137 Ways to be Cruel

I defer to your all-American good looks, Slutton

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:29:39 GMT

Out of Reach
November 1988

Will Jade Wu have to defy her father to get what she wants?

Impossible dreams...

   All Jade Wu wants is to be as all-American as the other girls in Sweet Valley. But her traditional Chinese father won't let her date or do anything of the things other teenage girls do, so Jade's sure she'll never fit in.
Jade is a talented dancer, and when she wins the solo part in a dance show, she takes the role despite her father's objections. Soon she's happier than she dreamed she could be, especially when the show brings her together with handsome David Prentiss. Jade begins to confide everything in David-until it suddenly looks as if he's betrayed her deepest secret about her family.
   Can Jade really find happiness in her two worlds, or was her father right all along?

   Oooh, shiny. One of the few SVH books to get the special treatment in terms of actual shiny-ness added to the book covers. Probably because it's #50 and #100 was busy giving me hope that they'd kill Elizabeth and have a psychopath assume her identity. Where the hell is my alternative reality fic involving that, huh? I demand it, now!

   Uh, anyway. Out of Reach also sports a lovely Giantess Elizabeth as she gives the shoulder pat of condescension to poor Jade Wu. Which means this book also serves as a major source of Continuity Headaches for when Jade makes her triumphant return in Senior Year.
For now, Jade is the daughter of an exceptionally traditional Chinese father. Dr. Wu (Ph.D. in physics!) left China was he was 23, so he's still very big on doing things the way they're done in China. Sadly, his daughter has other ideas. Jade is a dancer who dreams of dancing professionally. She seems to prefer ballet, but also excels in modern dance. As a non-dancer, I'll take her word for this. Daddy dearest, however, won't let her dance in front of an audience. I don't think he gets what dancing *is* then. Because Jade's mother is also traditional, she believes wives should defer to their husbands, and children should defer to their parents and doesn't really interfere much unless she's positive she can convince her husband he's being a little too stubborn. Except Jade's an American teenager and she's all about the rebellion, baby. I wish I could pull the Wus aside and tell them that they've got so much more to worry about than 'modern' dance. Jade's a bit of a skank in SY, so really, someone dropped the ball somewhere in the ten years or so between. Just sayin'.
   If you cast your memory waaaaaaaay back, you might recall that the previous book ended with people wondering who Jade Wu was and why the Eyes and Ears column seemed to think she was a shoo in for the solo in some stupid dance fund raiser. You might not. It doesn't matter. They did, and the fund raiser is to get enough money so that SVH can offer ballet and modern dance as electives next year... or the year after or something. Whenever the school board has time, I guess. In your average school, odds are good no one would care. (I'm just guessing here.) But because this is SVH, everyone gives at least half a damn. Why? Because Elizabeth is in charge of publicity and Amy Sutton is wandering around declaring that she's so much better than everyone else that she's sure to get the lead solo.
   Stop. Rewind.

   Despite mentions of at least two other fantastic dancers from the last time Jessica decided she was the best dancer in the school, Amy still thinks she can beat them all, plus the cover star? Oh, Amy. You really are an idiot. Jessica, in a surprising move, agrees with this assessment, but has no real desire to squash Amy like a bug or really discourage her in anyway. Luckily for all of us, Lila decides to take up the slack. When Amy declares that she should get the solo because she looks the part and Jade doesn't, Lila calmly points out that Jade's American, too. Oh yeah, and she can dance. Oh, Lila, honey. You've come a long way from your crack against anything ethnic back when Sandy was interested in Miguel. I'm so proud. Tear.
Since this is Amy, logic doesn't work at all, and she's still convinced she's the best hope the school has for a true All American Beauty to dance the solo. *yawn* Wake me up when Lila comes back, k?

   Jade wants desperately to try out for the show, but her father would never approve. Still, she asks, and he says no just like she knew he would, and then Jade finally remembers she's a teenager and tries out anyway. Naturally she gets the solo when Amy manages to bungle the relatively easy audition (who knew Cara was so good?) and incurs Amy's wrath something fierce. Jade also attracts attention from David Prentiss, the guy in charge of set design and art. Hey, that's supposed to be DeeDee's gig! Don't worry. She's second in command. So, naturally David likes Jade and Jade likes David. But if you'll remember, Jade's father is terribly traditional which means ain't no way is the girl going to date. But every time David asks Jade out, she turns him down. Which is understandable, except she thinks to herself that she could never tell David that her father would kill her first, that he'd never believe it. Instead she just doesn't tell him anything at all.
And my head hits the desk each time this happens. Particularly impressive when reading in areas lacking desks. The guy won't understand that your traditional, conservative father won't let you date, but he'll be fine thinking you're just not interested? To complicate matters, we have a couple of other issues at play, although neither one explains fully why Jade is lacking the logic gene. At least Amy's an idiot and seems to have bleached her extra braincells away. What's Jade's excuse?

   Jade doesn't want anyone to know that her family is different from theirs. It's bad enough that they look different, but she doesn't want them to actually be different. So she doesn't tell anyone, except for her best friend, that she runs home every afternoon to help her mother prepare dinner for their family. She doesn't tell anyone that the house is decorated in a decidedly Chinese way, or that her mother's parents own a laundromat because heaven forbid that it's yet another Chinese laundromat!
   On David's side, his father ditched his family of six kids when David was seven, and his mother works as a housekeeper/maid, so when Jade keeps turning him down with no explanation (after he's told her about his family) he assumes she's ashamed to be seen out in public with him. A bit stupid when you consider she's not all that worried about being seen with him during ever rehearsal to the point that everyone in the show assumes they're dating, but still. Justified when she tries to make him understand that she does trust him... by telling him about her grandparents. David doesn't get why it's a big thing to Jade and figures she really is ashamed of him considering how she seems to be treating people who paid for her dancing when her father wouldn't.
Remember when I said Amy was ticked off that Jade, a mere sophomore, managed to "steal" her solo? Yeah. Amy's out running errands with her mother, who has just switched to a new laundromat. I know and you know where this is going, right? Exactly. Jade's grandparents are so proud of Jade that they've got one of the gorgeous posters David designed prominently displayed. Amy comments on the show and Jade's grands are all, "Our granddaughter is the staaaaaar!" in the way of grandparents everywhere. Amy is a bitchy teenage girl so she runs home and calls everyone she knows and spreads the news as fast as she can.
Personally, I still don't get it, but the bitches of SVH certainly do. Plus, Jade set herself up when she made a crack in history one day about how her family is just so utterly normal, it's not like they own a laundromat or anything. Oh, Jade. You created this mess with your misplaced shame. Since Jade has only told one person about her grandparents, and the news spills almost immediately afterward, Jade sets off to deal with the person she believes betrayed her.

   Ultimately, Jade and David fight and fight big. David quits the show because Jade isn't who he thought she was and he can't stand to be around her anymore. He tears down the set he made especially for Jade's solo, so you know it's serious. Remember, he's an artist. Their work is their life or something. Jade's mother and dance instructor manage to finally convince Jade's father to let her dance in the show just in time for Jade to no longer care.
Now, you're probably wondering where Liz is during all this. Good timing. David and Liz have a bit of chat and Liz uses actual logic this go round. She points out that Jade's family seems awfully conservative and that while it's possible Jade is ashamed of David, she doesn't think that's true or the reason Jade kept turning him down for a date. Liz figures Jade isn't allowed to date. Because Liz knows about these things, David begins to ponder if maybe his own insecurities were clouding his judgment at least a little.
Jade concentrates on ~~the mission~~ dancing, but she's more upset than she'd imagined she would be when her father gives his permission but says he will not attend because he thinks her dancing in public is wrong. She got what she wanted, she just didn't know to ask/hope for more.
The night of the show, Jade is a bit nervous, but mostly sad that the two men in her life will not be there to see whether she stumbles or soars. Before she goes on, she peeks out into the crowd and her father is there, amidst her mother, grandparents, and her dance instructor. Score! That leaves...
   David reconstructed his set (with Dee Dee's help) so you know he's forgiven her. She dances like ~~a maniac~~ she's never danced before, but in that good way. She's amazing. Fantastic. Wonderful. Whatever. Standing ovation, numerous bows are taken, the show is a success! Jade's approached by a talent scout who offers Jade a fantastic dance internship. Everyone, including Jade's father, is impressed and thrilled and all that jazz. But then the kicker comes. Mr. Wicker, the scout dude, wants Jade to change her name because the woman shelling out for this big honor is a bit old fashioned and would not like the name Jade Wu. Too ethnic. How about something nice and American like Warren?

   Excuse me while I slam my head into something. HELLO. Racist lady will NOTICE Jade's CHINESE. You can't really confuse Liz and Jade on the cover, people, so I doubt the little old lady is going to go, "Oh, well, with a name like that I'm sure my cataracts just makes you look Chinese." NO. Fail. Back of the line.

   Sorry about that. Jade doesn't use any of that logic and instead goes with the whole, I'm proud of my heritage and I will not dance under any other name because it's who I am. Wicker stalks off in a huff, everyone else celebrates. Even Amy, because she's sure she looks American enough for Scout Dude.
David asks Jade's father's permission to take Jade out. Dr. Wu is impressed by this show of respect and of course Jade can go out with David. We'll ignore the fact that I'm thinking he'd be impressed, but he wouldn't really want Jade and David dating. Everyone lives happily ever after! Until next time, anyway.

B plot: You're thinking to yourself, "you know what this book needs? ~~More cowbell!~~ Jessica. Freakin'. Wakefield!" And I present to you the B plot. Ned gets an invite to his 25th high school reunion. Midlife crisis ensues. After enduring an eye-searingly bad tie, Jessica decides to teach her father a lesson. If he wants to be young so badly, she'll show him that being young isn't exactly what it was. She enlists her mother's and Elizabeth's help. Alice encourages Ned to exercise himself into oblivion. Jessica and Liz drag Ned out to the Beach Disco to see the Razors, a band I'm guessing is supposed to err on the side of heavy metal or at least less friendly rock than the rest of the series. The song titles are precious. Anyway, it doesn't take long for Ned to get the idea (I'm thinking being squished in the back of the Fiat might have done it, honestly.) but he endures the pain a little longer than anyone sane might have. I'm betting he wanted to see how far they'd all go. :p
   It's a fun little side trip when Jade's antics get too facepalm worthy, but it's not one of the better Jessica plots.

Trivia:

The music and dance show is to raise money to start a dance program, so that students can take modern dance or ballet as an elective.

Ms. Bellasario is directing.

Maria Santelli was the student producer until she got the flu and had to drop out. Never is it mentioned that anyone sent her a get well card or anything, but you know if either twin got sick, there'd be get well cards and parties and balloons and presents...

Liz starts out doing the publicity for the show before being tapped as student producer.

Jade Wu: sophomore, Chinese American (she was born in America), recently moved to SV a few months ago.

Melanie Forman, Jade's best friend, sophomore. Seems to be the more grounded of the two.

Eve Miller: Jade's dance teacher, her lessons to Jade were a gift from Jade's maternal grandparents. Believes in Jade's dancing ability.

While complaining to Mel about her parents, Jade says she couldn't sleep over at any friend's house because they didn't have sleepovers in China, but maybe if she hadn't been an only child, her brothers and sisters could have deflected some of the parental insanity. Didn't the 80's subscribe to the theory that if you were Chinese, you had one, maybe two kids?

Dr. Wu came to America when he was 23, has a Ph.D in physics from Cal Tech. Was a professor, then a business consultant, moved his family from San Francisco to SV six months ago.

Mrs. Wu's parents, the Sungs, live in SV and run Sung's Laundry. They met in America after leaving China, and had at least three girls (Mrs. Wu says "my sisters" when defending them to Jade) but no sons.

Jade takes the 3:22 bus downtown after school. Now you know about when SVH gets out for the day.

David Prentiss: tall (a foot taller than Jade), sandy brown/blond hair, green eyes, freckles, shy, the oldest of six kids, painter, father ditched the family when he was 7, Mrs. Prentiss is a housekeeper/maid, in charge of set design, part time job at a delivery service.

Jade sits behind Kevin Johnson in history.

It's time for Ned's 25th high school reunion and as a result, he starts to spazz out.

Ned orders an exercise bike, joins the health club, is dragged to the Beach Disco by the twins, Jessica takes him shopping and makes him try on "trendy Italian" stuff, Jess makes him listen to prog rock, the twins gave him a t-shirt from the mall that apparently did nothing for him, Jess invites him to watch music videos with her, Alice has him spend two hours of pain on that bike and enrolls him in the Marathoner's Club, which promises to work him up to a 12 mile run a day. o_O

Mrs. Wu is a plump, conservative wife who defers to her husband, but still finds ways to convince him to come around to her way of thinking in regards to Jade. Whenever possible, that is.

Dr. Wu wants Jade to marry a Chinese boy, preferably one from his province.

Jade's studying the Cultural Revolution in China. She's worried people will ask her about it, as if she'd just magically know by virtue of being Chinese. They do, she doesn't.

Patty Gilbert is the student choreographer for the dance show.

The Sutton family car is a beige sedan.

Jade always goes home at five after dance class and helps her mother prepare a traditional family dinner.

Jade, Amy, Cara, and Susan Stewart are all chosen to audition in the same group.

Amy keeps flubbing things. First there's a problem with her shoe. Then there's something in her throat and she's going to cough. Then her hair is in her eyes. None of these things help. She's still awful.

Call backs for the solo audition: three seniors (Denise Hadley, Jennifer Morris, Yvonne White), two juniors (Cara and Susan), and Jade.

Ms. Frankel, the assistant music teacher, is playing the piano for the auditions.

A dozen dancers (four boys, eight girls) were chosen for the show: Betsy Weiss (sophomore), Amy, Susan, Denise, Cara, and Jade are all mentioned.

The Droids will also be partaking in the show.

Dee Dee Gordon is David's assistant.

1st Act- musical, then a short intermission, then dancing, Jade's solo, and the big chorus line finale.

Rehearsals are from 4-6 nightly, but later Amy mentions that Jade frequently leaves early. Later the rehearsals will last longer as they get closer to the show.

Ned's usual Friday night is reading the newspaper instead of just skimming it like he does the rest of the week.

When he's conned into going to the Beach Disco, Ned wears "a pair of corduroy pants, a conservative stripes shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and his new purple tie." The tie, btw, is mentioned as being eye searingly awful.

The Razors are a fantastically awful heavy metal-ish band with some awesome song titles. You Tear Me Up and Cut Me Babe, Why Don't You Cut Me.

The Beach Disco apparently doesn't carry club soda (what Ned wants) but they do have Grape-lime-raspberry fizzes.

When Jade keeps balking at spending time with him, David thinks she's ashamed of him and his family.

Jade keeps water up onstage in case she gets thirsty and leaves everyday at 5pm. Amy is not thrilled by this.

When Jade tells her mother about word getting out about Sung's Laundry, Mrs. Wu decides maybe Jade shouldn't be dancing in the show after all. Eventually Jade realizes what a brat she's been.

Jade's big night outfit: rose colored leotard, matching tights, filmy dance skirt, and a silver barrette from Eve for luck.

The audience loves Jade. She takes two bows and the applause continues until the finale starts.

Mr. Wicker is there to nominate Jade for the the Amelia Higginson Award and to ask Jade to dance as an intern with the L.A. Summer Stock Dance Company in June.

Mr. Wicker wants Jade to change her name to Jade Warren.

Amy decides that since Jade told Mr. Wicker to shove off, he might need someone more American... like her.

Quote Me-
As much as she liked Amy, she had to agree with her twin, Elizabeth, that Amy had an inflated sense of her own worth.- And these are your friends, Ames. p2

"But she's Chinese! She doesn't look right for the part. The soloist for the finale should be blond, all-American like me!" - Die, Sutton. Die. p4

Jade wanted to be American in every way. She wanted American clothes, American food, American friends. If she could look American, she'd be overjoyed. - p8

   "There's nothing unique or Chinese about my family," Jade lied, her cheeks still hot. "My dad doesn't run a laundry or anything." -Stay classy, Wu. p31

"Did you see that tie he wore to work this morning? I don't know where he got it, but it was purple, and it had all those weird paint swirls on it. I wouldn't let Jeffrey wear something that wild!" - Like you needed proof that Liz wears the pants in that relationship. p49

When Amy Sutton was being unreasonable, she could be very imaginative. p 53

   "But you've got a good point, Jess. Since when does he have the money to come to school with all this fancy new stuff? Like that brand-new Walkman?" -oh, 80's. You make me smile. Cara, p150

   Overall, this is kind of a crappy 50th book. It's fine as a regular book in the series, but I would have expected something bigger for a milestone such as this. My favorite bit, other than Amy being so incredibly... Amy, is that Jade doesn't sneak around behind both parents' backs to get what she wants. She appeals to her mother's sensible side and pray that Dr. Wu comes around. I don't particularly like the way Mrs. Wu seems to disregard the fallout of what will happen if Jade is unable to dance in the show, especially once she becomes to focal point of the posters, but I'd like to think she's just that confident that she'll be able to sway her husband to her side.
You could do a lot worse in the SV-verse, but there's a reason it took me so long to buy the book. There are so many more awesome books out there.

If you collect excuses as to why there's a giant gap in posts, I offer you this: I burned out on reading in general for awhile, the Diablo Cody thing killed my SV love for a bit ( I still don't know why), my dad was in the hospital, work kicked my arse for a bit, I wanted to read other things, and all of this happened after I decided to take a mini-break until I could make sure I had all the books in the foreseable future. Namely, I had to snag a copy of #52. Then life went meh. It also explains why I've not done other things I should have. Working on fixing that. Hey, all new people.

Freebies update

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:52:34 GMT

I have good news and bad news.

Good news: I found a new source of paperback crack.

Bad news: It... didn't really have much in the way of SV [though what it did have was in pretty damn fine condition] and I think it probably ran my favorite shop out of business, because the place I usually go with the piles upon piles of SVT books and BSC books and the two shelves of SV books that I like to look at but no longer need any of *those* numbers?

Closed. Dead. Gone. No forwarding address. I could've cried. I did cry, a little. This was on top of the first store I went to not having a single SV book of ANY kind. Usually I can count on a few Jr. High books [because I never know which numbers I need, they taunt me], a good chunk of SVT books that again, I couldn't tell you whether I still needed them or not, and a couple of SVU books that I never need, plus Lila's Little Sister from the Unicorn Club. This time? NOTHING. I spent a good ten minutes admiring the fact that they'd actually straightened the section and then freaking out because there were no freakin' SV books. Hell, they barely had any BSC books and there are always BSC books.

So. Back to the good news. I've got at least one more bookstore to hit, maybe two if I can find the phone numbers for the others, and while I was at the new [to me] store, I found a couple for a couple of people. So... yay? I'll go with yay.

Wake up and smell the suck?

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:45:02 GMT

Playing With Fire
August 2008

Someone's going to get burned...

Welcome to Sweet Valley High- a world where good girls date princes, bad girls chase rebels, fast wheels fly down SoCal freeways, and the latest couture separates the haves from the have-nots.

Jessica Wakefield demands attention in any crowd, from every boy. After obsessing over him for weeks, she finally lands the perfect guy: Bruce Patman. And she falls hard and fast. There's nothing she won't do for him.
But Elizabeth soon notices a change in her twin. Jessica's usual charm, determination, and attitute are gone. She's a ghost of her old self. And Liz wonders just how far her sister will go for love.

Dear new Playing With Fire ghostwriter,
I'm going to presume either you read the previous incarnation of your tale, or you were given a cheat sheet. I'm also going to assume you were not a giant friggin' SV fan back in the day and this is my evidence.
You have John Pfeiffer, he of the most painful to spell [for me] names, actually dating Lois Waller. Not just linked together in a crappy Eyes and Ears blast, but actually out, on a date, with Bruce Patman as one of the other people out on this date/hanging out/whatever. I dropped the book, I was so shocked. Now, I know I should be as happy for Lois as I am for the Trix Rabbit when he does occasionally get to have some Trix, but come on, now. Lois deserves better than date rapist in training John.* And technically, I suppose it could be another Lois. But unless Ms. Lane was in town visiting, I'm betting it was THE Lois. And this, you see, cannot be. You fail at Sweet Valley. Do not pass ~~The Dairi Burger~~ go, do not collect 200 ~~Tricia Martin clones~~.

Anyway, I read PWF in two parts. One, I started reading one day just to see if my head would explode. This was months ago, as you might recall me bitching about Elizabeth's ridiculous catch phrase at the time. I couldn't continue because I think that phrase is so unbelievably stupid that it actually made me want to kill whomever thought it was a good idea. I still want to maim them. But, I went back and grabbed an earlier version of PWF and decided to read them in chunks, together. I'd re-read a couple of chapters of vintage PWF and then read the corresponding chapters in the new one. This was probably not the best way to go about doing it, and I probably won't repeat this in the future. It's why, towards the end, I just read the original and then, when I finished, I read the new one.

Overall, I laughed a lot at and with the revamp. I can't say it's bad, annoying phrase aside, because it actually reworked a few bugs [Emily's subplot acknowledges that Jessica's blackmail attempt is awfully easy to deflect] and I like new!Todd. He's funny and charming and...yeah.
Thing is, Jessica doesn't fare as well in the new version. She's actually bitchier for the most part and Bruce, in the original, at least seemed to try for a bit to keep stringing her along. New!Bruce? Yeah, no. Once he'd moved on, he just kept Jess around for... who knows why, cuz they weren't making out or screwing around. He couldn't be bothered. Which made it harder to understand why it took so long for Jessica to snap out of it. Earlier, she was still being scrambled [ahem] by the hormonal attraction that seemed to run both ways, at least so long as Bruce wasn't around his buddies. He knew enough to keep Jessica's head spinning in at least that way so that she wouldn't get classic!Jess on his ass. Until the end, that is. New!Bruce doesn't even pretend Jessica is important/attractive to him at the end.
And I prefer Classic!Jessica throwing an entire pizza in Bruce's face rather than just one slice. Plus, she lets the air out of his tires and new Jess does not. I do like that Liz had Bruce followed as it made more sense than just assuming Bruce would've made it back within thirty minutes. He wasn't delivering pizza after all.

I'm really not sure how the Droids fared in their reboot. I refuse to think of them as Valley of Death because it's just... no. I mean it. Just no. Anyway, I think if not for the mention of long hair, I'd have fallen for Max because he's funny this go round. He definitely got an upgrade. Guy's still an ass, but maybe that's because he's named Guy, though he got bumped from keyboards/synthesizer to lead guitar. Dan is only occasionally mentioned, Dana is still unapproachably hot, and Emily switches from stage persona to normal!prep with ease. Tony is actually more of the same, only instead of red leather pants, he wears his sunglasses at night. Indoors. And he was fired for trying to score with all the females in the bands he approached, whereas before he seemed to just have a thing for Dana and was fired from his gig for incompetence. Which, I guess could just be a nice way of saying he was an ass. Whatever. Sunglasses at night is stuck in my head and damn right you're going to share the pain!

Overall, the tone of the book shifted. It's actually funnier and more quotable [though Todd's classic "identical twins have identical talents" line is forever lost] but it isn't as enjoyable. It lacks something and I don't know if that's simply I had twenty some odd years to become attached to the other book, or if there really is a thread missing somewhere.

Admit it though. You're here for the changes.

Then and Now:

80's: 5th Annual Rockin' Dance Party.

Now: 20th Annual Dance Competition [athletic department fundraiser] that, five years ago when Steve came through, was ditched by the cool kids, but thanks to all those reality dance contests, is fantastic and awesome again. You see what evil reality TV brings us? One more party in the Valley!

Now the book starts right off with Jessica attempting to ditch Winston, or at least out run him, instead of the five or so pages of Liz and Todd recapping the previous books and wondering where the hell Jessica was.

80's Jessica wore a bright blue, tight minidress and matching tights.

Now: a slinky green dress. Lord knows what anyone other than Bruce is wearing because while Liz was described in the 80's, they decided no one gave a damn now. We get it, they're identical opposites. Well played for not dragging it out?

Jessica is actually less cruel to Robin at first, lying about buying the last dress as opposed to just running away to talk to Lila. Fat lot of good it'll do her later, though.

They kept: "Good evening, Mr. Collins!" the crowd singsonged back in unison, affectionately mocking his master-of-ceremonies act." Word for word.

80's Tony Conover: Tall, lanky, red leather pants, handsome enough to be in Ms. Dalton's league. Helped put August Moon and the Savage Six on the map.

Now: Black suit, sunglasses on at night, indoors. Helped put August Moon and Savage on the map. Found them on youtube.

John drives a huge FJ Cruiser.

Then: Bruce bribes the cop, who only starts to backpeddle once he realizes Bruce is a Patman, with a twenty. Now Bruce doesn't really flaunt his Patman status and bribes him with a hundred. He seems like more of a tool this way. Bruce, you should sue because your legacy is being destroyed, one douche moment after the other.

Then: When Bruce makes a joke and Jess doesn't get it because she's too starry eyed to think straight, Ken saves her. Now, Cara does and then tries to further make sure Jess is okay. She's not, but at least Cara tries.

Then: When Bruce unties Jessica's top, there's actual mention of boob-age. Now you have to wait til he all but cops a feel later when Elizabeth tries to break them up in the woods.

Speaking of which, Jessica is downright cruel to Elizabeth even before she realizes Bruce is ready to walk. Before it took the fear of losing Bruce to shove Jess into bitch mode and even then she kept most of it away from Elizabeth's ears. Now she tears her a new one [a phrase John will use later and I love them for it] and mocks Todd to Elizabeth's face. Then, Jessica lies to Bruce and tells him that Liz is just cuckoo because Todd's cheating. Now: Why the hell would Bruce care about that? So it was dumped.

While waiting for dawn to arrive so that Jess can return, 80's Liz is relieved that she didn't have to pretend to be sleeping!Jess so her parents wouldn't find out about the lie. Now? Liz does pretend, but only has false alarms.

Jess gets an extra hour of sleep to look so rejuvenated Sunday morning. The tiny D plot bunny where Alice wants to redecorate for Lila's father but Ned still seems highly amused that his little woman is trying to work and earn money [really, re-read the original. He comes off like an unbelievable ass.] is pretty much brought up for no good reason, because Ned is actually supportive of Alice this go round. In the 80's, Ned seemed to approve of the Jess/Bruce pairing, at least in theory at first.

Valley of Death have a song called Freshman Love. Cuz that's obviously the song you'd expect from a band called Valley of Death. o_O

Then: Liz comes up with a story about a girl who always falls for the wrong guys and makes the worst decisions in love. Now? Two hyper competitive people who fall in love. At least her inspiration is still the same...

Winston trades his Atari in for a Playstation and his night of Atari fun for beating Halo.

The Boston Shop is now Ann Taylor.

Jess snagged a brown wool blazer, matching skirt, and two Oxford shirts [beige and pink] originally. Now she's got a plain black dress with a boat neck collar and full skirt, as well as a blue dress with little cap sleeves, gathered waist, and a straight skirt that even Elizabeth wouldn't wear. Right, Liz. You tell yourself that, honey.

If you're keeping track, H&M and Forever 21 are apparently Jessica's prime shopping grounds on a normal basis.

Then: Liz borrows Jessica's black and white mini skirt, which Jess dismisses as being too New Wave for Bruce, but assures Liz that she'll still look good if she pairs the skirt with a black bodysuit. Now Liz borrows Jessica's favorite red minidress from H&M. I sincerely doubt the queen of trends would keep a dress as long as Liz and Winston both say she has, but whatever. Minidresses are forever, apparently.

For Robin's 'date' with Winston, Jess helps her shop both times. Classic Jess picks a horribly unflattering shade of peach. New Jess is much kinder to Robin in the fashion department.

New Guy is infamous for letting his cell phones die. I feel for you, Guy.

Drea Mattea is a bitchy senior who resents Jessica for being made cheerleading captain over her. She also, according to Jess, looks short and pudgy in her cheerleading uniform. Drea's gleeful at the thought of Jess being thrown off the squad. She's also dating Paul Sherwood. Isn't he the one who kisses like a fish?

In the 80's, Jess makes a miraculous recovery in time for her date at 7. Now it's been pushed back to 8.

Robin's mother is now a chef.

Mr. Collins lives at 3135 Isabelle Court and Teddy has been de-aged to 2. Poor Teddy. He's also a brat, as opposed to a fairly nice kid who just happened to be coming down with a cold and cranky. Also, in the 80's, Jess arranged for Robin to be with her at Casa Wakefield in case Bruce called. Now with cellphones, she just brings Robin with her to Collins' house.

It's implied that Olivia is a freshman. ...o_O

When Todd says Bruce is bragging about getting whatever/whenever from Jessica, now it's stated that he's talking about more than just copping a feel. Liz nearly passes out at the thought that Jessica might've had sex without telling her.

80's Droids drink: Tab for Dana, Coke for Emily and Dan, orange soda for Guy.

Now: Dana drinks Red Bull, Max drinks root beer, Guy likes Cherry Coke, Emily gets a Frappuccino. No mention of Dan's likes.

When trying to talk Emily into confessing this go round, Liz tells her that no one gets expelled for cheating. Um, Liz? If this were your 80's counterpart, I'd let it slide, but yeah. People do. It's one of those things that explicitly can get your ass thrown out of school, especially given the way Em cheated. Duh?

Jessica now implies that Lila is flat chested, which is why she gave Jess a gorgeous dress to wear for Bruce's birthday. Originally Jess just bought another dress from The Boston Shop.

80's Bruce was all about smudging Jessica's makeup. New!Bruce is a bitch about the lipstick getting all over him. Really, Bruce? SUE.

Bruce's ringtone: This Is Why I'm Hot.

Liz/Todd/Jessica follow Bruce as he picks up Aline instead of Liz having Todd drive around for half an hour then returning to Guido's.

Jessica may not let the air out of not!1Bruce1's tires, but Winston does do a spit take when he sees Jessica come back after Bruce has returned with his new date.

Bruce calls Jessica a bitch when she throws pizza and soda on him. He still tumbles into the water, only this time Jess shoves his sorry ass.

There's no mention of PBA because it was erased for the beautification committee coming next book. So Jess drops to the bathroom floor and sobs until Robin agrees to steal the test for her.

Quotes:

It was like early Michael Jackson meets old man attempting to swing dance meets boy choking on his own saliva. -Winston really stands out in a crowd. p7

"This could really be it! Valley of Death opening for Coldplay!" -Emily, I want you to stop and rethink your band name if you want to open for Coldplay. Now. p13

She blinked up at Bruce with a smile. "What did my grandparents slip me?" - Oh, Jessica... p 24

A guy couldn't do that without at least asking. And this was a first date! - and that's where Jessica draws the lines on dating etiquette and untying bikini tops in public. p 28

"Maybe I've never met a guy worth worshiping before," Jessica said with a smile.
Ew, Elizabeth thought. - You said it, middle Wakefield. Ick. p38

"You do know they make you give up all your worldly possessions? Including your Playstation."
Winston frowned. "In fact, I did not know that.Crap. There goes that idea." - Win, you wouldn't make a good monk anyway. p 78

"Like Bruce can't afford his own freaking downloads." - Liz, p79

"What are you trying to say, Liz? That I usually dress like a slut?" -Jess cuts right to the heart of the matter, huh? p85

Why couldn't he just like her instead? She was the one sitting next to him, all made up and dressed up and perfumed, while Jessica was doing God knows what in a car at the side of the road with another guy. - Ooh, Wilson, you do have the bitch spark. p95

"Are you defending my sister now?" Elizabeth asked, laughing.
Todd looked momentarily thrown. "Ew. I think I am."

"Just don't tell anyone, okay?" Todd whispered across the table. "I think I just had a psychotic break." -It was bound to happen, Todd. p101

"I can play the corporate girlfriend. Old guys love me," she joked. - I'll bet they do, Jess. p 132

"I love him, all right? I love the way I feel when he looks at me and kisses me and calls me his girlfriend. He doesn't have to give me anything because... because all that I care about is the way he makes me feel." - my heart actually softened a bit at that. So did Elizabeth's. p137

"Okay All Things Rock and Roll! I bow to your obvious musical prowess!" Max put down his guitar and genuflected - Not... exactly a bow, but reason #137 to love Max. p 153

"Like the fact that Max still wears tighty-whities. What's that about?" Dana asked.
"I find them highly comfortable," Max said, matter-of-factly. - Reason #138, and also proof that VoD/Droids know too much about one another. p 155

"To make myself feel better," Emily told her. "Not all of us can walk around cheating and blackmailing and lying and not feel guilty about it."
Jessica had a suspicion there was a dig in there somewhere, but chose to ignore it. - Really? You think? p170

"Oh my God! Enough with the chem drama already! I'm so over it." - Bruce, honey? Your drama queen is showing. p 172

"Have I told you that you're the pretties girl in the room?" he whispered.
Elizabeth blushed and laughed. "Todd, there's no way you could have seen every girl in the room yet," she joked. "Don't you want to make an informed decision?"
"Not necessary. It's always you." - New!Todd is pretty good at the first part of dating warm fuzzies. Awww. p181

When Bruce wanted to blow off a party or a dinner with her, it usually meant one thing: sexy alone time. She loved sexy alone time. -p188

"God, it's like I'm working for the blond CIA." - so true, Todd. So true. p197

UGH!
It looked like he'd finally woken up and smelled the beauty. - I'm weeping here at how awful this is. Awful. Hold me? p9

She was just going to have to hope that Jessica would wake up and smell the pathetic on her own. - A THOUSAND TIMES NO! p22

Normally, by the time Elizabeth got there, most of the hot water had long since sluiced over her sister's body. - I get where you're going with that, but it's so awkward and more than a bit skeevy, man. p 83

"I just wish she'd wake up and smell the loud-mouthed jerk." -MAKE IT STOP, LIZ! STOP! p101

* One of these days I'm going to have to figure out how I feel about John. He's got a good 80 or so books prior to his dramatic turn and in them he's Bruce's lackey, he's one of Elizabeth's friends, and yet he throws Lila for a loop and that is just not done. But I'm not sure what to do about early!John. Do I hold his future actions against him, even though a good ten years separate them and I doubt there was a big sign over his head saying, "Don't get too attached, guys!"

