Roger, because he secretly works as a janitor in the evenings and weekends in Ned Wakefield’s office building, to pay the rent at home. Apparently there’s no such thing as part time jobs in petrol stations, delis or shops of any kind in Sweet Valley. Anyway, Roger runs off all embarrassed and Lila calls him Bugs Bunny while being a cunt about him with Jessica. She then explains that she calls him Bugs because he bugs her. Wildean wit, that one.

Meanwhile, in the boy’s locker room Bruce Patman, Todd Wilkins and John Pfeifer have an awesomely homoerotic conversation about the upcoming trials for the Barton Ames race, more commonly known as the Bart. There's also a dance afterwards (OF COURSE) called the Bart dance. Seriously. Every time it's mentioned, this pops into my head. Anyway, Bruce is bragging about how he’s going to win the race hands down, even though the prize is a scholarship to SVU, which he doesn’t exactly need seeing as he’s super rich. But never mind all that, we get these wonderful sentences which are MUCH more interesting:

“Droplets of water dripped from his dark hair onto his red and white Sweet Valley running shorts”

“Todd eyed Bruce coldly as he took off his soaked t-shirt”

“I imagine I have as good a chance as anyone. These legs of mine do ok on the basketball court”

They’re just a damp towel-snap away from a sweaty orgy on the wooden bench. There’s also some talk about Coach Schultz leaving over an argument with the school board about money, but who cares, BRUCE’S SHORTS ARE ALL WET.

After school, Jessica arrives at her father’s office to start her shiny new part time job. She’s expecting work to be like an episode of Ally McBeal, so she’s none too pleased when she’s put to work photocopying legal documents. However, things look up for Jess when she meets a handsome dude in the lift. His name is Dennis, he goes to a rival high school and he works part time in his father’s ad agency across the hall from Ned’s office. They flirt about handbags and he asks Jessica if she’s training to be a secretary. Really, Dennis? Anyway, Jessica thinks he’s cute and of course he fancies her, seeing as he's got a pulse and the Wakefield twins induce boners wherever they roam.

The next day at school, everyone is out for the Bart race trials and Elizabeth is being an insufferable wench, pestering Roger to try out for the race, as he could really use the scholarship prize. He’s visibly annoyed with her, but Elizabeth won’t let up because she’s a self-righteous pain in the hole, and even though we’re told how she’s saying everything “gently” like she’s the good guy, she’s acting like a dick and you just desperately want someone to turn around and tell her to shut the fuck up. Anyway, Lila overhears the conversation and starts to egg him on too for her own amusement and because she thinks he’ll make a fool of himself. So because Roger loves Lila, he decides to run as it might give him a chance to win her over. He joins the other runners on the track at the last minute and kicks everyone’s ass, beating Bruce to the finish line and surprising everyone. He also does it all in “faded army fatigue pants and red t-shirt”, rather than fancy running gear like the other athletes, and although according to Jessica, “his taste in clothing leaves something to be desired”, what he’s wearing actually sounds pretty fucking hot if you ask me.

Everyone is all over Roger after he wins the race, telling him how brilliant he is. Everyone except his friend Olivia Davidson, the alafalfa sprout munching hippy. She’s sullenly writing about her feelings while sitting on the bleachers (the big emo head on her), and barely congratulates Roger on his win because she fancies him and now she's jealous that Lila is suddenly showing an interest in him. She goes off in a huff, presumably followed by a cloud of patchouli. 

GO HOME ROGER. Nice jumper, Lila.

The school principal gives Roger a fancy SVH tracksuit, which makes Lila suddenly think he’s SEXAY, so she butters his bread for him in the cafeteria. I really wish that was a euphemism, but the line genuinely reads:

“Oooh, let me do that,” Lila said, taking the pat of butter and his knife away from him.

I mean, I know Lila’s hot and rich and all, but that’s some fucking weird flirting, whatever way you look at it.

