Shannon's Sweet Valley High Blog

The Moral of the Story: Who cares? I’m done! Last book of the series!

The Big Deal: Graduation! Birthday party! Woohoo!

Synopsis:

Monday: Maria is freaking out about her valedictorian speech. She hasn’t even started it yet. She wants to be there for Ken, who is clearly upset about the upcoming anniversary of Olivia’s death, but she can’t focus on him while she still has this speech to write.

Liz tells her parents she got into Oxford, and Alice tells Jessica. Jessica freaks out and tells Liz she doesn’t want anything to do with her on their birthday, which is Thursday. Jessica calls Jeremy and gets pissed when he says his parents planned a graduation party for him on Thursday night. Jessica somehow turns this around to mean that Jeremy doesn’t care about her anymore. Oh, boy.

Tuesday: Liz decides to make things better with Jessica by planning a surprise party for their birthday. Again? Didn’t we try this last year? I recall it ending in tragedy. Liz talks to Conner and Tia and they decide to have it at the Riot. Maria sits around feeling sorry for herself all day because she needs help with her speech, and she’s annoyed when Liz says she needs to work on the party plans and can’t help her. Jessica decides she’s going to throw a party and not invite Liz, but Tia tells her Liz is already throwing one and the entire senior class is going. Jessica is pissed that Liz is having a party and not inviting her. Oh, Jessica.

Tia, Andy and Conner are all excited about their post-graduation road trip. It’s supposed to be just the three of them, but Tia has told Trent he can come along. She tells Andy, and he says that in that case, Dave is coming, too. Before Andy can tell Conner, Conner says he appreciates Tia and Andy leaving Trent and Dave behind for three weeks so the three of them can have their special best friend alone time.

Jessica’s home ec teacher tells Liz that Jessica never made up her risotto assignment, and she won’t be able to graduate unless she makes it up the next day. Liz knows Jessica has plans with Jeremy the next afternoon, so she decides to pull a twin switch and do it herself.

Wednesday: Liz has a meeting with a rep from Oxford. She kind of hopes the meeting will suck so she’ll have an excuse not to go, but the rep tells her all the wonderful things about Oxford and makes Liz want to go there more than ever.

Conner overhears Tia talking about how excited Trent is about the road trip, and he loses his shit. He tells Tia and Andy to uninvite their boyfriends, but they don’t want to. So Conner says they can all go together and he’ll just stay home.

Liz is the salutatorian, so she and Maria meet in the library to work on their speeches together. Liz says she hasn’t even started hers yet, and Maria flies off the handle because Liz isn’t taking it seriously enough. Then Liz gets really stupid and says she should have been valedictorian. So now Liz and Maria are in a fight. Liz heads to the home ec room to make a risotto.

Jessica goes to dinner with Jeremy and his family, who are all in town for graduation. As the family catches up on stuff, Jessica keeps thinking of how awful it’s going to be next year when she’s separated from both Liz and Jeremy. She gets up and leaves the table, and Jeremy follows her. He asks her what’s wrong, and she decides she’s pissed at him for not inviting her to his graduation party the next night. He says he figured she’d want to do something else since it’s her birthday, but Jessica is beyond reasoning. She runs to the parking lot in tears.

Evan gets off Berkeley’s waiting list. Thanks, Tia.

Thursday: Jessica wakes up in a terrible mood. Liz tries to make up over breakfast, and she tells Jessica she saved her from having to make a risotto. Jessica accuses Liz of thinking she’s so flaky that she can’t even do her own schoolwork. An argument ensues and Jessica takes the Jeep and goes to school.

Today is for graduation practice, but neither Liz nor Maria have their speeches prepared. Liz tells Maria not to worry about it, and subtly points out Conner, who is backstage cutting the wires to the microphone. Principal Chrome Dome suddenly can’t be heard, and Maria is worried Conner will be caught. Liz tells her not to worry, and at that moment, Jade stands up in the middle of the seated seniors and yells that Evan can’t stop her if she wants to go commando under her graduation robe. She starts a “Naked!” chant, and in all the confusion, Conner manages to get back to his seat before anyone notices he’s gone. Maria and Liz apologize to each other for their fight, and then Maria takes off for the library to work on her speech.

The twins run into each other in the line for yearbooks, and Liz apologizes. It seems like Jessica is just about to lighten up and talk to her, but then the home ec teacher comes running down the hall. She says the risotto was horrible and Jessica will have to try again that afternoon. Jessica is pissed and hates Liz all over again.

