Shannon's Sweet Valley High Blog

The moral of the story: Girls can do anything! Girl power!

The Big Deal: Big football game against Big Mesa

Synopsis:

Scott Trost, the guy who replaced Ken as quarterback after Ken’s “fatal” accident, is put on academic probation and can’t play football. Everyone starts asking Ken’s girlfriend, Terri, if Ken will be trying out for the open position. Terri is worried because Ken isn’t totally recovered from his head injury and his eyesight hasn’t returned completely. Ken and Terri go to the Dairi Burger and Ken spends the entire night talking to his adoring fans about the possibility of his playing football again. Terri is unhappy and realizes their relationship will change if Ken gets back on the team, but she acts like she’s just worried about his vision and stuff. She mentions these concerns to Ken in front of Winston, which pisses Ken off because nobody besides Terri knows he isn’t one hundred percent back to normal.

Liz does an interview for The Oracle with Claire Middleton, a new transfer student from Palisades High. Claire is really shy and doesn’t say much until Liz asks her about her hobbies. Then Claire brightens up and talks about football for a minute. Liz asks her about her family and Claire suddenly gets all withdrawn and shy again. Liz wonders if she has something to hide. Look, Liz, some people are just shy, okay? Back off. When she gets home, Liz asks Jessica what she thinks of Claire. Jessica says she’s been thinking of asking her to join Pi Beta Alpha. This surprises Liz. She’s sure Claire isn’t the sorority type because she seems like a tomboy. But then again, PBA has been under scrutiny lately for being “too exclusive” so Liz figures Jessica wants Claire to round things out. Jessica introduces herself to Claire after a football game and tries to be friendly, but Claire looks at Jessica’s cheerleading uniform and tells her cheerleading is sexist and she should play a real sport instead of just jumping around and screaming. Aw, hell naw. Claire is on Jessica’s shit list now.

Claire tells Coach Schultz she wants to try out for the team. He laughs at her and says she must be new to Sweet Valley. Jackass. Claire says she looked up some regulations and couldn’t find anything about girls on the football team. Coach says she can try out but warns her that she’ll probably get some teasing for it. At the first round of tryouts, Claire blows everyone away by actually being good. Terri thinks it’s great until she notices Ken noticing Claire. John Pfeifer doesn’t help by constantly saying, right in front of Terri, things like, “Claire looks pretty good in that uniform, eh, Ken?” When the first round is over, Liz tries to talk to Claire some more to expand on her previous interview, but Claire is just as close-mouthed as ever and doesn’t see why it should be a big deal that she likes football. I understand her sentiment, but she’s really rude about it. I’m getting the feeling that I’m supposed to be torn between rooting for Claire and rooting for Ken, but Claire’s a bitch and I don’t want her to make the team. But she will, I’m sure, because suddenly there are two quarterback positions open, first and second string.

Ken and Terri go to the Dairi Burger and Terri gets all upset when Claire comes in and Ken asks her to sit with them. Claire says she can’t, she’s just getting her food to go and her mom is in the car. Ken looks disappointed and Terri sits there feeling sorry for herself for a few minutes. Then Ken grabs his face and it’s obvious he’s having some kind of trouble with his eyes, but acts all stoic and manly when Terri asks him if he’s okay. Before the next round of tryouts, Terri goes to the girls’ locker room to put on some sweats and get some jogging in before all the chaos starts. She sees Claire staring at her open locker and crying. Taped to the inside of the locker door is a picture of a young man with a football. “To Claire,–with all my love, Ted,” is written on the picture. Claire notices Terri and slams her locker shut. During tryouts, Terri sees Ken stumble and she knows he lost his vision for a second. Later, she tries to tell him they have to talk about it, but he’s an idiot and tells her to quit mothering him because he doesn’t need her to take care of him anymore. He’s sure she just wants to keep him from playing football, which is ridiculous. Then he tells her to be more like Claire. Oh, NO he didn’t.

Terri helps Coach wrap things up and then goes to the locker room. She overhears the cheerleaders bitching about Claire. Jessica’s gotten them all riled up by telling them what Claire said about cheerleading. The whole squad has been charming a bunch of guys into pulling pranks on Claire. When Terri realizes they’re out for revenge, she tells them she’ll help them out. She tells them about the picture and Jessica and Amy decide to make up a cheer that ends with, “We know about Ted.” Oh, Terri, what have you done?

Liz is at home on Saturday morning, just sitting around revising her article about Claire, when Steve comes home, claiming he wants to see what all the fuss is about this girl football player. He glances at Liz’s article, sees the name Middleton and tells Liz about this football player at his college who died of a brain tumor recently. Guess what his name was? If you guessed “Ted Middleton,” you win.