The coach and the school principal both tell Roger that he has to run in the Bart race, but he doesn’t have time to train because he’s the only one bringing money into the house with his part time job and doesn’t think his boss would give him the time off anyway, so he keeps failing to show up for practice. He also can’t meet Lila after school because of it, so she thinks he’s playing hard to get. While discussing this with Jessica at lunch, there's a great bit that just reminds us how genetically blessed and amazing the Wakefields are, in case the focus had been pulled away from them a bit too much.

Jessica took a big bite of her cheeseburger. Lila eyed her friend enviously. How could Jessica eat so much and never gain an ounce? Lila had to work like crazy to keep her slender figure. 

Boom. All the money in the world can't buy you the sexy Wakefield metabolism, Lila. Anyway, in a bizarre attempt to win Roger over, Lila writes this godawful poem for him:

Roger Barrett, a boy so fine

His speedy running is divine

In school too, he is very smart

He’ll walk away with the trophy at the Bart

In everything he operates at the highest stratum

We at Sweet Valley are so proud to have him.

I...just...what? Stratum? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Meanwhile, Jessica has been hooking up with hot Dennis after hours in her Dad’s office, when everyone else is gone home. Elizabeth has gotten suspicious about what her sister is up to, so she sneaks into the building to spy on Jessica, presumably because she has nothing better to do and is an unbearable busybody. Ugh. She sees Jessica and Dennis shifting each other, the big stalker, and then sees them run into Roger while he’s doing his janitor thing. Elizabeth then blackmails her sister into keeping Roger’s secret, otherwise she’ll tell their father that Jessica has been dry humping some dude in the office every evening.

When he gets home, Roger rings Olivia in a panic and tells her all about his cleaning job and how he can’t run the Bart race at the weekend because he won’t be able to get time off and how worried he is that Jessica will blab to everyone in the school. While all this is going on, Lila calls Jessica looking for help to bag Roger, so Jessica comes up with a plan and tells Lila to throw a leaving party for Coach Schultz before the Bart dance, so Roger will have to attend. However, she also evilly plots to reveal Roger’s secret job while at the party, which will both humiliate Lila and somehow make Jessica the “star of the party”. Is that even a thing? Do parties have stars? I must be going to the wrong ones.

Anyway, the next day at school, the pressure is getting to Roger so he admits to Lila that he works as a janitor, and begins to feel proud of himself, even though Lila now looks at him with barely concealed disgust.  

“Roger’s integrity was admirable, but Lila wanted nothing to do with it.” 

Amazing. Who needs a guy with integrity or honesty or any of that stupid stuff? Not Lila Fowler, that's for damn sure. Roger then goes to tell the coach that he won’t be able to race on Saturday but it just so happens that Liz had her father call Roger’s boss and make him give Roger some time off, and then rang the coach to say that was all fine and dandy. It also turns out that the coach isn’t leaving at all, but we don't really care about that. Roger thanks Liz, and then runs off to Olivia, suddenly realising that he loves her. How handy.

Back at Ned’s office, Jessica has been getting frustrated that Dennis hasn’t picked up on her hints to get him to ask her to the Bart dance. Finally, she does the asking herself but he says he can't go, which makes her angry because NO ONE REJECTS JESSICA WAKEFIELD. Anyway, it turns out he’s fifteen, so Jessica dumps him because he can’t drive, even though she actually really likes him.

The day of the big race arrives, and Roger wins, breaking the Bart record while he’s at it. Lila suddenly reappears and lobs the gob on him, going on about how she never lost faith in him and she’s throwing a party in his honour. He turns her down so she gets all indignant and demands to know what could be more important. He tells her to mind her own damn business and goes off with Olivia. Hooray. 

I have to say, it wasn't exatly the best Sweet Valley High book, but the next one is all about slutty Annie Whitman, so things are looking up, kids.

Notable outfit:
There weren't nearly enough hilarious clothes in this book, but I'll give this one to peasant skirt enthusiast Olivia Davidson.

Olivia proudly showed off the floral print skirt. It was so long it nearly covered her Chinese sandals. “The latest in chic from Martha’s Thrift Shop. Goes well with the scarf, don’t you think?” She fingered the long strip of faded silk tied loosely around her neck.

Good for you Olivia.

