The moral of the story:

The Big Deal: Party at Lila’s

Synopsis:

Lila’s having a party as an excuse to show off for her newest crush, Jack. As soon as Jessica sees him she decides she wants him for her own so she goes out of her way to be as slutty as possible and get him interested in her. When he says he’s just a construction worker Jessica backs off, but he later tells Lila he was born rich but wanted to strike out on his own. Lila is overjoyed that her crush isn’t just some manual laborer. She promises to keep his secret, but she can’t resist telling Cara. And Cara, of course, can’t resist telling everyone else. Jack meets Nicholas Morrow at the party. Nicholas thinks Jack looks familiar, which makes Jack uncomfortable.

Lila’s father is furious with her for throwing a party in his absence because all his gold cufflinks and tie clips have disappeared. Jessica is pissed that Jack actually made a date with Lila for Friday, but she gets over it when he asks her to go out with him Wednesday. Bruce’s father is feuding with Lila’s father again. Liz is crabby because she’s doing a ton of extra work for The Oracle while Penny Ayala is out with mono. Also, Liz doesn’t like Jack because she’s just got a funny feeling about him. (Liz is now a psychic and a do-gooder.) Jessica goes out with him anyway and thinks she’s in love, but then so does Lila. Jessica is pissed that he actually spent the weekend with Lila instead of just taking her out to be nice like she’d thought he would. She’s determined to make him forget all about Lila.

Jack shows up to take Jessica out again. Liz notices that his eyes are red and he seems out of it, but she’s satisfied with his explanation that he’d been swimming and the chlorine irritated his eyes. Liz is so vanilla. At the movie theater, Jessica wants to treat Jack to popcorn, but her wallet is missing from her purse. Hmm, things seem to disappear whenever Jack is around…

Meanwhile, someone has been leaving photographs at The Oracle office. Nobody knows who it is, but the pictures are great and Penny wants Liz to find out who the photographer is so she can put him or her on the newspaper staff. Liz is staying late at the office one night and finds out the “phantom photographer” is Penny’s freshman sister Tina. She begs Liz not to tell Penny because Penny’s the talented one and blah, blah, who fucking cares? This storyline’s only purpose is to get Liz to see a picture of Enid’s boyfriend George making out with Robin Wilson. This knowledge of course ruins her life for a few days because she can’t eat or sleep or enjoy dates with Todd while she’s worrying about her best friend. She decides to confront George and Robin at the airfield after they receive their pilot’s licenses (setup for the next book: George has a pilot’s license). She finds out George is planning on breaking up with Enid that night and Robin broke up with her boyfriend Allen that morning. Anyway…

Lila gets sick and has to cancel a date with Jack. She calls him on her powder blue princess phone.

Her phone kind of gets mentioned a lot in this book. Jack calls Jessica and tells her he broke up with Lila and wants to take her out. They go to Guido’s (best pizza in California – maybe even the whole country!) and Jack kind of freaks out when Nicholas Morrow comes in with David, a friend from back home. Jack and Jessica leave and Nicholas and David start talking. They realize Jack went to prep school with them. He robbed a girl at knifepoint and got expelled. Knowing Jessica might be in danger, they find Liz and the three of them go searching for where Jessica and Jack might have gone. Liz resorts to calling Lila to get Jack’s address and ends up telling her Jessica and Jack have been seeing each other and that Jack is a piece of crap anyway.

At Jack’s apartment, Jessica goes snooping under the bathroom sink and finds a box full of drugs, “all kinds of drugs.” She takes it into the living room to confront Jack and finds him looking through her bag. She yells at him and he starts strangling her. Just as he tells her he has to make sure she “won’t talk,” Liz, Nicholas and David show up and break down the door and save the day.

Quotes:

“I didn’t know Robin could write like this.”

“She used to write all the time,” Elizabeth explained, “before she lost all that weight. Remember? When she was the butt of everyone’s jokes instead of the girl all the boys want to date?”

Penny nodded her head.

“She used to write because she needed some kind of outlet, a bit of comfort,” Elizabeth continued. “Then when her life did that turnaround and she got onto the cheering squad and everything, she gave it up. I’m trying to encourage her to start again.”