Last chance!

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:55:48 GMT

Last call for anyone wanting to take advantage of this year's anniversary offer. (You tell me two books you want, condition preferred,and I'll see if I can rustle them up for you.) I plan on heading out tomorrow or possibly Tuesday, depending on store availability as well other people's plans for the most glorious week of the year. [My birthday!]

Anyway, if you want to join in, comment or email. Basically see the previous post.

Now, I need a shower and to restart the revamped Playing With Fire. My head, she shall explode.

Yeah right, Grandma

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:15:32 GMT

If you could, I'd like you to take a moment away from your mourning either a musical icon [of questionable sanity] or the only Angel anyone can ever remember without prompting, and pay attention to free stuff.

That's right. It's anniversary time here and that means crap for you. Well. Free stuff. Shiny things? I dunno. Those of you with complete collections can just snicker at the photos below. Everyone else should pay attention.

We're trying something new this year. As my birthday is rapidly approaching, so approaches one of my treks out into the used book world to my favorite used bookstore that actually carries a decent amount of SV stuff. Sadly for me, it doesn't really have things I need unless I'm there with someone else. I figure that instead of driving all that way for nothing, I should have a backup. Which is where you guys come in.

Take a look at your list of missing SV books. Twins/Unicorns/Jr. High/SVH/SY/SVU hell, even Elizabeth shows up occasionally. Pick two that you want more than any others. Got those two? Good. Put them at the top of your list and either email me at snarkyimp at gmail dot com OR leave a comment here. You can put more than two books down, particularly if you want backups in case your two aren't at the stores. [Yes. For my birthday week, I cruise bookstores. Shut up.] But make sure I know which two you want most. Also, if you're at all picky about your books, you should let me know that, too. So if you merely want one to read and the condition doesn't matter, odds are much better for you. But if you don't want one where the spine has faded or is an ex-library book, you gotta let me know. I'm not psychic. You should know that if I bring the books home before mailing them out, we've got pets and my brother smokes. I don't, but some people are awfully sensitive and I don't want to inadvertently kill someone here. Also, I can't make any promises as to what the stores have, or hell, if the store even exists anymore. But I will try.

Also, you might notice that the Kids books aren't on the list. Yeah. I've got like... 10, so if anyone's going to be scooping those puppies up, it'll probably be me. You can put them as your Top Two, but I make no promises.

The love ends July 4th, as my vacation starts the next day and anytime that week I'll be attempting to forage for books. Can't forage if I don't have the list.

Onward!

So. I mentioned the Kids, right? Well, my mini ebay splurge last week yielded a small lot of SVK books and most of them I hadn't read. While reading, I marveled at how cute some of the covers were and how utterly frightening others were. Also, I pointed and laughed at the SV Reader of the Month. And because I'm evil, I thought I'd warp your brains, too.

First we have Sweet Valley kids #1, Surprise! Surprise!

I actually own this one a couple of times over and yet I always, always, always thought the boy on the cover was Steven. Totally not. That's Todd. I'm almost positive it's Todd, anyway. To me, it made more sense for him to be Steven. I sulk over the years spent wasted thinking this was Steven!

Next we have #17 Caroline's Mystery Dolls.

Yeah. I don't think it's a coincidence that SVH #17 is also a Caroline's a big fat liar pants story, do you? But wait. There's more. Caroline earns extra points for totally being 80's Jenny Lewis. If you don't know who that is, obviously you're not my kind of people OR you just don't know that you know who she is. Either way, you get bonus points if you can ID the show the caps below are from.

Caroline.

Jenny.

If that doesn't warm your heart towards poor Caroline, nothing will.

So... Jenny Lewis is love, man. But what the hell is Liz doing channeling Daisy de la Hoya? Because there ain't enough brain bleach in the world to shake this from my head. Is it just too much time spent in front of VH1? Or... should we be very, very afraid? Of course, it would explain a LOT about Elizabeth's choice in guys over the years...

Liz!

Daisy. I'm sorry. I really am. But misery loves company.

#20 The Twins Go To the Hospital is a two-fer.

First, Liz is giving me total Hilary Duff vibes, particularly from the Lizzie Mcguire era. Scary. Jess is... not so much. Also, footy pajamas! Awww.

Liz.

Lizzie.

Second, it's time to mock the poor reader of the month. Bonnie Cassoria: I'd be surprised if your best friend back in the day didn't kick your ass.

My best friend's name is Jessica and she's exactly like Jessica in Sweet Valley Kids. She hates school and homework; she can be selfish sometimes.
[snip]
Teenagers probably love Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High, because the books give them information about boys, clothes, makeup, and the latest fashions.
[snip]
I'd love to live in Sweet Valley and make friends with the Wakefield crew and the rest of the crowd.

a) if I'd written that about my best friend, she'd have made me sorry. And that's just when it's passed around school. Letting the country/world know your best friend Jessica is selfish? Uncool, Bonnie. Un.Cool.
b) Oh, honey. No. Just... no. What I Learned From SVH is a list you just could not comprehend back then. Just no.
c) Notice the Wakefield crew. This has been bugging me all week. Is it the entire Wakefield family? Does Steven have a groupie? I am perplexed. Share the confusion, won't you?

#22 Sweet Valley Slumber Party

Show of hands. Who else is disappointed they wasted this title on a Kids book?

Anyway. Jessica?

What.
The hell.?
SO EVIL.

And Minnie Mouse is just barely warped enough to avoid a lawsuit. But she's scaring me. Look at this before bedtime and I dare you not to have nightmares. Nightmares! Also, that's an awfully pitiful unicorn. No way Lila would've gotten so worked up over that.

Sarah Orenstein, you broke my brain almost as much as the Daisy connection.

My name is Sara. I'm eight years old, and I live in Seattle. My favorite hobbies are drawing and sewing, but my most favorite hobby is reading. I also have a little sister named Marissa. She bugs me all the time, but I still love the little thing. That's one of the reasons why I like SVK. The other is that Elizabeth is my kind of girl. The reason Elizabeth is my favorite character is because she's beautiful, compassionate, and very smart. Another reason why I like SVK is that they have good stories. And those are the reasons why I like SVK.

Bet you'll never figure out one of the reasons that drives me bonkers, eh?

Um, wha?

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:17:23 GMT

Huh. Apparently the awesomness of AJ + Jessica killed LJ.

Or else LJ is having issues and we should respect their mental breakdown.

Jess ♥ AJ, Lila ♥ Jess

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:33:16 GMT

Playing For Keeps
October 1988

What's come over Jessica?

Split personality...

   Jessica Wakefield is head over heels in love with handsome A.J. Morgan. She knows he likes her, but Jessica's convinced he'd really fall in love with her if she were studious and reserved, like her twin, Elizabeth. So Jessica sets out to change her personality completely.
   But her plans are threatened when she hears about a fashion contest she just knows she could win. How can she compete and still be the shy, sweet girl that A.J. thinks she is? When the contest turns into a battle to keep A.J. as well as a competition for a designer wardrobe, Jessica has to make some difficult decisions. Will the old Jessica reappear-and risk losing A.J.-or is the quiet, serious new Jessica here to stay?

   If you ever wondered how early Jessica sees her sister, a peek at Playing For Keeps will shed some light on that. In order to conform to the idea she has of A.J.'s taste in girls, Jessica decides to model herself after Elizabeth. And, if you ignore the fact that a relationship is pretty much doomed to failure if one person is pretending to be someone else, I can see Jessica's logic here. Since she actually likes AJ, Jess is reduced to normal girl around him. She can't find the witty comeback, she can't make the right kind of small talk, she blushes way too much, and she basically goes brain dead once he gets too close. So... she acts like Liz, really, when Liz was first around Todd. Elizabeth's Jessica impersonation around AJ failed miserably and Jess became convinced that if she acted like herself, she would lose AJ. So she decides to change.
But only when he's around. She studies. She goes to the library. She always wants to discuss her Deep Thoughts. She is so boring SHE can't stand to be around herself. And she can tell that A.J. is losing interest, so she decides that maybe all her half baked opinions are getting in the way. You know Liz. Such a crusader. So... Jessica decides to always let A.J. decide things. What sort of pizza they have, where they go, what they do... Seriously, the girl has no mind of her own and not merely because she's a fictional character.
   Lila, Amy, Cara, and Liz can't take it anymore. So they do something about it. Liz, being the free thinker that she is, decides to tell Jessica what an idiot she's being. Thing she didn't remember? She's a sap. So when Jessica cries that she really loves A.J. and that she knows that he'd never like the real Jessica Wakefield... Liz doesn't go behind Jessica's back and do anything exciting. Even when A.J. confesses that Jessica seemed like his type at first, but good God, she's just too serious all the damn time and is making him feel like a horrible person. Usually not a good sign for a relationship, y'know? Head may meet desk when Liz refuses to tell Jessica what A.J. has said. There's even a bit of an internal monologue as to why, but mostly you want to shake her and tell her that she who initiates the first pool dunk of the series can do ANYTHING, damn it!

   Luckily Lila is on the case. She finds out about a fashion show/contest that Lisette's is having. The winner gets a new wardrobe designed by Nadine, one of the bigger names among Lisette's labels. Lila is convinced that Jessica should enter because she'd win easily, but Jess is pretty sure that A.J. wouldn't like a girl who would do something like that. ...Really? You're killing me here, Wakefield. Jess does have the sense to ask why Amy wouldn't enter, and Amy tells us that Nadine's designs make her look fat. I admit it, I snorted gleefully at that. But why isn't Li entering? Because she's scheming here, people! If Jessica enters the fashion show, odds are good she'll revert to her bitch-tastic ways and boring Wakefield twin will go back to being Elizabeth. The problem is... Jessica keeps stalling on the whole entry process.

   Sooooooo. We're left with A.J. A.J. is confused. He's clearly attracted to Jessica, but at the same time she's boring him senseless. She's so serious and she never seems to want to have any fun... which is an odd thing seeing as she's always willing to do whatever he even mentions in passing. She's wearing him out and half the time he's not even sure he wants to be around her. But he can't shake the initial attraction and he doesn't want to hurt her. Tellingly, he doesn't really see himself as dating her so much as just spending a lot of time with her. At the same time, he doesn't feel he can just date whomever else he wants because there's obviously something going on between the two of them. So not what he signed up for.
While pondering these things, A.J. and Jessica stumble across a girl drowning in the ocean. AJ rushes in and rescues the girl and when they return to shore Jessica [and AJ] realize the girl is a knockout. The victim, Pamela, takes one look at AJ and acting-like-a-doormat-Jessica and decides the best way to repay him is to steal him away from Jessica. So she turns on the charm and out Jessicas the old Jessica. AJ isn't completely unaware of this fact [other than he doesn't know his Jessica is capable of such actions as well] and Jessica is seething. She can't smack the bitch down or even fight back because the persona she's so carefully crafted dictates that she's just too sweet and kind and good to do such a thing.
   Which is what Pamela is counting on. She's pretty successful in stealing AJ away, though he does feel guilty and a little confused as to why he's falling for someone who is so not his type. I'm thinking meeting her in the ocean while having to hold her voluptuous self pretty damn close is probably helping a great deal here, but what do I know?

Meanwhile, Liz is getting a little worried. She's pretty sure that by holding on in such an annoying way, Jess is really just pushing AJ away, but still she won't tell her twin that AJ's already halfway out the door. There's this fun blowup where Liz demands to know if Jessica really thinks she's as boring and awful as she's been pretending and... yeah. She does. That right there is probably worth reading the book for.

Lila, as always, is carefully plotting. She enlists Elizabeth's help in convincing Jessica to sign up for the fashion show and while at Lisette's, Pamela appears. Pamela makes the cardinal sin of insulting Lila [to her face, no less] and Lila instantly vows to take the conniving rich Whitehead Academy [really, whitehead? And not a single SVH kid points out that that's also a zit? Really?] bitch doooooooooown. She's all kinds of a good friend to Jessica throughout this and my Lila love is off the charts.
Eventually Lila realizes the only way to shock Jessica back into being herself is to play up what an amazingly gorgeous girl Pamela is and how it's no wonder AJ's eyes are wandering and she'll probably be impossible to beat in the fashion show, knowing full well that the competitive streak that lies within all Wakefields will burst forth. At the same time, Li is banking on Pamela being such a bitch that she'd sink to at the very lead goading Jessica. Even better. Pamela cheats. She ruins outfit after outfit of Jessica's and the only way for Jess to save face is to drop the Liz act and be herself. Unafraid, self centered, fantastic Jessica. And with each trip down the runway, everyone's hopes rise, just a little. That is, until the swimsuit portion of the evening.
   Pamela dumps water on Jessica [yes, Pamela, use water on the only outfit that should look even BETTER when wet. You moron!] and Jessica loses her cool. She and Pam square off and everyone in the audience can hear them. Including AJ. Jessica rips Pamela's backbone out and uses it to strengthen her own fledgling spine, and just in time for the real fun, Lila and Amy pull back the curtains and everyone gets to see the showdown. Jess looks amazing [Liz describes it weirdly. I get sister crush vibes and I try very hard not to get those from these books] and naturally no power on Earth can stand up to a Wakefield at the end of a book, so... Nadine crowns Jessica the winner, AJ realizes that he can have his attraction to Jessica and his attraction to bitchy Alpha females all in the same package... and Lila is just awesome.

There's talk of Jade Wu and her amazing dancing and this show that's going to be put on in the next book, but my eyes glazed over at this point.

Trivia:

When asked what she's thinking about, Jess responds, "Nuclear war. You know- how terrible it would be if there was one and everything."

Amy manages to find herself upgraded to Jessica's best friend. Cara, however, has been downgraded. This is not a good trade, Wakefield. Not a good trade at all.

Jess reads If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking [Emily Dickinson] to AJ. It's from the book One Hundred and One Famous Poems. When that fails to knock his socks off, she begins to read "O Captain, My Captain!" which is great for Dead Poets Society [and that memory gives me the warm fuzzies] but... AJ is a bit horrified at the thought of hearing the whole damn thing.

Alice is trying to lower Ned's cholesterol.

Liz has upgraded her recorder to a less plastic piece of crap version.

Jess panics and says she wants to see a "green crested pod-eater" while she and AJ are hiking. He does an admiral job of not laughing himself to death. Well played, Morgan. Well played.

Don't tell Winston, but Jeffrey was the one who forgot to bring the napkins for the picnic at Secca Lake. Apparently someone always forgets something.

In the game of Skins versus Shirts, AJ plays Skins. You may swoon. Or not. I mean, redheads are traditionally freckled and while I'm on the swoonage side, I gather not everyone else is. But most of the SVH girls are swooning. No word from Tom McKay, though.

Pamela Janson goes to Whitehead Academy in Bridgewater. She has dark, curly hair, a "voluptuous" figure, huge blue eyes fringed by thick, black lashes. She's gorgeous, but doesn't have the sense not to mock Lila to her face. Nor is she particularly subtle. She drives a white Mercedes convertible, which AJ drools over.

Pamela's house is gray stone on the rocks [seriously] with a small Japanese garden by the front entrance, and a hot tub back by the greenhouse.

Pamela's parents are in Denver when she tries to seduce AJ.

While AJ is trying not to cheat on Jessica [but wanting to], and Jessica's waiting for him in the library, Lila and Amy appear at the library to photocopy stuff out of an encyclopedia. Ah, memories. And feeling old.

Nadine's designs make Amy look fat.

AJ's got brown eyes. Dreamy!

Liz is more than okay with the idea of a fashion show, but later she'll pitch a fit over beauty pageants. Which, normally I'd say is different enough that it's not exactly a case for the Continuity Police, but since Nadine is attempting to find someone with enough moxie to inspire her, it's not merely a fashion show. It's still a contest as well. On the other hand, maybe she wants non-nuclear war Jessica back.

The big event for the next book is a fund raising show. I... really do wonder about the wisdom of putting on a show like that after the total cheese [with love!] of the fashion show. I mean really.

Amy delights in telling us she took tap and pointe dancing. Oh, Amy. No one cares.

The Modern Girl Fashion Show is at the East end of the Mall, where Santa's workshop is during the holiday season, at 1PM, with the rehearsal Friday at 6pm.

Slam books aren't forgotten. Jess makes most schizophrenic. Additional slam book categories: Most Popular was split between Jessica and Elizabeth. Future High School Coach - Ken Matthews, which is a bit of a burn because, um, as cool as some coaches are, there are plenty who aren't. I love you anyway, Ken. Girl with the Most of Everything - Lila and the Girl Most Likely To Appear On The Cover of Time - Amy.

Much is made about how good Jade is at dancing, but what makes her better than Bruce's blonde from Troublemaker?

Pamela snagged Jessica's nubby blue dress, broke the zippers on her denim outfit, and drenched her bathing suit and cover up.

Quotes:

"Hey, Most Popular," he teased, referring to one of the slam book categories in which Elizabeth's name had appeared frequently.
She grinned and stuck her tongue out. "Only tied for first place, don't forget."
"Well, I don't know if that really counts," Enid said. "I mean, two people who look exactly alike and talk alike and everything else- that's not really sharing first place. You're most popular as a unit." - another reason Jeffrey/Enid/Elizabeth is fun. Enid doesn't have to worry about being lame and instead is insightful. p 3

Of course, nearly everyone at Sweet Valley liked and admired Jessica, too, but for completely different reasons. Her attitude towards life was positively regal. She liked to believe that everything revolved around her. - So... Jessica is a cat? p4

"A.J.? Can I read you something?"
"Sure. What is it?"
"One of my favorite poems," she replied, meeting his eyes with a luminous smile.
It had been one of her favorite poems since she found it the night before. - If you need me, I'll be on the floor giggling. p 15

Time is a grinding wheel of merciless pain
We are trapped in our lives
until the hour of death.
But love breaks our chains and lets us fly
into the universe
Where everything is real and alive
Forever.

-Oh, Jess. I had a similar poem on my fridge when I got those magnetic poetry boxes. Only mine was Hell is more than torment throughout time. Liz is, of course, stunned. p36

"Hey, maybe you're right. Something sweet and beautiful. Oooh!" She hugged Elizabeth again impulsively. "You're the greatest sister in the world, Liz. How about something about a rainbow? Or flowers?" - Cuz that's a poem any normal teenage boy would loooooove to read. From merciless pain to rainbows and flowers. Where, I ask, are the fluffy kittens? p39

"Amy, you weigh about ten million pounds," she added with a petulant frown. - Lila love! p95

"I hope you liked what we picked," Jessica said in a bright cheerful voice. "I can't always remember who sings what, you know? I don't know much about contemporary music." This is after Liz has assured poor AJ that Jess loves all music. Oh sweet, sweet timing. Plus, um, contemporary music? I'm having a Bowie/Bing flashback. Excuse me a moment. p109

"Jess. Please, please stop acting that way around A.J."
"What way?" Jessica prompted, her cheeks warming.
"You know. Spineless. Weak-like a complete airhead! You're going to lose him if you keep it up!"
Jessica swallowed hard. She met her twin's eyes and said, "I'm only acting the way you do." -Ooooh. p111

I'd forgotten how awesome Lila was in this book. Each time she stood up for Jessica and came to the rescue, my tiny little heart grew three sizes. This might be one of the first times Lila actually proves she's a really good friend to Jessica, and it doesn't have everything to do with shocking Jess into acting like she used to. She stands up for Jessica when Jessica won't let herself, she plots and schemes and it's never about making Jess lose AJ. You know Lila figures AJ will love Jess even more when she drops the damn act. And there's nothing in it for Lila.
So, if I can make conspiracy theories for everyone else, I'm going to pretend Lila pulled strings and had Nadine throw the show just so Jessica would win. Cuz, I don't know if you heard, but Lila's rich like that. :P Pamela sure as hell missed that memo.

As a kid, I had a serious thing for AJ. I don't know why seeing as he's kind of a bore as I re-read these, but I do like that we're given numerous chapters [okay, at least two] from his point of view and that he's not oblivious to the game Pamela is playing. Also? As a kid, I loved the hell out of this puzzle. It was usually the one on top of my dresser because I thought they looked like an adorable couple and I thought it was the cutest thing that Jessica had finally found someone. Annnnnnd because I'm a big old dork, I bought another one. This also happens to be one of my favorite covers.

A preview of the horror to come

Sat, 30 May 2009 21:59:54 GMT

Sooooo. Working, sort of, on reading the updated version of Playing With Fire. Whoever decided the phrase, "wake up and smell the beautiful" or whatever it was [and I promise I'll share because it's close to that] should have been fired right there on the spot. Later we replace beautiful with pathetic and my brain stops and dies a painful death. Once I convinced it to come back to life with the promise of sugary caffeine, I read the preview for Power Play.

Oh.

My.

Lord.

Miss SVH? Really? Really?

Good. Freakin'. God. We couldn't have left it as a simple Jessica is a heinous bitch concerning the sanctity of PBA why, exactly? The beauties. The hell?

Amy Contributes to Society

Wed, 27 May 2009 16:58:19 GMT

Slam Book Fever
September 1988

Look What's Hit Sweet Valley!

Predictions...

   Slam books are the newest craze at Sweet Valley High. They're do-it-yourself books of lists and predictions about everyone in school. They start out as fun but soon stir up big trouble.

   First, Jeffrey French, Elizabeth Wakefield's boyfriend, gets paired up with another girl under the category, "Couple of the Future." Then Elizabeth gets matched with the new boy at school, A.J. Morgan- and her twin, Jessica is furious because she's the one who's fallen hard for A.J.

   Will the mysterious slam book entries spell the end of happiness for both Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield?

   Ah, Slam Book Fever. The book most non SVH fans remember for whatever reason. Is it due to the law of the '80's and 90's that declared that at least once in every teen girl's life [and the occasional teen boy's as well] she would run across a slam book? That if she were high [or low] enough on the social ladder she would probably have her own and be mentioned in a category or two? Possibly. Or maybe it's because for ages if you looked up SVH online, you'd end up at Dwanollah's site. Which isn't to say you still don't end up there. You do. Don't deny it.

Whatever the reason, SBF is right up there with Double Love in terms of cover visibility and the Evil Twin for plot recognition.

   But we have a formula to follow...so please, allow me to remind you of the glory that is Slam Book Fever.

It's been awhile since Amy was in the spotlight, what with that whole being partially responsible for Regina trying coke and then dying thing. So Amy reminds everyone that dude, she went away for four years to Connecticut! And back East, they had these things. Called notebooks. But when you divided them into lists and categories, they magically morphed into Slam Books. Jessica and the rest of the bitchy clique of SVH are intrigued. Tell us more, they implored of Amy, all while reminding us that Amy's personality is mostly that of an annoying know it all, boy crazy, vapid, back stabbing bitch. Sadly, I only editorialized a little there. Anyway, Amy tells them how fantastic these slam books are and how awesome it is to find out what your classmates [at least the girls] really think of you.
   Jessica is sure that she'll crop up under Most Popular [sorority president, [co-]captain of the cheerleaders...] or possibly Most Beautiful... but everyone else has her pegged for Biggest Flirt. And Jessica is outraged that anyone would dare call her a flirt. Cara, Lila, Amy, and just about everyone who has ever met Jessica are a little thrown by how ticked Jessica seems.
   Cara wonders, ever so cautiously, what exactly Jessica would call herself then, if not... flirty?
Friendly. DUH.
   Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

Jessica's flip out aside, the Slam Books have everyone's attention. Liz appears so we can have our compare and contrast between the twins, and true to form, Liz points out that the Slam Books have the potential to really hurt people's feelings and she'd hate for someone to be hurt needlessly. Everyone at the catty table points out that there's the big difference between the twins. Jess is full steam ahead and Liz is prophesizing doom and gloom. After school Amy and the coalition for cattiness go and buy matching marble notebooks and the Slam Books begin.

   Meanwhile we run into the new guy on campus. Tall. Red haired. Gorgeous enough to tongue tie Jessica without even trying. You all remember him. A.J. Morgan from Atlanta. Jess is so smitten by A.J. that she acts more like Elizabeth around him than she does herself. She can't make small talk, she can't flirt, she can't really do anything but stand there and sort of drool. She's sure that A.J. thinks she's a complete moron and refuses to admit her crush to anyone, even when specifically asked about it. My soft spot for Jessica grows infinitely in these moments because a) who can't relate, and b) she's no longer Alpha Twin. She's actually more human than she's been in awhile.

Over in Elizabeth land, Olivia has asked Liz to co-edit the new literary magazine, but Liz had to turn her down because of time constraints and wanting to actually see her boyfriend occasionally. So Olivia asks Jeffrey and he's in the process of turning her down, but he does offer his photography skills to help the lit magazine look gorgeous, while still leaving him time to spend with Liz. Olivia lets it slip that she's got the opposite problem. She's trying to work herself into oblivion because she and Roger are breaking up, but neither one is ready to officially cut the ties that bind just yet. Liz and Jeffrey are both shocked [as was I the first go round] because Olivia and Roger have been together for ages and they always seemed like such a rock solid couple.* L/J both worry that if Olivia and Roger can break up, the Wonder Couple could, too. So they reassure each other how much they love one another and that's that.
   Only it's not because that's less than a third of the way into the book.

Back to the slam books. Everyone's enjoying the hell out of them until... Jessica catches sight of being named Biggest Flirt. She's ticked and hurt and worried that AJ will think she's not his type and definitely not worth his time now. Liz is a bit surprised when everyone starts putting Olivia and Jeffrey down as a new couple in the Crystal Ball section of the slam books. At first she's ready to play it off as people and their idle gossip, but then it keeps happening and she starts to wonder if maybe they're seeing something she just doesn't want to see. Her suspicions rise when Olivia and Roger really do break up and suddenly Olivia and Jeffrey are spending all their time together. Then again, Jeffrey had warned her beforehand that he was going to use Olivia as his model for the lit magazine because he needed someone who could pull of moody and he just couldn't see Elizabeth that way. Oh, sweet sledgehammer of subtlety and foreshadowing. Bet he saw her in a different light when Cara told Elizabeth she saw Jeffrey and Olivia making out at a rest stop on Route 9 and Liz immediately went off to flirt like crazy with AJ.

   Lila of all people offers to help mediate, and Jeffrey... takes her up on it. And so does Liz. It never occurs to anyone that Li would have an ulterior motive. Because apparently they all took their stupid pills. But it's also a bit fitting, because Liz has been proven to have a serious jealous side [see Todd] and Jeffrey's a bit thick. Or maybe just figures that Liz should know him better by now, that he's not the game playing sort and if he wanted to see Olivia instead, he'd tell Liz. But he doesn't, so he doesn't, and she's still flirting with AJ. Which is pissing Jessica off to no end.

   Olivia isn't exactly thrilled that Elizabeth has turned on her and since she knows Jeffrey is still in love with Liz, Olivia decides to figure out who started the stupid Liv + Jeff = <3 thing in the first place. She gets the idea that whomever started the rumour wouldn't have bothered to put it in their own slam book, and... well, Lila has never been known for her selfless acts, has she? So Olivia and Jessica, masquerading as Elizabeth doing an article on the Slam Book stats, round up as many slam books as they can find. Only Lila doesn't have Jeffrey and Olivia down under future couples. They run to tell Elizabeth their suspicions because Lila is on her way to tell Jeffrey to give up on Elizabeth. Liz realizes she's been duped by Lila Fowler and runs to explain her insanity to Jeffrey. See below.

Yes. They kiss and make up and all is Right With The World. Liv and Liz create a new category in the slam books called Class Sneak and Lila knows she's been busted.

Now that Liz isn't chasing after AJ, Jess feels free to.... continue to act more like Elizabeth than herself because she thinks AJ would prefer a sweet, gentle, quiet Wakefield twin. Everyone else can see how badly this will turn out, but Jess is too far gone to care. She's in Love.

*- I really wish they'd had the Olivia/Roger thing be it's own book, or at least a C-plot for the last couple of books leading up to this. As it was, hello whiplash. Even knowing it's coming, it still seemed out of left field, which takes some skill. That said, I did like their brief scenes together, which is probably why I wanted more, damn it.

Trivial Pursuit:

For whatever reason, the SVH caf is exceptionally crowded the day Amy unveils her slam book idea.

Liz likes ham and swiss cheese sandwiches.

Chez Victoire is one of the most exclusive French restaurants in LA.

Jessica does not like being called a flirt. At all. It makes her crazy.

The best slam books are in marble notebooks. Everything is better in marble. It's what I use when writing the trivia for these things. Well. What I started with. Then Liz confiscated my slam book. Or I lost it. Whatever. Marble!

When pondering the categories she's sure to sweep, Jessica thinks along the lines of Most Popular, Most Beautiful. Everyone else is thinking Biggest Flirt.

Slam Book Categories : Least Likely To Go On A Date Before The Year 2000, Most Likely To Always Be A Millionaire, Best Dressed, Least Down to Earth, Most Likely To Have A Million Dollars By Age 30, Most Likely To Get Married First, Most Likely To Be Famous, Class Clown, Most Likely To Be In People Magazine, New Couples of The Future, Biggest Flirt,

Winston is chosen for the People category. It's a bit of a pity one though, as he seems genuinely hurt that he's only thought of as Class Clown. On, Winston. We love you.

Olivia is working on a literary magazine which she asked Liz to co-edit, but Liz declined.

Did we know Bruce's father's middle name was Wilson? Henry Wilson Patman.

Out of nowhere, Liv and Roger are not only on the rocks, but breaking up.

Wave One of Slam Book Fever: Lila, Jessica, Cara, Robin, Maria, and Amy

Jess breaks in Amy's slam book, Amy does Lila's, and Lila does Robin's.

First Category in Jessica's sb? Class Clown.

The first category in either Cara or Maria's is Most Conceited.

Jess puts Bruce down as Most Concieted. Biggest Brain? Peter DeHaven.

Liz and Jeffrey are first in someone's book as Best Couple.

Most Fascinating New Male [Lila's book] has AJ written twice. Seriously, how many 'new' guys could possibly win this, Li? For shame.

A.J. Morgan: Adam Joseph, he's an army kid from Atlanta, red hair, tall, basketball player [new to the game] who loves baseball as well. He's apparently catnip to the senior girls in his art class, according to Maria who is in the same class.

Anatomy of an Olivia/Roger fight: Roger hurts Olivia's feelings, intentionally or otherwise. Olivia strikes back or picks a fight. Liv and Roger find themselves unwilling to let go and unable to truly fix whatever has gone wrong, so the cycle repeats.

At the first sign of potential waning attention to her slambook idea, Amy has them create the Crystal Ball sections. Someone is desperate for attention...

AJ scores 28 points in his first game while Jess fumbles horribly in various cheers. Whoops. Sandy picks up on Jessica's crush first.

When Liz asks Alice if she ever gets jealous, Alice scoffs at the idea and then admits that when Ned first started at his current law firm, there was a young, pretty British woman named Annabel who was very interested in Ned. To your fanfics, people!

Cara had a dental appointment in Riverside and along Route 9 she sees Jeffrey and Cara in what she thinks is a passionate embrace. Their eventual excuse? Olivia had something in her eye. Seriously, guys. The proper lie is Olivia was so overcome with sadness over the breakup that she needed a hug. That Liz and I could buy. This whole speck of dust or whatever? No.

Aaron Dallas, the poster child for anger management, never once gets ticked when his best friend's girlfriend throws herself at the new guy in front of him. Repeatedly. I cry bullshit. Or maybe the ghosty didn't know that Aaron was the wrong backup character to use because he's Jeffrey's bestest [and only] friend. Whatever. Boy would have beaten A.J. down or at least pulled Liz aside and asked when she started taking skank pills.

Lila bets she can get Liz to talk to Jeffrey after he and Olivia show up at the beach with their lame "something in Liv's eye" story, and of course Lila probably tells Liz that Jeffrey and Olivia were holding hands or something, so Liz glares at Jeffrey and stalks off. So, Lila loses her bet and "has" to take Jeffrey to L'Escalier. No one is intially suspicious of Lila's newfound philonthropy because she never makes a bet she'll definitely lose, especially not an expensive one. Guys, really. It's not losing if it's essentially a date with a guy you've been into for the last... 15 books or so. :P

Dear Ghostwriters of the Past: I don't know where in the South you all grew up, but I really don't think "quiet and sweet" are necessarily words you should use to describe Southern girls in a general way. This, by the way, is AJ's type. Everyone snickers when he describes Jess this way, and even Jess is a little thrown, but hey, compliments about her? Always. Welcome.