Things I counted:
Number of pages: 158
References to the twins' blue-green eyes: 3
References to the fact that the twins are blonde: 2 (Must try harder.)
References to eyes/eyelashes/eyeballs: 52

Sweet Valley High Revisited - Heartbreaker

I love writing these Sweet Valley High posts, but MY GOD they take forever to do. I usually end up reading the book I'm recapping about three times over, between counting things, looking for ridiculous quotes that I forgot to make a note of the first time around, and generally making sure I've covered all the most hilarious/weird parts. I'd love it if it was my actual job to just read SVH books all day and write smart-arse blog posts about each one, but unfortunately real life and real life work and hangovers and suchlike have a tendency to get in the way. But anyway, enough of that. Onwards to book eight! 

Sweet Valley High #8: Heartbreaker


Our story begins with Jessica rehearsing the drama club's spring play, Splendor in the Grass, with Bill Chase and having him kiss her over and over as she insists it's not right each time. You see, at the end of the last book, Bill was supposed to go on a date with Elizabeth, but Jessica went in her place as revenge for him turning her down when she asked him to one of SVH's four thousand dances this one time. On the date, he told her he loved her, then Jessica revealed that she was Jessica and since then has somehow convinced him that it's actually her that he loves. For the hell of it.

At school, Elizabeth sees Todd with his arms around some mysterious hottie, who turns out to be Patsy Webber, an old girlfriend of his. Patsy has just come back from living in Paris, and has "coppery-red hair cut fashionably short in back, with a tumble of curls that dipped over her forehead", which is totally sophisticated you guys, and makes her sound like she's a member of The Holograms. Elizabeth gets all jealous of how glamourous and sexy Patsy is and tries to convince herself that she has nothing to worry about.

Jessica gets Bill to call over to her house with a script for the play, despite the fact that she's not even going to be there as she's got a date with Tom McKay. So Bill turns up and is all disappointed when Elizabeth answers the door. Bill leaves and drives off to the beach to stand around in moonlight and feel his feelings. We learn that Bill had a girlfriend called Julianne back when he was living in Santa Monica. Julianne was cute and blonde and into surfing, just like Bill and "they were both crazy about old movies and monster comics and Mexican food". She actually sounds like great craic and more fun than pretty much everyone in Sweet Valley. But...disaster struck! (Of course it did, it's SVH after all.) They had a big argument one night at a party, so Julianne stormed off and got a lift home with her friend and was killed in a horrible car accident. We also learn that he turned Jessica down that one time ages ago because she reminded him too much of Julianne.

While Jessica is busy fucking around with Bill's feelings, DeeDee Gordon is wistfully pining for him from the wings. At one point Bill is giving DeeDee a surfing lesson while everyone is out at the beach, which winds Jessica up because apparently he's supposed to be at her beck and call at all times, even though she's off dry humping Tom McKay every other night. She interrupts DeeDee's lesson with Bill, by swishing out to them in her "bronze wet-look bikini" (which is either a continuity error, as she bought a bronze, wet-look one piece in Secrets, or she has TWO bronze wet-look swimsuits. Which wouldn't surprise me in the least, it being Jessica Wakefield and all) and being all flirty so that DeeDee runs off crying.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth is sad because Sexy Patsy turned up at the beach and Todd went swimming with her and now she's super jealous because she thinks Todd wants to bang his ex-girlfriend. She also runs off crying, but meets Enid Rollins in the car park, along with Olivia Davidson and some bird called Lois Waller. I'm only really including this bit because of the appearance of this line:

"Lois Waller made her a little uncomfortable - always trying so hard to impress people, to be in the centre of things."

Which is a bit fucking rich, considering her twin is the kind of person who quite literally stops a pool party later on in the book so everyone will watch her dive into the water. Shut up Liz.

Jessica continues to ladycock-block DeeDee, practically jumping in front of her every time Bill talks to her, for no reason other than to keep him for herself even though she doesn't actually want him. She's such a genuinely terrible person. Bill is infuriatingly oblivious to her manipulations and treats DeeDee like shit, abandoning her every time Jessica bats her trampy eyelashes at him. Jessica invites the drama crowd over to her house for a pool party after rehearsal one evening, but makes it sound like it'll just be her and Bill so he'll bail on his plans to go surfing with DeeDee. Unsurprisingly, he ends up miserable when Jessica spends the evening getting felt up by Tom.