Tia, Trent, Andy and Dave go to the Riot to start setting things up, and Trent and Dave say they’ve been looking over the itinerary and have some changes they’d like to make. Tia and Andy get irritated and decide they’ll just have to tell their boyfriends they can’t come. They don’t have to, though. After listening to Tia, Andy and Conner tell stories about each other for a while, they announce the three of them should go alone.

In really sickening news, Jade’s mother has written a book and a publisher has offered her a lot of money to turn it into a series. That’s not the sickening part. The sickening part is this: “It’s about a pair of twins who have very different personalities…But they’re still closer to each other than to anyone else in the world…” Barf.

While she’s cooking, Jessica says something about the dress she wore yesterday, and Ms. Goldberg realizes it was Elizabeth who made the awful risotto. Jessica explains that she and Liz have been fighting, and Ms. Goldberg actually makes her feel better about things. Jessica goes to Jeremy’s graduation that night, and they make up afterward. Then she goes home and gets ready to go to the Riot and make up with Liz. She falls asleep instead.

Liz is at the party, feeling miserable about Oxford. She decides she’ll miss Jessica too much if she goes. She goes home to tell her so. The twins make up and talk about how much fun they’ll have at Sweet Valley University next year.

Friday: Graduation day. At the ceremony, the twins sit next to Todd because of stupid alphabetical order, and Todd asks Liz to go out with him after graduation. She accepts. Dammit, we just got rid of one codependency, and now you’re going back to an old one? UGH.

Liz never actually got around to working on a speech and all she has is a bunch of note cards. She’s nervous about making a fool of herself, so Jessica takes her notes and pulls another twin switch. Two in one book! Jessica, as Elizabeth, gives an awesome speech and everyone applauds.

THE FREAKING END!!!!!

Quotes:

A few of our old friends make cameo appearances in this book, even Robin Wilson, who came all the way back from Denver. It’s like graduation day on Boy Meets World. I wonder if they’ve been hanging out with Minkus in the other hallway?

When Enid turned into the classroom, her shirt slipped down, exposing a little skull tattoo on her back. Elizabeth shot Maria a look. She didn’t know if Enid’s tattoo was real, but if there was a yearbook award for most changed, Enid would definitely win. She’d gone from geeky to goth in less than a year.

Winston Egbert handed Elizabeth her test paper and flashed her a quick thumbs-up for luck.

Robin Wilson grimaced and held her gown up to her slim body. Her soft brown hair tumbled down over her face as she looked down at the shiny fabric. “Please, Liz. I mean, you spend all this time and effort dropping weight, and then they make you wear a muumuu to graduation.”

Bruce Patman, of all people, walked in – someone she hadn’t seen since he left for college and hadn’t liked much before then. He was all prepped out in a light blue button-down and khakis, and the second he saw Ken Matthews and Aaron Dallas, he dove into the crowd and started shaking hands like a politician.

And there is actually some mention of the more bizarre happenings from junior year:

Almost every single good memory Jessica cherished had occurred inside the sprawling building. And some bad ones, of course – kidnappings, bomb threats, gang wars, that crazy Margot [sic] chick who had come to town and tried to pretend she was Elizabeth. Junior year had definitely been tumultuous.

Definitely.

[Elizabeth] turned her full attention to Maria, whose expression made her look almost exactly the same as she had when she’d broken the news to Elizabeth and Jessica that their dog, Prince Albert, had run away during the earthquake last year – very uncomfortable.

So that’s what happened to the dog. I wonder why Maria had to be the one to break the news.

“We’ve lost many friends – Olivia Davidson, Roger Patman, Ronnie Edwards, Regina Morrow, to name a few.”

I don’t remember Roger Patman dying.

The Cover: Sorry about the terrible image. This book is all shiny and metallic and didn’t scan well. I went to The Closet, but theirs is the same.

This cover is totally lame. I have no idea which twin is which. I’d guess the one on the right is Jessica, but after 180+ books in the original series telling me Liz always wears her hair in a ponytail, I don’t quite believe it. Also, I think the one on the right looks kind of stoned.

The Moral of the Story: Tia would really like to be the new Elizabeth Wakefield.

Synopsis:

Alanna the Drama Llama: Alanna gets a rejection letter from Tufts and doesn’t know how she’s going to face her parents. She goes to Conner’s and finds out he’s gotten into Belmont and plans to go there. Tufts and Belmont are both in Boston and they planned to go together, but now Alanna freaks out about Conner leaving her, so, naturally, she runs out the door.