I never understood why Lila's never bothering to hook Jeffrey and Olivia's names in her own slam book was damning evidence. Surely she would have missed someone else's slam book? Oh, and Lila's handwriting is kind of distinct. Just sayin'...

Jess and Olivia gather 31 slam books and even Elizabeth has one.

Olivia's literary magazine is called Visions. Aren't all HS lit mags called Visions?

AJ is under the impression Jess writes childrens books. Everyone else chokes at the thought.

Liz is reading Tender Is The Night and Jess wants the Cliff's Notes version. Because reading is like, hard and stuff.

I think it's cute that we get Liv, Liz, and Li.

Quote This:

Jessica was certain that she was only going to find out good things about herself. Or, at least, things she already knew. She wouldn't be surprised if she were described as most popular. After all, she was a co-captain of the cheerleading squad and the president of Pi Beta Alpha, the most exclusive sorority at Sweet Valley High. Or maybe even most beautiful... - Modest as ever, Jessica. p 5

Amy and Jessica exchanged a glance. It was just like Elizabeth to come up with a sensible objection. - Pepsi snorted through nose? Painful. p 6

Jessica felt her face burn. "I'm not a flirt," she objected. "I don't know what you guys are talking about."
Amy started to laugh. "Come on, Jess. You- not a flirt? Are you kidding?"
Jessica was beginning to get annoyed. "I'm not kidding," she said flatly. "I don't happen to think of myself as flirtatious."
The table fell quiet for a minute. "Jess," Cara said a bit timidly," what would you call it if it isn't being flirtatious?"

"I guess I deserve all the credit," she mused. "I mean, just think about it. If it weren't for me, no one would even know what a slam book is." She frowned. "Do you think everyone appreciates me for introducing the idea? Or is everyone going to forget it was mine?"
Jessica patted her on the arm. "We'll all remember, Amy. We'll put up a big commemorative plaque in the front hallway." - This is why I love SVH. Truly. Amy/Jess, p 29/30

"I'm not a flirt," she added sulkily, not giving Lila a chance to protest. "Since when have you guys seen me flirting?"
Lila started to tick off on her fingers. "Remember that chef who taught the gourmet cooking class?"
"What about all those friends of Steve's from college?" Cara added. Cara dated Steven, the twins' older brother, and knew how many times Jessica had fallen for one of his friends. Or at least flirted with them.
"Not to mention Aaron Dallas, Nicholas Morrow..." Lila offered.
"And Alex Kane," Cara added, referring to a musician Jessica had recently had a crush on.
"And what about Jeremy Frank?" Lila demanded.
Jessica cut her off. "That was all ages ago. It's ancient history. Can't you guys see I've changed?"
Lila and Cara looked at her, then at each other. "You look the same to me," Lila said philosophically. p 34

Seriously, what else do you need to know about Slam Book Fever? It's awesome and it's awful all at the same time. Jessica's certifiable but she teams up with Olivia, and that's worth the price of admission right there. Amy offers one of her only contributions to the SVH legacy [the others being stealing Bruce thus killing Regina and helping Tom realize he's totally gay] and it's Slam Book Fever. Really. Go.

But while you're reading [most likely re-reading] this classic, please tell me why Aaron Dallas didn't punch AJ? Or pull Liz aside and ask why she was cheating on his best friend? Cuz really, Aaron, even after the anger management, probably would have had at least something to say.

Oh, and this doesn't live up to my terribly high standards, blame technology. It kept dying on all fronts as I tried. That, or you could blame Amy. Cuz she's the root of all known evil.

Lila just might be the patron saint of snark

Sun, 03 May 2009 12:16:38 GMT

Troublemaker
August 1988

Has Julie Porter fallen for the wrong guy?

Blind love...

   No one at Sweet Valley High can understand why a shy, sensitive girl like Julie Porter is attracted to someone as conceited as Bruce Patman. But no matter what anyone says, Julie detects a warmth in Bruce's piercing blue eyes that's meant only for her.
   Julie's longtime neighbor and friend, Josh Bowen, isn't fooled. He's trying to get into Bruce's fraternity, and he knows what the arrogant senior is really like. When he hears that Bruce has invited Julie to a Phi Epsilon party as his date, he's sure that Bruce has a rotten trick in mind. Josh tries to warn Julie and she's furious. She's never had a serious boyfriend before, and she can't understand why everyone's trying to spoil her happiness. But will Bruce make Julie happy, or is he just out to break another heart?

In an effort to sucker in the SVT readers who were slowly outgrowing the Twins series and were ready for the big leagues, the powers that be behind SVH decided to throw poor Julie Porter into the mix. In the grand scheme of SVH, she matters very little. But since she was a fairly big player [as big as one of Liz's backup geeks can be] in the Twins series, we've got to find something for her to do. So, the PtB decided to have her fall for Bruce.
   In a way, it's genius. Back in the day Julie and Amy were friends, too. Now Julie's the band geek and Amy's the pretty popular cheerleader, and yet both have fallen for Bruce because they're both... cuckoo for self-centered millionaires?

Which is why this has taken so long. Troublemaker is not my most favorite of the SVH books. Mostly because Julie... is an idiot. But I'm skipping ahead again. Let's back up, shall we?

   Julie and Elizabeth have been hanging out quite a bit with their recorder duets and Liz does what Liz does best. Is nosy. She meets Julie's friend Josh who is, as the cover art shows us, super hot. [Seriously, while it's not Bruce's finest hour, Josh? Is yummy. And I normally never say these things.] Liz does that Liz thing where she asks why the two aren't hooking up and the Js are surprised she'd even think such a thing because hello, not interested. A little prying and we learn that Julie thinks Bruce Patman is the epitome of hot. Cover of this book aside, I can agree with that assessment. Liz can't fault the guy for his physical aspects, but tries to point out that the Regina arc aside, he's an ass. Why she doesn't point out that he was an ass even to REGINA I'll never understand. It's logical and logic in the Valley dies a quick, painful death I suppose. Julie argues that Bruce has obviously been hurting since Regina's death and that she believes she could help him get over the pain. One sweet girl for another one?
Liz tries to argue against this logic but cannot because it could, in theory, happen.

   Except we've figured out that half the allure for Bruce was that there was a lot of drama going on with Regina. It was not a normal relationship even before you factored into the equation Regina's stunning good looks and massive wealth, both of which are things the Patmans do so love ever so much.
So Liz thinks that it could, maybe happen, except usually Bruce goes for the flashier girls. Later Jessica will echo this exact same sentiment. Still, neither Liz nor Julie really sees the point in dwelling too long because odds are good Bruce and Julie will never really cross paths.

Dun.
Dun.
DUN!

   Josh, you see, is pledging the fraternity and because Bruce is Bruce, he's leading the pledge hazing this go round. There's being shoved into lockers, eating ice cream til you puke, cross dressing, cleaning, acting like an organ grinder's monkey... Really, sounds like a blast, huh? Actually, it doesn't sound so horrible as far as hazing goes, right?
Except... Bruce keeps humiliating Josh in front of Julie. Bruce hatches a plan that kills whatever might have been left of his nice guy image. He invites Julie to the frat party and then, instead of picking her up, arranges for her to meet him there. Julie agrees because he's Bruce Patman *dreamy sigh* and even if they don't work out, it'll be a night to remember. Oh, Julie... So, Julie and Bruce are in the makeout alcove and Bruce gets up to change the music under the guise of wanting Their Song to be something special. He picks out some Jazz Fusion combo thing and Jules is swooning over there when the lights are dimmed further and 'Bruce' returns and they start kissing.
Only they've got an audience. And when they both open their eyes, Josh and Julie realize Bruce is an asshole.
   Wait. No. Josh realizes this and Julie thinks Josh was in on it for his precious, stupid frat prank. Julie runs out, Josh is torn, and I'm so bored I could cry. Even as a kid I could tell you where this was going. Julie blames Josh, Josh wants to live up to his older brother's reputation so he sticks with his pledging even though he thinks Bruce is a complete asshole and none of the other frat boys stick up for Josh [or any of the other pledges] because Todd Wilkins is in Vermont and as a parting gift, half the frat handed their balls over to him. The other half belong to Bruce. You know how it goes.
   After the kiss, Josh is set up as the aforementioned monkey, kissing girls at random and of course, just as soon as Julie starts to think she'll get over her humiliation, he kisses her in public again. And she runs off. Again.
Josh is still torn. He wants to be just like Phil was in HS, but this... doesn't seem like something Mythic Brother would have been apart of. Hurting Julie repeatedly is not what he signed up for, but what does he care? She's not his... and yes. Saint Elizabeth was right. He's got feelings for her. And she must because she keeps freaking out more than even shy girls [that'd be me] would. GASP. But she's mad! Furious, even! So he ropes Liz into telling Julie his side, Julie listens but won't give him a chance until he tells Bruce to back the fuck off.
   Josh finally grows a pair when Bruce asks him to do yet another prank aimed at hurting Julie. Something with a lot of Jello. Yeah. Our climactic scene involves Jell-o. Now, you might remember that Bruce has a thing against people dumping food or drinks on him. So what does Josh do? He creates a stunning pyramid of Jell-o and dumps it all over Bruce.
I wake up and cheer because, well, Bruce may be pretty, but he's an ass. And I always cheered when someone popular and evil got what was coming to them.
   Josh hurries over to Julie to explain that he's finally figured out that she's more important to him than the stupid fraternity or living up to Phil's legacy and she shushes him. They kiss and all is well. Yaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwn.

   Jess, on the other hand, has been doing more wacky hijinks. DeeDee Gordon tells her there's a new play and that it involves dancing. You might recall from the SVT series that Jess used to take ballet and was very, very good. And if you don't remember any of this don't worry. They'll remind you with the sledgehammer of subtlety. Ow. Liz points out that this was four years ago and dude, she's bound to be a little rusty. Jess blows her off and is sure that she'll be prima ballerina in no time. One sprain later and Jess is willing to admit that maybe, just maybe, someone else might be better.
   But only because she's obviously a super awesomely dedicated ballerina named Danielle. We run into her blond bitchery while Jess and Lila are shopping for a leotard for Jess to wear during her audition. Jess takes one look at Danielle and realizes that this girl oozes grace without trying. If she tries out, too, Jess. Is. DOOMED. Lila points out that someone who is obviously that dedicated to dance wouldn't bother with a stupid high school production and is probably concentrating on her Career. Jess goes over, hints, and finds out that Lila is right.
   Only Li isn't right. Danielle shows up at auditions and is going for Jessica's role. Jess flounces off, certain she'll never get the role now... only when she comes back, realizing that if she leaves now everyone will know she was too chicken to compete, she sees Danielle klutzing it up all over the stage. Oooh! Not so good now, are you ballerina girl? So Jess tries out. And tries to do too much and ends up with her grand floppe, which is the only reason to read this damn book. The grand floppe is LEGENDARY. Our director loves it and begs for more. So.. Jess does. It's not until Jess wins the part that she realizes her character, Essie, is supposed to be a delusional tutu wearer. She's supposed to be awful. Jess is... the comic relief! Noooooooooooo!

   Epic. I snorted my Pepsi at the wink-wink moment there. Jess considers backing out but Liz points out that really, people will love her even more for acting the fool. And for once, Liz is right. This doesn't stop Jess from trying to prove that she's really a good dancer being forced to look like an idiot, but eventually Jessica goes with the flow and is fantastic.

Everything ends happily and we're set up for Slambook Fever. SCORE? Score!

Trivia

DeeDee is the new president of the Drama Club.

The barre Ned and Alice set up is still in the basement of the Wakefields' home.

The play this week is You Can't Take It With You. Neither twin has read it.

The call backs from You Can't... interfere with the Phi Epsilon party at Bruce's at 8pm. Don't worry, everyone makes it there. Eventually.

According to TM, it's been six months since Mrs. Porter's death. Which would be fine, I guess, but it was six months ago back in book 37. You can't tell me we aren't up to at least month seven.

Liz plays her recorder beautifully until the end of any given piece and then she flubs fantastically.

Julie is so short that she has to get up on tip-toe to reach the top of her locker.

Josh Bowen is tall with brown hair, and is the same height and build as Bruce Patman. He drives a blue Chevrolet.

Phil Bowen is a sophomore at Princeton and thus obviously Josh's older brother. He was class valedictorian, president of the senior class, and a member of Phi Epsilon.

Elizabeth mentions how when Todd was a member of Phi Ep, the frat wasn't all mean spirited hazing. For some reason I rejoice at this casual mention of Toddikins.

Apparently Bruce and NEXT would be a perfect fit, seeing as that's essentially Bruce's dating preference. Ten seconds to prove yourself and then, if you're found wanting... NEXT. I feel dirty being able to make that connection.

I misread "How did your duet go with Julie this afternoon" as "How did your date with Julie.." And I kept doing so for the entirety of the book. You know you did, too.

Casey's Concoction: Sundae covered with three sauces and chocolate dust.

Casey's Diet Breaker: Ice cream mixed with several kinds of candy and nuts [in this case pistachio ice cream], four choc chip cookies sticking out from the sides, covered with crushed pineapple and butterscotch sauce, all topped by an inch or two of whipped cream.

Mrs. Bowen is 2nd chair clarinet in the Orchestra with Mr. Porter.

Jules bitterly points out the various things the guy in the frat have in common. Breathing, eating, sleeping... I think she left out one crucial bit of anatomy that also bonds them together.

Frat Roll Call: Bruce Patman, Ronnie Edwards, Winston, Michael Harris, Tom McKay, Bill Chase, John Pfeifer

Frat Hazing: Locking pledges in lockers, forcing Josh to eat 5 of Casey's Concoctions and other assorted sundae types, dressing in costume/drag, setting up for the party, cleaning up for the party, acting as if the SVH caf was a restaurant and acting as hosts and waiters.

Danielle Alexander [senior] has blond hair, is fantastically tall [I thought ballerinas were supposed to have the long legs but not necessarily the height?], and glides instead of merely walking. She's trying out for the LA Ballet Company.

Hugh is going to the basketball game at his school instead of a frat party at Bruce's with Enid. I'm... wondering whether this is a brilliant move on his part or boneheaded because of the mansion of awesome?

Liz confuses Julie's playing with that of Horowitz or Rubinstein. Either she's that good or Liz is that delusional. Discuss.

Jeffrey bought Liz cologne when a department store spritzer sprayed him by mistake. Well, Jeffrey is awfully pretty...

Lila and John Pfeifer have been out on a couple of dates and now he's completely hung up on Li. She wants Liz to invent a bit of Oracle gossip about Lila and a UCLA football playing male model to get John off her case. In about... forty books or so Liz, you might wish you had.

Ha! Liz gets gossip blocked by Lila when Liz won't make up the aforementioned UCLA story.

Bruce's mysterious first date for the party is a tall, slender, blond senior. Hrmm, who could that be? Oh, yeah, Danielle.

This is the birth of Jessica's grand floppe!

Julie doesn't know which mansion is Bruce's. I cannot believe that in the entire run of the SVT series, even just the ones up to when TM was published, Bruce hadn't had a party at his mansion. They were forever having Lila or Bruce throw a party and even Elizabeth's friends were invited. Seriously.

Josh is forced to wear a long blond wig as greeter at the Phi Ep party.

Bruce's room has a four poster mahogany bed. One wall has pictures of Bruce in his tennis outfits as well as his track team gear. Another wall is filled with trophies for the aforementioned sports and a third wall sports a glossy poster of a Porsche just like 1Bruce1.

John Pfeifer [the closest thing, aside from Roger, Bruce seems to have to a best friend] informs Josh that Bruce is such a hardass towards him because Bruce sees the nicer version of himself in Josh.

Quotes:
Obviously there was something on her twin's mind that couldn't wait-something of absolute, earth shaking importance, which, for Jessica, usually meant a new outfit or a cute guy who had started paying attention to her. - Oh, Liz. You original SV snarkster, you. p2

"Yeah, look at her," Lila muttered. "She's got the ballerina walk down pat. Duck feet and all." - this is why Lila is the patron saint of Snark. All hail Lila! p44

"I guess you and I have been displaced in Elizabeth's life by an old wooden stick- or is it plastic?- with holes." - Jeffrey makes me giggle and think the wrong thing as he talks to Enid. p 53

Try as she could, Elizabeth was unable to imagine why Bruce would ask Julie to the party. If he wanted to make his ex-girlfriend, Amy Sutton, jealous, he would have asked someone truly stunning. - Brutal, Lizzie. Absolutely brutal. p56

"He said he'd let himself get too soft- too vulnerable when he was going out with Regina. Somehow he thinks if he'd been tougher, he wouldn't be hurting so much." - John repeats Bruce's slightly delusional thought patterns. Bruce? Honey? If you hadn't been screwing around with Amy you might not be hurting so much now, too. p74
Off to the left, a tennis court had been cut into the hill. Just below it was an Olympic size swimming pool.
"Like it?" Bruce asked.
"Wonderful," Julie answered. "Too bad I didn't bring my bathing suit."
Bruce turned back to the house. "It's fun to come out here at two in the morning and go skinny dipping," he observed. - p105

I dread reading Troublemaker because I own the damn thing in triplicate. I went years without reading it and thus always thought, "hey, I've never read this one..." and would buy it at the used bookstores that used to populate the city.
Dude, no matter what you think, you do not need three copies of this book. Honest. Bruce ain't drool worthy, Julie looks even more underage than she actually is, and Josh, well...he looks like he's got a thing for Bruce and dude, why won't Bruce just stop with the ladies for one freakin' second.
On that note, I kept misreading various things throughout the book. When Jeffrey is teasing Liz about her always being busy with her duets with Julie, I kept reading dates. Ditto for Enid's reactions, too.
I like that Todd is mentioned in regards to PE because you know that by now the writers knew Todd would be back within a year.

From the cover archives

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:50:17 GMT

Seriously, once I'm done with this, the next you'll hear of me will be Troublemaker. Promise. But this was too fantastic not to share the second I found it:

Go on. Take it all in. I want you to admire the craftsmanship of that psychotic looking Jack in the corner and the look on Jessica's face. Disgust? Fear? Is she about to spit on him? What? For those who don't immediately leap to the correct title, this is the French version of Showdown. But ask them and they'll tell you it's 'Shaw down' which is even better if you ask me.

Dude.

PS- Updated books 1-3 artwork wise. Actually, others have been worked on as well [8 and 9 I think] but they'll get revamped again because I forgot a couple of covers. Oops. My work, she is never done.

fun with other languages

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:53:48 GMT

Dear Germany,
You win. The funtastic Google translation of your title for #28 is "Liz the Fairy Godmother?"

And dude, I couldn't top that if I tried.

You win!

love,
me

p.s.- why yes, this does mean we'll be updating past covers soon.

Perfect Ten

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:15:51 GMT

Decisions
July 1988

Is this the end for Robin and George?

Stuck in the middle...

Robin Wilson is having a spectacular year. She's in love with George Warren, she's doing well in school, and she's almost sure to win the upcoming diving championship. Then her rich aunt makes an offer that's incredible-but it just may ruin Robin's happiness.
Aunt Fiona will pay for her college education if Robin goes to the school her aunt and grandmother attended back East. If Robin accepts, she'll have to leave George and her diving behind, but without her aunt's help, Robin may not be able to afford college at all.
Robin feels as if she's being pulled in two directions. How can she do what's right for her without hurting the people she cares about most?

Let's begin with the superficial, shall we? [I know, how is this any different from all the other times, right?] How old does George look? For that matter, Robin doesn't look sixteen either, but y'know you can blame that on the fact that it's the 80's and the weight loss. George there should not be dating high school girls.
   Anyway, it's another Robin Wilson book! You know what that means, right? That's right. The reiteration that fat people have no place in the Valley, another glimpse at the club o' "we got screwed by the Wakefield Twins!" and most importantly: The return of 137!!!!! I try not to abuse the exclamation point, but really, how often have I gotten to use the 137 tag lately? EXACTLY.
I've got a theory about the 137 thing and Robin books. I suspect that any time someone was given a Robin book, they were told to read the previous ones, and in those, Jess is still very much into her -37 phase. So, yay for us!

But onward with the parade of pain! Robin Wilson is poor. I'm not entirely sure how poor 'poor' is, since I've never really thought of her as poor before, but trust me, she is. Apparently anything nice Robin has came from her bitchy Aunt Fiona. This is really bothering Robin because college is coming up. Much sooner for Robin than anyone else if B.A.F. has her way, as she had Robin apply early to Sarah Lawrence and Robin got in. Instead of being over the moon about the prospect of missing her senior year in high school and going to a lovely but batshit crazy college a year early, Robin is all sorts of confused. And on this, I actually feel for her. See, BAF will only pay for SLC. If Robin wants to go elsewhere, she has to find her own funding and I gather she doesn't want to owe on student loans for the rest of her life. Also, despite the fact that she's obviously pretty damn smart [on top of being damn pretty] she doesn't seem to think she'll get enough scholarship money to go anywhere good. To top it all off, Robin's mother has all but accepted for her, so that she [Mrs. Wilson] can get a new kitchen.
   That's right. Robin's future is being traded for a new kitchen which will naturally be designed by Alice Wakefield. Now, Mrs. Wilson also has my sympathy in that I would love a new kitchen. Or maybe just my current one fixed so that I wouldn't feel the need to cross myself before entering. So, I feel ya, Mrs. W. You need new digs and what with the divorce and all, you cannot afford it because you've got three kids. But, and here's the tricky part, Robin and SLC are NOT a match made in heaven and as Robin's mother you should at least mask the possibility of you trading her in for a new place to burn toast long enough for Robin to confide in you. Y'know, in theory.
Poor Robin.

But then Robin goes and cocks it all up by not telling anyone anything but still gets mad at them for not being PSYCHIC or something. Jesus, Robin, of all the times for a SVH character to start acting like a teenager you had to choose now? See, Robin doesn't tell her boyfriend George because... he'll be upset that she's considering going to a really good school on the East Coast when he's been sitting around, doodling little hearts around his and Robin's names in his notebooks, planning their college plans to one of California's many, many colleges. Okay, fair enough. Not everyone is crazy like Liz and believes a long distance relationship will work. But you've still got to tell him, sweetie.
   Due to the aforementioned kitchen swap, Robin can't really talk to her mother about things, so we'll pass on that, and her brothers are both younger [eighth and ninth grade] so that's probably an out as well. BAF is out by very virtue of being a bitch, and Robin isn't actually all that friendly with Liz Wakefield. But she does have a friend in Annie Whitman, so...
She sort of starts to tell Annie things, but leaves out the bit about being traded for a new kitchen and the fact that being unable to talk to anyone is making her slightly crazy, so Annie's forced to fixate on what she does know, which is that Robin hasn't told George yet. Valid point. You work with what you know, and Annie knows boys... and that was a cheap shot. I apologize.

   Robin tries to tell George but he's so busy gathering kindling for the roast of BAF that he can't seem to hear anything other than, "don't worry, Robin, we'll get you to one of Cali's fine schools. Preferably the one I want to go to. We'll be together FOREVER!" He never considers the fact that Robin sort of might want to go to SL. It's gorgeous in the fall. It's near enough to NYC to get your fill of the city and still escape to the prettier side of New York. Fantastic school... So, um, yeah. It has it's points beside the fact that BAF will pay for it.
And so Robin wonders if maybe BAF is quite as much of a bitch as she's been thinking. It's BAF's money, and while she may be swimming in it, she's not required to spend a dime on Robin's college education, and she certainly has a right to veto spending money to send Robin to a party school. Or any school for that matter. She's always been very clear that if the Wilsons want BAF to pay for college, Robin goes to SLC. [I wonder if later the same offer will be made to Troy and Adam?]
   On the other hand, Robin has the right to decide which college is right for her. She should be able to choose and not just be stuck with something as the only thing she can afford, particularly when Robin should actually be able to rack up extra money in a variety of different ways. Which is where this particular plot device seriously loses steam and we'll discuss that later. But she's feeling guilty over not being totally thrilled about BAF doing all the deciding for her, and it's not exactly the most fun thing in the world trying to figure out if you should leave your friends and family behind earlier than expected. So yes, I feel bad for Robin even while wanting to smack her and tell her to talk to someone. Anyone.

Luckily, the ghosty brought us one and a half subplots to keep my rage at bay. First is Jessica's foray into babysitting. I love that Jess is either fantastic with kids or she strikes out horribly, but that kids mostly love her. And I can believe it. She's bound to be pretty enough to satisfy the need for shiny pretty that kids have, boys are all star struck and the girls [like the readers] are s'posed to want to be her. She's also bound to be loads more fun than Liz at any given moment. :P I know, again, cheap shot. Sorry, Liz. You're probably a great babysitter in that you give a damn as much as a fictional character can. Anyway, Jess is babysitting a little girl named Allison so that her older brother Alex can compose a symphony. Yeah, just go with it. So Jess is charmed by Allison but totally thunderstruck by the awesome hotness that is Alex. And like all good catnip for popular cheerleaders, he... doesn't really seem to notice Jess.
So she plots ways to get him to notice her. Her biggest plan involves convincing him that she's musically inclined. Figuring that if Allison is so good at the recorder and she's merely a child, Jessica as a teenager would be fantastic, Jess says she's really good on the recorder. Of course, being Jessica, she finds that the recorder is boring and that she's awful at it, and even if it's only awful because she's a newbie, she refuses to practice. Ugh. Well, she's hot and Alex is dense, so maybe she'll never have to actually play anything for him... Still, she plots.
   Meanwhile Elizabeth gets it into her head to try the recorder and finds that she's really good at it. Or, at least, she thinks she is, and would like to be better at it. Thing is, she can't try now that Jess has claimed it as her own thing to do, even if it is just to snag a guy. Liz remembers Jess and the gourmet cooking class [but doesn't remember that a big chunk of that particular issue was that no one would acknowledge how good Jess was without a "whodathunk it" moment thrown in], the becoming Jessa Fields, and basically not wanting to be shown up by her twin. So Liz says she'll abstain. And that works about as well as you'd expect. Liz sneaks off to play the recorder and Prince Albert looks on disapprovingly. Lizzie Liz Liz... it's not the times you ask to join, it's when you just take over that Jess gets upset. Y'know, for next time. Not that it matters all that much since you always get pissy when Jess outshines you in the writing department.

Blergh. I'm boring myself here. You see what we've been reduced to? So. Jessica gossips a bit and lets Liz know that Robin got in early admission to SLC and Liz is surprised that Robin would want to leave a year early. Later she mentions how proud everyone must be of Robin... to George. Right after Annie tried to convince Robin to tell George the same thing. George goes off, pissed as hell, and all I could think was that, maybe for both their sakes, George and Liz should just never speak again. I mean ever. When they do, bad things happen. Enid gets crippled. Robin goes psychotic... Really, it's all the best for them.

Georgie confronts Robin and Robin tries to figure out who blabbed. Annie and Jess were the only two who knew and Jess isn't friendly with George so obviously it was Annie. THE HELL, Robin?! Earlier you were all for the teenage logic! Now you can't think two steps ahead of the game? I expect better of you, missy. You're in high school and the biggest gossip outside of Caroline knows something about you? Yeah. She told her twin... and probably Lila, and once Lila of the princess phone knows, dude, you're over. Surprisingly this last bit didn't happen, but I chalk that up to boy plotting. So Robin goes off on Annie and Annie's confused as to what the hell is wrong with Robin and Jess thinks this way Robin will leave for sure and that's one less bit of competition around campus.
She also lets this slip to Liz later on and Liz, for once, doesn't run out and immediately fix things. Instead she muses about the weirdness of Robin and George. To Enid.
Y'know, his ex-girlfriend.
Awkward!

   Back to Robin. BAF appears on the scene and immediately proves that she is definitely a bitch and no, you shouldn't like her after all. She belittles everyone and only the boys seem immune to her form of bitchery. She mocks Robin's chosen forms of athleticism although she admires the way they help keep Robin from being a fat-ass. Robin tries, a little, to stand up for herself, but is mocked back down to size. Again the kitchen thing comes up and Robin's just all over the place. She's frazzled beyond belief and I feel badly for her, especially when we're reminded that she's got a diving championship coming up and she's not doing so well under all her stress.
She tells George that she'll be going to one of the California colleges, but then realizes the relief she expected to feel upon making a choice is lacking because she merely told him that to shut him up. She finally tells BAF to shove her money where the sun don't shine and then runs out of the restaurant and calls George to rescue her. He does and natters on and on about how evil everyone else is while never realizing he's being a similar kind of jackass. Smooth, Georgie boy. Smooth.

   At the diving championship, George and Liz chat about how wobbly Robin's diving is and how strong Robin is and George realizes what an ass he's been and he runs off to get Robin's family to come out to the championship. That's right. Because she wouldn't be sacrificed for a kitchen her mother couldn't be bothered to stand up to her own sister and watch Robin's performance. Real nice. Anyway, Robin just sees George leave and she's heartbroken. She and Tracy, her rival, have a go at their dives and Robin does respectably, but anyone who knows Robin knows the fire is missing. Because heaven forbid she just not be better than Tracy. Oi. Eventually George and company return and Robin naturally goes from mediocre to fantastic and blows Tracy out of the water. But because she couldn't place first without Tracy faltering a bit herself, Tracy can't handle the pressure and her diving suffers. Robin and George meet up afterward, all kissy and lovey, and of COURSE Robin is all set for a fantastic scholarship. Because that idea never occurred to her. My brain, she hurts. Robin eventually decides that she'll have her SY at SVH [oh really, Robin? I think you'll be surprised...] and then decide which school is right for her. And BAF is willing to accept this and pay for it because Robin's all smart and assertive and shit. Right. Whatever. I've stopped caring, how about you?

   What's that? You can't smell the B plot percolating? Of course you can! Jess finally gets tired of hinting and goes for broke. She pretends to faint near Alex and while he doesn't catch her [!!] he finally admits how smitten he is, and maybe in two years when he returns from Juilliard... To which Jess, who was seconds before halfway to the smelling salts being required, makes a miraculous recovery and flounces out the door. It's legendary is what is is. I recommend this book on that moment alone, it's so good. This is the Jessica I love.

Meanwhile, Liz is feeling extra guilty because her family thinks that Jess is the musical one and that anytime they hear Liz playing they think Jess is improving, but really, she sucks as much as ever. Jess pretty much comes home and busts her with the recorder, but doesn't care because hello, it's the most boring instrument to her in the world. Also, she's moved on. So Liz gets Jessica's permission and then skips over to Julie Porter's house to segue way is into the next book which'll be about Julie and Bruce and some other dude and is the only book I can never get rid off at the various book exchanges. Seriously.

Trivia:

Liz still gets off on reading her own column in the Oracle. Sadly, I can't totally fault her for this as I'd still be excited, too.

Robin got an A- on her chemistry quiz.

Aunt Fiona is "brilliant, successful" artist who raised Robin's mother when their parents died. She's tall with gray hair, brown eyes, and a commanding presence. She's also got Gucci luggage and tips the taxi driver $10.

The Kanes live in a cedar shingled white shuttered bungalow at 1729...who knows what the street is. There's a gravel driveway and Jessica thinks the house looks like a "quaint, doll like cottage", what with the roses on the trellises and all.

Allison Kane has "feathery gold ringlets" and big, brown eyes. She's gifted on the recorder and is actually fairly easy to babysit because she's a sweetheart. She's got a bit of a lisp that she's working on correcting and is in kindergarten. She's also exceptionally close to her older brother, Alex.

Alex Kane has the same golden hair as his sister, but cut shorter, and fantastic brown eyes, and cracks Jessica's list of best looking guys ever. He's working on a symphony and really, really into his music.

George still drives his light blue GTO, and his eyes are mentioned as gray this go round. Robin mentions that he only mocks himself because he wouldn't want to hurt someone else's feelings, and that part of the reason she adores him so much is that he nearly couldn't break up with Enid because it would hurt her. I gag, I do.

Jess and Cara go to buy a recorder and nearly have a cow when the saleswoman mentions that the alto pear wood recorder would run them $360. The plastic version, however, is just $11.95. Jess buys that one and a random recorders-for-dummies book.

Elizabeth worries that Jessica will be pissed if Liz shows any interest in the recorder, so she hides her practicing.

Troy Wilson is in eighth grade and Adam Wilson is in ninth. They're both on baseball teams, possibly the same one.

Robin bitches Annie out at cheerleading practice and no one says a word to stop them.

Jessica wants Robin gone and figures it'll be less competition for any given boy she plans to fall for.

Tracy King is Robin's biggest competition in diving. She's got short, cropped hair and lives right next door.

Dina Taylor is a former Olympic silver medalist who coaches the SVC diving team as well as Robin and Tracy's.

Lila and Jessica use an old, red Oriental rug of Lila's as a beach throw. It takes a couple of guys to cart it to and from Lila's car, but both girls think it's worth it.

Liz has a history paper on the Constitution, but can't really seem to concentrate, what with making googly eyes at Jeffrey and stealing time with Jessica's recorder.

Ned thought that Liz would turn out to be musically inclined when they were younger.

Irene Wilson, Robin's mother, has short, graying brown hair.

Fiona mocks Irene's choice of reading materials, and I damn near snorted my soda at the thought of someone in a SVH book criticizing someone for not reading great literature.

Aunt Fiona treats the Wilsons to dinner at The Cote d'Or in Malvina.

Winston proves he's the wacky comedic relief by doing the chicken dance at the Dairi Burger the Thursday before Robin's diving championships.

