Shannon's Sweet Valley High Blog

The Moral of the Story: If you coast through life and never apply yourself, you’ll do well on important tests.

The Big Deal: Party at Lila’s after the SATs, big basketball game

Best Outfit: Dana, the original American Apparel model – green tunic, black leather belt, purple tights, black high-heeled boots

Synopsis:

It’s time for the SATs and Liz is freaking out. She stays up late studying every night while Jessica shops and sunbathes. Unsurprisingly, Liz is so tired and stressed that she does badly on the test. Her scores are in the four hundreds. Jessica is shocked and horrified when her own scores are in the seven hundreds. She doesn’t want to tell anyone because she’s worried about being seen as a nerd. She does tell Ken, but he doesn’t believe her. Jackass.

After the scores come out, Jessica is again horrified when she gets to school and there’s a big banner congratulating her and Winston on having the highest SAT scores in the junior class. There’s even an assembly to recognize their achievement. Everyone is congratulating her and Jessica is relieved that being smart won’t totally ruin her reputation. But then people keep coming up to her and saying how surprised they are that she did so well. Jessica is upset that everyone thinks she’s dumb.

Jessica gets called to the principal’s office and Chrome Dome tells her the school board thinks she cheated on the exam. Caroline Pearce overhears and starts spreading the gossip. By the time it gets to Liz, the story is that Jessica sneaked back into the classroom after the test and switched her exam with Liz’s. Liz gets pissed and starts a fight with Jessica.

While all this is going on, Todd is turning into a real asshat. He scored in the six hundreds and now has college scouts coming to watch him play basketball. He’s acting really arrogant and obnoxious and he doesn’t seem to care at all about Liz’s problems. Liz’s self esteem is shot. She even tries to resign from The Oracle because she thinks she’s too stupid to be a reporter, but Mr. Collins doesn’t let her. She manages to tear Todd away from his constant rereading of scholarship offers and they go to Miller’s Point. Liz tries one more time to talk to Todd about how she’s feeling, but he can’t stop blathering on about how awesome he is. Liz kicks him out of the car. Just a few feet away, Jessica and Ken have a fight because Ken wants Jessica to tell him the truth, that she really cheated on the exam. She jumps out of his car and runs into Todd. Then Liz drives by and offers Jessica a ride. They make up on the way home and Liz says she knows Jessica didn’t cheat.

The twins both decide to take the SATs again. This time, Jessica is determined to do just as well as she did the first time so she stays up all night studying and even invites Winston over to help her. Liz has decided she doesn’t even care about the SATs anymore, so she acts like Jessica and doesn’t prepare at all. This time, Liz scores in the seven hundreds and Jessica in the four hundreds. The school board is convinced Jessica cheated the first time, so she is suspended from school.

Liz is determined to clear Jessica’s name and she comes up with a plan. Chrome Dome gives her permission to hold a mock trial. Liz will act as Jessica’s lawyer and the jury will be six students and six faculty members who don’t know Jessica very well. If Liz and Jessica win, Chrome Dome will fight for Jessica’s case against the school board.

Jessica is allowed to come back to school the day before the trial, and when the twins get there they find a whole rally going on. Half the school is wearing “We Believe in Jessica” t-shirts while the football team, led by Ken, runs around yelling and the cheerleading squad (minus Heather) does a cheer. I wish I was kidding. While that’s going on, Heather and Bruce are leading the rest of the school in a display of scowling while wearing “Jessica is Guilty” t-shirts. Because everyone has an opinion. Fucking Wakefields.

To my complete lack of surprise, Liz wins the trial and Jessica’s good name is cleared. Ned and Alice decide the twins should take a few days off from school and go visit Steve at Sweet Valley University.

Oh, somewhere in there, Todd falls at his big basketball game and breaks his ankle. This prompts Liz to make up with him and everything is wonderful again.