At the final round of tryouts, Jessica and her band of catty bitches are all shocked when their new cheer makes Claire walk off the field. Liz and Steve go down to the field and ask the cheerleaders why they mocked Claire’s dead brother. They have no idea what she’s talking about and say the whole thing is Terri’s fault. So Liz demands Terri tell her what’s going on. Terri obliges, of course, and tells Liz everything. Liz says they need to go to Claire’s house right away and explain and try to convince her to talk to the coach about still letting her play. Liz! You don’t need to be involved in this! Terri goes to Claire’s alone. She apologizes and tells Claire she was jealous of her. Claire tells her Ken talks about Terri all day long. They call a truce on the condition that Claire will talk to the coach and Terri will talk to Ken. So Terri goes to Ken’s house and tells him how she’s been feeling. By lunchtime the next day, Ken and Terri are wonderful and Claire has apologized to the cheerleaders and is going to be second-string quarterback in the big game against Big Mesa.

At the Big Mesa game, Ken starts playing badly because his vision is coming and going. He tells Coach to take him out. Claire gets in the game and wins it. Of course.

In other news, Enid and her boyfriend, Hugh, have broken up. There’s a total of maybe five sentences dedicated to this development, but I thought you might be interested.

Quotes:

“Maybe they just had a fight,” Todd said. “You know how these things go. They’ll probably make up this weekend, and everything will be fine again.”

Well, I guess that strategy has worked out for you and Liz thus far.

Terri blushed and fidgeted uncomfortably with her clipboard. “I know it was dumb, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Elizabeth took a deep breath. “And would it still seem like a good idea to you if you knew that not only was Ted Claire’s older brother, but that he died of a brain tumor?”

Ugh, fuck off, Liz! I HATE this self-righteous attitude she cops during this whole scene.

The Cover: Something is very wrong with Claire’s hand. It’s way too big or long or something to be coming off that tiny little arm. And I don’t care what John Pfeifer says, Claire does not look hot in those shoulder pads.

The moral of the story: If your best friend moves to Connecticut, she’ll come back as Jessica.

The Big Deal: Costume party at Lila’s

Synopsis:

Jessica and Cara have started their own column for The Oracle. It’s called “Dear Miss Lovelorn,” and it’s a romance advice column. I sense disaster looming. Jessica is in love with Jay McGuire, but he’s in love with his girlfriend, a senior named Denise. Jessica decides to use her column to convince Jay that Denise is all wrong for him. The column gets Jay and Denise arguing and Jessica seizes her chance to go out with her dream man. They go to Miller’s Point, but Jay doesn’t want to make out because he’s thinking about Denise. So Jessica tells him Denise has been cheating on him. Then they make out. Good lord, she’s a horrible person. The whole thing backfires eventually and Jay gets back together with Denise. Jessica quits writing the column. Anyway…

Amy Sutton, Liz’s best friend from middle school, is moving back to Sweet Valley. Enid is jealous. The very first thing Liz does when Amy moves to town is stand Enid up. So much for being the thoughtful twin. She takes Enid and Amy out for brunch at the Pancake House to introduce them and is oblivious to the tension between her two friends. Liz is pleased when Amy and Jessica actually get along, but she doesn’t seem to really get it when Amy starts hanging out with Jessica and Cara and the other sorority girls all the time and then tries out for the cheerleading squad.

Still convinced Amy is the same person she was in middle school, Liz asks her to come along on a ski trip she and Enid have been planning. Amy agrees, but then asks if they can postpone until the next weekend because Lila’s having a party she doesn’t want to miss. The party is going to be the biggest event of the year (again) and it’s all for Lila’s cousin Christopher, who will be visiting for a few weeks. Lila goes on and on about how good-looking Chris is, kind of taking it to an uncomfortable level. Everyone is all excited to meet him, but Lila’s decided he’s reserved for Amy.

Liz and Enid are supposed to ride to the party together, but when Amy calls needing a ride Enid gets pissy and just goes by herself. Jessica goes to the party as a slutty Cleopatra, Amy goes as a slutty ballerina and Liz goes as a skier to sort of reach out to Enid since they were supposed to be skiing this weekend. I don’t think Liz really gets what high school costume parties are all about. Neither does Enid I guess, because she also shows up in a ski outfit and she and Liz realize they really are best friends.

Lila tries to introduce her cousin to Amy, but he interrupts her to go say hi to Enid, who he met at a summer camp or something. They’re really hitting it off, but Amy keeps getting in the way and trying to get Christopher to herself. She tells Enid to stop stealing people from her and we find out this isn’t the first time she’s threatened her. Liz offers Enid a ride home, but she’s getting a ride with Chris. A few minutes later Amy tells Liz that she finagled Chris into taking her home instead of Enid. Liz gets mad and Amy runs off crying. She leaves with Chris and Enid gets mad at Liz for some reason. I guess she thinks Liz was in on Amy’s plan to steal Chris away from her. But they make up the next day and Liz realizes she can’t recreate her friendship with Amy and everything goes back to normal.

I think it’s interesting that everyone thinks Enid is boring and nerdy, but she always ends up with the hottest guys.