Jessica uses a pink duffel bag for cheerleading.

This book frequently mentions Jessica's heels. It's a bit odd, really.

Jess hides Allison's recorder so she can make Alex help her look for it. She hides it on the top of a bookshelf between two books.

When that plan fails, she pretends to faint. Alex doesn't catch her but he does admit he likes her. Sadly, he's going to Juilliard and will have no time for love anytime soon.

Fiona sold three large canvases within the first 15 minutes. Robin's impressed considering they don't sell cheap.

Robin calls George from Malvina on Broadway and Coast Road, in front of a hardware store.

12 girls comprise the SV diving team.

The championship is delayed because one of the judges is running late. No one, except maybe George, is happy about this.

Karen Doyle is a random member of the diving team.

Robin's first dive: forward somersault in the pike position. Scores: 7.5, 7.5, 8.25, 7.5

Tracy gets three 9's on her first dive.

Robin's second dive: back somersaulted layout, scores: 9.5, 9.5, 9.0, 9.0, 9.5

Tracy's first dive off the platform [something with a swan dive] gets her: 9.7, 9.5, 9.7, 9.5, 9.25

Robin's first dive off the platform involves an arm stand takeoff. She gets a 9.8, 9.9, 9.8, 9.0, 9.5

Tracy's second to last dive: pushed off backward, with an inward double flip with a half twist in a layout position. Scores: 9.0, 9.0, 8.5, 8.0, 9.0

Robin's second to last: reverse two-and-a-half somersault, full twist. Scores: 9.5, 9.5, 10, 9.9, 10

Tracy's last dive involves two front rolls and she blows it with 9, 9, 8.75 scores.

Robin's last dive is a flying forward two-and-a-half somersault pike, half-twist. Scores: 10, 9.5, 10, 10, 10

There's a celebratory picnic at Robin's after the meet.

Quotes:

"Don't worry. Every time I go to diving practice and see myself in a bathing suit, I say, 'Don't eat-don't eat.' So far it's worked."
Annie smiled. - Annie, when Robin takes her anorexic turn later, dude, I'm placing part of the blame on you! p. 10

If there was one thing Jessica loved, it was driving with the top down! - Dude, not making this up. p. 12

So it was equally obvious that although she had no ear for music, sang off-key, and had never wanted to learn to play an instrument, Jessica had to become a serious musician. It was as simple as that. - Oh, really? p. 19

She'd get herself a recorder, an instruction book, and by the end of the week, she'd be a virtuoso. No problem. - A lack of confidence will never be Jessica's problem. p. 20

"I wouldn't be surprised if you tell Lila exactly when to call every night so you can get out of the dishes!"
"I don't," her twin replied. "But that sure is a good idea!" - Liz, don't give her more helpful hints on how to weasel out of housework! Bad twin, bad! p. 29

In a flash Robin realized that she was being sacrificed for a new kitchen! - Sad but true. p. 44

She felt a bit light-headed from blowing so much. - I amuse easily, Liz. p 74

And she forced herself not to think about how terribly her sister played. - p. 77

It didn't take a trained musician to tell that Jessica was really awful. In Jessica's hands, the recorder sounded like the death agonies of a sacrificial victim. - Way to encourage Jessica there, Liz. p79

   Not a chance! she retorted silently. No long distance relationships for me! Especially one where I take second place to a piano! I don't care how gorgeous you are!
   She glanced casually at her watch. "Oh, look at the time! It's five-thirty, time for me to go. I'm feeling much better now, and I have a date tonight- with my boyfriend," she added quickly, hoping squelch any hopes Alex had for their getting together.- All this mere seconds after he's declared his love. Aww, Jess. p114

137:

   "Cheerleading was a total disaster scene today. I swear, Robin was acting like the world was about to explode into a hundred and thirty-seven million pieces. She kept messing up, screaming at Annie-" p 103

Her twin gave her a steady look. "Right, Liz. You're just a hundred and thirty-seven times better than I am." p116/117

This book made me giggle the first time I re-read it as a semi-adult because one of my best friends went to SL. And dude, I can safely say that Robin would not have fit in. In fact, trying to picture her there [and it's a lovely campus, or at least it was when I visited] makes my head explode. Maybe because said friend's first fantastical story about her college life there involved this little exchange at a party.
"So how many of you are new?"
*hands raise*
"And how many of you are gay?"
*half the hands drop, if that many, and quite a few of the non-newbies raise hand*
"Don't worry! Next semester when I ask that question that answer will change!"

   Total. Awesome. Win.

   Robin shouldn't actually have a problem acquiring a decent amount of financial aid. She's smart enough to opt in early at SLC and it's been mentioned many times that Robin is actually REALLY smart, because y'know, fat people have to be smart or funny, and Robin ain't all that funny. She's a gifted writer [hopefully not in the same way Liz is gifted], she's got an interest in computers that is never really explored in this book, but is frequently mentioned and at a time when not a lot of girls even gave half a thought to technology. She's athletic due to her cheerleading [good enough to vault right into being co-captain, guys, and you know how seriously SVH takes their cheerleading] and her diving. That it takes the entire book for that to come into play drives me batty every time I read the blasted thing.

   On the other hand, for all I mocked Elizabeth, I did a similar trick, only mine involved a flute and my little brother's foray into band. That ended quickly when he rediscovered jock genes and the flute went away before I could find out if I was just delusional or any good. I know, I could've picked it up myself, but come on. Even an eighth grade geek has her pride.

   I leave you with two things to ponder. One, and most important, how much does it suck to be Tracy King? She's competing against Robin and must be almost as good, yet EVERYONE there is either attributed to the lesser divers or is there to cheer Robin on to victory. Why can't Tracy get some love too? And then I think of all the other kids who are pitted against the stars of the SV world, and they have to exist, and how much they get shoved to the side. And then I wonder if there's a fanfic involving the outcasts and how they really view the popular kids... *muse* Anyway, I was cheering for you, Tracy. Next time, try not to buckle under the pressure, k? We'll get 'em next time.

   And the second: Bottom line, you should read Decisions for the return of 137 and for Jessica's miraculous recovery. Seriously. It's classic. It's epic. It's better than you want to imagine. Go on. I've got time.

OT: the search for the Wakefield twin covers

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:26:50 GMT

Dear ebay users,
If you would love to make me happy [and you would, really] please stop posting pictures of your pile of books with just the spines facing me. I mean, I like knowing that you didn't read the book to the point where the spine cracked and died a horrific death, as that's always really annoying to find out later, but seeing as I'm on a picture binge here, I need to see the covers too! Sometimes I wish ebay had a tip jar for sellers. Then I could tip the ones who do the covers, even if they're not the ones I'm looking for.

I know, you're thinking, "Dude, I signed up for a running tally of the number of times -37 was used, not to hear about ebay!"

I'm dragging my feet. Part of this is practical as the moment I hit 51, I have to make sure I've lined up a copy of #52 [it's on my small list of SVH books I do not own] and part of it is actually part of the process. As in, when I need covers, I hit up ebay. Since I'm about to start Decisions, I'm doing the annoying part of the legwork. Namely trying to find the various covers. I get cranky when all I can find are the classic circle covers, or later in the series, the revised look when I know the original does, in fact, exist. Of course, I get cranky over a lot of things.

Anyway, this is also to let you know that if you ever want to submit pictures, I'm more than willing to accept them and love you forever. And not like Elizabeth promises to love someone forever. I mean forever, not until someone better comes along. Scout's honor.*

* Fine, I was only a brownie and that only lasted a year, but it was a very serious year, ja?

Okay, I'm back to ebay.

The Clark Kent effect

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:45:45 GMT

On The Run
June 1988

A shadowy past...

After a chilling encounter with murder, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield are now ready for a calm summer in Sweet Valley-until Eric Hankman appears.

Like Elizabeth, Eric is a quiet, sensitive writer, and the two of them immediately become friends.

But Jessica's not convinced that Eric is as perfect as he seems. Her suspicions are aroused when her new friend, Darcy Kaymen, thinks she recognizes Eric as a boy from her hometown who has a mysterious past. Jessica knows Elizabeth won't believe a word of Darcy's story without evidence, but by the time she has all the proof she needs, it may be too late to save her sister.

Read ON THE RUN, the second Sweet Valley High Super Thriller!

   What's this? An update? What strange, bizarro universe have we entered? How do you escape? When will the madness end?!

   Yeah, I know. Most people apologize when they disappear. Me? I like to go melodramatically weird. It's why you love me. Well, that and you're bored and looking for something vaguely entertaining, and dude, I do vaguely entertaining like it's my job or something. So, win/win for both of us.

   That said, let's begin. I can now see why I dragged my feet when it came to this particular Thriller. See, I love me some Thriller action. Bring on the Sweet Valley News and its chatter about typewriters and dreamy boy reporters and the interns who get coffee for them! Bring. It. ON! What I don't love, however, is the typical Liz cheats on Todd/Jeffrey formula. Because seriously? It's the same guy, over and over and over. And even though this is one of the first couple of times we've tiptoed down this particular path, and even though I'd pretty much forgotten Liz actually wanted to cheat on Jeffrey* I'm still bored to tears.

But how can this be, given the material I was given to work with? We've got mob bosses, drug czars, death threats, mistaken identity, murders, new people in from Ohio [what, there was a run on 'em?], nosy neighbors, and oh yeah, the Witness Protection program!
   That's right. I totally ruined the book for you, huh? But yeah, by now you should know better than to read one of these if you haven't actually read the book. Anyway!

The boredom stems from Liz and her archetype for the cheating on her boyfriend. Should the Valley ever spring to life once more, or possibly you feel like creating your own slice of California heaven and you need the perfect twin to cheat on her boyfriend, you need the following ingredients. It's okay, I've triple-checked this recipe for accuracy and dude, it rarely fails:

Elizabeth's So Good You'll Cheat On Your Soulmate Boyfriend Man-Candy Recipe:

Tall [though truthfully he just needs to be taller than 5'6" and your average guy is. And if he isn't, then you're either dealing with Tom Cruise and should run away immediately, or you're dealing with one of my exes and you should kick them in their freakin' kneecaps and save yourself the trouble]

dark [we'll accept anything from medium brown hair right on through to black hair, though usually we like the darker hair]

pale [if we're outside California, try and make him preternaturally pale, please]

good looking, but not prettier than either Todd or Jeffrey

moody [We accept no substitutions on this one!]

a writer [any sort will do]

mysterious past with bonus points being given if he's got parental issues or you seriously consider him a potential murderer in that "it's always the quiet ones" sort of way.

   Your eyes may vary, but it's generally a good rule of thumb to go with a lovely contrast to that fabulous hair and try blue, green, or a lovely gray. Blue is the most common, but think of all the blues you could use! Green and gray come in one shade apiece, so really, with blue you get your money's worth. Mix it all together and you've got a guy Liz will fall for given enough time and Jess will probably agree is mildly less repulsive than Bob down in accounting, but not hot enough to fight her twin for**. Because that, you see, would just complicate the plot and we cannot have that.

Normally I'd have given you an extremely long winded recap of the events and I'm sure you're waiting for that. I'm delaying the pain because, well, nothing freakin' happens.

It's July. Liz and Jess are working at the Sweet Valley News, remember? Jess is bitching about the gig and due to her run in with a murderer, she's not really into the water cooler gossip going around about the DeLucca trial. Frank DeLucca's on trial for a variety of things, the most recent being murder, and most people seem to think he's going to get away with it because all the witnesses have either had lapses in their memory or refuse to testify. Cuz that ain't shady at all, DeLucca. Anyway, fascinating as this is, it's happening in New York.
   Strike One. I find it really hard to get behind a twisty plot where the action takes place off screen in New York when I'm centered in SV, California. Sorry. It's not even that I don't fully buy that people across the country would give a damn about such a thing as it's entirely possible the case is just that big. It's just that I don't care.

So, I'm with Jessica on this. That whole 'murderer nearly killed me and the twin' thing would make it so that I wouldn't want to focus on a guy who probably killed, or had other people kill, a whole bunch of people. I'd want some rainbows, unicorns, and cute guys not made out of sensible twin's recipe.
   Since she works at a newspaper though, that ain't gonna happen. Seth and Dan get into a pissing contest over their beliefs as to whether anyone will come forward and nail DeLucca's ass to the wall or not. Dan says no one's that brave/stupid, and Seth disagrees. We all know that Liz has taken Seth's side even before she ever so earnestly shares her opinion with us.
For whatever reason, we're introduced to Darcy K, who is the third intern and a recent transplant from Ohio. DK and Jess hit it off for reasons I never really do understand because DK is a two-faced bitch who isn't even all that subtle or smart in her bitchitude. I expect better from my Valley vixens, okay? Lila would never let this girl in, and you know how she feels about Liz during the Jeffrey years...
Anyway, DK rarely has an opinion of her own and all the thoughts she does share with the class come filtered through her father. It's as annoying as you'd think it would be. Liz and DK clash immediately and the guys are oblivious because, well, they're guys.
   Back to the DeLucca case. Dr. Ryan has appeared with evidence, DeLucca is sent packing and the peasants rejoice. I... snore softly in the corner.

During a fit of DK's bitchery, DK tells Liz to get Dan a coffee with cream and sugar, only Dan's allergic to cream [wha?] and Liz has to make two coffee runs. She meets Eric, new guy from Ohio [see?] and they hit it off because he was made for her. He actually sounds a bit creepy considering how he runs hot and cold so easily, but hey, that's Elizabeth's fling-type, so, whatever. Naturally DK falls for Eric much like Jess would [as in not really, but the idea that he's not in love with her is one too vexing to dwell on] and friction ensues when DK realizes Eric isn't all that interested. Except...
   I'm getting ahead of myself. Eric and Liz hit it off. Since he's new and not a psychotic bitch [or is he?], Liz offers him a tour of the city. He takes her up on it and you know they'll fall for each other and they do, but Liz doesn't want Jeffrey to find out or for Eric to find out about Jeffrey although, at this point, she and Eric haven't even kissed. She just wants them to. So they agree to keep things quiet.
Thing is, anytime Liz asks about Eric's past, he clams up and gets this look in his eyes that freaks her out a little. Still, he's just her type...
   Doesn't take long for DK to realize Eric's not totally interested, but before she can get good and mad, she finds out that another intern, this one male, is going to appear. Still, DK is nosy, so she calls her friend back in Ohio to see if she knew Eric before he moved. No such luck, but hey, a girl was murdered right before Eric showed up in Sweet Valley. Based on this and the vague notion that a guy fitting the same description is the suspected killer, DK and Jess decide Eric is obviously Christopher Wyeth, the murderer.
And you know, given how these things work out, the odds were actually in their favor.

With this knowledge, DK and Jess don't go to the cops or their parents. Instead they decide to keep an eye on Eric to see if he'll crack. Right, sure, sounds good. *draws air circles near temples* Because the Valley is the size of a postage stamp, Mr. Wakefield knows Eric's father [he's a client] and invites him over for dinner. He also invites the next door neighbors, the Beckwiths. Interesting, as the Beckwiths are frequently mentioned but rarely seen on screen.
   There's a damn fine reason for that. Mr. Beckwith is an ass. The kind I will never be able to keep my mouth shut around when I'm old and cranky. He gets it into his head that he knows Eric's father from somewhere and will not shut up about it. I fully expect Mr. H to bitchslap him while shouting, "YOU DON"T KNOW ME, OKAY?"
But he doesn't. Blergh. Jess is watching Eric and her twin like a hawk because she's fairly certain, given the level of moodiness and time it took Liz to get ready for the dinner, Liz has a thing for Eric and that he, DK's insanity aside, likes Liz too. Only there really isn't much to see.

For two people who aren't dating, Liz and Eric have an awful lot of breakup moments. Liz gets pissed when she thinks Eric wrote a "love poem" for DK, but in reality it was for Liz but Eric didn't want to blow their cover. Then, despite Jessica's attempt to keep in the dark, Eric finds out about Jeffrey and is pissed.
Now Jess is worried because if Eric really is Chris Wyeth, Amy and company have just handed him perfect motive for offing Saint Liz. Y'know, that whole she has a steady boyfriend that she never bothered to mention thing kind of stings.
Jess tries desperately to get a hold of Liz but things have gone horribly wrong all weekend. Liz has gone to Enid's for the weekend and the note she leaves is destroyed by Enid's cat [what cat?], when Jess impersonated Liz prior to the Jeffrey revelation, the notebook she scammed off Eric was stolen by some creep in a Mercedes, and now Liz is off on assignment with Eric. To complicate matters, DK is a little more interested in her thing for the new intern than she is in keeping Saint Liz in possession of her life. Priorities, Jess!
Anyway, Liz and Eric run into each other at the end of the day Monday evening and Eric is pissed. He drags Liz off somewhere, Jess freaks out and attempts to follow, only to be thwarted by Mr. Beckwith who is screaming about a little boy choking in Eric's little coffee shop. [Dude, so fired!] Jess panics and calls 9-1-1 after being all but slapped into action. Eric's father appears and heads off to help, which is odd because isn't he a "business" man? We need a doctor, man!
Yeah, all those who realize that he's Dr. Ryan in disguise, give yourselves a couple of cookies. Eric tries to stop his father from interfering but his father goes in to do my very first tracheotomy.

And this is the part that drove me bonkers even way back when.
Beckwith finally puts all the pieces together and shouts, for all the fucking world to hear, that this is Dr. Ryan!
What part of hit on his life do you not understand? No cookies for you, Beckwith! NO COOKIES!

   Eric and his father head home to pack and run away before they can be killed. Liz follows to say goodbye and to gush all over Eric who is really Michael. Only as Mike and Doc are packing, the bad guys find them and Liz must save the day.
How? By realizing Doc never disconnected the previous owner's security, so she slams a button [red?] and informs Eric that the house is part of the Good Neighbors network and that right now at least six of their neighbors are rallying the troops. They'll call and if Doc doesn't give the password, they'll storm the fortress of solitude!
And damn if that isn't what happens, although, um, would Doc even KNOW the password? I guess he could just say, "dude, what? No, we're cool" if it had been an accident... Still, as a kid I really liked this part, so I'll let it slide. After the cops appear and the day is saved, Liz and Mike say goodbye, their hearts breaking and whatnot, and by this point not even the ghost of my younger self can keep me motivated. Liz runs home, cries to herself and finally reads Eric's notebook which he's given her, seeing as all the poems contained within are written about her. The last breaks her heart and the music swells. End scene.
Really, the book should have ended there, but we go back for more of DK so that she can inform us that gosh, Sweet Valley is ever so boring and Jess can think that it's really turning out to be awfully exciting.

I died, really.

*In my memory, Liz and Jeffrey last for like, two seconds, so it's not so much that she didn't have ample opportunity to do what she does best on vacations, it's that she simply didn't have time. Re-reading the Valley has proven me wrong. Jeffrey lasted for a decent chunk of time, all things considered, and mostly Liz is as faithful as she is capable of being, given that she's a fictional sixteen year old girl who has wacky adventures and sometimes we need the nerdier twin to get some action.

** But later will totally be revealed in a diary entry that she did, in fact, skank it up behind Elizabeth's back. Oh, wait, that's reserved for Jeffrey and Todd. Never mind.

Trivia:

Liz and Jess are described, repeatedly, as identical opposites this go round. Later Liz will complain that she'll never be able to fully live up to the ideal everyone has created for her. She says to the guy she's cheating on her boyfriend with.

Lila's in Carmel.

The DeLucca case refers to Frank DeLucca who is on trial for murder and racketeering, though it's widely believed he's responsible for "countless crimes of murder, espionage, illegal drug and gambling activities." He was busted at the murder scene of Ray Underwood, but since then no one's been able to testify against him.

Ray Underwood was one of DeLucca's underlings who decided to do the right thing and ended up dead for his trouble. In his late teens he was diagnosed with early on-set diabetes and was referred to Dr. Ryan, and when Ray realized his days were numbered, he delivered his confession/fears in writing to the doc, just in case.

Seth Miller and Dan Weeks are the youngest reporters at the Sweet Valley News [SVN].

Dan is sure no one will ever testify against DeLucca. Seth disagrees. Liz agrees with Seth, Darcy Kaymen, the new intern, agrees with Dan. As does her Daddy.

Darcy Kaymen has silky red hair, brown eyes, freckles, is on the curvy side, looks like she's seventeen, will be enrolled in Whitehead Academy in the fall, got her internship because her father knows the man who runs SVN, and would rather have worked at the mall, or a cute boutique. If you did a shot for every time she said "my father" you'd die of liver failure within a day.

Darcy calls Liz "Crusader" and it is not a term of endearment.

Jessica's newest Hollywood crush is Cliff Benjamin, a young actor who's been in a slew of teenage movies. Darcy allegedly went the same school as he did back in Toledo.

Darcy has a little trouble with the truth and skews reality to the point where you want to smack her.

Jeffrey's back in three weeks, and the book itself covers about two, so he's expected back at the end of July/early August.

Liz and Jeffrey agreed to talk twice a week, not including letters.

Jeffrey's been teaching guys how to canoe. Jess mocks this.

William Ryan is Ray Underwood's Manhattan doctor [specializing in internal medicine] of six years who steps up with the evidence Ray left with him after Ray became convinced he wasn't long for this world.

Ray accused DeLucca and two other, unnamed, men of being the heads of an international drug ring.

Other minions at SVN: typesetter Paul is a lanky dude and Stan Fisher is the head of the editorial section.

The good people of the SVN call the corner diner across from the Western Building the Press Club.

While at the Press Club, Darcy outed Liz as a gossip columnist at The Oracle while claiming she had been an editor at her paper. Liz desperately wants to cry bullshit, but is too embarrassed about her gig as author of Eyes & Ears.

Eric Hankman works at the coffee shop on the first floor of the Western Building. He's tall [six feet tall, if Liz can be trusted] with thick, dark hair, hazel eyes, strong jaw, dimple in right cheek, and unusually handsome. Not that Liz was, uh, looking or anything. According to Darcy: he's a Taurus, born in May, he's seventeen, "stubborn, forthright, down-to-earth" and "very loyal once he's made his mind up about someone." He likes bike riding, music, he plays guitar and has written lyrics, long walks... and oh yeah, he writes poems that are awfully sad. And he drives a wreck of an old Dodge.

Liz tells Eric she hasn't written much poetry, but I swear in SY, Liz tells Jeffrey she no longer writes poems, which means during the Jeffrey administration she would have been writing poetry. I am so confused!

Eric claims to be from Shaker Heights in Cleveland. Darcy is from Toledo, but lucky for snoopy Darcy, her friend Sue lives in Shaker Heights.

Liz and Eric bond over typewriter ribbons and how expensive they are.

Liz claims she's going to the beach with Enid, but in reality she's taking Eric out for his first taste of the Sweet Valley tour.

Eric and Liz go see the new James Bond movie playing. Because that's what all of Elizabeth's not!boyfriends do.

When Liz and Eric swap writing, Liz has written "Futures" a short story about a young girl who's a companion [but not in the Whedon sense] to two elderly sisters. The girl learns a powerful lesson in courage and I gather one of the sisters risks her life for the other. I'm thinking Liz wrote the advanced Golden Girls era story of her and Jess and then inserted a younger Liz into the mix. But that's merely speculation, of course.

Eric has Liz read two short poems, "Harvest" and "Leaving You", both of which are pretty bleak. When Liz compliments him, Eric knows he's good, but isn't totally obnoxious about it. Just mildly.

Andy Sullivan is the newest intern, from Stanford with light brown, curly hair, sparkling gray-blue eyes, tall, and of course, handsome. DK peeks at his resume and finds out that he's a straight A student, on the varsity basketball team, junior editor of The Stanford Daily, and the recipients of all sorts of awards and honors for sports, writing, and scholastics.

Jess is seen getting ready to go jogging. I cry foul. Again.

Eric introduces Liz to Petrarch, 14th century Italian poet, who fell for a mysterious Laura and wrote her 366 poems, like "forever and a day." The implication is that there's a happily ever after in there, but there isn't.

Darcy swipes a poem from Eric's book, and since he can't admit he's with Liz [or wants to be] he lies and agrees when DK suggests it's meant for her instead. Liz is furious any time she thinks about the poem "To Her" although we never see it.

Rich Hankman does business with Ned. He's an attractive man in his early fifties, "a little on the portly side", dark hair, glasses, and a salt and pepper beard.

Dan and Amy Beckwith live next door to the Wakefields. Dan is an insurance agent at the Western Building and once he gets an idea in his head, he refuses to let go until he's made a complete ass of himself. They have a son, Jack, who is in San Francisco for the summer.

A young man hops out of the passenger side of a black Mercedes, knocks Jessica off her bike, and swipes Eric's book of poetry. He smelled of strong men's cologne and tobacco smoke.

Enid's mother has gone to New Mexico for a conference and Liz offers to spend the weekend with Enid to keep her company.

The Rollins do not have an answering machine, but they seem to have acquired a cat named Muffy who is "famous" for shredding things. Um, sure, okay.

Liz and Eric were supposed to meet in front of the Beach Disco at 8pm, but by ten to nine, Liz realizes she's been stood up.

Some guy pretending to be FBI and calls himself Riordon is looking for Eric. He drives a deep blue sedan.

Enid suggests going to her aunt's cabin in the woods when she sees how stressed Liz is. Dude, the E/E slash writes itself! Anyway, would that be her aunt's cabin in Tahoe or another aunt?

Seth and Liz go to Los Palmos to cover a possible teacher strike later in the summer.

When Doc Ryan performs his emergency tracheotomy on little Timmy, it's my first trach experience. Yours?

Eric's real name is Michael Ryan.

The Hankman's/Ryan's home is a part of the Good Neighbors system, wherein a [giant?] red button on the wall behind the coffee table, when pressed, sounds an alarm in six neighbors' homes as well as the police station. One neighbor will call and if not given the password, will run right over.

Frank Richman, Mr. Simon, and Mr. Applebaum [next door neighbor who called] as well as nine other neighbors rush over and manage to overtake two gunmen and a third man... you'd assume they were all pretty good with the killing of people but they couldn't take down that many people even though they had guns? Geez. All this happened Monday evening.

Michael's final poem to Liz is entitled "Goodbye Poem".

The book has a problem with random "s appearing.

Quotable Sweet Valley:

   Her eyes shone. "I want to get to know as many cute guys as I can. And I want you to help me!" - Seriously, someone illustrate this for me because you know the SVH graphic novel should exist and this scene should be in it. Oh, Darcy... p81

"Darcy's never been a Dodgers game. Can you believe that?"
"Well, it makes sense- if she's just moved here," Eric said. - Damn you and your earth logic, Eric! p88

After all, these things happened. Painful as it was, Eric would have to get over her-somehow. p105
"Write me another one and bring it up to the office! Oh, and can I have a cup of coffee please?" Darcy demands a love poem with a side of coffee. Classic! p 105

   Darcy looked scornful. "Jess, don't overreact. He's not going to go running around with a machete or anything." p118

Elizabeth had never really been in this kind of situation before. - This kind of situation, by the way, is thinking a guy was interested in HER when in reality he wanted someone else. Which is untrue. Jess/Todd, book one. That aside, it's also a little bit bitchy to say Liz had never wanted someone who didn't want her back. :P p133

   Muffy was the Rollinses playful cat, famous for exactly this kind of domestic damage. - Uh, since when? p161

"I'll keep the notebook. But you have to let me give you something in exchange."
"Oh, Liz," Michael said, folding her in his arms for a last embrace. "You've given me the most wonderful gift in the world. You've made me believe in people again." -Liz/Michael make me wonder what, exactly, Liz would give Mike. A roll in the hay? Her watch? Some trash leftover in the Fiat? What? p 206

   You may love On the Run. I... just didn't. I don't remember having a raging hatred for anything but Beckwith, so maybe it's just a case of the winter blues clouding my thoughts, but this isn't my favorite of the Thrillers by any stretch of the old imagination. I find parts of it amusing and I think I like the book for them alone. Like DK messing with Liz because Liz bugs her and it kills time at a job she [DK] hates. Also, because it's easy. I like that by this point you totally buy that Eric could be a murderer on the run, and it makes more sense for that to happen than for him to be in the witness protection program. I like that Enid appears [shut up!] and I'm a bit of a softy, so the idea of a book of poems dedicated to me would be awesome in theory, so younger me gets to vote yay for that. But...
Eric doesn't really appeal, even re-reading it and knowing why he's so angsty. DK's not as fun as her motives [no matter how they try and paint them in a different light] and Lila should never have gone to Carmel. It's boring without her.
   Oh, I do have to wonder why does Jess let DK get away with being such a bitch to Liz? Usually Jess has a strict "only I make Liz cry" policy, but DK seems to have Jess wrapped around her finger. How the hell did that happen? Make it stop!

Basically the tone of the book is a little off, and a big part of that is the way Jess acts. And, really, you could do better, but you could also do a whole lot worse. [End of the series, I'm totally eyeballing you here!]

   OtR also makes me wonder about Steven. When the twins are busy acting crazy at various times throughout the series, he usually jumps in and attempts to smooth things over. Sure, he's a tool an awful lot of the time, but he was kind of forced to be mediator and the kid who probably got the least amount of attention in that house, even after he decided to take after his father in terms of employment as well as looks. If you jump way, way forward to the Margo months, he has to put on a happy face so that the whole holiday isn't a complete wash, and he's frequently seen doing this sort of thing. This ponderment was brought about after Beckwith repeatedly harassed the guest of honor and the tension needed breaking.

Couldn't tell you if this is just a wonk-tastic lighting issue, whether there were two sets of the thrillers and they decided to show front and back or what, but I thought I'd share the fact that you could have your very own set of Thrillers which had the OtR cover used for the case.

Girl's got daddy issues

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:37:08 GMT

Family Secrets
May 1988

What's the secret that's hurting Kelly Bates?

See no evil...

   Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield are thrilled when their cousin Kelly Bates arrives in Sweet Valley. Kelly's mother is planning to remarry and hopes that living with the Wakefields for a while will prepare Kelly for life with a new stepfather and two stepbrothers.
As soon as Kelly arrives she shocks her cousins by going out with troublemaker Kirk Anderson. Then she announces her plans to stay in Sweet Valley and live with her father. She says he's the perfect dad, but that's not the way it looks to the twins. Their cousin seems to have a blind spot when it comes to her father, as well as to Kirk. Will Kelly find out what's keeping her from seeing the truth?

Anyone else remember cousin Kelly? She pops up in most of the series from time to time, probably around the time this book came out, and exists for two reasons.
   1) To moon over her father and wax poetic about how wonderful he is while Alice Wakefield does everything short of shooting herself in the head to keep from correcting her niece. Everyone else can see Greg Bates is scum, but no one says anything to Kelly because she's got Daddy Issues, only more so than Lila. Let me repeat that: someone else out-Daddy-issued Lila Fowler.
   2) Kelly is the twins' triplet. Only not. But it's close enough to confuse the heck out of people.

This might actually be the quickest re-read I've ever done. Even with note taking it took no time at all. Probably because there's very little to say. Kelly's mother is getting remarried to a doctor who has two sons of his own. Due to the aforementioned Daddy Issues, Kelly's been an unholy terror to live with, so Laura sends her daughter to live with her sister in Sweet Valley.
   Everyone on the Valley side of things is excited as can be. Kelly needs a good dose of Wakefield love and this way they're assured of being front and center for the next round of crazy family feuds. Yay! I mean, uh, it's been eight years since anyone's seen Kelly [I call foul since I think she appears at least once in the twins series, but we all know continuity goes straight to hell in one series, let alone mixing two or more] and they can't wait to see whether she still looks freakishly similar to our very own stars of the series, Elizabeth and Jessica.

I'll kill the dramatic tension and assure you that she does. The cover, she does not lie. Kelly and the twins are excited as can be about this and almost immediately accidentally begin dressing alike. Which causes the cover joy. Also, almost immediately, Kelly begins the "I love my Daddy" talks which bore me to tears and annoy anyone around her because it's a little creepy and really, if he's so great, why don't you see him more often? That's right, he and George Fowler are out partying it up in Paris while their daughters are back home being miserable. At least Lila's got a bathroom with a jacuzzi back home. Poor Kelly's got a mother so hellbent on NOT poisoning her daughter's mind against her ex that she refuses to warn Kelly that her father's temper is legendary.
To distract her from her father, the twins decide to hook Kelly up with Nicholas Morrow, and as a kid I was all for this pairing. He can't have Liz, he doesn't want Jess, why not gift him with the cousin who looks eerily like Liz and acts more like her, too? Perfect! And Nicholas seems just as interested, as he invites her to the costume party at the Country Club within minutes of meeting the girl. Kelly is flattered and for a moment you think maybe something will go Nicholas' way. Yeah, right.
While playing tennis with Jessica, Kelly meets Kirk Anderson. You might remember him as the guy who tried to humiliate Penny and was 'fixed' by Elizabeth's little scheme to have the twins' model cousin go out with Kirk, only of course their cousin isn't a model and Kirk was stood up. To get payback for the payback, Kirk woos Kelly and because Kelly's got daddy issues, she falls for him.
He also invites her to the party and because she's got the hots for him, Kelly agrees. Eventually she lets Nicholas down, but not before I'm a little creeped out. See, when Nicholas asked her out, he was a little too into the fact that they looked so identical, so he suggested they go as a three-for-the-price-of-one thing, which the girls agreed to happily enough. Then he pushed this three blind mice thing and I learned a little too much about Nich's kink to ever look at him the same way again. Seriously, it's a little on the weird side, okay?