Quotes:

“You’re really beautiful, Jessica,” ken said. He touched her fingers. “You’re without a doubt the prettiest girl at Sweet Valley High. I’ve heard guys on the football team talking about your incredible looks when they thought I was out of earshot.”

Do I really need more confirmation that Jessica is totally hot? Does Jessica really need it?

“Well, I’m not too surprised, Jess,” [Ken] said with a smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “It’s not like anyone expected you to do really well.”

Damn, that’s cold.

“What school should I go to, Liz? You used to know a lot about college,” Todd said.

Ha ha. Because she’s suddenly forgotten everything she’s ever learned now that she scored low on a test.

The Cover: I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t think anything on this cover actually correlates to anything that happens in the book.

Read part one of this miniseries here.

The Moral of the Story: One week of cheerleading and Liz’s life is ruined.

The Big Deal: Regional cheerleading competition, party at Lila’s

Synopsis:

Jessica is still upset about not being a cheerleader anymore, so Ken suggests she start her own squad. She gets Maria, Sandy and Lila on board, and then Patty Gilbert and Jade Wu because they can dance. Jessica really wants Liz on the squad, even though cheerleading goes against all her feministic ideals. Lila bets Jessica that she won’t be able to get Liz to join, and then has to buy the new squad’s uniforms when Jessica blackmails Liz, saying she’ll tell Todd about Liz’s fling with Ken if she doesn’t pick up some pom-poms and get to cheering.

Jessica gets a pretty good turnout at her first practice, but she kind of freaks out when she tells the girls to work on herkies and nobody knows what she’s talking about. She’s all worked up because Heather’s squad is going to regionals and Jessica only has a week to make her squad good enough to qualify. Liz hates everything about it, but after an argument with Heather, she decides to give it her all and help Jessica out. A few days later, Jessica tries to sit with Amy, Annie and Jean (Helen seems to have disappeared again) at lunch, but they tell her Heather doesn’t want them to be friends with Jessica, and might even kick them off the squad if they’re seen talking to her.

George Herkie

Liz gets pages and pages of inner dialogue. “Blah, blah, Ken. Blah, blah, Todd.” She’s so confused about her feelings, and the only way she can make out with Todd one night is to pretend he’s Ken. Then she feels terribly guilty for doing that and cries some more and wonders if she’s still in love with Ken and more blah blah blah and for the fuck of shit (™), would you just stop your whining already? Jeez. At a cheerleading practice, Liz is so upset that Ken is there to see Jessica and not her that she suddenly runs and does a round-off and two back handsprings. Seriously? Okay. I used to dance and tumble and all that good stuff and I know there’s just no way that this chick who sits around writing for the newspaper, never doing anything more physical than swimming at the occasional pool party, can possibly pull this kind of tumbling run out of her ass like this. Fucking Wakefield twins. They have to be good at everything. Sorry. The damned Wakefield twins get my Irish up sometimes.

A week goes by. Heather watches Jessica’s squad practice and is surprised to see they’re actually good. She tells Amy it’s too bad that only one squad from each school can go to regionals and the original squad was already chosen. When Jessica finds out, she calls the scout, Mr. Jenkins, to try to get him to reconsider. He says no, so Jessica gets her squad together and they all drive out to Mr. Jenkins’ house in Bridgewater and perform their routine on his front yard. He’s very impressed, but still won’t send them to regionals since he already gave the spot to Heather. Dejected, the girls drive back to Sweet Valley. They hear on the radio that Sweet Valley is losing the football game currently going on. Jessica figures that since they’re already in uniform, they should stop by and put on a show. Jessica goes to the sound booth and gives the girl there the tape with her routine’s music on it and says to play it at halftime. They perform better than ever while Heather, Amy, Annie and Jean stand on the sidelines looking like idiots. Of course, Sweet Valley goes on to win the game.