Tia wants to plan a road trip with Conner and Andy. They’ll head up to Seattle after graduation and hang out for three weeks pretending to be cool. Conner likes the idea, but Tia gets pissed when he says he has to run it by Alanna. Meanwhile, Alanna hangs out with her sponsor, Sandra, and is so inspired by how helpful Sandra is that she thinks she might want to go to UCLA and become a psychologist. That dream is short-lived, of course, because Conner, Conner, Conner.

Everyone goes to a little party at Andy’s to celebrate Dave getting into Columbia, and at one point Tia and Alanna are alone in the living room. Alanna is an idiot and tells Tia she secretly plans to follow Conner to Boston next year. Tia, judgmental bitch that she is, doesn’t even try to hide her disapproval. She tries to talk to Conner about it and tell him what a bad idea it would be, but Conner just wants her to mind her own business.

Alanna gets accepted into UCLA (that was fast), but she’s not sure if she cares because, you know, she’s going to Boston. At an AA meeting, Sandra starts talking to Alanna about psychology at UCLA while Conner is sitting right there, so after the meeting he tells her he doesn’t want her to put her plans aside just to be with him. Alanna convinces herself that this means Conner doesn’t love her as much as she loves him, so she freaks out and tells him to go away. He leaves.

Jessica the Flirt: Jessica has been having some trouble getting used to the idea of going to college, so Liz suggests she call Steve and ask him to show her around the SVU campus so she can maybe get adjusted. Jessica is surprised when Steve invites her to a party that night at his frat house. Jeremy gets pissy about it because he wants to hang out with Jessica that night.

There are an awful lot of guys at the party and Jessica starts feeling kind of claustrophobic. She goes outside to the pay phone to call Jeremy, but runs into a guy named Zander (short for Alexander). He’s really cute, so Jessica accepts his offer to show her around campus. Afterward, Jessica gives him her phone number and email address. As you can probably guess, Jeremy is over when Zander calls and he overhears the incriminating message. He decides to believe Jessica when she says it’s nothing.

Jessica and Zander get together to play tennis, and Jeremy later finds Zander’s tennis racket in the Jeep (it conveniently has Zander’s name on it). Jeremy gets upset, but totally backs down when Jessica says this is the only way she knows to get used to the idea of college, now that Jeremy has decided to go to Arizona. Properly guilted, Jeremy sheepishly asks Jessica not to lie to him anymore. He shows up at SVH the next day at lunch and finds Jessica in the cafeteria (where she’s eating with Gina and Cherie for some reason). He says he’s jealous and he knows he could never handle being away from Jessica for four long years, so he’s decided to stay in Sweet Valley next year. Jessica is overjoyed, but she eventually comes to her senses and tells Jeremy he needs to follow his dreams and go to Arizona.

DJ Splendid: Jeff has a gig at Sweet Valley’s newest club, Liquid, and he asks for Liz’s help in picking out something to wear. They don’t find anything awesome enough at the mall, so Liz has this great idea to dress him in women’s clothing. I’m not lying. “You know how glam rockers always have at least some piece of women’s clothing in their outfits?” she says. And incredibly, Jeff thinks it’s a great idea. So they go to Jessica’s room to raid her closet, and Jeff settles on a purple peasant blouse. Now, if you’re unfamiliar with the term, here are a few examples of peasant blouses:

Doesn't look all that glam to me.

Jeff is supposed to be DJing with another guy who told him not to bring any of his own records. When Jeff shows up at the club, the owner is freaking out because the other DJ’s car broke down so Jeff is going to have to do the gig alone. He says he has to go home first and get his records, but the owner flies off the handle and fires him. Jeff has already been rejected from NYU, where he was going to study music, so he decides this is a sign from above that he’s not supposed to be a DJ. He decides to pretend he wants to be a journalist. Don’t even try to follow this logic. He cuts his hair and starts dressing like a nerd again, and he asks Liz for ideas of articles he can write for The Oracle. Liz wants her super cool DJ boyfriend back.

Quotes:

Zander: I know that rule number four hundred and thirty-seven in the book of dating etiquette says never ask a buddy’s younger sister out, but I can’t help myself.

The number 37 makes a comeback!

“There’s something about Kobe Bryant that I can’t stand,” Jeremy said. “He’s an unbelievable player and all, but he’s just so cocky.”

That’s what she said?

The Title and Cover: Seems to me that Tia puts herself in the middle. Back off, would you? And as for the cover, “We are srs models. This is srs book.”

The Moral of the Story: If your parents buy you a car, you’ll suddenly turn into a moron.

