Sweet Valley High #13: Kidnapped!
The moral of the story: It’s best to just ignore any sad and lonely people you might come into contact with. You might make them fall in love with you and then they’ll kidnap you and feed you frozen pancakes.
The Big Deal: The book opens with a big party at the Morrows’ house and ends with a celebratory I-just-got-kidnapped party at the Wakefields’ house.
Synopsis: Okay, so the first thing that happens in this book is Jessica asking Steven to zip up her dress. Steven does so while wearing only a towel. I don’t know about anyone else, but my siblings and I would never interact with each other unless we were wearing clothes. Anyway…
The Morrow family just moved to town and they have two children: Regina, who is deaf, and Nicholas, who is handsome. They’re throwing a party for everyone, which is odd since they haven’t actually met anyone yet. But whatever. Jessica is determined to make Nicholas Morrow fall in love with her, so she barely notices when Liz never shows up to the party. It takes Todd pushing her into the pool to get her to notice something is wrong.
Liz, meanwhile, has been kidnapped. An orderly at the hospital where she works takes her from her car and brings her home with him. He does this because he’s in love with her because she’s always been so nice to him. I swear, the Wakefields need to start walking around with bodyguards if they’re going to continue to be so perfect and lovable all the time.
So Carl the orderly plans to keep Elizabeth with him forever and love her and squeeze her and call her George. There is absolutely no risk of sexual violation, of course, because that would be too far within the realm of realism and it only happens with people we know, like Bruce Patman. Elizabeth worries that he’s going to kill her, but he really just wants to be with her. Aww. Liz has trouble eating the frozen pancakes he makes her because they’re not like the homemade ones her mother makes. Spoiled brat. Shortly before Carl is to carry out his plan to take her to a secluded cabin someplace where nobody will ever find them, Todd and Jessica save the day. Elizabeth chooses to celebrate by throwing a party.
Right.
Quotes:
The stumble, the lack of response to Jessica-It was only natural to conclude that the Morrow girl was drunk.
Because you’d have to be intoxicated not to be enthralled with Jessica, you know.
A loud pounding on the door was followed by the arrival of the first friendly face she’d seen in almost forty-eight hours. “Are you all right?” the police officer asked.
“Now I am,” Elizabeth responded joyously as the officer began to untie her.
Not even untied yet and she’s over it. Nope, no post-traumatic stress here, not in Sweet Valley.
The Cover: Does anyone else think Liz looks like she’s posing for a pin-up calendar? What’s with the goofy “Oops, I’ve just been caught doing something naughty!” expression? I will say, though, that the ribbon in her hair is better than her usual barrettes. And it matches her shirt, naturally.
Tags: Jessica: Negligence, Jessica: Promises to Change, Party: Inappropriate, Party: Other, Plot: Farfetched
March 22nd, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Wow, sounds like someone was channeling V C Andrews here!
And yeah, the cover of this is hilarious! Does not look like a kidnapping scenario at all.
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March 22nd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I can’t help but think that the cover is the top half of an Art Frahm pinup.
Also…frozen pancakes? Really?
(Sweet Of Mice and Men reference, by the way.)
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March 22nd, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Ha ha, it does look like that! Maybe someone was kidnapping her panties…
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March 23rd, 2009 at 8:30 am
That zombie arm coming out from nowhere to scratch her right shoulder really is something else! “Here, let me get that pesky itch for you!”
And the pinup girls are so funny! It’s like: “Oops! My panties just fell off! This always happens to me when I’m toting a bag of groceries. Every time!”
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March 24th, 2009 at 9:24 am
“So Carl the orderly plans to keep Elizabeth with him forever and love her and squeeze her and call her George.”
I lol’d.
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May 5th, 2009 at 9:15 am
For some strange reason, Liz’s arm / hand has always bothered me – it’s too … distinct, too detailed? Maybe my malady is that I pore over these book covers too much, too long!
In Liz’s defense, can I just say that it wasn’t only frozen pancakes she had to put up with, but also second-rate cheeseburgers and inappropriate books to read? I mean, besides the fact that she’s tied to a chair by a mentally ill grown man. What a relief the worst thing he ever did was stroke her hair; I would have been deeply traumatized and scarred for life if Carl had done to Liz what Bruce Patman tried to do in book #7 (Dear Sister). Seriously, no sarcasm here. This whole story freaked me out! :O
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dirtywingsgirl Reply:
January 30th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
“Liz’s arm / hand has always bothered me”
Agreed, it’s a total man-hand!
“I would have been deeply traumatized and scarred for life if Carl had done to Liz what Bruce Patman tried to do in book #7 (Dear Sister).”
Me too, but it sort of annoys me that Liz & Jess are too perfect to have anything really bad happen to them. They only get near misses, and then inexplicably don’t seem to get upset at all. The only time the rape issue was handled with any ounce of maturity was in “Don’t Go Home With John”. Lila was totally traumatized (as one probably would be), and it took her a while to become herself again. I don’t get why the Wakefield twins had it happen to them a few times throughout SVH, yet never seem to care at all except for being all “Ugh, don’t remind me! Rape is icky! Haha!”.
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August 13th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
WTF? I never commented on this one before? Weird. This was my FAVORITE book! It was so exciting! For some reason it always made me want to experiment with chloroform. And frozen pancakes. I read it right around the time those mini-frozen pancakes were popular, and a re-read of this book always called for a mid-book snack.
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Jessica Squits the Quad Reply:
April 6th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
LOL!! Mid book snack of frozen pancakes, that’s hilarious. Real kidnappin’ food! I always felt so sorry for Carl that he forgot to buy syrup so Liz had to eat the pancakes dry. But as Shannon points out, Liz is a total spoiled brat for making such a big deal out of that!!! It was probably the most traumatizing part of the whole ordeal. But Shannon, you left out the Max Dellon stuff! I thought his interactions with Todd were fun.
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October 30th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Jenna, it made you wanna experiment with chloroform and frozen pancakes? What an awesome and weird desire!
Also, I don’t think I read this one as a child, but this recap really makes me want to. What’s up with the scene with Jess and Steven? Why is he wearing a towel in her bedroom? I can’t remember which book it’s in, but in one of the earlier books, Jess and Steven have a game where they talk about how ugly the other one is. For instance, Steve might say to Jess: “Hello, you ugly girl.” And Jess will say, “What are you doing home from college, you mutant?” They think it’s so funny, and it’s like their reverse way of complimenting their sibling’s looks. It was strange to me, even when I was a child. The thing about Steven in his towel also reminds me of how whenever we get Liz’s point of view, she thinks inappropriate thoughts about how handsome her father is. She always thinks about his muscular chest and dark hair. Creepy.
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May 14th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Regina, who is deaf, and Nicholas, who is handsome.
HAHA – these are their only defining characteristics, apparently
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July 19th, 2010 at 1:52 am
And Liz gets rescued in such a timely manner too. Soo not realistic!
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December 29th, 2010 at 12:32 am
I never say this but I liked the tv show version of this book better
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Anonymous Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Yep, they actually are upset over what happened.
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October 5th, 2011 at 8:25 pm
I hope that severed hand finds its way back to the wax figure it came from…
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October 21st, 2011 at 8:32 pm
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