Where in the hell did this come from? I guess only overweight people can write? Also, Liz, way to not let anyone forget that Robin used to be unpopular and miserable. I’m sure she appreciates that. And, just, ugh. Quit interfering. Nobody asked for your help, you meddlesome bitch. (I’ve really been chugging the Haterade today.)

It wasn’t that she couldn’t count on her boyfriend to keep any secret she told him; on the contrary, she trusted him completely. But if Enid didn’t know about George and Robin, Elizabeth didn’t feel she had the right to tell anyone else about them. Even Todd.

Oh, shut up, Liz. If that was me, you know the first thing I’d do is tell my boyfriend about it.

Jessica seated herself tensely on the edge of one of the chairs. She’d never been in an apartment quite this gloomy before.

I don’t think Jessica’s ever been in any apartment before. Only poor losers live in apartments in Sweet Valley.

Jessica and the Number 137:

Hooray! It’s been a while since she’s said it.

“If I’d known you were going to throw a hundred and thirty-seven fits, I wouldn’t have put the dress on in the first place.”

The Cover: Man, Lila is so much prettier than Jessica. And so calm and cool, as opposed to Jessica, who is clearly about to start a fight. If I was a dude, I’d totally choose Lila over Jessica’s skanky ass.

The Big Deal: Barbecue for Betsy at the Wakefields’ house

Synopsis:

Steven’s girlfriend, Tricia Martin, dies of leukemia and it’s really very sad. The Wakefields are all at the hospital to say their goodbyes, but Tricia’s own family isn’t there. Tricia’s last wish is for Steven to look after her sister Betsy. The Wakefields are leaving the hospital when Betsy finally shows up and hears the bad news. Betsy, feeling guilty that she’d been out drinking and drugging it up while her sister was dying, promises to herself that she’s going to change. Since her father is nowhere to be found, Ned and Alice decide they’re taking Betsy back to their house.

At school the next day, Liz’s friends are all concerned for her, as though she and Tricia were best friends, even though I can only recall one time when they actually spoke to each other. Elizabeth realizes she has great friends and poor Betsy doesn’t and she vows to be someone Betsy can count on. When she gets home that day, she finds Betsy drawing in the study. Apparently she’s quite talented. Liz gets her to open up about her artwork and they bond.

Mr. Martin never shows up at Tricia’s funeral because he’s a drunken bastard. On the way out of the cemetery, Betsy demands Steven take her to Kelly’s Roadhouse, a crappy bar where I guess all of Sweet Valley’s scum hangs out. Steven refuses and proclaims the Wakefield house is now Betsy’s home. Jessica does not like that one bit. When she tells Lila and Cara that Betsy’s moving in, they feel all sorry for her. It reminds me of that episode of Roseanne where Jackie opens up to her friends about the terrible mistake she made sleeping with Arnie and everyone feels sorry for Roseanne instead. Ha ha, I do love that show. Anyway, Lila and Cara suggest Jessica go through Betsy’s things and find something to incriminate her so Ned and Alice will kick her out. Jessica can’t find anything. She looks through Betsy’s sketchbook and finds a drawing of Steven drawn with “love and care.” From this, she concludes that Betsy is in love with Steven. For some reason, this is the worst thing that could happen in Jessica’s life.

Friday night at the Beach Disco is shaping up to be a super fun time until Steven shows up with Betsy. Jason Stone, a friend of Steven’s, introduces himself to Betsy and she’s all distant and bitchy. Steve suggests she take an art class Jason teaches. She agrees, but when Jason tries to shake her hand she freaks out, saying she’s “not like that anymore.” Jeez, Betsy, settle down. She freaks out even more the next day when Jason asks her out after class. Jason comes by the next morning to bring Betsy her sketchbook, which she’d left at class. He tells her about a talent search being conducted by the Los Angeles Academy of Fine Arts. Betsy’s interested until Jason offers to help her pick out some sketches for her portfolio, at which point she freaks out again, claiming he only wanted a night alone with her, and runs off. Seriously, she’s starting to annoy the crap out of me. You are not that hot, bitch. Steven, Jason and Elizabeth decide to go ahead and enter the contest for Betsy since she’s too stupid and full of herself to do it.