Quotes:

“Christopher,” she said pompously, “is quite simply the world’s most fabulous man.” … “And,” she went on, “he’s six foot two, with really wavy, thick, blond hair, and the most amazing blue eyes. They just sort of pierce right through you.”

Yeah, that’s Lila talking about her cousin.

It had been a long time since Jessica had fallen in love like this…

A whole two books, right?

The Cover: Poor Enid. She will just never be hot. Amy looks like a whiny brat and Liz actually looks pretty good for once. Maybe because for once she doesn’t have her arm around someone in a comforting way.

The moral of the story: All you have to do to get into Jessica’s good graces and secure your spot on the cheerleading squad is attempt suicide.

The Big Deal: Everyone goes to the Beach Disco. I can’t decide if this is a party or a dance or what.

Synopsis: So, Annie Whitman lives with her single mother, who had Annie when she was only sixteen. You know what that means in Sweet Valley: trouble. Lack of a normal two-parent home has made Annie a slut. She goes out with a different boy every night. She probably even has sex, though it’s unclear. She and her mother live in an apartment, rather than a nice split-level ranch home. That’s how you know they aren’t the sort of people you want to hang around with. Mrs. Whitman’s boyfriend, a greasy jackass who flirts with Liz, lives there too.

Annie wants to be on the cheerleading squad more than anything in the world. But Jessica can’t let someone like that on the squad! What would everyone think? Most of the rest of the book consists of Elizabeth doing her damnedest to get Annie on the squad and Jessica trying equally hard to keep her off. All the while, Annie herself has no idea that she has a reputation that has earned her the nickname Easy Annie. Is she mentally challenged? How can she not know that if you go out with lots of different boys nobody wants to be friends with you? Wait, I seem to recall that Jessica goes out with lots of boys, too…

When Annie finds out she’s one of the eight finalists she tells Liz that she’s going to cut back on dating. She used to feel like she needed all that attention from boys, but now that she’s got cheerleading, she feels better about herself and blah, blah, blah. Really? It only takes sixty-two pages and a cheerleading tryout to undo all the whatever that made you that way in the first place?

Thrown in just for fun is a scene at Todd’s house. Elizabeth doesn’t want to tell him what’s bothering her for some reason and Todd gets all weird and accuses her of being interested in another guy. They make up on the next page. Todd’s mother is inexplicably baking a cake.

When it comes time to vote on the new cheerleaders, Jessica tells the squad she’ll quit if they vote Annie in. Annie has a fit about not being chosen and Ricky Capaldo tells her it was all Jessica’s doing. She disappears for a few days and then Ricky calls Liz to tell her Annie’s tried to kill herself. Seriously.

The twins race to the hospital where they meet Ricky. Jessica is feeling sorry for herself for having caused such a horrible thing. The doctor tells Mrs. Whitman that Annie has no will to live. Upon hearing this, Jessica tells the doctor everything, explaining her part in what happened. And instead of telling her that nobody can be blamed for a suicide except the victim, he tells her to tell Annie she can be a cheerleader.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Anyway…

So Annie’s on the squad, she and Ricky are boyfriend and girlfriend, Mrs. Whitman breaks up with her slimy boyfriend and everyone lives happily ever after. The end.

Quotes:

Elizabeth tried to imagine what life would be like without her mother and father. Impossible, that’s what! She was so proud of her tall, dark-haired, good-looking father…

Is it sad that the adjectives she uses to describe her father all pertain to his looks? Really, at sixteen, did we care in the least how attractive our parents were?

The Surfers’ Waves began whipping up a foam of music, and Todd and Elizabeth happily plunged into the rhythm…

*facepalm* Oh come on! I can’t decide if it would be better if this was done on purpose or not.

“How could they do this?” he snapped suddenly, sitting up. “What kind of stuck-up, mean kids could do this to a poor, scared girl?”

Jessica was crying now, tears running down her face.

Ricky saw her and slumped back into his chair. “Oh, no, Jess, I didn’t mean it. I – you – I don’t know what I’m saying!”

No, Ricky! Come on, give her hell! For once, someone knows for certain that Jessica really fucked up, but even when she’s caused an attempted suicide she’s too perfect to be called out on it.

“Mrs. Whitman, I don’t know why your daughter did this to herself, but she seems to have no will to live.”

Laughing hysterically, all I can think of is the doctor on South Park saying, “he needs more time.”

Jessica and the number 137

“The two of us together would be sensational!” she’d told Elizabeth at least a hundred and thirty-seven times. p. 2

The Cover: We have to talk about this cover. First of all, is that really Annie Whitman, the chick who’s supposed to be so beautiful that she turns heads wherever she goes? She looks like a reject from Fame or something. And what’s with Jessica’s expression? Either that’s her evil “I’ll get you, my pretty” face, or the artist started drawing Liz but threw a SVH cheerleading sweater on her when he found out what the tag line was going to be. And if you look carefully, you can see a tear rolling down Annie’s cheek. Go on, click on it. I linked it to a larger image just so you could see for yourselves.