   It doesn't take long for us to realize that Kirk hasn't changed his ways at all, no matter what he told Kelly. He shows up late with relatively lame excuses, runs off to talk to his ex-girlfriend and lingers a little too long, leaves parties with said ex, and always, always, ALWAYS has an excuse. If there's one thing I learned early on in life, someone who always has an excuse? Yeah, they're an asshole. They're also up to something. Jessica and Elizabeth are floored when Kelly continues to keep seeing him, but Liz quickly realizes that Kelly is blind to Kirk's faults because they are exactly the same as her father's.
Even when rumours of his infidelity pop up, Kelly refuses to believe anything bad about Kirk. Which is why, when it comes time to decide which will be the See-No-Evil monkey in their See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil costumes, Kelly's an automatic lock for See No. Liz is voted Speak No Evil, and Jess is left with Hear No Evil. Not entirely sure whether any of those three would have fit the youngest Wakefield twin, but whatever.
They all go to the party and everyone loves their outfits once Enid guesses just who/what they are. Kelly leaves early with Kirk who seems to go from zero to sixty in no time flat. Earlier Cara warned Kelly that Kirk was a little, well, fast, and Kelly marveled at the notion because they hadn't even kissed yet, and they'd been seeing each other for at least a week at that point. Kirk drives Kelly out to Miller's Point and seems to believe that one kiss deserves to go straight to groping and that should, naturally, lead to more. He accuses her of being a tease and she tells him to back the fuck off, scrambles to her feet, and kicks the boy in the shins. He freaks out and starts throwing beer bottles. The sound of breaking glass unlocks something in Kelly's memory and the world kind of goes sideways for a moment.

   Your B story, if one could consider it that, was Kelly's recurring nightmare that she's unable to remember upon waking. She just knows it's so bad that she wakes up crying, unable to go back to sleep because the vague memory of it scares her too badly.
   Turns out the dream was real. It was the night her mother left her father because he was so furious and out of it that he kept throwing things around the kitchen, breaking stuff left and right. Kelly was hiding under the kitchen table as her parents fought, and even when Laura slid under the table to tell Kelly to get to the neighbor's and call the police, Kelly was too afraid to move.
Because Kelly apparently blocked the memory, Laura never told Kelly why exactly she left Greg. She was afraid that the moment she said one bad thing about her ex, she'd be unable to stop. Fair enough, except that Kelly hadn't entirely blocked the memory and I think 8 years of relatively crappy sleep might contribute greatly to Kelly's less than stellar relationship with her mother.
So, Kelly freaks out and refuses to get back in Kirk's white Trans Am. He drives off and somewhere along the line Jeanie and Tom pick Kelly up. Good thing since only Elizabeth had shoes, and I'm betting she left 'em in the Fiat. Anyway, they drop Kelly off at the Wakefield's just as Liz and Jeffrey [dressed as a wino] are about to go inside and binge on ice cream. Kelly tells Liz what she remembered and Liz puts her to bed while she waits for the rest of her family to come home. When they do, conveniently all at the same time, she tells him and Alice calls Laura, who hops the first flight from Tucson. Mother and daughter talk for two hours Sunday morning and it's all peachy with a side order of keen. Kelly's leaving a month and a half early, but at least we don't have to suffer through more of her, "But my Daddy loves me!" crap. Seriously, honey, he blew off your birthday. Arrived late, didn't bring a present, and left early. We call that an asshole.
   Our cliff-hanger is something about Robin being accepted early admission to Sarah Lawrence College, but in reality we'll be going forward in time to Summer so we can hang out with the intern twins again for On The Run. Yay!

Trivia:

Jessica is again referred to as Hurricane Jessica. It's called trivia, and I like knowing when she's a force of nature.

Gasp! Jessica is awake before Elizabeth on a Saturday morning because she's so excited about Kelly's arrival. Awww.

Kelly is set to room with Jessica for the first month and then with Liz for the second month of her stay. Torture her with messiness and then let her mess up Liz's room once she's been turned to the slob ways. Well played, Ned and Alice. Well played.

Steven's up at Puget Sound for some research project. If you play the PS drinking game, you might want to check your liver's health beforehand.

Eight years ago, Laura fled SV and never really told anyone, not even her sister, Alice, why. After she was safely out of town, she filed for divorce from Greg.

Alice just assumed that Laura finally got fed up with Greg's temper and his cheating ways. Mostly she seems to have assumed Greg had someone semi-serious on the side.

When Kelly tries to play the Which Twin Is Which game at the airport, she fails.

Later on, Greg will play this game at Casa Wakefield and he will win.

Kelly and Liz both loved Alice's Adventures In Wonderland as kids and acted out the Mad Hatter's tea party, crazy croquet game, and both write poetry and work for their school papers. So why is she rooming with Jess first?

Kelly is quickly enrolled at SVH for her two-month stint as a Wakefield.

Within seconds of arriving, Jess and Liz detail how they play to hook Kelly up with Nicholas Morrow. Jess goes on an on about how amazing Nich is and when Kelly asks what the catch is, Liz points out that Regina just died and everyone is bummed once more. WOE. The other catch, Kelly, is that he's been in love with Elizabeth since he appeared on the scene. But no one tells her that.

Jess does marvel that it seems exceptionally wrong to be helping someone else snag Nicholas since she's STILL got the hots for him. Agreed, Jess. Your Sainthood will be put on the docket immediately.

The cover scene actually sort of happens on K's first day at SVH. Kelly wears a pink shirt to match Jessica's t-shirt from airport day and we'll just assume it's purple like the cover, and Liz has worn her blue tee, and they're wearing little denim miniskirts. Liz, I should mention, does this totally by accident, not realizing what the other two are planning.

The girls of SVH detail the ways K does not look exactly like the twins: her hair is a shade darker and not as wavy, her eyes are green, her cheekbones are higher, and she has a narrower face. Truthfully, that last one aside, she sounds prettier. *runs from the SVH mob*

15-0-20. Kelly's locker combo.

Robin Wilson is in the Four County Diving Championship. Woo?

Kelly, like everyone else, adores Mr. Collins.

Olivia has chem class with Kelly.

Kelly has nightmares that are so bad that she cries in her sleep but cannot remember anything concrete about them when she wakes.

The DB has pinball machines and video games. Great, now I'd kill for a cheeseburger.

Greg Bates has black hair, a rogue-ish, self mocking smile, dark eyes, and oozes charm. He's so hot that Jess forgets for a moment that he was family. Make of that what you will.

K is invited to the Country Club costume party a week from Saturday.

Jess wanted to use ostrich plumes for her CC costume party costume.

Kelly suggests the Three Musketeers and Nich suggests the 3 Blind Mice. Later Liz will suggest the Bronte sisters.

Kelly stomps all over Jess during tennis. No!

Alice spent $35 at Sport Zone on Jessica's new cheer leading uniform, a small fortune at Book Worm for Liz's reference books, and we know this because Ned is freaking out over a credit card statement.

Greg says he'll be in the Valley [yes, actually in the Valley!] at 5pm. He runs a little late and doesn't appear until 6:30.

Lila's bathroom has a jacuzzi, two sinks, mirrors everywhere, and fantastic lighting. And you really expected less?

Whenever someone says they're keeping it real, or that someone is a real person, and they don't mean, "Hey, I know the real -someone whose name is shared by fictional character but in this case we don't actually mean the fictional person-" I want to bitchslap whomever. Because it's fucking stupid is what it is.

Marci Kaplan is a willowy brunette who happens to be Kirk the Jerk's ex/not quite so ex as K thought.

Kelly is reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles in study hall.

K is roped into writing A Stranger's View of Sweet Valley High after she turns down writing a piece on how the Valley has changed since she last lived there. Penny demands a hook/gimmick.

For whatever reason the girls in the shower room at SVH are singing Rubber Duckie.

There's a pre-dinner party at the Wakefields for Kelly's birthday.

Aunt Laura sends Kelly flowers: roses, carnations, lilies, freesias, snapdragons, and floating ferns. Initially Kelly thinks they're from her father, but the pink card tells her otherwise. Suddenly they go from "So beautiful, you shouldn't have!" to "ugh, tryhard." Miracles do happen!

Greg waxes poetic about a beautiful antique writing desk in Paris, but he didn't want K to wait for a present, as shipping would take forever, so... he brought nothing. Yeah, wha?

Liz and I agree that Greg is an ass.

Jess is very crafty and really gets into her 3 No Evils costumes.

Jess also apparently babysits for Steven's professors.

Liz drove to the costume party [and thus the only one with shoes]. She was Speak No Evil, Jess was Hear No Evil, and Kelly was See No Evil.

For those playing along at home, The Droids played Dance Bop, an original of theirs. My ears bleed at the mere thought.

Lila dresses as Princess Di, Enid is a hippie, Jeffrey is a wino, Susan Stewart is Rita Hayworth, Ken is Donald Duck, Robin wore a wet suit, Kirk was a pirate, Winston won most creative for coming as a bunch of grapes, and Sandy won most authentic for her Mexican dress she borrowed from Manuel's family.

Robin is accepted early admittance to Sarah Lawrence College.

Quote-a-luscious:

"She tried some cocaine, and it did something weird to her heart. She went into a coma and died." -Regina in a nutshell, courtesy of Jess. p12

"Come on, it's no big deal. We've doubled up lots of times. You can sit on Liz's lap."
"She's so generous with other people's laps." Jess/Liz, p17/18

"You're in a unique position, living with the infamous Wakefield twins. How about writing an expose: 'The Secret Life of Elizabeth and Jessica- The True Story.'" - Oh, Penny... p24

"You know," Jessica muttered, "It's pretty mind boggling to think I'm helping to fix Nicholas up with someone else. Even if she is my cousin." - p29

Jessica scowled. Kelly's complaints about her mother didn't impress her. All mothers acted that way, Jessica wanted to point out. That's just the way they were., - So wise, Jess. p56

"That's how I think of you-as a totally real person." You are so lame, Kirk. SO LAME. p80

As a kid I really liked this one. I don't know why. Maybe because nothing really happened, but the idea of having a cousin stay that long and have that much fun while there seemed fantastic. Particularly because it was the closest I knew I'd ever get to having a sister, and I sort of wanted one of mine to come stay for awhile. Naturally I was glossing over the fact that my cousins and I didn't get along for the first two hours of any given visit, and usually the last hour was a little dicey, too.
Of course, as a kid I thought Kelly's preoccupation with her father and his inability to see his glaring faults was more than a little annoying, too. Still, I loved the idea of a third Wakefield twin [I know, but bear with me and we'll cut out the triplet speak] and Kelly herself seemed like she'd be fun. A mix of the twins, you know?
Still don't fully understand why they didn't just put Kelly in Steven's room while he was away because it takes him two weeks to show up.

This has been mostly done for ages. I'm just that much of a slacker. Didja miss me?

Leaded Snow, leaded snow, leaded snow

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 12:30:09 GMT

Whatever you celebrate, make sure to celebrate it in style. So don your fuschia party dress or black leather, grab the biggest knife you can find [but only if it glitters in the light], and take a stab at being a Wakefield for a day... or a lifetime. Tis the season, after all.

Dear Abbie...

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:16:25 GMT

Pretenses
April 1988

Is someone coming between Cara and Steven?

Too much mystery...

Cara Walker feels that her boyfriend, Steven Wakefield, isn't paying enough attention to her. Suddenly he's acting aloof and withdrawn. Cara's good friend Jessica, Steven's sister, suggests that Cara add some mystery to the relationship.
When Cara takes Jessica's advice, it backfires. Steven starts to act even more distant, and Cara is sure he's hiding something. He used to confide in her, but now it seems he's turning to his sister Elizabeth's friend Abbie Richardson. Will Cara discover Steven's secret before she's replaced by someone new?

   I don't know who wrote Pretenses. I'm not sure I want to know, although it would make me feel a whole hell of a lot better about things if it was one of those books co-written by at least two different people because there is a LOT of flip-flopping going on. No one seems to be able to make up their mind about anything at all for longer than a couple of paragraphs. With that warning in mind, as well as the warning that once again people take relationship advice from Jessica Wakefield, we begin.

   Jessica's been thinking that Cara and Steven are really more than due for a break-up. Of course, she's been thinking this since approximately two hours after she first hooked them up, so this is nothing new. Cara, in a throwback to that younger, simpler time [it has been twenty books exactly, my dears] decides to throw herself a belated birthday party. You remember, she was awfully depressed over her parents' divorce and so she and Steven celebrated by him acting like an asshole in a fancy restaurant. Good, good times, right?
Yeah, not so much. So to erase that particularly pleasant memory, Cara decides to create a new one. She's throwing herself a party at the Marine House and, as it's fairly expensive, she can only afford to invite fourteen people. Remember that, okay. The book says she can only INVITE fourteen people. Problem is, she mentioned this little party to Abbie Richardson, a girl we've never met before the last book because she spent all her free time with her boyfriend from Palisades, Doug Brewster. But Cara can't think of anyone to leave off the guest list, so... she can't invite Abbie, although everyone can tell the girl expects an invite since Cara brought it up.
Jessica tells Cara not to worry about it, Abbie blew them off for the last two years, really, she can't expect to be invited to the party and it'll be okay if Cara just avoids the subject entirely. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but Cara falls for it. I'll never understand why I keep believing the lie that she's somewhat intelligent given the way she always falls for the stupid!Jessica advice so readily, but ignores the two or three good pieces of advice the ditzy twin hands out. Oi. So... Cara avoids talking to Abbie about this entirely. Poor Abbie thinks she's getting an invite and instead gets the awkward avoidance. Fun!
The kicker for the party is that I counted, repeatedly, and there are only thirteen people, not counting Cara, at this damn thing. So, um, why couldn't Abbie come again? Cara laments the fact that she screwed poor Abbie over and Abbie still gave her a present... as well as the fact that she should have invited Abbie in Steven's place for all the fun she had with him.
Steven's home from SVU due to serious allergy/sinus problems. Because he's a guy [and I apologize to any of you out there] he's also a complete ass while he's sick. Instead of leveling with Cara at ANY point about exactly how god awful he feels, or how worried he is that his health problem happened at the worst time for him academically speaking, he just... withdraws. So she realizes something's wrong and tries to move closer and he feels smothered and trapped and tries to gnaw his own leg off to get away and she's hurt and he's hurt and no one does any talking to the right people here. Instead of confiding in someone trained in such matters [the high school relationship will live or die depending on how many people it takes to maintain it when the two people involved are too stupid to do the right thing, y'know?], Steven confides in Abbie because she's been hanging around the house lately, what with the B plot and all.

   B plot would be that OHMYGOD, the sky is falling! The Oracle isn't as popular as it used to be! NOOOOOOOOOooooooooo! I swear, the pages where Penny/Liz/Jeffrey/Winston freak out are just insanely bad. So bad it's good bad. Winston tells the uptight idiots that the paper has everything except something intentionally funny, so they should run a contest to add some humor to the damn thing. They agree, offer him the job, he declines, and we gather it falls to Olivia to set things up. Olivia, I should mention, is never seen. Anyway, the contest comes down to Abbie's Jenny comic strip and Amy's mock-Miss-Manners column. I don't know about Amy, but Jenny is decidedly unfunny. I have vague memories of thinking it was hi-larious as a child, or at least mildly amusing, so maybe I'm just too old now. *coughdoubtitcough*
Anyway, Abbie has self-esteem issues and seems to be a bit obsessive about Liz, so she won't believe her stuff is any good until someone else tells her it is. To milk this for all it's worth [and then some] Abbie has been coming over to the Wakefields every afternoon to the point where no one is ever surprised to see her. Hence Steven's ability to confide in the girl.
Abbie tells Steven, repeatedly, to talk to Cara. To tell her what's going on, but Steven can't. See, there's another little problem. He's been getting these letters. ~~I know what you did last summer!~~ Written on Tricia Martin's old stationary. And the boy can't tell up from down, right from left, living from dead. It never occurs to him that Cara is sending the letters, although I'd think that by now we'd know whether she and Tricia used the same perfume, and Cara's been spritzing perfume on the letters in lieu of an actual signature. Steven, I guess, can't smell a damn thing, so maybe that's his excuse.

   Blah blah blah, Liz and Jessica realize at different points that something is a little off about Steven and Abbie. Liz notices that Steven has been getting letters on familiar stationary, although she can't figure out where she's seen it before. Jessica has noticed that Steven and Abbie are getting awfully close to that mutual attraction stage she's so familiar with. The twins investigate a bit at the mall and find out that a girl their age, possibly a brunette, recently bought the last of the pink forget-me-not stationary and the twins leap to the conclusion that it's Abbie once the clerk says the girl had such a sweet voice. Everything about Abbie is sweet.
Two seconds after leaving the store, they run into Reformed!Crackwhore Martin and she mentions that she's only in town because Steven wanted to grill her about the whereabouts of Tricia's stuff, like say, I don't know, her stationary. Liz is shocked! Who would be so cruel as to send Steven letters written on Tricia's stationary, and also, how many times will I have to write the word stationary?
Um, duh? You guys just decided Abbie bought stationary like that, so it's a coincidence. Which is exactly what Jessica says. Nyargh?

   When Ned announces that he's scored six free tickets to the Lakers vs. the Celtics game, Steven chooses to invite Abbie instead of Cara, reinforcing the theory that the two are interested in one another. Jessica tells Lila who tells Cara in a rare moment of giving a damn about someone else. Lila's attempts at making Cara stand up for herself as well as making Cara feel better are painfully awful [but classic Lila at the same time] but also vaguely sweet.
Jessica comes home to find Abbie holding a piece of pink stationary that she seems awfully nervous to be caught holding. Jessica waits for Liz to get home and then confronts her with the gossip, and Liz admits that she'd noticed how close the two had gotten. Liz is pissed to think that Abbie, whom she really liked, was just using her to get to Steven, who she probably sees as nothing more than a replacement boyfriend. Jess is just crazy, so the twins go in and bitch poor, innocent Abbie out.
Abbie is horrified that, get this, her worst nightmare has come true. People think she's an awful person! Oh no! But then she gets mad that they're blaming her for something she didn't even do. If Abbie had wanted, truly wanted Steven, and been less of a nice girl, she could have made a play for him, but didn't. She tried to keep him with Cara at EVERY turn, and hell, poor Abbie's not even sure whether she like-likes Steven or if he's like an older brother. Seriously, I got a twinge of the whiplash trying to keep up with whether our ghosty thought she liked Steven as a replacement for Doug or if she just liked him as a friendly older brotherly type.
Abbie tells them to go to hell, she's innocent, and then she leaves.

   Lila, meanwhile, has gone to Cara's to convince the girl to calm down before she murders the entire Wakefield family, and then convinces Cara that even if things are as bad as they seem, she HAS to talk to Steven anyway, so she'll know for sure and get her say. God, when Lila [and this is the mostly shallow version of Lila to boot] is making the most sense in the book, you really, really have to worry. Cara arrives and asks Steven how he likes her letters because he's never said one word about them to her.
Everyone is aghast at how they've messed things up so horribly and they run off to fix things with Abbie. Abbie makes them work for it a bit and then they all kiss and makeup and Ned finagles another ticket out of one of the law partners and it's a happy ending for everyone!
And what's more, cousin Kelly is coming to visit next book! Yay! More Wakefield drama! Oh happy day!

Trivial Pursuit:

Jess and Cara have to take the bus to school because Liz has a doctor's appointment. Jess, to no one's surprise, hates the bus.

Cara's throwing herself a belated birthday party to erase the memory of her awful time with Steven. Too bad she replaced it with another bad Steven memory when he snaps at her for asking about his mysterious letter, huh?

Cara's party is being held at the Marine House, which sits right on the water and is expensive. Cara says she can only invite fourteen people and these make the cut: Jessica, Elizabeth, Lila, Jeffrey, Steven, Sandra, Manuel, Jeannie, Tom, Winston, Maria, Amy, and Bruce. Um, where's the 14th person making it impossible for Cara to invite Abbie? Also, why the hell is Liz invited to Cara's birthday party?

Despite assuring us all series that the Oracle is awesome, now we learn no one likes it as much as they used to. I feel so lied to. Where's truth in journalism, damn it? Letter to the editor time!

Abbie's infamous boyfriend was Doug Brewster, a year older than Abbie, baseball player, and a bit of jerk. His mother is a painter and he'd belittle Abbie's cartoons because he felt they weren't true art.

Abbie herself is described as having dark brown hair that's "as fine as satin", light blue eyes, ivory skin that's prone to blushing, and she's delicate and sweet.

Winston and Abbie had art together last year.

This year Abbie and Jessica have art together.

When Abbie offers to take Penny's lunch tray, Jeffrey comments that Abbie seems like a nice girl. Jeffrey from ten books or so ago would have wondered what the heck was driving her to be such a doormat. When did Jeffrey get a lobotomy?

Steven's doctor sends him home because Steve's got some serious allergy or sinus problems. Turns out that he's allergic to a lot of things, namely mold, grass, and dust.

Abbie is allergic to cats.

Jessica's favorite soap character that week was Lania Louise.

Abbie's mother is a psychologist who happens to over analyze her daughter's life. Oops.

Abby names her comic strip Jenny, and it stars normal 16 year old Jenny Bain. Bain is Abbie's middle name, as it's an old family name. Nice.

Jenny's boyfriend's name is Mel.

Amy wants to do a mock-Miss Manners column, but we never see it, even though Abbie helps her with it.

Abbie thinks that Cara avoids talking about her party at lunch one day because someone at the table isn't invited. She thinks it might be Sandra or Jeannie. Um... right, sure, of course.

Abbie buys Cara a silver ring for her birthday.

Abbie's mother thinks she prefers giving to receiving because it means Abbie gets to retain more control that way.

Steven's arms turned red due to the allergy tests.

The stationary Tricia and Cara used was pink with forget-me-nots. There's a blue option as well.

"Everyone" knows the story of Tricia Martin and how she and Steve were together for ages before her illness. Sure, right. Forever.

Liz has to ask Jessica for the French word for when you feel like you've done something before and Jessica knows it's deja vu. Freaky?

Jess and Liz head to the Midnight Madness sale at the mall. Anyone else remember those? Do they still do them? I'm old. I'll shut up.

Cara bought her stationary at the Pen and Paper shop in the mall. Liz likes to buy journals for her writing there. I'd mock, but dude, I'd probably be too busy drooling over the journals and pens to say anything.

Our ghosty brings us the word portentously. The writing on this one is just on a completely different level.

Abbie sees Dr. Griffin.

Bob Young, a partner at Ned's law firm, gives the family six free tickets to the Lakers versus the Celtics playoff game. Then, just to cover up Steven's stupidity, Ned asks for, and is given, a seventh ticket. Funny, my father would have told one of us that it sucked to be us cuz we ruined our shot at going. Ah, tough love.

Doug Brewster started dating some girl named Mariel before he and Abbie had officially broken up, which is a big reason why Abbie would never go after Steven BEFORE he broke up with Cara. That and Abbie is all things sweet and good.

Abbie's never been to a professional basketball game before.

The twins' Aunt Laura, on Alice's side, lives in Tucson, Arizona and is about to be remarried to a widowed doctor with two sons.

Kelly, their cousin, is not happy about her father, their uncle Greg, being replaced.

Laura and Greg divorced when Kelly was eight or nine.

Quotes:
Gold stars of unintended hilarity:

"What you don't have"- he took a bite of ice cream- "is humor. No cartoons. No comic strip. No puzzles. Nothing funny in the whole darn paper."
"He's right," Penny said to Elizabeth. "I never even thought about that. Did you?"
Elizabeth had to admit that she hadn't. "Winston! That's a great idea. If we add a humorous feature to the paper, I bet people will like it every bit as much as they did when we first started putting the paper out!" - If you found this funny, you know why. If not, um, yeah, just imagine the stick up her butt making her speech so stilted, kay? p8

"Winston," Penny said pleadingly, "how would you like to be the new humor editor? Just come up with something truly hilarious by next week and make everyone say how much they love the paper again." - See, this wouldn't be funny if I thought she was kidding, but I doubt she is. Penny's only given a sense of humor in her own book. No pressure there, Win! p 8

   Lania was Jessica's favorite soap opera character that week. - I love that we have to be told it changes weekly. hee! p20

Abbie had been noticing Elizabeth from afar for awhile now, and she secretly thought Elizabeth was one of the smartest, nicest girls at school. - I smell stalker! p23

   As far as Abbie was concerned these days, Elizabeth Wakefield could do no wrong. - Um, next stop blond hair dye and aqua contacts? p 26

"It gets on my nerves when people are that nice. I'm always sure they want something." - Gotta say, I agree with Jessica on this one. mwerp? p 29

   The way to make friends was to be nice to people, to listen to them, to offer to help them, not to dump your own troubles on their shoulders. - Abbie's guide for making friends. p 38

"Cara," Lila said, putting down her fork and looking at Cara with her ultrasophisticated I-know-what's-good-for-you expression. "Is something wrong with you? You look like you just lost every share of stock you own." - This, my pets, is why Lila will always be awesome. p 84

She liked Abbie Richardson! She didn't want to think Abbie had been using her to get to know Steven better! - I'm apparently twelve years old and want to know if she liked-liked Abbie. Sorry, Liz. p105

   "I'm going to go over to his house and tell him what a jerk I think he is!" Her dark eyes filled with tears. "I'm going to kill them all," she muttered. "I bet Liz is behind this somehow. She's the one who started inviting Abbie over all the time. I bet she wanted this to happen all along!" - Look! Liz is getting blamed for being sneaky! Hallelujah! Poor Cara, though. p 115

"I don't believe anyone can steal anyone else. This is Steve we're talking about, not some sort of material possession." - This actually stayed with me more than any other line in the book, or most of the rest of the series, actually. Scary, but true. Cara is wise. p 128

   I've gotta say, Pretenses is one of those books I think I read once or twice as a kid and then always remembered more from the diary entries based on the book than I do the actual book. For all the lead up they tried to give Abbie, she's pretty much written out of the series [I think] and it's all a fantastic waste, just to teach girls to COMMUNICATE with their boyfriends. Seriously, we have Abbie, Lila, Jessica, Liz, and then the couple themselves hammering this theory on home. It hurts! Someone stop the sledgehammer of subtlety!
I could have done without all the flip flopping like I said earlier. One minute Jess is the one talking crazy, the next it's Liz with her conspiracy theories about how someone would want to hurt Steven. No one did, you moron, it was a misunderstanding just like Jess said. Or Abbie's feelings for Steven. If they'd been portrayed as confusing to begin with, I might understand, but Abbie goes from comfortable with Steven to thinking she likes him and then BAM, he's like her older brother for a paragraph or two and then she likes him again. So. Painful.
I think Abbie sounds like a sweetheart, but she isn't funny. She's just... not. She's sincere and sweet and pretty enough that she didn't really have to work on developing a sense of humor, and really, reading her punchlines, it shows. The only person less funny than she is this whole book is Liz.
   I want to like Cara, I really do, but mostly I think she's a bit of a moron lately. She keeps letting Jessica talk her into stupid things and then marveling when things go just as badly as we would have predicted. Imagine that. When Jess likes her to Elizabeth, she's referring to their relationship status, but I think it's more their raging blind spot for Jessica's true motives.

Side note: This is probably your last update of any interest until next year. Holidays in retail don't leave much time for anything else, sadly enough. See you next year with the harrowing story of poor, poor deluded cousin Kelly.

And now a word from our sponsors

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 08:55:43 GMT

We interrupt this startling lack of nothing to bring to your attention the obvious: Tis Christmastime in the Valley. For those of you who don't really do Christmas, what with the Hanukkah or the Solstice or the boycotting or whatever reason, the Valley, well, she snubs you.

To join us in our yearly celebration of the season, you should have begun reading Evil Twin arc. I prefer to begin with A Night To Remember and then speed read all the way to The Evil Twin and then the Return of the Evil Twin, but you might want to just skip to the good stuff since it's not like you don't know full well what happens. Nothing says Christmas in the Valley like murder and mayhem. Of course, technically you could let the Evil Twin books slide til New Years, but for some reason I associate them more with Christmas. I blame the cover art myself.

But to truly get the full insanity of the book juggling, you should also be reading Magic Christmas as it might be the best SV book ever. If anyone can tell me what movie/book/acid trip they're borrowing heavily from, I'd be grateful. But I said juggling, so you need a few more on your plate. I'm fond of Big for Christmas, although it's not all that... Christmas-y, aside from the cover. A Christmas Without Elizabeth is pretty good, unless you really do want a world without Liz but you don't want it to be pretty much Apocalyptic. I think of the book and I keep thinking that Liz-less world is all grey and somber and there's smog everywhere. I... don't tend to do this one for my holiday crunch. I do try and squeeze in The Christmas Ghost and The Year Without Christmas because it's just not Christmas unless someone's messing with younger Jessica after she's been a right royal bitch. Ahh, good times.

The best friend and former roommate says I should include SVU's Home For Christmas, if only for the cover that perplexed her for years. To show how faithful she is to this book, it is the only non-Pike book that I had to promise not to appropriate even though she's left it here for the last five years. It's been entrusted to me for safekeeping.

So, the big three [Evil Twins and Magic Christmas] are how I do the holidays right. What about you?

And seriously, the fun will resume shortly once I get off my butt and go find where I put Pretenses.

I really don't want to be a bother...

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:53:57 GMT

Hard Choices
February 1988

Will Enid's life ever be the same?

No life of her own...

   Enid Rollins can hardly wait for her grandmother to come live with her and her mother. But when she arrives, Enid is dismayed that the kind, sprightly woman she remembered is now burdensome and demanding.
   Because Enid's mother works long hours and is often out with her boyfriend, Enid finds herself making all sorts of sacrifices to please her grandmother. She skips school events and even stands up her best friend Elizabeth Wakefield. Worst of all, she never has any time for her boyfriend, Hugh. It's beginning to look as if Enid may have to say goodbye to someone she loves.

   It just figures. Enid has fantastically awful luck. Let's look at the three books you could claim as hers, shall we?

Secrets: She's nowhere to be seen on the cover. She loses her boyfriend, the respect [if she had any?] of her peers at SVH when her drug addled past is revealed, fights with her best friend, believes herself to be stabbed in the back by said friend but in reality it was said friend's devious twin sister*, but she is given an exceptionally hot former bad boy boyfriend at the end.
* Twin sister essentially gets away with it unscathed. Attempts to extract vengeance and justice just result in wounding innocent bystander Winston.

Crash Landing!: Aforementioned Super Hot Former Bad Boy has been fooling around on Enid with former fat girl. FBB takes Enid up on promised flight, and plans to dump her immediately afterward. Instead, crashes plane and Enid paralyzes herself rescuing FBB and is reduced to invalid state of mind in the vain hope it'll guilt the FBB into sticking around. Gives FBB up and is even more Saintly than Saint Elizabeth.
   While plane crashes are hardly anyone's best look, and there's an ethereal glow, unfortunate 80's curly frizzy hair disaster distracts from Saint Liz's mustache... and Saint Liz should not be in this scene anyway.

Hard Choices: Finally escaped Saint Liz. Get alone time on cover. Channeling some serious Golden Girls Blanche, but without the spangled fashion and giant earrings. Rethink fashion choices and wait impatiently for better hair. Take solace in the knowledge that under the unfortunate hair, E is very pretty.
   Major storyline? Grandma from HELL.

Yes. Enid, she of the drug abuse and plane crashes comes back into our lives in a starring role, finally stepping out from behind Saint Elizabeth's robes. And what does she bring us this time?
A granny who, if she clung any closer would kill her remaining family members. But not an actual vampire as that'd be really, really interesting and we haven't hit that stage of fucked-up in the series yet. Oh, Enid...

Enid's grandfather died a few months ago, seriously off-camera, which is sort of understandable as we're in the midst of a C-list/B-list spotlight thing, so our time with Saint Liz has been limited, although you'd think someone would know that SL's best friend's grandfather died. It's a really small school after all. But no one knows. No one cares.
Typical.
   Enid and her mother invite Nana to stay with them and Nana agrees. So. Everyone's expecting a slightly more subdued version of cookie baking Nana of old, but instead they get Old Woman Who Complains A Lot.
Nana quickly begins making life miserable for all those involved, but she is helped along by Mrs. Rollins being an incredible nitwit. We're given the impression that Adele [Mrs. Rollins], Nana, and Enid all love one another, but when given a choice, Adele choses Richard, her boyfriend of six months, EVERY TIME. Which would be cool, but this book takes place over a time frame of maybe two weeks and some change. You'd think for a couple of weeks she could dial back the dates. I understand some of them are big deals, but when she's going out so often that Enid ALWAYS has to break her dates? There's a problem.
And yet, given the way Nana manipulates everything and everyone around her, and is so damn judgmental of everyone, it's not hard to see why Adele would run for the hills at every given opportunity.
But then she wonders why Enid is being so touchy.

Parents in the Valley are special. Sadly, this affliction is not just restricted to the Valley, as I know a few people just like that, but without Nana's insanity as an excuse.

   Nana's most annoying habit is saying that she doesn't want to be a burden just as she makes herself a burden.