The whole school ends up at the Dairi Burger after the game. After Amy screams at Jessica for embarrassing her and then leaves, everyone else tells Jessica how awesome her squad was. Everyone thinks hers should be the official Sweet Valley squad, so Jessica goes to talk to Mr. Cooper about it on Monday. Old Chrome Dome says the two squads can hold a cheer-off the next day.

More of Liz worrying about Ken. She decides she has to tell Todd about her fling, but before she can do it, Todd starts going on about how happy Jessica and Ken seem to be and what a good friend Ken is. Liz decides she simply can’t tell Todd about her and Ken.

The day of the cheer-off, Amy apologizes to Jessica for everything and says she still wants to be friends, no matter which squad wins. The cheer-off results in a tie, but Mr. Jenkins is there and he says Sweet Valley can go to regionals if the two squads merge. Both Jessica and Heather hate that idea and they decide nobody is going to regionals.

The rest of the cheerleaders really want to go so they come up with a plan. They go to Jessica and Heather separately and tell each that the other has stepped down as captain so the squads can merge. They get to practicing, but the two captains can’t stop fighting. When they get to the competition and start warming up, Heather and Jessica have another argument and start to walk off, but Amy and Liz tell them to shut the fuck up or go home, the rest of the squad is performing either way. Jessica and Heather call a truce. Just before the squad is about to go on, Ken puts his arms around Liz, thinking she’s Jessica, and wishes her luck. Heather sees them, but doesn’t say anything.

Sweet Valley wins the competition. Are you totally surprised? I know I am. When the judges announce “co-captains Heather Mallone and Jessica Wakefield,” both girls get all pissed off again and try to quit (because they hadn’t already figured out they were tricked). Once again, Liz and Amy step in and tell them to shut the fuck up and go get the fucking trophy.

That night, Liz pretends to be Jessica so she can go out with Ken. As soon as they start making out, though, Liz realizes she really wants Todd and Ken realizes he’s kissing Liz. They have a long talk about their feelings. Ken says he was drawn to Jessica at first because she looked like Liz, but he really is in love with her. Liz and Ken decide to go to Todd’s house together and explain everything.

Lila is throwing a party to celebrate winning regionals. Heather comes up to Jessica and says she saw Ken and Liz getting pretty friendly at the competition earlier. Jessica races home and notices her brand new outfit is missing. She calls Todd, but he says Liz decided to stay home that night. Jessica figures out that Liz is out with Ken and she’s super pissed. When Liz and Ken get to Todd’s house to tell him the truth, Jessica is already there with Liz’s diary. Neither Todd nor Jessica wants to speak to Liz or Ken.

Quotes:

“Girls should play sports on their own, not just sit on the sidelines cheering on the guys!”

Shut up, Liz. Cheerleading is a sport, yabitch.

“What drew me to Jessica at first was the fact that she was your identical twin sister. I could almost pretend she was you.”

My god, this whole fucking town is so unhealthy. The twins really need to stop making out with the same boys.

The Cover: Liz (I think) looks like she’s having an awful lot of fun jumping around with her pom-poms while all the brunettes are shoved into the background. That must be Heather and possibly Amy spying on Jessica’s squad and pointing at them.

Read the rest of this miniseries: Part one, part two.

The Moral of the Story: If he’ll cheat with you, he’ll cheat on you.

The Big Deal: Halloween party

Synopsis:

After stopping Jeremy from marrying Sue, Jessica hides out at Lila’s house. The day after the wedding, Jeremy gives Jessica a ring and asks her to marry him. Then he says he has to go to Costa Rica for a month to take care of some business. Jessica is upset, and she gets even more upset when Liz calls her at Lila’s and says Ned and Alice think Jessica has gone too far this time. They’re thinking of sending her to a boarding school in Washington state.

Liz has been spending her time taking care of Sue, who now has tranquilizers to help her cope. Sue tells Liz that Nancy, her very wealthy mother, never liked Jeremy and cut Sue out of her will when Sue refused to quit seeing him. Now Sue’s mother is dead, Sue is penniless and she doesn’t even have Jeremy anymore. Then one day, Alice gets a registered letter. It turns out there was a stipulation in Nancy’s will. Sue was only cut off if she stayed with Jeremy. If she stays away from him for two months, she will get her inheritance. Sue seems totally surprised by this news.