Elizabeth arrives home from the library, to find her dad in the living room while everyone is out in the back garden by the pool.

"Elizabeth was struck, as she often was, by how athletic her father looked for someone who spent so much of his time at a desk poring over legal briefs."

Stop checking your father out Liz, you weirdo.

Anyway, she gets into her "striped two-piece" and heads out to the pool to meet Todd, who is already there. But UH OH, he's leaning over Sexy Patsy, who is lying on her stomach with the back of her bikini top undone like some kind of whore, while he slowly rubs suntan lotion on her back. NOT COOL TODD. Elizabeth runs off to her room all upset and Todd doesn't know what the hell is going on, because apparently there's nothing wrong with massaging lotion onto your half naked ex-girlfriend. Jessica comes up to the room to see what's wrong, and when Elizabeth tells her she thinks there's something going on between Todd and Patsy, instead of consoling her like a NORMAL NON PSYCHOTIC PERSON, Jessica says "now that you mention it, I have noticed Todd spending a lot of time with Patsy at rehearsals", because she feels like Todd takes up too much of her sister's time. What the actual fuck? I looked up the characteristics of what makes a person a sociopath, and guess what? ALL THE TRAITS APPLY TO JESSICA.

This is actually one of the best book covers in the entire Sweet Valley High series. Jessica looks like a soccer mom who hasn't realised that her pool boy plaything prefers to have sex with dudes.

So it turns out that DeeDee's father is some big shot Hollywood agent and after seeing a rehearsal of the play, has chosen someone who he thinks has real talent, but won't reveal who until the end of the week, on opening night. Naturally, Jessica assumes it's her and actually stops torturing Bill for a while as she's too busy being unbearably smug about her supposed film star future. So when Bill asks her if she'd like to go to the cast party with him on opening night, she turns him down and suggests he ask DeeDee instead, as she's got better things to do now than dangle her vagina in front of some surfer dude.

That evening, DeeDee and Bill are out surfing, because apparently DeeDee is now good enough to enter the Women's Junior Surfing Championship after a few lessons and she needs to practice for the competition. But Bill is so busy feeling sorry for himself after being rejected by Jessica that he doesn't notice when DeeDee enters a wave a few seconds too late and gets pulled underwater. When he eventually spots her floating face-down in the water, he springs into action, bringing her back to the shore and giving her CPR. While he's giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, he suddenly realises how pretty she is, which is kind of an odd place for someone's mind to go when the person in front of them is half dead.

DeeDee comes to, but instead of calling an ambulance, or taking her to A&E, seeing as y'know, SHE PROBABLY HAS A CONCUSSION, Bill realises that he's actually crazy about her so they start shifting in the sand, because going to the hospital is for quitters. Also, every time Bill has some manner of emotional upheaval in this book, his feelings are described with a hilariously heavy handed sea-related metaphor.

"When he kissed her it was as natural as a wave breaking."

"Jessica's appearance was like a wave knocking him over."

"Being in love was a lot like getting wiped out by a wave, he thought."

"The feeling must have been there all along, tugging at him like an undertow beneath the calm surface of their friendship."

"He suddenly felt as if he was the one who was drowning."

HE LIKES SURFING, YOU SEE.

Meanwhile, Liz has been moping around over Todd instead of actually talking to him, ever since the suntan lotion/naked back fiasco and subsequently seeing Todd with his arms around Patsy in school. Opening night of Splendor in the Grass eventually arrives and the play gets a standing ovation, while Jessica blows kisses to the adoring crowd like the insufferable diva she is, convinced that she's about to be discovered as an actress. Unfortunately for her, it turns out that Bill is the one that DeeDee's father has his Hollywood agent eye on, so she ditches Tom McKay like yesterday's jam, in order to hop on Bill's movie star coattails. DeeDee runs off crying when Jessica wedges herself between her and Bill and starts cooing and purring at him, not letting him get a word in edgeways when he really should be telling her to go fuck herself.