Now that we've established that if you were ever struck by the desire to be Enid of all the SVH characters, now is certainly not the time you would chose to be her. Nope, nuh uh.
Because, as fun as this sounds, there's still more! Nana disapproves of Richard, which makes it easier to Enid to play into her feelings of resenting him for taking her mother away. So Nana and Enid can gang up on Adele. Fun for everyone but A, right? Wrong! Nana doesn't like Hugh either, so she and Adele can bond over that! Except... Adele had no problem with Hugh until Nana came to town.
   It still gets better. Enid and Hugh started out strong enough, but they've hit the end of their honeymoon period, which is a bit unfair considering Liz is still mooning over Jeffrey and those two have been together longer. Of course, Hugh and Enid have the added strain of going to different schools and haven't been going out long enough that his friends are her friends and vice versa. So when Nana begins to make it necessary for Enid to break quite a few dates, Hugh gets more than a bit pissy.
But things look up for the couple when Hugh invites Enid to go with him on a school sponsored camping trip. Enid's sure her mother will say yes [the fuck?] but after a chat with Nana, it's a no go. Hugh ain't happy because Enid couldn't get in touch with him before he'd left to pick her up.

Now, before things can explode, we have to take a moment for our B-story. Saint Liz decides to enter a documentary contest and hers will be about the wonderful town of Sweet Valley. Jeffrey will film it, Jessica will narrate/star, and Liz will write the script, and abuse the word "town" in the process. I... don't know what Enid was supposed to do, but she can't do much because Nana throws a hissy fit when she even thinks she's going to be alone. Oi. Anyway, Enid doesn't end up doing much of anything other than bringing the group down [woe!] but Liz still wants her to come to their big premiere night at the Wakefield's. Enid tells her mother about this in advance, invites Hugh, and is so hopeful for a night out that you know damn well she ain't getting it.
   Sure enough, Richard has invited Adele to a big deal dinner for the station. Some awards thing. Annnnnnnd Adele can't tell him no, because she feels bad for not having accepted his marriage proposal due to her mother driving them all insane. So... even when Nana shoots down the thought of the nice neighbor staying with her, Adele leaves Enid in the lurch. Actually runs out the door shouting, "Sorry!" over her shoulder.
   Hugh appears moments later and is not pleased to have his date broken, again. He and Enid get into a shrieking match and break up. Shaken by this, Enid wanders back and finds Nana who is acting as if nothing bad has happened, and bah, she didn't like Hugh anyway. Enid flips out, yells at Nana for not giving anyone a chance, for pretending to be this helpless old woman when that is NOT who Nana is, damn it, and oh yeah, the song of every teenage girl: "I hate you!"
And then Enid goes to the party, sits alone, and has no fun. When Liz finally asks what's wrong, Enid tells her, but she's worked herself into such a state that she's sure that Nana will have become ill [Nana threatened it all night] and Enid runs home to find...
Nana baking cookies.
   o_O
Nana apologizes for being sixteen different flavors of crazy and admits that she was so afraid of losing Enid and Adele that she clung to them like a psychotic ex-girlfriend so they couldn't leave. Or something. But it took Enid yelling at her for all the things she hated about herself for Nana to snap out of her stupidity.
Adele comes home and everything ends well. Nana moves back to Chicago with the promise of returning to the Valley one day. Enid and Hugh get back together. And... lord knows what happens to Richard and Adele, honestly.
It's a bit of a shame because Richard was nice to Enid's friends, although the man had a bit of a problem in recognizing his girlfriend should actually spend some time with her family while they were going through a bit of an upheaval. I'm just saying if he'd been thinking with the right head...

Anyway, the book ends with a bit of suspicion about Cara and Steve's relationship. Oh no! It's time for another Tricia Martin haunting, isn't it?

Crap!

Trivia:

Jess is going to meet Lila and Cara at the DB at 4:30. Liz tells her to pick her up at Enid's around 4:15. Jessica is actually on time. The world comes to a screeching halt, film at 11.

Enid moves into the attic so Nana can have her old room. I guess when her little brother was mysteriously abducted, the aliens took his room, too.

Nana and Gramps [the Langevins] lived in a rambling old house in Chicago.

Our ghosty feels the need to spell it out that Enid and her mother are just teasing Elizabeth and not really ganging up on her when Mrs. Rollins says Liz is a terrible influence on Enid. Draw your own conclusions.

Enid's new room doesn't have a bookcase or really any storage space. It also lacks a closet [as I gather most attics do. Ours, when I was growing up, had one], or wardrobe to hold Enid's clothes, so they have to make a clothesline for the hangers. Poor E.

By page eight, we realize Enid has some issues with her mother's boyfriend, Richard Cernak.

There was a "major problem with the typesetter" that week and Penny's just gotten the proofs for next week's edition Friday. Drama!

The DB is packed that Friday. You've got Enid, Elizabeth, Jessica, Cara, Lila, Penny, John Pfieffer and six members of the soccer team, as well as Sally and Dana Larson.

"Filmmaker Announces Showcase for Student Documentaries." The filmmaker in question is Jackson Croft, Susan's father.

Lila has been upgraded to one of Jessica's two best friends. For the most part in the SVH series, she's just been one of Jessica's friends, as Cara has held the Best Friend slot, usually all by herself. Go Lila?

Enid stayed behind while Mrs. Rollins went to pick Nana up at the airport. Enid added a few loving touches to the room she was giving away, like tiny lavender scented, heart shaped soaps for the bathroom, as well as a bouquet of flowers [freesias, baby's breath, carnations, and three white rosebuds] for the room itself. Nana immediately has them banished from the room due to pollen worries, hence the cover art.

Nana has green eyes, just like Enid.

Enid's house has a staircase with a landing, and yet they've only got two bedrooms? Rip. Off.

Enid's mother's name is Adele.

Adele invited her boyfriend over on the first night her mother [Nana, remember? Keep up!] got into town.

Richard and Nana do not hit it off. Should have waited for night two, Adele.

Jeffrey doesn't tell Liz to turn over because she's baking until she's already started to turn pink. I giggle at the smallest things, I know. Sue me.

Liz seems to believe that because Richard works at the television station [which one? Is it the one Mrs. Sutton works for?] Enid has developed an interest in television. Really? Because Enid seems to resent Richard more than anything...

Lila lent the camera, Jeffrey will be filming, Jessica's the narrator/star, Liz is doing the script, Winston ends up being the highlight, and Enid is there as the idea person. In theory. Too bad she's kind of busy with Cranky!Nana.

When Nana ignores Richard's questions, Enid worries that her grandmother is going deaf in her old age instead of wondering if maybe Nana is a bitch. This is after she'd already wondered why her grandmother, in her quest to 'not be a bother' yelled like she was being murdered when it turns out she was only concerned as to where exactly a casserole dish should go. Enid! I thought you were one of us.

Within minutes of meeting Nana, Richard needs a drink. Bourbon, no less.

Richard Cernak: attractive, even to Enid, with dark, wavy hair that's graying at the temples and a good tan due to a love of tennis. Dude, what is with the tennis love in this town? He's the program director at the TV station.

Nana's logic regarding Richard: He asks too many questions, he drinks like a fish [given that Adele's ex-husband is later reveled to be an alcoholic and Enid had her own drinking troubles, this one I'll grant her as a legitimate fear, although dude, he's drinking because you're a bitch], he orders Adele around, and when he runs away from the nut house as soon as dinner is done, Nana proclaims that he has no manners.

Big Mesa takes a camping trip out to the desert every year and this year's trip is scheduled a week after Nana arrives. Enid thinks her mother will let her go because there will be plenty of supervision and because Adele loves the desert, too.

Enid and Hugh both love reading, and on their date to Miller's Point [in the afternoon, no less] they took turns reading from a book of Edward Lear's poems.

You can see the Pacific Ocean from Miller's Point.

Hugh made plans to hang out with his friends on Sunday, even though Sundays are Enid/Hugh only time. Bad, Hugh. Bad!

Liz and Enid always pretend to inspect Jessica's outfits as if something were wrong with them, but this time Jessica refuses to fall for their trick.

They start filming right outside Ned's office building, which is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the town hall.

While filming, Winston followed Jessica around, complete with an arrow through his head. She didn't catch on until people had begun to stop and stare. Originally she thought they were admiring her. Ah, Jessie. Such low self esteem. :p

Filming began Wednesday.

The mayor is as big a camera hog as Jessica, if not more so.

Nana tries to convince Enid that Liz is bossy, that Liz, Jessica, and Jeffrey are bad influences, and that their documentary is a waste of time.

Adele and Richard have a date Wednesday evening.

Friday morning Adele tells Enid that she can't go on the camping trip with Hugh. Enid tries all afternoon to get in touch with him, but can't, so he shows up ready and excited to go. When she tells him she can't go and couldn't get in touch with him, partly because she had to take Nana to the library, he's a little ticked off.

Enid tries to talk to her mother about how unfair she's been, but Adele tells her that she's shared her opinions on the matter and the case is closed. Parents!

Saturday morning the twins hit the beach, with Prince Albert in tow. Yes, Prince jumps all over Jessica on camera.

There used to be an artist colony along the beaches of Sweet Valley.

The second week of filming would cover a town meeting, the annual dance festival [wha?], and an interview with Sweet Valley's oldest living resident.

Who proposes to someone right after their mother arrives to live with them AND makes it known how much mumsy hates 'em? Jesus, Richard. Save the popping the question until things have settled down a little. Apparently he asked Adele to marry him sometime over the weekend when Nana arrived. Bad, bad timing. Adele still hasn't answered, partly because Nana seems to LOATHE Richard.

Tuesday afternoon, the twins, Enid, and Jeffrey head off for the TV station to meet with and interview Jeremy Frank.

Enid overheard her mother trying to push back the proposal the night before, but doesn't confide in Liz about the problems Nana is causing.

The visitor's badges at the TV station are red.

When Richard offers use of the editing equipment, Enid doesn't exactly jump for joy. Liz asks why and Enid says she doesn't really like Richard and that he's offering to let them use the equipment as a way to get Enid to like him. Liz is puzzled and thinks that it doesn't make his offer any less generous. Yes. It does. If it weren't directly affecting Liz, she'd be all over the situation and pretty much pointing out how rude it was. See the ninety billion times she's done similar things thus far in the series.

Nana tries to wheedle Adele into offering up her bedroom by saying the traffic is too loud in Enid's old room. Adele refuses to play that game, so Enid throws her under the bus first. Nana then declines, but you know she's going to make another play for it.

Then Nana insults the freshly squeezed OJ to put Adele back in her place. I cheer, but only because I hate pulp in my OJ.

Ken won a pie eating contest the previous summer, somehow beating Winston.

Liz teases Enid about how quickly she can decimate a carton of ice cream, and Enid is not amused.

When Enid bursts into tears and flees the cafeteria, Liz follows. When Enid explains how miserable she is and tells Liz to go, Liz does. Liz? You go with your friend when she says she's falling apart.

The documentary includes The Droids. Naturally.

The Droids play Meltdown as their first song of the night.

Bruce claims that as a member of one of the founding families of SV, it's people are the best in the state.

In retaliation, Jess sticks her tongue out and crosses her eyes in an effort to make him mess up his interview.

Cara comes up with the idea of having a movie premiere the following Saturday night.

Jess wants the cheerleaders and their practice in the documentary, shooting on Tuesday. In return for Lila letting them use her camera, Jess promised to make sure Lila got some screen time.

In addition to the cheerleaders, Liz wants to shoot some footage of Secca Lake and attempt to film downtown SV from the back of the Fiat while the top's down.

Richard arranges for one of the station's editors, Emma Gold, to be around to help Liz and Jeffrey if they need it, perhaps realizing that sixteen year olds do not necessarily know everything in the world about editing. Logic in the Valley! Sound the alarms!

There's a broadcaster's dinner Saturday night, and Adele briefly makes a pitch for not making Enid stay home. She caves, though, when Nana nixes Mrs. Denise Cutler, the neighbor, coming to stay with her.

Enid and her mother both like to eat applesauce straight from the jar.

Nana wants to go to the senior center, finally, to see a movie, but of course it's the Saturday night Adele has her big date with Richard and Enid has the movie premiere.

Jeffrey kept the movie with him, otherwise Liz would have caved and let Jessica watch it before the big premiere. Sneaky.

Adele cancels on Mrs. Cutler but as she's dashing out the door with Richard, Nana says she's too ill to stay by herself and that Adele will just have to stay home. Adele tells Enid she's sorry and runs out the goddamned door. Minutes later, Hugh appears and this is the part I don't get. Enid can't go to the party. Hugh won't go because they're her friends and not his. Okay, fine. Why the hell doesn't Hugh just stay with Enid at her house then? It's not like Nana's actually sick. She's pretending that any second now she'll have a heart attack, not that she has the flu or something contagious.

The Wakefields rented a giant projection TV for the premiere.

Attending the premiere: Aaron Dallas, his girlfriend Heather Sanford, Bill and DeeDee, Lynn and Guy, Cara and Steven, Jessica, Liz, Lila, Enid, Jeffrey, Ned and Alice Wakefield, Winston and Maria, Ken, Olivia, and Abbie Richardson.

Abbie Richardson, in case you wondered, is a pretty brunette who used to be part of Jessica's and Lila's little clique in ninth grade. In tenth grade, Abbie started dating a guy from Palisades and stopped associating with our favorite popular girls.

Quotes:
Why couldn't she make a documentary about Sweet Valley? That was definitely something she was an expert on. - Truer words were never spoken or thought, Miss Busybody Wakefield. p 27

"Hi, Enid. It's me. Listen, I've got this great idea. Remember that article I read to you yesterday about that documentary contest?"
"I knew it," Enid said smugly. "Go on. What's it going to be?"
"How does 'This Is Sweet Valley' grab you?"
Enid was silent for a minute, considering. "You know," she said slowly, "that could be really good." - I like this one for two reasons. One- It sounds as if Enid actually has to think about how badly it could be botched and whether Liz is just full of herself, as possibly usual, before she answers. So, snarky! Two- It actually sounds like a conversation I'd have had with my friends, particularly the smug satisfaction of knowing someone better than they knew themselves. Okay, fine, I'm stretching a bit, I know. p33

   "Man, Enid's grandmother is a real pain," Jessica stated bluntly as she got into the Fiat.
   "Jessica!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "How can you say that?"
   "I don't know. I just can." - I love you, Jessica. I shouldn't, but I do. p56

"And make sure you always shoot her from her best side."
"How about I just shoot her period?" he offered, looking hopeful. - Liz/Jeffrey, about Jessica. Um, what has Jess really done to make Jeffrey loathe her? Todd I understand, but Jeffrey's gotten off awfully lite to harbor such notions. p 57

"Welcome to Sweet Valley, California," Jessica began smoothly. "It's a small town, a quiet town, and maybe a lot like your own hometown. But it has a life and character all its own..." - Liz? Your script needs work. I'm thinking that we should crash the premiere and take the "Town!" drinking game challenge. I'm thinking we'll all have to get new livers by sunup.

Enid nearly cried with frustration. It seemed as though every time her grandmother insisted she didn't want to be a bother, she was being the most difficult to get along with! -So true, it hurts. p103

It only took me half of forever to get around to posting this, huh? Yeah, well, problem is that re-reading this to pick up the trivia and quotes just never managed to work out all that well. I love Enid, I do. But why on earth does she get the crazy Grandma story? Really, come on. Maybe because she's just so nice to give up her room for an attic space. Who knows.
I always think that Enid is a candy striper at the hospital or something when I see this cover, although I know full well she's not. She just looks like she should be at the hospital, I guess. Meh.
The book is pretty standard as far as these things go, although if you like Winston cameos, you should enjoy him 'ruining' Jessica's camera time. Also, it's weird that unless Richard is talking to Adele, they always call him Richard Cernak. Like we'd forget a last name like that...

Didja miss me?

You know what we need? More explosions!

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:19:58 GMT

Caught In The Middle
January 1988

Is love enough to keep Sandra and Manuel together?

Off-limits...

   Sandra Bacon has finally found a boy to love. Manuel Lopez is kind, sensitive, and handsome, and he cares about Sandra as much as she cares about him.
   But there is one problem: Sandy's parents don't approve of Manuel. So the couple must keep their love and their precious moments together a secret.
   Then eyewitnesses place Manuel at the scene of a life-threatening accident, and only Sandy can clear his name. If she tells the truth, she may lose her parents' trust and love; but if she doesn't, she will certainly lose Manuel forever.

So. Mexicans are people, too, right? Yeah, I think we all knew this going in the first go round, but twenty-some odd years later, really. We get it. That said, this would be another star-crossed lovers book. And one I hated for years as a kid simply because this cover did not belong in my collection. It was WRONG. Not because Manuel is Mexican, or because there is no way in Hades that those two on the cover are high school juniors, but because it was lacking in Wakefield. And color. Really, really blah. And I like grey, but this was pushing it.

Anyway. Sandy Bacon has earned herself another book, only this time she finally gets a guy. He's handsome, he's charming, he's a gentleman, he's kind, he's totally not realistic in anyway, because he's perfect. Except for the fact that he's Mexican. This doesn't bother Sandy, but it might very well kill her racist parents. We're told that Sandy's father wrote a letter to the editor about how the Mexicans [how many times will I have to type the word Mexican?] are taking over and ... good lord, man. Ahead of your time.
   So, in the tradition of all great loves kept apart by disapproving parents, Sandy lies. A lot. At first she lies to Manuel about why he hasn't met her parents yet. She says they're really busy a lot and this might've gone on longer had Manuel [I really want to call him Manny. Damn you, TV show!] not overheard her lying to her parents about where she was. Sandy confesses that as awesome as Manuel is, her parents would just see him as someone unfit to date their daughter because they've got a raging hatred of zee Mexicans. I wonder if it's just the Mexicans or if anyone not whiter than white would also be greeted at the door with a shotgun and a shovel?
Manuel understands that some people in the world are just stupid, but really believes that if her parents met him they'd see how awesome he is too! Nice ego there, mate. But I have to agree. Manuel is the perfect boyfriend, if a little on the dull side. Sandy agrees, but also doesn't. She knows her parents and she's highly doubtful that they'd see anything other than the color of his skin and the parade of all the other people they've hated before him. They wouldn't see Manuel at all. Still, she agrees to try and talk to them.
   And she does. She tries the hypothetical, "Mom, what if I fell in love with someone who was, I dunno, Mexican. Would you be happy that I found someone who loves plain old me, or would you call the cops and have him escorted from the premises while shouting horrible things to him?" Yeah, not quite that phrasing, but that would have been fun. Sandy's mother does that country club laugh and tells Sandy that she's got a vivid imagination, but why oh why would she think of such a thing? At Sandy's next approach she points out that love is hard enough without the added burden of being from different backgrounds, so she'd have to say no to that on those grounds as well.
At this point I'd have lost my sanity and just blurted it out, or waited until we were in public somewhere that a mob probably wouldn't have formed and just crash-introduced them. I don't have the patience Sandy or Manuel seem to have, y'know?
   Still, Manuel's tired of having to pick Sandy up someplace other than her home. He's tired of sneaking around and feeling bad about himself. He's tired of Sandy lying.
And Jeanie West is tired of covering for Sandy. I can see how exhausting that would be, given that Jeanie's and Sandy's mothers hang out a lot, but that, honey, that was your in. If Jeanie's mother doesn't share Mrs. Bacon's views, talk. to. her. Have her talk to your mother for, or at least with you, Sandy. DUH.

   Instead, this is Sweet Valley and we haven't had an explosion in a very long time. So, we're off to Secca Lake where we can blow shit up without anyone batting an eyelash.
Sandy invites Liz on her boating date with Manuel so she can tell her mother that she was out with Liz. She tells Liz it'll be fun and leaves out the part where she's using the other blond, and tells Manny that Liz invited herself along. Charming.
While out on Sandy's motor boat, something goes wrong with the engine and the ensuing explosion sends Liz and Manuel flying into the water. Sandy doesn't get so lucky and is knocked unconscious and left on the burning boat. Manuel swims back to save Sandy before the boat can explode [gas cans and fire, children] and all three manage to swim far enough away that when the boat does blow, they aren't hurt anymore than they were before.
On shore, Sandy wakes up enough to thank Manuel for saving her life, but then tells him to get lost as she can't have her parents finding out about him. Liz will take the hero-credit and all will be right with the world.
   Manuel and Elizabeth are both stunned, but neither can manage to articulate the fact that if ever Sandy was going to tell her family about Manuel, doing so when he's the frickin' HERO who saved her life would be the time.
Manuel disappears and Liz reluctantly takes the spotlight.
It's not until the police suspect someone tampered with Sandy's boat, given the description numerous witnesses gave of there being three people near the boat before it went into the water and only two taking credit for having been there after, that Manuel realizes that maybe Sandy's never going to come clean with her parents. Sandy's parents are called to the police station and they take Sandy with them. For one completely awful moment, Sandy tells everyone that she's never seen Manuel before in her life. The police decide this means he really did do something to the boat and are about to take him away when Manuel plays the perfect boyfriend card again.
   Instead of yelling or screaming or calling her a bitch [or any real show of temper whatsoever] Manuel asks how Sandy could do this. And Sandy crumbles and admits she's in love with Manuel and that he saved her life and she was so ashamed of her parents and afraid of how they'd see Manuel, how they'd treat him, that she was ready to... to what, Sandy? See if you could get him sent to frickin' jail? That's bad for any relationship, honey.
   Sandy's parents asks Liz, who has timed her arrival just right so as to be there to hear Sandy's confession and back her up, if this is true, and she does that backing Sandy thing up.
Sandy's father asks Manuel if it's true, if he's in love with Sandy, if he risked his life to save her, and if he would have taken the rap for something he didn't do. Manuel says yes, yes, and are you crazy? Mr. Bacon is awfully accepting of Manuel, considering he's the one we were warned about first. It's really Mrs. B who has the issues and she tries to get over them, but it's obviously a struggle. Ah, reality...
   It all ends well, with Manuel and Sandy together again, Manuel not being sore over Sandy lying to the police about him, and Liz no longer being the heroine of the hour.

   In our sadly underused B-story for the week, it's Lila's birthday. Again. Didn't she already have a birthday? No matter. Jessica decides to throw Lila a surprise-surprise party. They'll all ignore Lila on her birthday and the weeks leading up to it, all the better to really surprise her the day after with the party to end all party! Which 30 people will show up to.
It all goes as planned. Lila's feelings are hurt for more than a week, but give her one hour or so of being the center of attention again and she's cool with everyone.
I hate this storyline in that it's awful to be that much of a bitch to someone and include other people so that someone will feel that low all for one euphoric high. Also, it kept making me hope that when people had forgotten my birthday, they were really just pretending.
They weren't.

Trivia:

Jessica gripes that Liz won't go anywhere without Jeffrey.*

Ricky is still the cheerleaders' manager.

Cheerleading practice starts earlier on Tuesday afternoons.

Jessica agrees with Sandy as they both think Sandy is average, though Jess will admit that since falling for Manuel, Sandy's begun to glow.

Manuel is a junior at SVH with dark, curly hair, and chocolate brown eyes. He's taller than Sandy, but not too tall, so she doesn't get a crick in her neck looking up at him and kissing doesn't involve apple crates. He's got four little brothers and one younger sister and he works part time after school as an assistant track coach at the elementary school.

Manuel's siblings: Carlos is 6, then Juan, Pedro, Miguel, and Maria is 13.

Sandy meets Manuel's extended family at his cousin's birthday party.

Jessica dreams that Lila tires of being rich, so she writes Jessica a check for all Daddy Fowler's money.

Lila's birthday is in a week at the start of the book.

Sandy still has three unnamed older brothers.

Sandy's parents bought their Spanish-style house ten years ago.

There were riots in Los Perros and people were hurt, which just added fuel to Sandy's parents' bigotry. Or something.

Sandy's mother, Irene, is forever going on about how she was raised in a racially charged environment and that skewed her view as it were.

The Bacons are members of the country club.

Mr. Bacon works at a local advertising agency.

Sandy is sure that Carl Pierce, the guy her parents want her to date, is going to be blond, blue eyed, and terribly boring because he loves golf. No clue if he is though. I kept thinking, "Whoa, Caroline Pierce?"

Cara feels badly for Lila until Jessica reminds her that Lila made a snotty comment about Cara's wardrobe being two years out of style.

Jessica and Cara pretend they're going with Amy to see "the Boys" in concert at Westwood Stadium on Lila's birthday.

Sandy says she's going to Casey's and she'll be picked up at Enid's. Does Sandy really spend enough time with Enid that this alone wouldn't raise Irene's suspicions, or is there some other life we don't know Enid has?

Sandy got a speedboat for her last birthday and it's called Solar One.

Manuel worked at the Secca Lake Boat house last summer.

Mr. Fowler offered to take Lila to Jacque's in San Mirabel for her birthday dinner.

Jessica describes the banner she and Cara are making for Lila's birthday as a "trade union banner" with each panel depicting an aspect of Lila, like... "Lila Shopping" or "Lila Giving Parties."

Enid's grandfather died a few months ago and she's hoping to convince her grandmother to move from Chicago to California.

Sandy drives her mother's Toyota. What, she doesn't have her own car, but she has a motorboat?

Elizabeth introduces Sandy and Manuel to Alice, but shouldn't Mrs. Wakefield know who Sandy is by now? She's been on the cheerleading squad off and on for at least two years and she's definitely B-list of Jessica's friends and had to have gone to other parties Jessica and Liz have thrown over the year.

Don is the park ranger who asks Sandy and Liz questions after the explosion.

There's a blond guy who called for the ambulance, and he tries to convince Don that he and his friend Bert both saw a guy with Liz and Sandy. Don tells him to take a hike because he's upsetting Sandy. Brilliant.

Local Girl Saves Friend In Boating Accident- Headline the next day in the Sweet Valley News.

Mrs. Abernathy is still the PTA president.

Sandy suffers second degree burns on her palms after the accident.

The Bacons give Elizabeth a lovely rope link gold bracelet from Stowe's, the nicest jewelery store in town. Dude, Sandy's loaded.

Blue is Manuel's favorite color.

Pete Young is the coach at Sweet Valley Elementary.

Officer Richard Patterson and Sergeant James take Manuel in for questioning.

Jeffrey and Elizabeth make Lila a 'Surprise Surprise Party!' banner.

Around 30 people attend Lila's birthday party at the Wakefields. So, that'd be... Jessica, Elizabeth, Jeffrey, Cara, Amy, Enid...

There's foreshadowing in this book for Jessica to fall head over heels for AJ. Some might argue that it's for any big Jessica crush, but all the "one day you'll understand when you really, truly fall" and the "ready for one of your infamous Jessica-style head over heels" type discussions smack more of AJ than boy of the week.

Also, despite Double Jeopardy coming between this and the last book, we pick up right after Outcast. Right. After.

*I hate it when people neglect their friends/family simply because they're dating/married/shackled to someone else. It's annoying. Stop it!

Quotable Sweet Valley:

"Come inside and help me make dinner," she begged.
"Make dinner?" Lila said blankly.
"Yeah, it's what the rest of the world does while your cook makes yours." - I applaud the Jessica/Lila exchange, even if we've already seen Li half-assedly help the Wakefields make dinner at least once before. p 12

Sandra felt she had to pinch herself to prove she wasn't coming. - ...I... I had to re-read that twelve times, and another time this morning, because I was sure that my eyes were playing tricks on me. They might still be. p 18

"Come on, Liz. Manuel really wants you to come, too." This last comment couldn't have been farther from the truth, but Sandra figured she would have plenty of time to convince Manuel that Elizabeth would make the outing even more fun. - p 75. Because I'm mean, I'll take this to mean that even before Liz was named Heroine of the year, Manuel didn't particularly care for Saint Liz. :P

"Jessica," Elizabeth said reproachfully, "don't you have the tiniest little sense of right and wrong?"
Jessica reached for another piece of toast. "Not in this case," she said cheerfully. "You're only going to mess things up if you start worrying about the truth now." - Sometimes Elizabeth surprises me with just how often she can misjudge her twin's morality levels. p102

   I dragged my feet in starting to re-read Caught in the Middle because it's never been one of my favorites. Partly it's that I think the cover is painfully boring, and as happy as I am that Sandy got a second cover, this is just blah, and I spend more time trying to figure out what, aside from the art, could be done to fix it than I did actually reading the book itself.
   Thing is, it's not a bad book. Yeah, it's obviously one of those Very Special Issue books, but it attempts to wobble that line between exceptionally preachy and just plain after school special. I'm not entirely sure where it falls because I cut it slack for being a young adult book written for an ongoing series in the 80's as well as it being SVH, so the standards, I admit, are considerably lower than what I'd expect for most other things.
   Manuel's a bit of a saint, even if I tire of typing his name out each time. He's also probably a better boyfriend than anyone the Wakefields ever hook up with. I like that "plain" Sandy gets the great guy, and I like that they didn't have Sandy magically grow the stones to tell her parents immediately, and that her mother was still having trouble accepting Manuel even after she found out he'd saved her baby's life. Can't really say that this book made me like Sandy all that much. There's a line you don't cross, and telling the cops you don't know your boyfriend? Yeah, that leaps across that line, backs up, and then drags the carcass of your relationship back over the line.
   Normally I'm all for a Lila subplot, but dude, hasn't this one been done before already? In this series? Maybe it's just that I swear they trot this out at least once in every SV series where Lila plays any part whatsoever. Bah.
   Final verdict: You could do worse. You could, however, do better.

P.S.- If you've got the re-released cover and you want to share, I'll love you. Forever. There's always gotta be one cover that's a bitch to find. Meh.

The Wakefield Who Cried Wolf

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:46:19 GMT

Double Jeopardy
December 1987

Hot pursuit...

   When twin sisters Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield land internships at the Sweet Valley News, they think they'll be reporting the news-but they end up making headlines when Jessica becomes an eyewitness to murder.

   Then Adam Maitland, a friend of the twins' brother, Steven, is charged with the murder. And Elizabeth has evidence that could convict him!

   Jessica knows Adam is innocent-she saw the murderer-and she sets out to prove it. The problem is, he saw her, too. Can the twins find the killer before he finds them? Or will Jessica and Elizabeth be caught in a deadly case of mistaken identity?

   Find out in Double Jeopardy, the first Sweet Valley High Super Thriller!

Ah, summer. How many times have you visited the Valley so far? I've given up count. However, it's one of the early Super Thrillers, so that means you're one very specific summer. The summer the twins are interns at the SV News.
I'll be upfront with you. I love the Thrillers. I really, truly do. Not so much the later ones, although they do tend to rank above your average SVH book, but I'm a SVHST fan. Oh yes. Bring on the body count, baby. I'm not entirely sure what prompted the Nancy Drew exploits, although maybe it was just one of those natural evolution things. Teen girl series needs to get their Nancy Drew on. I'm okay with that.
So, we need to get a couple of warnings out of the way. If you do not like the twins when they're investigating murder, please do not apply. If you hate Jessica-centric books, this one is not for you. I'd forgotten that Elizabeth's main role in this one was to basically look identical to Jessica. This is the youngest twin's story, so if the idea of that makes your head hurt and the "but there's murder!" helping isn't doing it for you, this is... not for you. There's very little Lila or anyone else to distract you. New characters and Jessica.
If you can handle that glowing recommendation, let's begin.

   You know that big summer job the twins actually mentioned in the regular series every so often? Yeah, as everyone else will tell you, this ain't that gig. Instead, Elizabeth managed to score an internship at the Sweet Valley News, and for whatever reason Ma and Pa Wakefield decided Jessica had to be an intern, too. I... just don't know why. You'd think that somewhere in the nine billion other high schools we're told about anytime SVH needs a new rival school to beat in the great football/basketball game of the week that we'd have someone else who wanted that internship... and would be better qualified for it than Jessica. I dunno, maybe they do just take people in off the street and give them to the features editor. I kinda doubt it, though.
So. Jessica's all atwitter over Seth Miller, a cute youngish reporter who is her only source of eye candy at work. She finds out that he's also a mystery writer and wants desperately to catch his attention so she decides to impress him with her ability to sniff out a real crime story. Only actually finding a crime would be too difficult, so Jessica breaks out the binoculars and spies on the neighbors. She becomes convinces that Mr. Bennet next door is burying something... perhaps a body, perhaps gold. Who knows? But Jess intends to find out.
She's momentarily distracted by the news that her brother's friend [Steven has a friend!] Adam will be moving in with the Wakefields for the summer and sharing Steven's room. Now I'm sure that the Wakefield house is not set up like I always imagined [because the house in my head is not the split level Ranch they're always going on about] but in my head, Steven's room was never big enough for two. So excuse me while I giggle.
Anyway, Jessica decides that Adam would be a perfect summer fling for Elizabeth, who is busy, I dunno, working and writing letters to Jeffrey who is a camp counselor to a bunch of nine year olds in Oregon somewhere. We get a lovely info dump on Adam. What you need to know: Criminal lawyer to be, cute, seriously dating Laurie, despite Laurie's rich grandfather forbidding the two to be together. Ah, true love. Jessica's never met a true love she couldn't at least shake up a little, so she decides that Laurie aside, she'll still find some way to get her twin a little lawyer loving on the side.
But first, she needs to impress Seth. Jessica's love life comes first, you know.