It appears to be the beginning of a school year, which is weird, but whatever. Sweet Valley High is instituting a new math program called Go Math. GO stands for Girls Only. Apparently, studies have shown that girls don’t do as well at math as boys do, so Go Math is an experimental program that segregates the math classes. Liz is outraged by the whole thing, but as the weeks pass, she realizes everyone is actually doing better in math, including her. She writes a series of articles about the program, and of course the Sweet Valley News picks them up. In other Liz news, she doesn’t like Todd’s muck-stache. Todd doesn’t realize his attempt at facial hair is totally lame and pathetic and he seems to think he’s really hot shit. He starts calling Liz “babe,” which she hates, and he twirls his mustache a lot when Liz gets mad at him. They eventually break up over the stupid mustache. Oh, you stupid kids.

After a while, Sue tells the Wakefields that she’s really over Jeremy, so Ned and Alice tell Jessica to come home. Her first night back from Lila’s, Jessica announces at dinner that she and Jeremy are engaged. The next day, Sue overdoses on her tranquilizers and Jessica’s parents set up a meeting with the headmaster of the boarding school. Jessica misses Jeremy and is frustrated that he’s never around when she calls. Lila tries to tell her that maybe Jeremy isn’t that into her, but Jessica refuses to believe that. Then Amy shows her a film she shot on the beach for a school project, and Jessica sees a couple in the video that looks just like Jeremy and Sue. Amy tells her she only shot it two weeks ago, so it can’t be them.

Sue confesses to Liz that she lied about having a “rare blood disease” to keep Jeremy from leaving her. Liz is shocked, but thinks she understands. Then there’s a scene of Sue making a phone call, but we don’t know who she’s calling. She talks about what a “total drag” it was to have her stomach pumped. She makes plans to meet whoever she’s talking to. So now we know there’s something weird going on with Sue.

Jeremy finally comes back to town, but he acts kind of distant and weird. He does tell Jessica that Project Nature, the company he works for, is throwing a big Halloween bash and the whole Sweet Valley High gang is invited. At the party, Liz and Todd finally make up, so don’t worry about them, folks. Jessica can’t find Jeremy anywhere and she starts to think about all kinds of things about him that don’t add up, like the fact that he wouldn’t let her wait while he got on his plane to Costa Rica and the fact that he was never once there when she called him. She wanders outside and finds him making out with Sue. What a jackass. Liz takes Jessica home, and a little while later, Jeremy comes to the door. He’s all freaked out because Sue has “disappeared.”

To be continued. Ugh, won’t this Jeremy/Sue story arc ever end?

Quotes:

In a sense she felt as if Jessica was willing to leave Elizabeth forever to be with Jeremy. It was one thing to stay at Lila’s until a scandal blew over – it was another to commit yourself to a man and be ready to run off with him. Leaving Elizabeth behind. As though they were just regular sisters. Not twins at all.

Liz, what do you think is going to happen when you guys actually do get married? Are you going to share a bathroom for the rest of your lives?

“You’re our daughter and we love you. We’ll always love you no matter what. But we’re very worried about you. We’re worried about the decisions you’ve been making lately. The whole thing with Jeremy and Sue – it doesn’t seem like you.”

The fact that Alice is surprised by the “thing with Jeremy and Sue” just goes to show how much she pays attention to her kids.

“So now it all comes out. You hate my mustache, you hate my haircut, you hate what I call you…Kids at school think my mustache is hot, this is a totally radical haircut, and maybe I just won’t call you anything from now on. As in, I won’t be calling you at all!”

Oh, Todd. This is a totally radical breakup speech.