DeeDee meets Roger Barrett ouside while she's crying her face off, who comiserates with her as he's in love with Lila Fowler but he's all poor and nerdy so he doesn't stand a chance. They decide to go along to the cast party together, even though they're both miserable. Elizabeth and Jessica arrive at Lila's mansion for the party, but Elizabeth runs off crying (there's an inordinate amount of running off crying in this book) when she sees Sexy Patsy. While she's outside crying, Todd appears and demands to know what the hell is going on with her. He explains that he had his arms around Patsy that day in school because her French boyfriend had dumped her and he was just comforting her. They make up and exchange I-love-yous. Aww. I guess.

Inside at the party, Jessica is almost sitting on Bill's lap and probably giving herself friction burns from all the rubbing up against him she's doing. When DeeDee arrives with Roger, Bill jumps up and runs over to her, spilling his ginger ale on Jessica (ha! Fuck you Jess). Anyway, Bill finally straps on a pair and tells Jessica he's with DeeDee now. So Jessica runs off crying. And her Plan B boy Tom is now hooking up with Sexy Patsy. Everybody else is happy, so yay!

Notable outfit:
The appearance of Jessica's wet-look bronze bikini might have taken this honour, only it already did in Secrets, and anyway Patsy's totally sophisticated Parisian wardrobe wins out.

"She looked stunning in a low-cut halter-top jumpsuit made of some shimmery, peach coloured fabric."

YES. SHINY JUMPSUIT BONUS.

Things I counted:
Number of pages: 134
References to the twins' blue-green eyes: 4
References to the fact that the twins are blonde: 7
Amount of times people blush: 24 (TWENTY FOUR. For realsies.)

Sweet Valley High Revisited - Dear Sister

Ok, so you know how every Sweet Valley High book is brilliant in its own way, but there are some that are just that bit more amazing and ridiculously fun than the others? Well, this is one of them. It might as well be called Dear Jackpot.

Sweet Valley High #7: Dear Sister


So, the book opens with Elizabeth still in hospital, in a coma and Jessica at her bedside pleading with her to wake up. In case we've forgotten, we're immediately reminded how goddamn hot the twins are, as page one informs us that they're "gloriously attractive". Thanks guys. By the time we've gotten halfway through page two (HALFWAY), one or the other has been described as "beautiful", "vibrant", "lively", "vivacious" and a "fresh, youthful beauty". It's actually sort of impressive how much they've crammed in there. Anyway, Jessica is startled by a hand on her shoulder, but it's ok! It's just the most inappropriate doctor IN THE WORLD.

"Miss Wakefield?"
"Yes."
"I could see the resemblance. You're both beautiful."

That's right, this doctor greets sixteen year olds by telling them how hot they are. He's Elizabeth's neurosurgeon and his conversation with Jessica is just solid fucking gold. They have a chat about Elizabeth's condition, Jessica gets a bit upset about the whole thing and over the course of their conversation he does the following hilariously overfamiliar things, considering he's JUST MET HER:

"The man stooped so his face was on a level with hers."

"She felt strong hands on her shoulders, shaking her gently but insistently."

"Suddenly Dr. Edwards's hands were cupping her face, forcing her to look up."

Fucking hell, put your pants back on, Doc. 

Anyway, Elizabeth wakes up from her coma and starts acting like a spoiled little bitch. She immediately demands a makeover, gets in a huff over her hospital gown not being sexy enough and flirts her arse off with the doctors, all while being really dismissive and mean to Todd. She basically turns into Jessica. When she gets out of hospital and returns home, Todd comes by to see her but she instructs Jessica to fob him off and tell him she's too tired for visitors. Jessica pulls Todd into the kitchen and lies to him, saying that Elizabeth can't have any visitors until she goes back to school and reassures him that once she's back in class everything will go back to normal. It's one of my favourite parts of this book.