Betsy’s father shows up the next day and Betsy doesn’t know what to do so she calls Steve, who drives all the way back from college to comfort her. Ned has a talk with him and Jessica overhears Steve say he promised Tricia he’d look out for Betsy. When Jessica “accidentally” mentions the promise to Betsy, she gets all worked up and packs her bags and leaves. Steven and Jason find her at the Shady Lady getting drunk with Charlie Cashman and Crunch McAllister. There’s a bit of a brawl and Jason wins. Our heroes rescue their damsel and tell her their big news: she’s been accepted into art school. The Wakefields have a barbecue to celebrate.

Setup for the next book: Roger Barrett’s mother has a heart attack. They don’t think she’s going to make it. Bruce Patman’s father offers to pay all her medical expenses and nobody can figure out why. Lila gets Cara to ask Bruce about it (she can’t, as their families are feuding again at the moment) and Bruce says it’s because Roger’s mom used to work for Patman Canning. Roger’s mother dies and the truth comes out: Roger is Bruce’s cousin and is now the richest boy in Sweet Valley.

Quotes:

Jessica eyed Betsy suspiciously. One of the worst girls in town resolving to turn over a new leaf? Jessica found it impossible to believe that Betsy Martin would ever be anything but bad news.

Well, I guess Jessica would know, considering how many times she’s promised to change her bitchy ways.

“Todd and I are meeting Nicholas and Regina at the Box Tree Café.”

If I were Todd, I would so not be going on weird double dates with the guy who tried to steal my girlfriend and that guy’s sister.

Jessica’s laughter flooded the night air as she approached the lights of the Beach Disco, soccer team co-captain Aaron Dallas on one arm, Neil Freemount, Sweet Valley High’s newest heartthrob, on the other.

1. Laughter does not flood anything, not even the night air in Sweet Valley. Ugh.

2. Who is Neil Freemount and why haven’t we heard of him? Is he a new heartthrob in the way that Robin Wilson is a new heartthrob, as in he used to be ugly? Or is he a new guy? And why haven’t we been subjected to pages and pages of Jessica vowing to make him hers?

3. Jessica appears to be on a date with two guys. And Betsy is the whore?

Jessica and the Number 137:

None!

The Cover: Like, I get that Liz and Jess need to be the prettiest, but if I’m to believe that other girls get any action at all, let alone have boys dying to get with them, they need to be at least a little pretty. Betsy is not. I do like how she looks completely stoned, though.

The moral of the story: If your twin sister is a psychopath, just keep letting her be a psychopath.

The Big Deal: the Phi Epsilon – Pi Beta Alpha dance

Synopsis:

The series opens with Jessica staring in the mirror, complaining about how fat and ugly she is. This affords the narrator the opportunity to tell us that Jessica and Elizabeth are, in fact, the most spectacular looking identical twins in the whole world. I feel like throwing up already.

Liz has a major crush on Todd Wilkins and he seems to like her, too. They agree to meet after school one day, but Liz ends up running late. She gets out to the parking lot just as Todd drives off with Jessica, who thinks Todd is totally hunky. The next day, the whole school is buzzing with the news that Todd and Jessica are the hottest new couple in town. Jessica  tries to hint to Todd that she wants him to take her to the upcoming fraternity/sorority dance, but Todd just keeps asking if Liz has a date. Jessica gets pissed and implies that Liz always has a date, if you know what I mean. Then she stalks away and decides to walk home to see if she can get some horny guys to notice her swinging her hips.

Seventeen-year-old Rick Andover, who dropped out of school six months ago, pulls over and offers Jessica a ride. He takes her home, saying he makes it a point to “know where all the foxiest chicks in Sweet Valley live,” (creeper) and tells her he’s taking her out the next night. Jessica is thrilled with this attention. Rick takes her to Kelly’s Roadhouse, the baddest bar in town, and proceeds to get drunk and start a fight. A cop shows up and takes Jessica home, calling her Elizabeth as she gets out of the car. Caroline Pearce hears this and tells everyone at school that Elizabeth was at Kelly’s with Rick Andover and started a riot. Liz tells everyone she never went there, but nobody believes her, despite the fact that she has an identical twin who would totally do something like that.