Synopsis:

More College Crap: Trent has gotten into UCLA and Jeremy is getting antsy because he hasn’t yet heard back from Arizona. Jade has been accepted to three colleges, two in California and one in Oregon that her father persuaded her to apply to.

Twin Crap: Jessica is still mad at Liz because of the stupid anniversary party, and Liz can’t seem to figure out what Jessica’s problem is. Then Jeremy is so upset about the whole college thing that he tells Jessica he doesn’t feel like going out on Friday. Jessica locks herself in her room and cries all night. Liz cancels her date with Jeffrey to stay home and cheer her up, but Jessica isn’t interested. Jeff comes over with ice cream and Liz tries to get Jessica to watch a movie with them, but she doesn’t come out of her room until she hears Liz and Jeff having a water fight in the kitchen while doing the dishes. A chair gets ruined and Mrs. Wakefield asks Jessica what happened. Liz is pissed when Jessica doesn’t even hesitate before telling their mom about the water fight.

Jeremy finally gets an acceptance letter from Arizona, and he calls Jessica and tells her that’s where he wants to go. I guess they’d made plans to go to SVU together, but Jeremy has reconsidered. Jessica is, like, traumatized.

Scope is sponsoring an essay contest. The grand prize is a year at the school of journalism in England. Liz tries to work on her essay at home, but Jessica is always on the computer or just sulking around, so she goes to Jeffrey’s to do it. When Jessica finds out Jeremy is going to Arizona, she calls Liz at Jeffrey’s and asks her to come home. Liz goes and comforts her sister and they make up, but Liz doesn’t mention the fact that she might be spending the next year in England. She figures that would really send Jessica over the edge.

Crap about Trent: Trent’s parents have agreed to buy him a car to get to and from college, but he’s disappointed when he finds out he won’t be getting a brand new Mercedes. His parents have picked out a boring used Saab for him, but Trent manages to talk them into a model with a few more options. Blah blah blah. So Trent takes Tia out in his new car, and she gets all bent out of shape when he tells her she can’t eat in the car. She also nags him about driving too fast and gets annoyed by him calling the car a “her.” Shut up, Tia.

Trent makes Jeremy go for a ride with him even though they should both be studying for a physics test, and they end up not getting home with enough time to study. Trent acts surprised when he does badly on the test, but he doesn’t really care because he’s already been accepted to his college of choice. He doesn’t actually believe Jeremy when he says colleges can revoke acceptances based on bad grades during the last part of senior year.

Trent wants Jeremy and Tia to go with him to LA to check out some super cool club on Saturday night. Jeremy and Tia think he’s nuts. Trent’s dad is pissed about the physics test and puts Trent on curfew. Then Trent’s parents plan to go out of town for the weekend and Trent tries one more time to convince Jeremy and Tia to go to LA with him. They tell him he’s crazy. Trent decides to go alone and have such a good time that Jeremy and Tia feel like idiots for not coming with him. So he puts on his khaki pants and V-necked sweater and drives to LA. When he gets to the club, he notices everyone else in line has tattoos and piercings, and there’s an awful lot of leather. The bouncer never lets Trent in, so he eventually goes back to his car to drive home.

At two in the morning, Jeremy gets a phone call from the Santa Ana Medical Center. Trent’s been in an accident. Jeremy calls Tia, and her father drives them to the hospital, where Trent apologizes for acting like such a jerk.

Crap about Jade: Mr. Wu says he wants to pay Jade’s college tuition, but he’ll only pay it if she goes to the University of Oregon. Jade’s mom keeps telling Jade to go to whatever college is going to make her happy and they’ll figure out the money thing somehow, but Jade thinks it might just be easier to go to Oregon even though she doesn’t really want to. After a lot of useless pages about nothing, Jade decides to follow her heart and go to USC, not Oregon.

The Cover: This cover looks like it belongs on some kids’ book about basketball.

The Moral of the Story: Making a dinner reservation is hard work.

Synopsis:

College Woes: Melissa and Will get acceptance letters from east coast colleges and they each think it’s great that they’ll be getting away from the other. Evan gets a letter from Berkeley that says he’s on the waiting list, so he cries to Jade that he wasn’t accepted. She tries to teach him the difference between being rejected and being wait-listed, but Evan just wants to feel sorry for himself. Tia’s gotten acceptance letters from just about everywhere, including Berkeley, and Evan freaks on her when she says she’s not sure whether she wants to go to Berkeley or one of the other schools she applied to.