   G'ah. Jessica's first attempt to snag Seth's attention is to casually read over his shoulder while he's working on a little article on a fire down at the Box Tree Cafe. She hints that it might've been arson, and when pressed for details, says that she cannot reveal her source, only that they hinted at foul play. We realize Seth is a moron, or actually very interested in/distracted by Jessica, because the fire was caused by someone putting a dish towel too close to a burner and whoosh! Fire everywhere. Considering Seth was, I dunno, writing the article about the damn fire, you'd think he'd know what had allegedly caused it and how unlikely it was to have been arson. Still, they go to the Box Tree and talk to someone I presume is the owner who laughs when the word arson is mentioned. Unless the towel threw itself on the burner... oh, good times. This scene is actually worth the price of the book alone.

So. Strike one.

   Then Jessica turns around and tells Seth that she's got this fantastic lead on this bank robbery that they've been working on. Proving she's a master of fiction, Jessica spins an intricate story involving her neighbor and his burying stuff in the yard into a tale of robbery and... more digging. Anyway, Seth writes all of this down, spins it into an article, and doesn't do a bit of fact checking. Granted, in his defense, he didn't have time between Jessica telling him and Mr. Robb asking for the story. But he didn't tell Robb that it was still in process or that facts needed to be checked. Instead, Robb realized what a crock it was, did some fact checking and realized the whole damn thing was bogus. He calls Seth and Jessica in and chews them both out. Thinking she's being incredibly heroic or something, Jessica accepts all the blame [without pointing out that she made the whole thing up] annnd Seth gets a warning and is told that if there's EVER a next time, he's gone, and besides, Robb had hoped to make a real ~~man~~ journalist out of him, but perhaps the fiction just won't leave his blood. Um, after one book? Anyway, Jessica should be fired, but Robb realizes she'd be getting off too easy that way, so he sends her down to Sondra, who is working on creating a new database of some sort. Horrible hours of typing and squinting await, Jess! All that squinting will give you wrinkles for sure. Sondra's also a hard ass, so Jess won't be having any fun. Robb is a bit of an evil genius. Love him?

   Same day, Jessica's still at work at 10pm. Realizing that she'll never finish what she was told to do, she decides to give up and tackle this shit again tomorrow. She heads out to the parking lot, where it's mostly deserted aside from a couple of cars including the Fiat and Adam's silver VW Bug. On her way to the Fiat, Jessica sees a guy struggling with something wrapped in a green blanket. He zigs when he should have zagged and the blanket shifts enough to reveal one slender arm, enough for Jessica to realize that there's a real [dead] body in the blanket. She freaks the fuck out, tries to scream but can't, hops in the Fiat, and gets the hell out of there. Instead of going to the police or Lila's or something, she goes straight home, worrying that the blonde with the green eyes [not Jeffrey!] and the white Trans Am with the rusted S [not!Jeffrey's car] will have... followed her home. Honey, that's why you go straight to the cops. In her defense, I really do understand that when you're that freaked out, all you want is home. You want your parents [or whomever you love] to comfort you and take care of the problem for you, no matter how much you know that just cannot happen. On this I really do understand.
   However, no one's home. Everyone's at the movies. Jess tries to wait them out, but she flips out over everything from Prince Albert knocking things over to dust particles floating in the wind. She tries calling everyone she knows, sort of, and strikes out everywhere. Seriously, Jessica has like nine thousand boys at her beck and call and not a one does she try. Finally she calls Seth who reads her the riot act. Jessica admits that she fucked up, sort of, but that dude, she's really scared and even if he thinks she's lying, could he please, please, please come over until her parents get home? Hearing how freaked out she sounds, Seth breaks the speed limit and appears at Casa Wakefield within fifteen minutes.
And immediately suggests they revisit the scene of the crime. Jess is all but hyperventilating now, but they go back to the garage and talk to the guard who initially says he never left his post, but then cops to taking a phone call about an hour ago, for maybe ten minutes. Perfect. They look around but find nothing else, although they do wonder why Adam's car is still in the parking garage. Seth takes Jessica home and drops her off, not even bothering to walk her to the door. I also gather he didn't even wait for her to get inside because Jess doesn't have her key and she pounds on the door for someone to let her in. Overly theatrical, yes, but I do understand the panic, so I'll let it slide. Seth, however, is an asshole.
Jess explains all her problems to her family and... they don't believe her. Ned suggests that maybe she'll be less crazy after she sleeps and Jessica wonders if maybe her father's insane since she shall never sleep again... when the phone rings. It's well after midnight, so you know the call won't be good. It isn't. It's Adam. He's in jail...

For Laurie's murder.

   Sooooooo, they whisk Jessica to the police station so she can give her statement and to see what can be done about Adam. Nothing. Apparently there hasn't been a murder in SV in 25 years, and especially not one committed against a really, really rich teenager. Um, right... Point being, they're working overtime to get this little asshole sent to jail permanently, even though the case against him is painfully stupid. See, Adam got off work late, went to his car, and found Laurie dead in his car. He flips out, calls the cops, and they find a length of rope wrapped in rags in his glove compartment. Sure, this is well before CSI or even Patricia Cornwell novels, but, um, guys? Adam had to be sedated when they took Laurie's body away. Either he's a full blown nut job [possible!] or... they're accusing him of also being an incredibly stupid nut job.

   Things move fairly quickly after this, and yet also seem to move painfully slowly. Sigh. At first the Wakefields are sure that Adam is innocent, although no one can think of anyone who would hate Laurie or hate Adam enough to murder Laurie and frame him [as Laurie's grandfather would probably not want his granddaughter dead just to fuck with Adam]... and then Elizabeth takes the letter Adam left for her to her father. He claims to be in love with her and to want to avoid having to do anything "drastic" or to avoid hurting Laurie until he "has to." Yeah, only that letter? Was written by Jessica. Jessica comes clean with the police and tells her father, who leaves the decision as to whether to tell Adam/everyone else up to Jess. Yeah. Driven by guilt as well as the need to feel safe again, Jessica decides she and Seth will find out who actually killed Laurie before they strike again.

   In a move of sort of decent parental skills, Ned and Alice have the Fiat locked in the garage and forbid anyone to use it until the murderer is caught. Thing is, they never point out that the biggest reason for this is not because they enjoy keeping their children dependent on them [they don't] but because the Fiat is pretty unforgettable and there aren't a ton running around SV, so if the killer is still in town, it wouldn't take much for them to notice the Fiat and find the twins... or anyone else in the car, for that matter.
So, without that explained, Jess borrows the Fiat after promising she won't, and she immediately... runs into the guy with the white Trans Am. Riiiiiiiiight. Jess does point out that he didn't seem to have seen her at first, so he wasn't just out cruising the streets waiting for the Fiat to appear. Just... really bad luck in a really small town, I guess. Ned takes the keys and hides them. So there!

Meanwhile, Jessica and Seth are pretty sure they've figured out who killed Laurie. Her ex boyfriend, who was mentally unhinged [why is severe depression an excuse for murder? The two books I was reading back to back both used it as a possible excuse for murder. And only this one was written more than twenty years ago. Oh, God, I feel old now....] and whom her grandfather wanted her to marry. He's also blond, green eyed, and Adam thinks maybe he looks a little like the police sketch of the guy Jessica saw. Great!
There's the annual office party for the SVNews [I thought that was an end of the year thing?] annnd Jessica gets dragged to the police station, Ned and Alice are going out partying, and Steve, well, who the hell knows what he's doing, but he left his crappy car. Which shouldn't have been a problem as the twins were supposed to catch a ride with Seth. Seth calls to cancel, although it sounds as if he'll be working while everyone else is partying, so, um, DUDE, take fifteen minutes and pick the girls up. He doesn't. I'm thinking he's busy stalking Dan Weeks [the reporter who's been covering Laurie's murder and of whom Seth is painfully jealous] and just doesn't want to waste any more time on the twins. Whatever. Liz tries Steven's car. It won't start. [Who the hell leaves their kids with a car that's been acting funny, another car recognized by a murderer, and no real backup to get to a job-related function?] Soo she tries a taxi. There are three taxis on duty that night and they're all being used. Very, very busy night in Sweet Valley. She calls Enid. No answer. She doesn't call anyone else. She thinks about taking the bus, but she's fairly certain that walking to the bus stop at night would be foolish, so... she decides to take the highly recognizable car instead.
Jessica gets dropped off at the party after IDing a picture of Tom Winslow, Laurie's ex, and the guy they're fairly certain murdered her. At the party she runs into Seth... and Thomas, a cute but intense blond guy with green eyes. Oh yeah, Tom is short for Thomas and OMG! The killer. But he's flirting with Jessica, so she's fairly certain he hasn't a clue as to who she is. She FINALLY understands that her parents wanted the car out of sight since it was easier to see than a tiny little size six blonde. Annnnnnnd she's panicking because Liz hasn't made it there, yet. Um, oops. She gets a call from Steven who asks where the Fiat is and Jessica realizes her twin has the car, and Thomas keeps trying to leave and if he sees that car, Liz is dead.
Blah, blah, blah, Thomas is too fast for Jessica and makes it out to the garage in time to run into Elizabeth as she's trying to take his parking space. That's right, had she just waited another five minutes, nothing would have happened. Tom wonders how Jessica managed to sneak by him but it doesn't really matter. He finds a lead pipe lying around [Oh no! Look out, Mr. Boddy!] annnnnnnd menaces Elizabeth with it. She actually realizes that her car could probably take out a person, but his car kind of kills that escape plan. She hits the horn, but Tom ain't too happy about that. When the guard hears all this [worst guard ever!] Tom takes him out with the lead pipe. Oh, ouch. Tom gets Liz out of the car and slams her head on the top of the car, and Liz is knocked out. Sadistic though I may be, I like that he just slammed her head into the car, didn't bother with the pipe. Why complicate matters?

Anyway, Jess has finally escaped the party that would not end in time to see Tom knock Liz silly. She confronts him, smacks him with a rusty tire iron [the guard brought it as a weapon. No guns for him, I guess] and tries to wake Liz up. You'd think years of cheerleading would make it so that Jess could at least passably drag her twin to the stairs, but no. She wastes the two seconds of time she bought with the assault trying to wake Liz up. Liz is groggy and Jessica realizes she hits like a girl when Tom wakes up and threatens them, though he's obviously confused about why there are two of them. Jesus.
Jess tells Liz to run for the stairs and to get help. She shoves Liz and turns to, I dunno, dazzle Tom with her charm or something, and that doesn't go so well.
   Liz makes it to the stairwell in time to pull the fire alarm and pass out. Yeah, you're a lot of help, Lizzie.
Doesn't matter. Seth, who left Jessica ages ago to call the police, finally appears, with a whole squadron of security guards in time to rescue Jessica. The police arrive shortly thereafter.
Adam goes free, Jessica almost gets her byline on the Laurie murder storyline [ultimately Seth got sole credit, but Jessica's name is all over the article], annnnnd everybody's happy. Or something. Except Adam, who spent the last week or two in jail for a crime he didn't commit, only to be let out and reminded that the love of his life is dead for no good reason, but we're supposed to believe that simply because Laurie's grandfather came to the police station to say, "Guess I misjudged you", Adam has found the will to LIVE.
   Riiiiiiiiiight.
And thus ends this episode of Jessica Plays Nancy Drew.

Trivial Pursuit:

Jessica and Elizabeth are working at The Sweet Valley News as summer interns, basically "gofers and apprentice copywriters in the features department."

Jess was less than thrilled about this until she met Seth Miller.

Seth Miller is 22, hails from Washington D.C, graduated high school at 16, sped through college winning writing awards left, right, and center, got his Masters degree in journalism, specializing in investigative reporting. He's a mystery writer who uses the pen name Lester Ames. He's got curly black hair, and green eyes. He's dreamy!

Lawrence Robb is the head dictator at the paper.

Jess has been to the library twice looking for Seth's book, but it's always checked out.

Our Guest Star of the week is Adam Maitland, originally from South Dakota. He's interning at Wells & Wells, criminal law. Tall, thin, with sandy blond hair, a deep voice, and elegant features. So... vampire from South Dakota. Weird.

Jeffrey is spending the summer as a counselor at a camp for nine year olds. Soccer, because that's one of his few personality traits.

Adam and Steve [first person to get the giggles wins?] met in their Law & Society class.

Laurie Hamilton lives in San Mirando, which is an hour away. Her parents died in a plane crash in the Azores when she was little and she was raised by her wealthy grandfather, Tucker Hamilton. He thinks Adam is beneath Laurie [kink?] and would rather she marry the son of a business partner of his.

Tucker Hamilton is described as an "oil tycoon." Not enough maturity in the world to keep me from snickering at that.

The Western building houses The Sweet Valley News on the fifth floor and Wells & Wells on the 7th floor.

Jessica spies on her neighbors with binoculars. She's especially fond of the Mr. Bennet, next door, and whatever it is he's been digging around for in his garden. Sus-piscious!

Apparently Jess has been reading quite a few spy novels lately.

The twins normally park on the fifth floor of the parking garage near the News Room entrance. How awesome is that? That the parking garage is essentially part of the Western building. None of ours are.

Adam drives a silver VW bug, and parks on the 6th floor the night Laurie is murdered.

Seth is working on a story about the fire at the Box Tree Cafe.

Seth drives a red Toyota Celica.

Mr. Donaldson, presumably the owner or at least manager of the Box Tree, says it was an omelet fire caused by someone's towel getting too close to the burner. Yeah, that's arson, Jess.

Lila has a Watch Man. Y'know a TV, but watch sized. Oh, Lila.

Seth's mother has just had surgery and he's got another mystery novel due. Is this why he's so frazzled he can't tell the difference between reality and Jessica's warped version?

Seth is supposed to be working on a story about the postal strike, but instead switches to Jessica's twisted tale of her neighbor, a bank robbery, and a pair of binoculars. Thing is, Seth never bothers to check a single fact or even warn Mr. Robb that he hasn't had time to do anything more than essentially collect a statement.

After that switcharoo, Seth is on probation and Jessica is sent to help Sondra in setting up a database for the paper. This is especially cruel because Sondra ain't warm and cuddly and computers are EVIL. Who knew?

Sondra Albert is in her early 30's.

Jessica's still at work at 10pm the day she's transfered to the database section.

Laurie's killer is driving a white Trans Am with a rusted S on the rear right side.

Seth lives 15 minutes away from the Wakefields, as that's how long it takes for him to get to Jessica once he finally believes this time she's seriously freaked out about something.

Laurie was wrapped in a green blanket and all Jessica saw of her was an arm.

Adam found Laurie at 11:30.

Laurie had been strangled and they found the rope used to do so in Adam's glove compartment.

Jack Wilson is the SVPD sergeant assigned to the case. He does an awful lot of chatting with people for a cop...*

Adam calls the Wakefields after midnight and by 1am they're at the police station so Jessica can give her statement.

George DeLuca is the 6pm-2am guard on the fifth floor of the parking garage. He says, originally, that he never left his post. Except he did, for a phone call that lasted long enough for a body to be dumped in someone else's car [did Adam leave his car unlocked? Did Laurie have a set of keys?] other important evidence to be planted, and one clone to be scared out of her damn mind. Good job, George. So much for your Christmas bonus.

Adam's bail is set at half a million dollars. No one can afford this. Why? His parents are FARMERS. And the Wakefields only bail out drunk drivers. Duh.

Laurie was set to receive her trust fund when she turned 18, which was two weeks away. Therefor the motive for Adam? Money.

Adam was in debt to the tune of a few thousand dollars. Why in the world the police think killing Laurie before she received her money would be a good idea, I don't know.

As you might've picked up from Adam's introduction to Laurie, they weren't just dating, they were engaged.

Adam borrowed money from an Aunt who decided she needed the five grand back immediately. Who the hell loans a grand or five to a college kid and then expects them to pay it back immediately? Especially if it's for school?

There have been no murders in Sweet Valley for 25 years.

Thomas "Tom" Winslow, a college junior described as a "big man on campus" with blond hair, green eyes, and severe depression. He's only 5'9".

Los Vistas is ten miles away from Sweet Valley.

Dan Weeks gets to cover Laurie's murder in the paper. Seth is jealous beyond all words.

The Sweet Valley News has it's annual office party in the summer.

Beth Simmons from TSVN is awfully interested in what the twins will be wearing to the office party.

Ned and Alice go to a thing at the Cabot's, leaving the Fiat's keys in an enameled box on Ned's desk in the study. They also leave Steven's broke ass VW bug for the twins to use, knowing the damn thing has been having trouble lately. Technically that should have still left Alice's or Ned's car, now that I think about it...

Millionaire's Son Confesses to Hamilton Murder! - Headline after Jess/Seth catch Thomas, after he beats the crap out of Liz. Seth gets the byline even though Jess negotiated for a shared byline.

You could have sent in $2.50 and the coupon from the back of the book and gotten your own Super Sleuth Miniature Camera! On a keychain! So awesome?

* This is not to say that cops cannot be chatty. They can. But discussing details of the case like he seems to be doing? What would the people at L&O say? Or any of the nine billion other law shows?

Quotable:

Dear Liz,
Please don't think I'm a terrible coward to write you instead of bringing this up in person. I guess I am a coward. If I weren't, I would have broken up with Laurie the minute I met you.
Liz, it's true. I'm in love with you. I know I haven't shown it, and the truth is, I won't be able to show it to you. Not yet. Not until I figure out what to do about Laurie. She's so vulnerable-I don't want to hurt her until I have to. So please be patient with me if I treat you like just another friend while I'm trying to get it all sorted out. You know you're not just another friend to me. I love you. I can't live without you. You're all I really want in this whole world, and if I can't figure out something soon, I may have to do something drastic.
Love,
Adam

Oh, Jessica!

"Seth might be the next Alfred Hitchcock-he'll makes tons and tons of money and be really famous, and he'll write me into all of his books and movies." She gave her twin an affectionate pat. "Don't worry, Liz. We'll let you work on our scripts or something." - Seriously, Jessica's dream world is fantastic. p9

Jessica held her head in her hands. Great! This was even worse than she had expected. If Adam felt sorry for this pathetic creature, there was no telling how difficult it might be to lure him away.
-snip-
Jessica narrowed her eyes at him as she nibbled without appetite on a carrot stick. Adam was beginning to strike her as a little crazy. Why should a billionaire grandfather make him look ready to cry? She had a depressing feeling that he might be the wrong candidate for a fling for her twin. -22/23

Seth drove a red Toyota Celica, Jessica's instantaneous vote for Car of the Year. - 36

"I know exactly what I'm promising. I always do, Seth." - Dirty! p 50

"Jessica," Elizabeth shrieked. "Do you mean you wrote that letter and left it under my pillow?"
"I didn't say that." Jessica jumped to her feet and looked longingly at the door. "Liz, can't we talk about this later?"
"I can't believe you!" Elizabeth cried, her face reddening with anger. "That is the lowest, most contemptible, vilest-" Her voice broke off as she stared at her twin.
"Most loathsome," Steven contributed helpfully. - This is why I'd want another sibling. To be helpful in times such as these. p201

I like the Thrillers more than I gather I should admit, given how many people mock them for being so ridiculously over the top. To that I say, um? Kinda the point. I can accept the thrillers being out there far more so than when the normal books in the series bring in their third rockstar to miraculously move to the Valley, or all those models/former models hanging out without anyone ever saying a word about it.
Anyway. It's rare that you get such a Jessica centric book [or at least it has been up to this point in the series] where Liz exists pretty much as the wa-wa voice off-screen until the end when she acts just as idiotically as Jessica normally does.
It used to kill me when I'd try and put the books in some sort of chronological order because the thrillers took place over the same summer, usually meant to be back-to-back, and yet things that would happen in the intervening books would crop up and my brain, she would go 'splodey.
This isn't my favorite of the bunch, but it has it's moments of joy and it's moments of "...no."

And to make up for the super long interval between ramblings, let's examine the covers a little more closely, shall we?

Why, oh why, are the twins frightened of two very different things? Liz is looking past Jessica at some unseen danger and Jessica has noticed she finally has an audience. Can't you just see it?
Liz, look! People! Awaiting my every move! My time has finally come.
Uh, Jess? There's a ca-
Not now, Liz! How do I look?
-splat-

Only better because I'd have sleep the next time I tried this. Ah, good times. This is one of those ones that somehow everyone else managed to improve on, I think.

Anyone else care to join me in the slightly irrational love?

The book of No.

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 07:42:30 GMT

Outcast
November 1987

Will anyone ever speak to Molly Hecht again?

No one to turn to...

   Ever since Regina Morrow's tragic death at Molly Hecht's party, everyone has been treating Molly as if she has the plague. Nobody at school wants to talk to her, her parents have permanently grounded her, and even her good friend Justin Belson is avoiding her. Every time Molly tries to make amends, nobody will listen.

   So when Buzz, a drug dealer who's hiding from the police, calls Molly and announces he's leaving town, she's more than ready to go with him. She'd rather flee to Mexico with Buzz than walk the halls of Sweet Valley High alone. Only Elizabeth senses that Molly is troubled, but even she may be too late to stop her from running away with a fugitive.

   Sorry this took so long, but I kept having to stop for fear that I might actually have a heart attack myself from the sheer mind numbing pain of it all. Which is weird, as I don't remember having that exact problem the first time I read it. Of course, I was skimming while trying to do something else at the same time, so that probably explains it, at least a little.

The setup is simple. Molly Hecht has been made public enemy #1 at SVH. Everyone, including the teachers, blames her for Regina's death, at least in some small way. Everyone. Annnnnnd... I'm supposed to care because...?

   Now, on with the show. The book begins at Regina's memorial, where Nicholas has brought the house down with his heartfelt reading of one of Regina's favorite poems. Liz is wandering around backstage [even if it isn't literally backstage, that's how it comes across] and she comes across Bruce and Amy who are holding hands. Hell, if Bruce weren't known for thinking with his hormones first and foremost, I might even say he's not really aware of this at all. Amy, however, is looking defiant in her public declaration of affection for the dearly departed's recent ex. Classy, Sutton. Class-y. Liz comforts Bruce as best she can and tells him that he's ~~a total asshole~~ been forgiven. Regina didn't hold any ill will toward either of them. Sadly, one of the best moments happens right on page four.
Amy looks deep into Elizabeth's soul, and for one brief, shining moment, we see a glimpse of the old Amy. Sweet, vulnerable, not a complete raging hormonal bitch, but someone who realizes that they might be held accountable for their actions and is afraid of what might happen... She asks if Liz is telling the truth, and when Liz assures her she is, their moment is lost forever. Oh, okay, fine, it's also the info dump for Amy/Liz-the tween years, but it's also a fairly nice moment all the same.

   After the memorial, Jeffrey drives Elizabeth home, and for a second you can hear my nine year old self sighing, and we notice that Ned's ugly ass car is home, as is Alice's car, and hell, even Steven's there. Before the grief overcomes them both, Jessica pulls up in the Fiat and the twins clasp hands, share their strength, and head inside as we marvel at how two identical people on the outside could be so different on the inside, and yet still both be torn by the loss of one friend. You know, glossing over the fact that Jessica was all for Regina's heartbreak being a spectator sport a week ago.

   If you thought the Wakefields were home just to comfort their daughters after a close friend died, you thought wrong. There's a mention of Regina's untimely death, but mostly it's, "Drugs! Bad! Don't do them!" I did like the way Steven pointed out that he understood how they felt given Regina's death, what with Tricia's death not being all that long ago. Then it's buried under some seriously heavy-handed don't do drugs stuff, and the moment is lost. Jessica vows to do something for Regina's memory, probably to help clear the guilt she's feeling away. This is also how Jessica deals with death. If she liked you, she does something to immortalize you in some way. Regina gets her Super Duper Secret Wait Til Later To Be Told Project and Sam will later get that bike rally. Like I said, it's Jessica's way.

   We flicker to Justin and he's realizing he royally fucked things up. Had he managed to get Molly out of his system properly, he wouldn't have taken Regina to the party, she'd still be alive, and maybe things wouldn't be so screwed up right now. He does a bit of raging against life and the irony of it all, thinking that things had finally turned a corner, only to have it be the same old crap, different day.
So, Justin vows that to make things right, to keep this from ever happening again, he will finally cut all ties with his past. Including, ESPECIALLY, Molly. She's no good for him and you know, I kind of have to agree. He seems to have kicked any drug problem he might have had. She hasn't. While he hangs out at Kelly's drinking illegally, he doesn't seem to get drunk and whine about it so that I have to read about it. She's inviting Buzz over and still talking to him after Regina's death because she's just that conflicted. Justin seems to feel badly about Regina's death and not just how it affects him, but also how awful it is that she's not around anymore. Molly? Molly seems bothered that Regina happened to die at HER party. Not that someone died, just that by dying, it's seriously fucked her life up. Justin manages to capture my sympathy.

   Molly, however, does not. And since this is Molly's book, this is a problem.

   Backstory for Molly, or at least what we've been given. Her parents divorced and I gather it wasn't all that long ago. More than a year, but less than say, 15 years ago. Molly's parents don't seem to have an especially horrible relationship, but it doesn't seem to be all sunshine and roses since she's a bit bothered that it took hating on her to get her parents to agree on much of anything. But, at the same time, her father seems to be staying at the house after Molly's little party turned lethal, and there's no subsequent mention of her parents trying to kill each other, so they must be a little more than merely civil.
The point is, I can feel bad for her in that her parents split up and that can't be easy. It's sort of implied that this is what set her down her road of questionable decisions, but never clearly stated. Her parents also seem to be kind of jerks, but then, they aren't painted with the same rainbow sparkles that Ned and Alice are, so maybe it's just that Molly thinks they are and so we see them that way. Truthfully, I can't blame them for not being warm and fuzzy towards their daughter after one of the richest teenagers in the city [town?] overdosed in their living room. My parents would have killed me.
Instead, hers refuse to let her switch schools, drop out, or move to her father's to avoid the repercussions of her actions. They're waiting for someone to lead the lynch mob straight to Molly's locker and be done with her. Fair enough. You did the crime, the cops aren't making you do jail time, so you do your time in the school system that's going to make you wish you'd gone to jail. Tough love, baby. And I don't particularly fault them for it.

   Woe is Molly. Her parents are being total hardasses about this going to school and coming back in a reasonable amount of time thing. No one at school will talk to her. Everyone blames her for Regina's death. Hell, Molly says she does, too, but for someone claiming to take the blame, she's awfully fucking stupid. Days after Regina's death she tries to approach Elizabeth Wakefield, hoping for the absolution of the ever forgiving divine one. She waits until Jeffrey leaves and then makes her move. Liz, being polite and a little less saintly, doesn't run away, but she doesn't put on her Concerned!Face and immediately offer comfort. Instead she asks what Molly wants, very polite if a little strained, and Molly fumbles around. Understandable. A minute or two passes and Molly tries to string a semi-coherent thought together, but Saint Liz can't do this anymore. She tries to leave once more and Molly begs her not to hate her. And my heart breaks a little at this:

Elizabeth shook her head, her eyes bright with unshed tears, and took another step down. "I'm sorry, Molly, I can't talk to you."
"Liz! Please, don't-don't hate me," Molly begged pitifully.
There was a long pause. "I don't hate you, Molly," Elizabeth whispered. "But I loved Regina."

   It has it's flaws, but it's also the most polite way of breaking my heart and telling Molly to leave her alone all at once.
   Distraught, Molly flees the scene of her humiliation. She all but runs through town [city?] and ends up at the cemetery without even meaning to. She decides that since Liz cannot stand to see her, she hasn't a chance in hell with the other person she'd planned on begging forgiveness from [Regina's family, Nicholas to be exact] so instead she'll throw herself on Regina's mercy and confess her sins or something at Regina's grave. Oh, tear.
   Except Regina's grave is currently being visited by Nicholas Morrow, who is grieving in a way that's a little creepy and mostly realistic, given how he's been written to date. When Nicholas hears a twig snap, he goes to find out who has been spying on his grief. When he sees Molly, he flips the fuck out. "You killed my sister!" And with that, Molly is banished, and someone finally says the words I've been itching to hear this entire time. Someone flat out calls Molly a murderer to her Allison Sugarbaker face. SCORE.

   Now, remember Jessica's super-secret-plan? Well, she's decided that in memory of Regina, PBA should start a college scholarship fund for the truly needy at SVH. She figures that within a year they can raise a few thousand dollars and this way Regina's memory will live on each time someone is nominated and then when someone wins. At first everyone's overwhelmed by the amount of money they'd need to raise, as well as the logistics of the whole thing, but Lila steps up and says her father will donate a ton, and as if that weren't enough, she'll hit up the country club because everyone there knew Regina.
True, but are the rich and spoiled of the Southern California area really going to throw money at a scholarship created for a girl who died of a cocaine overdose? Especially given the rich bitches we've met at the CC, like Gordon Stoddard's parents. I'm just saying...
   Anyway, with Lila's backing, the rest of PBA begins throwing fund raising ideas out like crazy. Still, Jessica's worried about the logistics of the whole thing and asks her parents to help her figure something out. Ned does her one better and suggests that his firm handle all the money and paperwork and basically everything she was worried about. I know people elsewhere, particularly 1bruce1 [love!], ask this all the time, but what in the fuck kind of lawyer IS Ned? I could see him having friends who could help out, sure, but always being able to do whatever lawyer-y thing is required? That's just... mind boggling. I know the series is written for younger girls, but is it also written BY them? You know, like when Doctor Barbie can do EVERYTHING because you've only got the four dolls, and one of them is missing a head so really, your choices are seriously limited? Good lord.

Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Molly's wallowing in self pity when she gets a call from Buzz, our friendly neighborhood coke/heroin dealer. He lays it on with a trowel. How is she, doesn't everyone suck for holding her accountable for Regina's actions, isn't she lonely, does she miss him, he misses her, gosh, if only they could meet...
And so they do, outside of Kelly's. You'd think the cops would have Kelly's on their radar, but maybe Mr. Fowler is right. Maybe the SVPD really does suck. Again, Buzz is so obvious that I'm thinking all that coke Molly's done has killed all her braincells. Imagine, if you will, if someone came up to you with this:
Hey, baby. I've missed you. Sucks that everyone's on your case. By the way, I think I like you. So, that kiss was great for me, even though I saw you recoil from it and all, but uh, listen, I've got to get out of town. I know, baby, it sucks that we've finally found each other and all, but the cops... well, you know what they're like. Say, hey, got any money? You do? Could you, I dunno, withdraw all of it? You could? Fab! Maybe we could... well, no. I couldn't ask. Ask what? Well, we could run away. Sure. You go the bank, take all YOUR money out, then WE'LL run away, but you'll only be gone a few days. I'll keep the rest of your cash. Sound good? Awesome. Now get the fuck out of my car, skank.

That is pretty much how the Buzz convo went, but a little more fun. And Molly agrees because OMG, if you missed it, the last few days have been HORRIBLE for her. Because she helped kill a girl.
You see my problem with feeling bad for her, right?
Yes?
No?
Bah.

Anyway, Liz gets to thinking and she feels as if her halo is tarnished now that she's turned her back on someone for entirely justifiable reasons. She and Jeffrey chatter and he points out that it's okay to not want to talk to Molly, it doesn't make Liz anything but human... and Liz cannot have this. She's a saint, damn it, and she's going to rectify this!
Only she still can't talk to Molly without wanting to weep for Regina's loss. So she decides that Justin would make an excellent replacement Saint. Except when she calls him [during the middle of her date with Jeffrey!] Justin tells her to go fuck herself. He's worked hard to distance himself from that pariah and Liz doesn't know a damn thing about what she's talking about. Which is true. Liz knows less than Regina knew about Justin's life, and we really don't know why Justin and Molly broke up, other than they eventually did not see eye-to-eye on the drug situation. Whatever, he's got his reasons and it's incredibly rude of Elizabeth to just assume Justin will do what Elizabeth cannot bring herself to do.
So Liz worries. Nicholas comes over the next morning and Jessica brightens at the sight of him, and I know it's stupid, but I always feel for her when Nicholas so blatantly ignores her the second Liz glides into the room. I'm also painfully proud of the series for never having him come around to the Jessica way of thinking, although I'm not sure they would have made an absolutely horrid couple.
   Enough fantasy, back to the fictional reality. Liz and Nicholas discuss how he was dreadful to Molly [mock? Me? Neverrrrrrrr] and Liz sort of, but not really, cops to being less than sweet with Molly herself. I love that he's flogging himself for being completely upset, and she won't even volunteer her story to make him feel slightly better. God, Liz, that's how this game is played.
Nicholas asks Elizabeth to tell Molly he's sorry and Elizabeth sort of agrees, but doesn't actually do it.

Blah blah blah, I started to die here from sheer annoyance and boredom all at the same time, so things get fuzzy. Molly goes to the bank, tries to close her account but gets pissed when she's told she has to fill out paperwork to do that.
Molly: Well, what if I don't take out everything. Would I still have to fill out the papers then?
Clerk: You wouldn't be closing out your account then, now would you? *IDIOT thought bubble*

Molly takes out everything but fourteen bucks and some change and then runs into Liz. Because Liz is everywhere. For those of you who now have the SVH themesong stuck your head, I truly do apologize. For those that don't, I'm jealous.
Somewhere in this muck Liz is writing up an article about the PBA scholarship and there's a discussion about how horribly everyone is treating Molly and for the briefest second we're told how hard this must be on Olivia, since she spent a lot of time with Bruce/Regina, and how the two were close. Poor Liv. Your pain is cut off by the appearance of Mr. Collins who blathers on about how people are perfectly justified in thinking Molly is a murderous bitch, but that they should also realize how hard this is on her and maybe if people like Jessica Fucking Wakefield would stop going around being such bitches, well, things might not be so bad. I really can't tell how he manages to admit he holds Molly accountable for Regina's death and still gives Jessica grief for voicing the same opinion. However, before my mind imploded, there was a note about how Jessica's tendency to blurt out her misguided opinions really does embarrass her twin more often than not. Score!