"You know how much she likes school. She'll probably have all the work made up and a dozen stories written for The Oracle before I finish that one stupid book report on Moby Dick. I mean, Todd, who really cares about whales?" Jessica asked in annoyance.

Todd did, but he let the comment slide by.

Awwww! TODDDDD! He CARES about WHALES you guys. I love that line so goddamn much.

So, Elizabeth returns to school and Jessica drives them there, parking the car "with her usual flourish". I don't know how exactly parking with a flourish works (other than Ace Ventura barrell-rolling his safari jeep into the car park in When Nature Calls, obviously. LLLIKE A GLOVE), but clearly it's something else that the Wakefields are amazing at.

All week at school, people keep confusing Elizabeth for Jessica and when the twins are meant to get the house ready for a pool party they're throwing at the weekend, Elizabeth lands Jessica with all the work as she flits around the mall. While Jessica is sorting out the food for the party, she starts talking to herself in a slightly alarming manner.

"Listen, Jessica Wakefield," she lectured herself, "haven't you ever ducked out on work and left Elizabeth to do it?"

"Now, don't start creating a humungous, imaginary crisis over nothing," she cautioned herself aloud.

"Stop it," Jessica commanded herself. "If you don't make that dip, the kids will have to eat powdered soup mix." She giggled and kept working.

She's like one of those demented bitches off Sunset Beach.

The party is a hit and everyone has a great time, except for Jessica, because Elizabeth is hogging the limelight and for Todd, because Elizabeth is practically rubbing herself all over Ken Matthews like a cat in heat. When Jessica gets suckered into cleaning up after the party alone, it begins to dawn on her that Elizabeth has actually turned into Jessica, prompting an existential crisis of sorts. "If she's Jessica, she agonised, then who am I?"

Over the next week or so, Liz begins to do badly at school as she's too busy being on the phone to random boys to do any studying. Ned and Alice then announce at dinner that the Percys - whoever the fuck they are - are going to a computer conference in Europe (fancy!) and the Wakefields are looking after their twin twelve year old girls while they're away.

"The twins were fragile, dark-haired girls with large brown eyes set in small solemn faces. They were wearing identical gray jumpers, and long-sleeved white blouses, and they were clutching identical black flute cases."

Well don't they sound just a tad familiar.

Oh hai there.

As soon as the Percy twins arrive, Ned and Alice fuck off to "an evening of bridge", which I hope is code for something else, otherwise they're the most boring people IN THE WORLD. Jessica has a date with Danny Stauffer that night though, so while she's planning to skip out on babysitting and leave Liz looking after the twins, Liz beats her to it and is making her exit while Jessica is still on the phone to Danny, leaving Jessica with no option but to bring the girls on her date with him at the drive-in.

Back at school, Elizabeth keeps blowing Enid off and takes a sudden interest in the lame sorority the twins are in, prompting Jessica to talk to herself some more. Enid comes over, wondering who the hell Jessica is talking to, and asks her if Liz is mad at her.

"Not that I know of." Jessica wondered why she didn't tell Enid the truth. Elizabeth didn't want to have anything to do with her. Jessica would have enjoyed telling her to get lost a month ago. For some reason, she felt sympathy for Enid now.

I love how normal human emotions don't compute with Jessica.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth is swanning around school failing everything, hitting on everyone's boyfriend, and sweet-talking Winston Egbert into doing her homework for her. Gasp! When she's late handing in her Eyes and Ears column, Mr. Collins asks how she is. Cue hilarity.

"Everybody asks me that," she snapped. "Elizabeth, I hope you know that I'm a friend, not only a teacher and an adviser. And friends don't dish out a lot of applesauce to each other."

Oh Mr. Collins. You crazy motherfucker. I actually had to look up the word applesauce online, as I've never in my life heard it used in any context other than sauce made of apples. Turns out it's slang from THE TWENTIES. THE TWENTIES, MR. COLLINS. He probably thinks journalists wear hats with a little card stuck in it that reads "PRESS" and that the talkies will never catch on.

We then find out that since Elizabeth has been giving Todd the brush off, he's lost his mad skillz on the basketball court and that his nickname is "Whizzer" Wilkins. Amazing. This book just DOES NOT let up. Anyway, Todd's coach then has a talk with him about Liz, because every staff member at this school is completely over-involved in their students lives.