Liz’s best friend, Enid, has her knickers in a twist because the new guy, Ronnie Edwards, has asked her to the dance. Things are just swell between them, but Ronnie believes Liz was at Kelly’s and doesn’t think Enid should talk to her anymore. Todd believes it, too, especially after hearing Jessica’s stories about how many guys Liz has gone out with. But when Jessica confesses to Todd that it was actually her at the bar, he thinks she’s covering up for Liz. Then he kisses her for being so noble and asks her to the dance.

Todd spends the entire dance watching Liz, and at the end of the night he kisses Jessica on the cheek. Now she’s super pissed and wants to “get even.” She goes upstairs and tells Liz that Todd “tried everything” and she had to beg him to stop grabbing her. Over the next few days, Todd tries to talk to Liz and tell her he forgives her for seeing Rick Andover (insert big eye-roll here), but Liz is ignoring him because she thinks he tried to have his way with Jessica.

One night, the twins are driving home from the Dairi Burger together when they realize they’re being followed by another car. At a stop light, Rick Andover pushes the twins over and jumps into the driver’s seat of their mother’s Fiat. He’s totally drunk and decides he wants to take them to Kelly’s. He drives them through the Dairi Burger’s parking lot, and Todd can see the twins are terrified. He gets in his car and follows Rick and the twins to Kelly’s, then he beats up Rick and gets the twins home. Jessica says something about never wanting to see the inside of Kelly’s again, and Todd realizes she was telling the truth about Liz having never gone there. Todd and Liz work out all the lies Jessica has told them, and then they kiss.

In a subplot, the Fowlers and the Patmans are having some stupid feud over the football field. The school board stupidly let the lease on it run out, so now the Richie Riches are trying to buy it. Ned Wakefield is a lawyer on the case, working to keep the field in the hands of the high school. The football field storyline is good for only one thing: to make the twins suspect their father of having an affair with his partner when he works late on the case. He’s not.

Sadly, there was no drama at the dance in this book. All that happened was that Todd and Jessica were terrific dancers and the rest of the students cleared the floor for them in true 1980s fashion.

Also, the twins get into the Pi Beta Alpha sorority.

Quotes:

“This sounds like a job for my new tuxedo shirt,” Elizabeth offered…

“Could I wear the pants too? … And the little bow tie?”

Oh, the eighties, how fashion misguided they were!

“I’m sure you’ll be allowed to drive again soon,” she said encouragingly.

But Jessica wasn’t listening to a word. She was out of the car in a flash, slamming the door so hard that Elizabeth winced.

[The next page:]

She threw her arms around Elizabeth and gave her a swift, powerful hug, almost lifting her off the ground.

“I’ve decided to forgive you,” she announced, beaming.

…

Then she shoved her hand into her pocket to feel the car keys. They were gone! And then she remembered Jessica’s sudden hug – that was when she had filched the keys.

This was my first inkling that something was seriously wrong with Jessica’s mental state. Mood swings, trickery, bursts of anger…

“My whole life is going to go right down the tubes! How could he do this, Lizzie?” She began to cry… “Our brother, a member of the Wakefield family, has been spending every weekend…with Betsy Martin! …I will be totally ruined forever when this gets around school!”

…narcissism…

She didn’t like Elizabeth being close friends with anyone but her.

…possessiveness…

Elizabeth wondered how her sister could possibly descend from cloud nine with Todd Wilkins to the pits of depression so fast – and simply because she had to do a little thing like help fix dinner.

…manic depression…

No guy – not even Todd Wilkins – could take Jessica Wakefield to a dance and treat her like a piece of furniture. He wasn’t going to get away with it, she vowed.

…and a vengeful mind.

“I can’t ever stay angry with you…”

And that about sums up Liz, loyal to an insane sister who spreads lies about her, steals the boy she likes and lets rumors that she’d been arrested go uncontested.

Jessica and the number 137

“You’ve got to be seven hundred and thirty-seven kinds of idiot not to be excited about associating with the best girls at Sweet Valley High.” p. 35

“He has got to be the most wonderful boy in a hundred and thirty-seven states!” p. 108

“This family has got to be the biggest bummer in five hundred and thirty-seven cities!” p. 111

“I’ll never forgive you, not if I live to be a hundred and thirty-seven years-” p. 182