Justin's been looking for Molly after another chat with Liz, but he's having as much trouble finding her as Nicholas did trying to save Regina. Only with detention and whatnot instead of a trip to county lockup. Liz gets a hold of him and tells him that Molly's been to the bank and taken out a huge wad of fifties and this just cannot be good. Justin finds Molly and Buzz and there's this whole big fight scene and it ends with Buzz having a glass jaw.
Molly and Justin are reunited, Liz is vindicated and reestablishes herself as a saint when she tells Molly that she's a shoo-in for the Regina Scholarship next year, and I die horribly at all of this crap.*
There's the lead in to #42, with Sandra Bacon [god, why is she Bacon? Kevin Bacon tie-in?] annnnnd her lovey dovey Manuel, but her parents are racist and nothing good will come of this to the point that even Cara and Jessica know this.
But what really brings me back to life is the knowledge that the next actual book is the first thriller. THANK YOU, GOD.

Trivia:

Liz absolves Amy and Bruce at the memorial, and then she and Amy have a soul searching moment.

Steve claims that it was Tricia's death that caused Betsy to turn to drugs, but in reality [and the dumbass should know this] her death caused Betsy to KICK her habit. Tricia's illness, however, accelerated Betsy's drug usage. Fail, ghosty.

The PBA meeting about Regina's memorial is held in the Language Lab at lunch.

At the meeting, Maria Santelli breaks down and Jeannie West comforts her.

The night Jessica asks her parents for help with the memorial, they've just had Chinese for dinner. Everyone. Including Ned. Numerous times have we been told he can't/won't eat it and suddenly it's delicious? Pod person!

Speaking of Ned, does he work at the SV branch of Wolfram and Heart because damn, his firm does it all.

Nicholas blames Molly for Regina's death. SCORE.

Lila is the first to step up at the meeting and offer a fund raising idea. Namely, her daddy's checkbook is theirs. Then she offers up the checkbooks of the SV Country Club members. Susan can get her hands on "a lot of movies that we can charge admission for." Other ideas include: getting stores to donate merchandise for raffles. Ads in the newspaper, telethon on public access TV, car washes, bake sales, door-to-door solicitation, though probably not in the prostitution sort of way.

After Nicholas reads one of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poems at the memorial, Liz goes to find more and is reminded most of Regina when she reads "Time does not bring relief, you all have lied."

Liz also admits that she keeps expecting to see Regina.

Jessica's fortune cookie read: Today is a good day to make plans.

Justin's mother's name is Claire Belson.

Molly's mother has a two hour commute to work, which means she has to leave at 6am. This also means she goes to sleep fairly early. But if she's home at 3 in the afternoon, she has a very, very short work day...

Molly's home is a one story ranch house, meaning she can sneak out her window without fear of a Pollyanna moment.

Molly hitchhikes to Kelly's so she can meet Buzz in the parking lot at 10pm. Cuz that's not dangerous at all.

Nicholas uses the Wakefield's backdoor more than anyone else, except maybe Alice. Weird.

Justin has a five page paper due on Hamlet's soliloquy, and Liz offers to help. In exchange, if he could just talk to that strung out Molly so Liz doesn't have to...?

According to Sandy's parents, Sweet Valley is "overrun with immigrants." Ah, lovely.

Molly has $2,314.83 in her account at Union Bank. She withdraws $2,300 so she won't have to fill out paperwork. Then she gets it all in fifties. Oi.

Molly has American History in room 211.

Justin gets busted by Chrome Dome waiting for Molly outside of her American History class. D'oh!

Buzz takes Route 7 South out of town because hardly anyone uses it. And because he's running to Mexico.

This book takes place over less than two weeks. That's right, Molly breaks in record time.

Quotable SVH:

Now, for the first time since Amy's return, Elizabeth felt as if they were looking straight into each other's hearts. - after Liz tells Bruce and Amy that Regina didn't blame them anymore, p4

It was well known that Elizabeth Wakefield could be counted on as sympathetic, honest, and scrupulously fair. - Molly thinks this while debating asking Liz for forgiveness or to understand how bad Molly feels. I snorted my soda at this. p 44

"Haven't you done enough damage already? Do you have to make it worse by coming here and-and-" Nicholas was yelling now, outraged by her presence.
"Nicholas-I-"
"Get out of here!" he screamed, raising one hand as if to hit her. "Get out of here and leave us alone! You killed my sister! You killed her!" - Finally, something that resembles an honest emotion from a SV character. p 50

"And I think she really needs a friend right now. She's feeling pretty isolated."
There was silence on the other end.
"Justin?"
"What are you asking me for? She's no friend of mine."
Elizabeth pulled nervously at her gold lavaliere. "Well, you used to be close, didn't you, Justin? I mean maybe she's been acting-I don't know, pretty wild lately-"
"Pretty wild? Elizabeth, I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about." - Justin speaks true. So very, very true. p67

Just then Elizabeth pushed open the door from the hall.
"Nicholas!"
Instantly he leaped to his feet and Jessica knew she had been forgotten. - It's not often I feel truly sorry for Jess, but this is one of those times. p86

Molly felt her face grow hard. Why was it that when Elizabeth talked to Justin, he listened, but when Molly did, he bolted like a frightened rabbit? Her eyes narrowed with a rage she didn't know she could feel.
"No, thanks. I've been your scapegoat long enough, Elizabeth. So you can take your talking and shove it." - Do I really need to say anything? p 113

It hurt her sometimes that her sister could be insensitive to other people. and it hurt her that she hadn't been able to make Jessica understand. - Liz occasionally is embarrassed by her twin's lack of moral compass and empathy. Who knew? p 127

*- Normally I love my SVH. I do. Lots of things grate, obviously, but for the most part, I love the series. But this book drove me absolutely insane. You might have noticed. I suspect that I've never actually read 40 and then 41 back to back and doing so makes my head hurt because it takes two weeks from Regina's death until Molly's redemption and that's just beyond unrealistic, even for this series.
Also, Molly should be relatable, but they never actually make her so. The pieces are mostly there, but they never quite add up to anything more than a really annoying teenager unable to accept that they played a part in a horrible accident that cost someone their life. It's all about how Regina's death fucked her over, not that in addition to someone. is. dead. That's all you'd have to add for me to feel the love. I don't expect fantastic things of these guys. Be bitchy and cruel and petty. It's realistic! But if I'm supposed to give a right royal damn, I'd like you to show you're a semi decent fictional human being, too.
Unless you're a psychopath like Margo, but really, she's in a class by herself.

I do have to wonder: Where the hell are Jan and her boyfriend? Why aren't they even mentioned in any of the nasty remarks other people made? Did they go to jail? Were they sent to another school? Did the cops kill them, dump their bodies in the ocean, and hope that we wouldn't notice? Because Molly's suddenly friendless and in the last book she at least had Jan. Not that Jan was a prize, mind you, but she did exist. I'm so... confused.

There are a few gems littered throughout the book that keep it from being a complete headache, and I think I love them more for that. Go figure. you tried, Outcast. You really did. You just forgot to have a little heart thrown in, that's all.
So now I resume trying to figure out who the hell the girls gossiping being Molly's back on the cover are. Cuz, whoa, if this didn't have the traditional SVH logo, I'd assume it was something else entirely.

A word from my childhood

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:59:38 GMT

And now for something a little different:
   For one bright, shining moment someone else in the world linked to me. And then that moment passed before I could reciprocate, but since I'm being such a slacker about getting onto Molly's tragedy, forgive me if I whore out a little love.

   If Sweet Valley High is my guilty pleasure, then Christopher Pike was what kept me [questionably] sane throughout the rest of my pre-teen and teen years. There is a reason why many of my favorite SVH books are the ones where horrible things happen... or when Margo, the queen of horrible things, shows up. SVH let me believe that high school would be Awesome. CP let me know that high school would suck your soul out and if you weren't lucky, it would suck your entire life away, too. So it gives me great joy to find someone else digging through the various Pike novels out there and going easy on the mockery and big with the love, except when he fucked up, which he had a serious tendency to do towards the end of his big run back in the day. Seriously, guys, some of those last books were more than phoned in. Less than phoned in? Whatever. I distinctly remember passing one of his later books around to various friends and you'd know when they finished because they'd call and they'd say the same thing, "What the hell was that and where's the real book?"

   Ah, memories. So, if you weren't too cool to skip the Christopher Pike stage, you should probably enjoy Like Pike

Love out of the way, I give you another little something different:

Outcast

   Pre-review thoughts:
   You have to marvel at the balls it took for someone to actually think this through and get it green-lit.

The Pitch: Y'know how we just knocked Regina off to show that drugs are bad, mmmkay? Well, what if we focus the next book on one of the people responsible for her death? No, not Amy Slutton. No, not Bruce. No, not even that guy who took her to the party and then would not take her home because he wanted to see how fucked up his ex would be on heroin. The aforementioned ex! Yeah, and we'll have her be so riddled with guilt and yet so unable to actually take any blame for this that she wanders around crying, begging for people to take it easy on her when she fucking helped kill a girl. That's right. She'll goad Regina into snorting that second line of coke, cheer her best friend on as said friend FORCES Regina to do that second line, and then dear, sweet, confused Molly will spend the next book moping about how everyone hates her even more than they did before.

Balls.
Of.
STEEL.

   It is with this annoyed point of view that I go into the follow-up book. Truthfully, I'd rather skip this one and go straight for the Thriller book that OtE promised me, but, you know, I can't. Chronologically speaking and all, I have to deal with Molly.

you said me you would find me even in death

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 07:29:13 GMT

On The Edge
October 1987

Is it all over between Regina and Bruce?

Headed for trouble...

Regina Morrow and Bruce Patman have been going together for months. But when beautiful, devious Amy Sutton is paired up with Bruce on a school project, she schemes to steal him away from Regina. Little by little Bruce's resistance to Amy's charms begins to crumble.
Regina is furious when she discovers that Bruce has been seeing Amy behind her back. Hurt and betrayed, she turns to Justin Belson, a troubled senior at Sweet Valley High. Regina's friends are worried. They think Justin and his crowd are bad news-it's rumored that some of them are drug users. Is Regina on a dangerous course?

In case you've been living under a rock, Bruce Patman and Regina Morrow have been dating for what seems like forever. Everyone is so used to them as a couple that when Amy Sutton makes it known that she's got the hots for Bruce, no one really believes she has a chance at anything other than humiliation.
So when Maria Santelli tells Jessica that Bruce actually is fawning all over Amy, Jessica decides this little bit of gossip is worth a listen. Amy and Bruce have been paired up for a project in health class about the exploding drug community/usage at nearby SVC. This blows my mind for two reasons. One, Bruce is a senior and the thought of him in health class with juniors is weird, although I do understand that the electives are mixed. It's still... weird. Two, and most important, what frickin' drug use in SV? The only real people we've heard about using are old friends of Enid's and the skeevy guys Jessica sneaks out to date with disastrous results. If the SVPD really wants to catch these people, just follow the youngest Wakefield when she goes out with almost any given college guy. Duh.
Anyway, Amy's been manipulating things so that her cousin, Mimi, their biggest source of information, will only meet with them on Friday nights, thus keeping Bruce away from Regina on what are traditionally date nights. Oh, Amy. She gets Bruce alone one day at his estate, puts her acting classes to good use, and weaves him this story of a dream she allegedly had where they were in the middle of nowhere, discussing their project, when suddenly... no, she couldn't possibly go on. Bruce insists, just as Amy knew he would, and she leans closer and whispers, "and then you kissed me." Bruce is actually kind of flustered, torn between Old!Bruce and New!Bruce. Old!Bruce would have already jumped Amy by now, but New!Bruce has Regina... Sensing this could go either way, Amy then asks whether it would matter if she admitted she really, really wanted him to kiss her. The next thing you know, Bruce is giving Amy the single most chaste kiss in all of SVH thus far. Amy pouts and lunges at Bruce, demanding a real kiss, which she then gives him.
Thus, I'm torn. Bruce made the first move, but Amy'd started that fire, deliberately, and then did everything she could to keep it going, even when Bruce didn't seem to be going along with the script she'd so thoughtfully provided. Yes, he's an ass, but Amy earns my scorn for this little move, and no, I will not get over this. I will spend the rest of SVH disliking her for this... and for being a moron.

There's a party rule enforced at SVH, so the twins decide to give Lila a break in the hostessing duties, and throw a BBQ at their house for their friends. Liz tries repeatedly to get Jessica to explain why on earth she's so excited to have Bruce/Amy/Regina all in the same place, particularly once Amy tells the whole entire world about her kiss with Bruce and how he's totally going to break up with Regina for her. Jess wonders how her sister could possibly be so incredibly dense.
It never occurs to Elizabeth to simply revoke Amy's invitation. Instead, she debates telling Regina about the rumors Amy's been spreading. Since Jessica's no help, Liz asks Jeffrey his opinion. Jeffrey waffles but decides that realistically, no guy in his right fucking mind would leave Regina for Amy Sutton, so telling Regina would just complicate matters once Bruce came to his senses. Relieved to not have to think about it again, Liz heads off to finish making the salad or something.
Kay... no. You just don't do that to your friends. A friend of a friend of a friend, maybe. But letting someone walk into a party filled with people who are all expecting major fireworks because your boyfriend has been cheating on you with someone else invited to the party is uncool!
Back to Regina. She's been noticing that Bruce has been acting odd lately and is worried that maybe that since their relationship was filled with so much drama to begin with, maybe he's bored now. But surely he, a teenage boy with such a bad history with relationships, would have said something... And to be fair, the Bruce she knows probably would have. She's still worried and doesn't particularly want to go to the BBQ on the first date-night she's gotten with her own boyfriend in ages. She goes, and on the way there tries to get him to open up. Bruce, being a guy, refuses, saying that he wouldn't want to be rude to the Wakefields. They go 'round back to the party and Jessica pounces, pulling Bruce away and has him man the grill... leaving Regina unattended for the most part.
The next thing we know, Amy appears and is so lovely that even the sun takes a moment to perfectly frame her in a sunbeam. Regina catches sight of Bruce drooling over Amy and realizes she's been afraid that Bruce and Amy are doing more than studying together. Um, ya think that's what's been bugging you? Oi. I love you Regina, but your ghosty is being a bit clumsy here. You were deaf not stupid...

La-di-da, time flies and Elizabeth realizes no one's seen Bruce or Amy around in ages. They're spotted behind a tree [really] and Liz sends Jeffrey to break them up while she distracts Regina. Maybe if people hadn't ignored Regina all night, she might not be feeling quite so lousy and wouldn't have been so quick to look over and realize that Liz was trying to hurry her away from scene of the crime... Instead, she sees Jeffrey leading two very obviously together people away. Amy and Bruce. Regina flips the hell out and yells and screams at Bruce, demands the keys to 1bruce1 [cementing her awesomeness in the history books], tells Amy she hates her but refrains from pointing out that Slutton is obviously a very easy name to use, and then tells the entire party she hates them, too, since they KNEW what was going on and let her walk right into an ambush and really, what kind of sane and nice people DO that sort of thing? And you, especially, Liz Wakefield, can go straight to hell because Regina's totally through with you.
If her heart weren't breaking and leading her straight to hell herself, I would applaud her. As it is, I just want to scoop her up and keep her safe.
Regina takes 1bruce1 out for a little breakup joyride and goes to Secca Lake to calm herself down. By the time she gets home, she just wants to curl up and talk to someone in her family, but they're all out. Poor Regina...

Back at SVH, Regina blows all her old friends off. Anyone who tries to talk to her from Before Bruce is ignored. She spends more time with Justin, a guy she met shortly before she and Bruce broke up. At first it seemed like Justin was a bit of a stalker, having confessed to buying three issues of Regina's Ingenuity, but the more time Regina and Justin spend together, the more he talks about Molly, his ex. It's all done very strangely, as Justin really does come across as a potential love interest at first, and then pretty much the next time you see him, he's painfully hung up on his ex. Which is good, since Regina is very hung up on Bruce and the pain he's caused.
Blah, blah, blah... Liz, Nicholas, and even Bruce get word that Regina and Justin are going to a party at Molly's house. No big deal, right? Except that the local crack/heroin dealer, Buzz, is going to make a Very Special Appearance. Initially Justin is turned off by this, but by the time he drags Regina to the party, he's mostly forgotten that he was Anti-Buzz to begin with. Poor Regina is woefully out of place at this party, and Molly runs off with Justin as much as she can, leaving her evil best friend Jan to mock and torture Regina for being a good girl...who happened to have stolen Molly's boyfriend. Regina tries to point out, repeatedly I might add, that she didn't steal anyone's frickin' boyfriend and that he's still in love with Molly and maybe, had Jan and Molly not been such bitches about the whole thing, Regina would have worked her mojo and fixed that screwed up relationship and felt better about her own.
Instead, Jan and Molly taunt Regina to the breaking point even after Buzz arrives. They all but dare Regina to do a line of coke, and instead of taking Regina and getting the fuck out of there, Justin is all, "whatever, man." Previously he mentioned that he wasn't worried about Molly on coke, 'cuz he knows what she's like then, but that Buzz, the not-so-friendly-neighborhood-dealer was trying to get her to try heroin. Um, Justin? Coke ain't all that cool either. Anyway, Regina decides that for once in her life she's going to defy expectations and take an actual, honest to God risk, and does her line of coke. Before it even has a chance to do... whatever it was going to do, Molly demands that she do a second line, and Jan holds her down [seriously] until she snorts the second line.
I'm not sure if the first line alone would have killed her, or just sent her very pale behind to the hospital for a very long stay, but that second line definitely signed her death warrant.

Now, let's rewind. The often mentioned, but never seen before Mimi appears and starts blathering on about this Margaret Hecht and how she'll be having a party and this big dealer will be there and Bruce and Amy are like, "Who?" They get to the bit about Buzz and realize, "Oh! You mean Molly!" Cuz there are so many people with the last name of Hecht in SV. If it had been another W last name, sure, I could see it. But Hecht? Kinda stands out. Bruce calls Regina and Amy tells Jessica who finally tells Elizabeth. Elizabeth tries to warn Regina herself, but it doesn't work. So she finally calls Nicholas once Jessica suggests it. Nicholas then spends the whole fucking night trying to get to Regina. First he can't find his keys, then he can't find his wallet, and then he gets busted for speeding and because he doesn't have his ID [it's in his wallet], he gets taken to the station... where they finally hear that he knows where Buzz is and his little sister is there and OMG Drugs!

Nich and the cops show up just as Regina checks out. She croaks, "It wasn't their fault" and then asks for Bruce and Elizabeth, and Nicholas calls them, even though he has to hold the EMS up while he makes these stupid calls. Oh, Regina.... everything is conspiring against you, isn't it?

Blah, blah blah, Bruce and Liz leave the big party... wherever it is and go to Regina's side, but she dies before they can see her.

Before she went out on her ill-fated party date, Regina wrote Elizabeth a letter apologizing for being so bitter and cruel towards her when Liz was only trying to do her a favor in warning her about the party. She went on to absolve everyone in the entire world of their sins and blathered on about how she and Bruce had been drifting apart long before Amy and my head exploded, so really, all in all, uncool. Liz gets the letter after Regina's death and freaks out and we end with Regina's memorial service at school, which also doubles as a Just Say No rally.

Oh, Regina...

Trivial Pursuit:

Amy's under the impression Regina didn't go to the 40's Fling last book since Bruce was working on his project with Amy. Um, Ames? Regina went by herself and looked fantastic. Shove it, blondie.

Jessica's current motto is: Make Sure You Get What You Want.

Have you noticed Jessica has a habit of eating whatever's being chopped up for the salad at the Wakefield house? She's eaten all the cherry tomatoes before and this time she chomps her way through the avocados Liz is trying to chop.

Amy's cousin is named Mimi. Immediately I think of Claudia's grandmother and then Mariah Carrey. There's no hope for my soul.

Amy and Bruce's health project is about the drug problem at Sweet Valley College.

Amy twists Mimi's arm so that Mimi will meet with them on Fridays, then tells Bruce that this is the only time Mimi is available.

Amy spent a summer studying acting "back East." Fine. Now could you act like you have a brain?

Miss Sutton acts as if she had a dream in which she and Bruce were discussing their drug problem ~~project~~ when he suddenly kisses her. When he offers a brief, chaste kiss, Amy kisses him back and pushes the kiss into overdrive.

Justin Belson is tall, slender, auburn haired, with chiseled, attractive features. He should be a senior, but after his father was murdered two years ago, Justin understandably took a small hiatus from school and is thus a junior. He wears a leather jacket to pick Regina up for their first 'date' and this simple act freaks the Morrows out. Yet they let their daughter go out with the Chuck Bass of their time...

Molly [Margaret] Hecht is a petite blonde with large green eyes and an acidic personality towards Regina as well as a predilection for cocaine and pot.

Jan [Janice] Brown is Molly's best friend, although that title could be refuted considering it's hinted at this point that she's the one who pulled Molly into the drug usage and then later fucking holds Regina Morrow down to do the second line of coke that definitely killed the poor girl. Jan does seem to have a firm grasp on the concept that if someone steals your friend's boyfriend, ex or otherwise, you make them pay. Good job, Jan.

Jessica tries to play the literature quoting game with Liz, by arguing that happy couples are boring and didn't some famous novel start out that way? Liz has to remind her that Tolstoy said "happy families" and not boring, but alike. Jess waves this off with the classic, "Whatever."

Nicholas Morrow has a new friend. Sam Watson. Sam's ex was Justin's ex. But... not Molly? Intrigue?

Skye Morrow is 38. Damn, girl.

At the Wakefield BBQ, Winston sets up a game of Frisbee baseball for the guys and Jeffrey is third base. Well, at least he'll get to third with something in his life.

Regina describes Caroline as "sweet" and "welcoming" and I'm left wondering when the body snatchers had time to take Caroline. Even after her transformation I'm not sure anyone would describe her as welcoming.

The BBQ guest list: Jessica, Elizabeth, Jeffrey, Enid, Lila, Cara, Olivia, Roger, Bruce, Regina, Amy, Maria, Winston, Caroline, Ken. That's... a bit awkward, but this is why I don't throw parties.

After Bruce grills the hell out of things, the party mellows out. Olivia plays folk music on her guitar for a small audience. Ken, Maria, Winston, and Enid tell ghost stories, Liz and Jeffrey are smooching, Amy and Bruce are grinding behind the tree, and Regina is sitting by herself. This means Jess was either in the bathroom or listening to Olivia play folk music. Ditto for Lila. What, I ask you, is wrong with that picture?

Nola is the Morrow's new housekeeper.

Regina went to Secca Lake after carjacking 1bruce1 in an attempt to calm down.

Justin takes Regina to Kelly's on their first date. Because that's naturally where you'd think to take the single most naive member of the junior class. Ass.

Justin's father was murdered two years ago when two kids, younger than 16/17, mugged him for drug money at his liquor store. When daddy hit the alarm, one kid panicked and stabbed daddy to death. Justin's mother turned to pills to ease the pain and Justin... I dunno, found drugs, too, but never stopped to think it was a tad hypocritical of him to condemn his mother for taking the loss as hard as he was.

Justin's father's liquor store was on Putnam Avenue, not the prettiest part of town.

Molly and Justin have dated since junior high.

Molly's parents are apparently divorced, because the ill-fated party she throws is a yearly affair when her mother goes out of town and her father lives in San Fran.

Ty Hecht is Molly's little brother. He's in ninth grade.

Buzz Jackson is a big coke dealer. He's skinny and mean looking, and while he's Mimi's age, that's about all they have in common. He's been dealing since junior high. Mimi thinks his real name might be something he doesn't like all that much, like William or something. Or maybe Buzz is just an obvious nickname?

Jan's boyfriend is Jay [James] Benson.

It's still creepy whenever Enid's past is mentioned and they talk about her being with a really fast crowd. Dude, she was like, 13.

Mimi is 19, a junior at Sweet Valley College, and has worked at a clinic outside town for the last 3 years.

Molly lives at 45 Redwood Drive.

Regina went to Casey's before the party. Nice to know the girl got some ice cream before she died.

Jessica uses red spray in hair color.

On his way to rescue Regina, Nicholas lost his keys, his wallet, and then got stopped for going 35 mph in a 25 zone. He was hauled in for lack of identification and it took him more than an hour to get the cops to listen to why he was speeding. Hell, man, you had the drive to the station. I would have started out with "Buzz is getting my sister high on coke and heroin RIGHT NOW."

Sergeant O'Riley is the one who finally listens to Nicholas.

Molly, Jan, and a redhead named Tina are busy smoking pot away from the crowd at the party, waiting for Buzz to show. Regina stumbles across them by accident and they rip into her for stealing Molly's boyfriend.

Justin isn't worried about Molly doing coke, but the thought of her on heroin scares him, which is why he won't leave the party early.

Regina does two lines of coke, one right after the other, as Jan holds her down for the second line, even as the first is taking hold.

Regina's heart is doing 40 beats in 15 seconds.

Nicholas reads Dirge Without Music by Edna St. Vincent Millay at Regina's memorial.

Regina's letter arrives at the Wakefield house on Tuesday.

The teaser/preview at the start of the book is of Regina's breakdown at the party. Instead of Regina informing Bruce that she'll be driving his Porsche home, she says she'll be taking his car home. Dude, it's 1bruce1. Treat it with respect, teaser-people.

Quote-a-ble Sweet Valley:
Jessica looked at Elizabeth with an expression halfway between frustration and concern. It was always this way whenever she tried to explain something perfectly simple to her sister. Elizabeth just couldn't seem to grasp the essentials. -p8

He gave her a cocky smile. "I'd kind of forgotten how much fun it is to spread the wealth-to share the old Bruce magic with more than one girl." - Amy, this is the guy you think will be a good boyfriend? He's already talking about multiple girls and you just now tempted him to cheat. Oi. p18

"There's bound to be lots of scandal," she'd said. "Especially since all three members of the 'love triangle' are coming." - Liz, scandal isn't the word you're looking for. Scandal is what it is, not what will be going on. Oi. p 27

"Explain to me why you're looking forward to it," she pleaded. "I just don't see what's going to be fun about watching Regina's heart break." - and yet she still doesn't step in. Still page 27

"Thanks, I really appreciate your consideration," she spat out sarcastically. "From the way you've acted tonight, it's obvious how much you really care about my feelings." -It's always the quiet ones, right? Regina finally calls Liz out on her bitchery and she gets killed for it. Oh! A conspiracy theory is born! p50

"Doesn't anyone in this town have anything better to do than to talk about Bruce and me?" - Sadly, no, Regina. You are our A plot and that's what we must obsess over. p58

She floundered, unable to come up with anything more plausible than simply wanting to talk about herself and Bruce. - Oh, Amy... if I weren't in the middle of hating you something fierce, I would probably still find that hysterical. And also, so totally true. Points to SVH for realism. Weird. p 66

What risks had Bruce ever taken? What hardships had he ever overcome? Bruce had had his life handed to him on a silver platter, but Justin had suffered. - Regina compares Bruce and Justin and Bruce comes out lacking. In Bruce's defense, at least he's not the one who took you to a coke party and got you killed. He just cheated on you with an idiot whose own friends can't stand her. Also, total teenage girl to find the suffering boy to be so much more fascinating. Realism again! p71

Bruce paled. "I'd better call Regina," he muttered. Amy looked away, clearly unenthusiastic about the prospect, but aware that it would hardly make her look good if she objected. - Amy, he's calling her to tell her to stay away from the drug den, not to beg for forgiveness. Oi. p83

"Look, this stuff goes on just like spray paint," she said, admiring the reddish streaks she had applied. "Isn't it fun? I look like a rockstar."
"You look like a freak." - Jess/Liz. I love this little exchange far too much for my own good... p98

But the truth was that things just didn't last forever. Not friendship, not human lives. - p143

I don't really remember much of my SV days before Regina died. Quite probably because this book came out when I was six and by the time I was old enough to read the books just a few short years later, the cover would have appealed to my drama-queen-lite tendencies, and thus I would have read it before, say, any of the overly coupley books not featuring a twin on the cover. Truthfully, I think I knew Regina would die before I read the book, but again, that could just be 20-something odd years of having read these things. I knew then, as I know now, that OtE was meant to scare kids away from the Evils of Drug Use, even as a one-time experiment. Alas, I'd bet that most of the war on drugs of my youth did very little in the way of scaring anyone other than me. But Regina's death, coupled with one very surreal day courtesy of my uncle going batshit crazy, managed to do just what it set out to do.
That said, I love 99% of this book, but I have a raging hatred for that remaining 1 percent. I love how Regina's finally taken off the pedestal she never actually wanted to be on, I love how she's not depicted with a rosy glow on anything other than a less-than-flattering cover, and I love that when the world kicks her in the shins, she kicks back. What I do not love, however, is the immediate retcon job done to Bruce & Regina's relationship. Instead of taking the time to show that Bruce was losing interest now that all the high drama of their relationship had worn off [she's heroically deaf! she's in Switzerland! She's being held hostage just down the street! She can hear your beautiful, beautiful voice! for the first time EVER!] and making the split believable, even if the other characters in the series never saw the subtle shift in dynamic, the Idiots That Be threw Amy Sutton in, kind of like an annoying self-absorbed grenade, and had her be so irresistible that Bruce couldn't help but fall for her. I could probably buy that on it's own, but when Regina muses that their relationship had been on the rocks "for awhile" because the drama had declined? That's where I cry foul. The whole point of not showing the occasional longing glance at any other girl prancing by at the numerous beach scenes and parties, of not having anyone believe Amy until they saw it with their own eyes was that Bruce and Regina were supposed to be a solid couple, held together by their shared dramatic past. The. Whole. Effing. Point. It was supposed to be out of left field! You can't have it fly out of left field if someone could, in theory, sit down and rationally think it over, deciding that yes, yes she could see how this could have happened.
It just... can't.... happen.
Also, this series has a habit of making people a little too forgiving. Teenagers, hell, people frequently, are just not that forgiving. I get that, ideally, you could go on about your day without the bitterness driving you to lash out, but... in reality, all this forgiveness crammed down your throat makes it seem like you're supposed to smile pretty when someone does something awful to you. No. Nononono.
It killed me then, and it kills me a little now, that just as Regina actually got another story under her belt, when she got some personality, it came at the expense of her life.

And because it wouldn't be right to let this go, we'll weigh in on whether Liz should have told Regina or not. Normally this is a grey area at best. Some people actually want to know when their beloved is cheating on them, or at least rumours are floating around that it could be on the horizon. Some will readily admit that they will kill the damn messenger, so you'd best keep your mouth shut. I've had friends on both sides. Personally, I'd want to know. With that in mind, Liz should have told Regina for one damn reason, and one reason only. Everyone else at that fucking party knew, and it was beyond cruel to let Regina walk into a party where every single girl, and some of the boys, was waiting to see how fucked up her life was going to get.
Seriously. Everyone had to know. Amy told Jessica, Lila, Maria, and Cara. Once that passed out into the ether, Caroline had to know because she's got powers that way. Maria would have told Winston. I'm betting Roger had an inkling, if the retcon is to believed [and even if it wasn't, since Amy spent so much time hitting on Bruce at the Patman estate, where Roger's been known to nip at Bruce's heels] and even if he didn't, Olivia's moving in the same circles as the gossips mentioned previously that she'd have heard something. And she'd have mentioned it to Roger. Jessica told Elizabeth, who promptly turned around and told Jeffrey. That leaves Enid and Ken. Enid's bound to have heard that Amy's making a play for Bruce, and probably that the two have already started going after one another... and if Enid's heard, than good ol' Kenny Matthews has as well. Even if you assume that Enid, Ken, Roger, and Olivia don't know, that's still more than half the party who know something is up, and almost all of them are on the evil side, or have been in the past. Friends don't let friends walk into that much potential drama without a heads up. ESPECIALLY once Elizabeth knew that Jessica was hoping to set off the drama fireworks. That's when you tell Amy not to show up OR you tell Regina that her boyfriend is an ass.

The first time I read this, I bawled. For awhile I couldn't even look at the cover without getting a little misty. I'd ignore Regina's demise when playing SVH with my dolls [Regina was a Teresa and arguably one of my favorites until the unfortunate incident that somehow left her with red marks up and down her legs, and then she just took to wearing evening gowns at all times since Barbie wasn't big on pants then] and later I'd be amused, but happy enough, that her looks were reincarnated with Pamela, even if nothing else about her was. With that in mind, I dragged my feet getting to this point and then read it and... y'know, no waterworks. No emotional surge of any sort other than annoyance at the retcon job I'd forgotten.
Oddly enough, the Regina section in Jessica's Secret Diary volume 1? Still make me tear up a little. Go figure.

To end on a truly superficial note, I should say that while I mock the reenactment photos something awful, this one isn't bad at all, although they seem to have confused the original yellow cover with a yellow shirt. What can you do? And the third cover on the English bar is actually a hardback. So I didn't lose my mind on that and repeat something. ;)