Elizabeth proceeds to get fired from the school paper for writing a bitchy item to split Ken Matthews up from his girlfriend (Mr. Collins says "applesauce" again! I LOVE IT!) and then zips around town driving Max Dellon's motorbike, much to Jessica's horror. Ned and Alice, after agreeing to take care of someone else's kids for a while, appear to have decided to never be around when they actually need them and land Jessica with driving the girls to a flute audition at the weekend. Jessica has a date at the beach with Danny though, so she ends up being caught speeding on her way back from the audition and when she does get to the beach, she sees Danny with his arm around some tramp in a white bikini. Angry and frustrated - with the creepy twins in the back seat - she then backs into another car and cries her face off.

Jessica haz a sad. And terrible taste in picture frames.

A few days later, Lila Fowler is throwing a party at her house, but not just any old party, a combination of a costume party and a "pick-up party", which apparently means a license to whore your way through the night. "Everybody came single and picked up whomever they could." The Wakefields go to the party dressed as - wait for it - MATADORS. Excellent. Elizabeth ends up leaving the party with Bruce Patman, who can't believe his luck that he's getting to feel up the twin who usually hates him, and plies her with wine down at the beach. Jessica sends SuperTodd after them, he punches Bruce and takes drunk Liz home.

Ned and Alice eventually find out about Jessica's speeding ticket and the dent in the car, but the Percy twins come to the rescue and lie for Jessica, saving her ass. When Jessica apologises to the twins for shouting at them all the time, they say it's fine and that they've never had so much fun.

"Boy, going to a real drive-in! With making out and everything."

Jessica dry-humped Danny at the drive-in with two twelve year olds in the backseat. She's a class act. AND AN OLD TIMEY GANGSTER! Just like Bruce in Power Play!

"Listen, you two," Jessica said, "cool it, see? You weren't supposed to be there."

I'm beginning to wonder if there's a wormhole to 1920s Sweet Valley somewhere in the town.

Todd's surfer friend Bill Chase, who has apparently been "half in love" with Elizabeth for ages, asks her out to some beach club dance on Saturday night, which she agrees to while being all sexy-like and just stopping short of licking his face. Later that day though, she also arranges to go on a date with Bruce at his family's beach house.

When Bill turns up at Casa Wakefield, Liz is already gone. So Jessica decides that her newly-trampy sister shouldn't get to have all the fun, and in a return to her gloriously sociopathic old self, she pretends to be Liz and goes on the date with Bill, just to fuck with his head because he turned her down when she asked him some dance ages ago. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is at the beach house having her boobs groped by Bruce, who appears to be seconds away from date-raping her. He leaves her alone in a bedroom while he gets more wine from downstairs, but Liz slips and whacks her head off a table. Suddenly she has no idea where she is and can't remember anything after the hospital.

When Bruce comes back, Elizabeth tries to leave, but he blocks the doorway and pretty much says she's not going anywhere until he gets the ride. He grabs her and forces her to kiss him and suddenly he turns into old timey gangster Bruce again! Yesss!

Roughly he seized her wrists, and she was helpless. "I've got real strong hands Liz," he said. "From tennis, see?"

Anyway, Liz bites him when he kisses her again and runs out onto the beach, into the arms of Todd who just happened to be moping around outside. He quickly cops that Liz is back to her old boring self and she's all delighted to see him now. Then he shifts the face off her with "a deep, long kiss that she wished would last forever." Hooray!

Notable outfit:
There was so much other amazing stuff happening in this book, like applesauce, that there weren't really any particularly brilliant outfits being described. Apart from the matador costumes. Although when Jessica decided to trick Bill by dressing as Elizabeth, she did so in the following:

"She was wearing Elizabeth's flowered peasant skirt and ruffled blouse."

Nice.

Things I counted:
Number of pages: 150
References to the twins' blue-green eyes: 6
References to the fact that the twins are blonde: 8
Amount of times the twins are called "beautiful": 12