The Cover: As you can see, Jeremy and Jessica are Aladdin and Jasmine for Halloween. Sue and Jeremy look like they’re having some trouble; Sue looks mad because their hats keep crashing and they can’t kiss properly.

Read part one of this miniseries here.

The Moral of the Story: It’s totally okay to ruin someone’s life. Your love life is way more important.

The Big Deal: Barbecue party at the beach, bridal shower for Sue

Synopsis:

The last book ended with Jessica and Jeremy making out at an engagement party for Jeremy and Sue. This book starts with Liz finding them and telling them Alice wants to give a toast. The twins argue, and Liz is convinced Jessica has a love addiction and needs to be stopped. Both Steve and Enid tell her that trying to control Jessica is a stupid idea. Jessica and Jeremy keep sneaking around and Liz keeps trying to stop them. Liz’s self-help books tell her Jessica’s love addiction is a disease, so she’s sure there must be some way she can help.

One day, Sue gets some test results back and finds out she has the same rare blood disease that killed her mother. The doctors say she’s got two or three years to live. She tells Liz she wants to call off the wedding. Liz tells her to reconsider. Then she tells Jessica she has to stop seeing Jeremy because it’s wrong to “deceive a dying woman.” When Jessica finds out about Sue’s disease, she feels like she caused it somehow because “Jessica had thought in the past that she had psychic powers” and she wanted Sue out of the way so badly. When Sue tells Jeremy about her disease, he promises to stay with her until the end.

Todd finally gets back from his grandmother’s house and Liz is determined to tell him about Luke. Before she can tell him, Todd says he met a girl who lived next door to his grandmother. They had a fling, but it was really nothing; Liz is the only one he cares about. Liz gets angry and breaks up with him. Then she annoys Enid and Olivia with all her self-help mumbo jumbo. She tells them she ate too much cake from the engagement party and that’s a sign that she has no self control.

Meanwhile, Lila’s been dating Jeremy’s friend, Robby. Robby pretended to be rich so Lila would like him, but finally came clean. Now Lila is worried Robby only likes her for her money. She tells him a story about her parents being servants for the Fowler family. Robby gives her a passionate kiss and Lila worries her plan will backfire and Robby will actually like her better poor. In the end, she tells him the truth and is relieved when he says he loves her no matter how much money she has.

Now that Jeremy knows about Sue’s disease, he feels like he shouldn’t see Jessica anymore. Jessica isn’t giving up, though, and she starts tagging along on all of Jeremy and Sue’s dates. Liz, trying to keep Jessica from doing something stupid, also tags along. At a cookout on the beach, Jessica gets all emo and walks away. Sue, who is amazingly oblivious through this whole thing, gets worried and sends Jeremy after her. Jessica is just about to kiss him when Liz and Enid show up to drag them back to the party.

The night before the wedding, the twins have a shower for Sue. The girls start talking about Jeremy’s bachelor party and everyone except Sue wants to crash it. They all go over to Robby’s place and Liz seems disappointed that there are no strippers for her to disapprove of. Robby’s idea of a bachelor party was to cook a gourmet meal, so all the guys are grateful when the girls show up. Steve and Todd are there for some reason, and Steve tells Liz how sorry Todd is for his fling. Liz decides to stop being so obnoxious. She makes up with Todd and tells him about Luke. Then she decides to stop trying to control Jessica.

At the wedding, Jessica can’t stand it anymore. She shouts that Jeremy can’t marry Sue because he doesn’t really love her, he loves Jessica. Sue faints, the priest leads Jeremy away and everyone is pissed at Jessica.

Quotes:

“I’m slowly rediscovering myself and learning why I let myself lose control so it doesn’t happen again. And that’s why I think you should read this book about love addiction so you don’t lose control with Jeremy.”

Argh, shut up, Liz!

It was totally out of character for her to have done something like falling in love with another guy.

Right.