Evan sucks: Evan talks to his guidance counselor and finds out that Berkeley usually only accepts three students from Sweet Valley High, and that if one of them decides not to go, Evan will be moved up the waiting list. Jade convinces him that Tia would be a huge jerk if she didn’t hand over her spot to him. Tia flips out and tells Evan it’s completely out of line for him to ask her to give up her spot just for him. Evan calls Liz and tells her everything that’s been going on, and Liz tells Tia it’s not fair of her to not give her spot to Evan. Ah, there’s the meddlesome bitch we’ve been missing. Welcome back, Liz.

Tia goes to a Berkeley symposium and discovers it’s really not the place for her because the academics are too rigorous and somebody gives her a mean look when she asks about cheerleading. On her way out, she runs into Evan, who came to check things out. Tia tells him she’s not going to Berkeley and she hopes he gets in.

Melissa and Will are codependent: After being caught trying to get with Aaron, Melissa tries to call all her friends to tell them to ignore Cherie. Sadly for her, Cherie has gotten to them first and now everyone is mad at Melissa. Melissa decides she’s above all that now because she’s going to the east coast for college so none of this high school crap matters anymore. She loudly announces at cheerleading practice that she’s going to Smith. At First and Ten later, Cherie and the gang start gossiping and Will finds out about Smith. He’s hurt that Melissa would apply to an east coast school when they had planned to stay in California. Um, Will. You broke up. Who cares where she’s going to school?

While getting dressed for cheerleading practice one day, Cherie starts yapping about Will getting accepted to NYU. So now Melissa is hurt about all the same stupid crap Will was hurt about. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU TWO? Melissa stops what she’s doing and puts her regular clothes back on. She tells everyone she’s quitting the squad because she’s going to be too busy getting ready for college. When Will finds out, he gets worried about all the changes Melissa is making in her life and he calls her to make sure she’s not going to try to kill herself again. Melissa hangs up on him.

Melissa goes to a seminar about Smith, but doesn’t feel like she fits in with the other girls. She kind of loses it when she says her personal heroine is some lip gloss creator and everyone looks at her like she’s crazy. She decides Smith isn’t the right place for her after all. So she goes home and now she’s sure she and Will belong together. Hate you, hate you, hate you.

Melissa goes to Will’s with the intention of getting back together. She apologizes for hanging up on him the night before, but gets pissed when Will asks if she’s going to apologize for trying to hook up with Aaron. Melissa says she was just trying to get back at him for kissing Erika, but Will insists it’s not the same thing. They argue for a bit, and then Will tells Melissa to go away and never come back. But then the next day, Will starts walking down the street to mail his acceptance letter to NYU and ends up going to Melissa’s instead. Because he “needs” her. They get back together for about the hundredth time.

Wakefield antics: Jessica suddenly remembers that her parents’ twenty-fifth anniversary is coming up. She and Liz and Steven were supposed to plan something, but now Liz is all wrapped up in Jeffrey and Steven is too busy being a cool college guy and nobody has anything planned. Steve returns Jessica’s call and ends up talking to Liz. They talk about booking a sushi place called Saki, but Steven says they should check it out first. Liz says she can’t but that Jessica is off the next night. Steve tells Liz to tell Jessica to be there at six o’clock. Of course Liz forgets and Steve gets pissed at Jessica for being a ditz.

Jessica yells at Liz, and then they decide to meet at their parents’ favorite restaurant, Le Chateau, to make a reservation. Why can’t they just call to make the reservation? Liz ends up having to go to Scope to work on something important, and Jessica waits around for her outside the restaurant for about twenty minutes before she gets pissed and goes inside to do it herself. Meanwhile, Liz keeps calling the restaurant in the hopes of talking to Jessica, but since Jessica’s outside, the guy answering the phone doesn’t know she’s there. God, this is so damned stupid. Why does it take two of you to make a reservation anyway? At home that night, Jessica asks Liz where she was and gets pissed when Liz says she figured Jessica just forgot.

The party ends up being wonderful, but nobody thanks Jessica. Everyone assumes Liz and Steve planned the whole thing. After Mrs. Wakefield makes a speech about how many to-do lists Elizabeth must have gone through, Jessica gets up and runs off to the bathroom to cry. Liz follows her and tries to calm her down, but then the hostess comes in and says Liz has a phone call from Jeff. Liz immediately gets up to go talk to him, and Jessica tells her that this is her real problem. Liz cares about everyone but her and everyone thinks she’s so great and that Jessica is so irresponsible. Oh man, I hope Jessica doesn’t try to run away again or join a cult.

The Cover: I think this is supposed to be Will and Melissa, but until I actually read the book I thought that chick was Tia. Stupid new cover models. And wow, that guy is ugly.