The Cover: Those dresses are hideous. All of them. Jeremy looks more evil than bastardly, like he’s planning to kill Sue after the ceremony. And Sue looks like this horrible girl I used to know, so I automatically hate her.

The moral of the story: I’m not sure the new miniseries format lends itself well to morals.

The Big Deal: Yeah, nobody’s really interested in parties right now.

Synopsis:

Liz totally isn’t dead, you guys. But she did kill Sam in that car accident and now she’s having nightmares about someone who looks like Jessica trying to kill her, but the girl has black hair instead of blond.

Bruce can’t stop thinking about the girl who tried to help him on Saturday night. He eventually finds out her name is Pamela Robertson and she’s on the Big Mesa tennis team, so he finds her after practice one day and asks her out.

Lila doesn’t go back to school until the Wednesday after the prom. She knows people are talking about her and the accusation she made against Nathan Pritchard. When she gets to school, Mr. Cooper tells her there will have to be a meeting with Lila, her father, Mr. Cooper and Nathan. At the meeting, after Nathan gives his side of the story, Lila realizes he wasn’t trying to attack her after all. She apologizes for making a mistake, and her father drives her home.

A week after the prom, the twins still aren’t speaking to each other. When they go back to school, Enid is the only person who will talk to Liz. Not even Todd has spoken to her. Poor Amy keeps trying to cheer up both Lila and Jessica, but doesn’t really know how to talk to either of them.

Olivia notices a sandy-haired guy watching her during a painting class. A few days later, she finds out a collector has bought one of her paintings. The only condition is that she give a talk about her art at a fundraiser in Bridgewater. She runs into Nicholas Morrow as she’s walking home and tells him her news, and he takes her out to celebrate. They talk about their love lives, and each asks the other how it’s possible they don’t have a steady stream of dates. They both say they’ll help the other find someone. They’re idiots and don’t seem to realize they’re actually on a date right now.

When Olivia goes to the address in Bridgewater, she’s surprised to find it’s a residence and there are no other cars in the driveway. When she goes inside, the sandy-haired guy from her art class comes down the stairs. He says he made the whole thing up about the fundraiser to get Olivia to his house. He’s totally creepy, but really cute, so Olivia says she’ll go out with him the next night. She later tells Nicholas she’s in love.

Lila has been in her bedroom since the meeting at school. Her father tries to talk to her, but she just can’t tell him what happened with John. George doesn’t know what to do, so he calls Lila’s mother in Paris. When he tells Lila her mother is coming to town, she starts crying and thanking him.

By the end of Bruce’s first date with Pamela, he’s in love. Cousin Roger tries to tell him that looks can be deceiving, but Bruce thinks Roger has a lot to learn about women. At lunch, Bruce tells everyone about his new woman, and when he says her name, everyone kind of laughs and says Pamela is known as a slut. The next time they go out, Bruce can’t stop thinking about what everyone’s been saying, so he’s kind of jerky to her. He feels bad, so the next morning, he goes to her house to bring her some flowers. He’s standing at her front door when a car pulls up in the driveway and Pamela gets out. After she kisses the guy driving the car, she sees Bruce. She tells him she was just breaking up with that guy because she’s in love with Bruce. Bruce goes home in a huff.

Jessica leaves to go to a special memorial for Sam at the bike track, but she decides she can’t handle it. She drives aimlessly and ends up at the cemetery, where she sits at Sam’s grave and cries over his death and her own part in it. Things at the Wakefield house are pretty horrible. Steve comes home every weekend and tries to cheer everyone up, but everyone is depressed. Then, three weeks after the prom, two police officers show up at the Wakefields’ house and arrest Elizabeth. Jessica considers telling the police that she spiked Liz’s drink, but can’t bring herself to do it.

While all this is going on, a sixteen-year-old girl named Margo is plotting her escape from her tenth foster home in New York. She thinks it’s too bad she’ll have to kill her five-year-old foster sister, Nina, but Nina walked in on Margo counting her stolen money and saw the bus schedule with Cleveland circled. Margo can’t risk anyone finding out where she’s going. She sets the house on fire and takes off. In Cleveland, Margo types up some fake reference letters and gets herself a job babysitting for a wealthy family. When she’s stolen enough jewelry and made enough money, she’ll move on toward her final destination, California.

Quotes:

“You’ll love the plans for the new wing of the city building,” Alice Wakefield was saying as she drove toward the high school. “We’re going with a Spanish-style look, with lots of sunlight.”

I think this is how she describes every project she ever works on. Jesus, Alice, not everything has to be Spanish-style.

Elizabeth left the dance with Sam, Jessica remembered. How could her sister have done that to her?

Because you got her drunk, stupid.

The Cover: Here it is, the first of the new crappy covers. I miss the old ones. The twins hovering over everything like god up there is weird. And for such a busy looking cover, there’s really not a lot going on. We’ve got Bruce looking all scandalized that his girl is kissing another dude, and then I guess that’s Lila running away from Nathan or something.

The moral of the story: You are not allowed to do anything your boyfriend doesn’t know about. If you refuse to tell him what you’re doing all the time, he is totally within his rights to cheat on you.

The Big Deal: Nothing. Things sure are getting boring around here.

Synopsis:

Jessica needs money, as usual. Her current moneymaking scheme is a letter writing service. She got the idea from Lila and Amy, who both have to actually leave a party to go home and write letters to relatives they don’t like. Of course, Jessica doesn’t really want to write letters, either, but that’s where Liz comes in. Liz thinks it’s a great idea because she wants to make some money to buy a present for Todd since she’s been neglecting him lately while writing for The Oracle. The twins agree to remain anonymous and use a post office box.

Something is going on between Shelley Novak and Jim Roberts lately and Liz is concerned about their relationship. She asks Todd to talk to her after basketball practice. Shelley tells Todd that Jim has been so obsessed with photography lately that he doesn’t have any time for her. Todd smiles at her with those warm brown eyes of his and tells her boys are dumb sometimes and he’s sure Jim still loves her. A few days later, Shelley goes to the photography club room to meet Jim, but Liz tells her he had to go retake some pictures for the yearbook. Shelley is all upset and tells Liz she wishes Jim was more like Todd. Liz says Todd has his bad moments, too, but Shelley is strangely insistent that Todd is perfect.

Letters R Us (if my company’s sole duty was to write, I would probably not use a cutesy name using stupid abbreviations) is doing well, but one day Jessica picks up the letter requests and finds one from Shelley Novak. She tells Letters R Us that she’s in love with the boyfriend of one of her friends and, though she feels bad, she can’t deny her feelings and wants them to write him a letter for her. She describes the boy, and Jessica realizes it’s Todd. She changes some of the details when she tells Liz about it so she won’t know what’s going on.

Speaking of Todd, Liz has been neglecting him again while she works on the letters. She cancels a date with him one night. He’s understanding, but tells her to make sure she keeps Saturday free because he has something special planned for her. But Saturday morning brings a ton of new letters to write, so Liz cancels on him again. Todd starts talking before Liz can say anything, telling her he rented her favorite movie and bought her favorite cheesecake from Howard’s Deli. Liz sucks and goes ahead and breaks the date. She tells him she’s working on a surprise for him, but Todd doesn’t care and they have a big fight. That afternoon, Shelley goes over to Todd’s and says she was just in the neighborhood. Todd invites her in to watch a movie and eat cheesecake.

A few days later, Letters R Us gets a letter from Todd. He’s gotten a letter from a girl who likes him and he wants to give her a chance since his girlfriend has been so negligent lately. He wants two letters – one to his girlfriend to explain that he wants to take a break, and one to the new girl to ask her out for Friday night.

Jessica rewrites Todd’s request and disguises her handwriting so Liz won’t know who it’s from. She plans to let Liz write the letters, but Jessica will remove them from the outgoing mail and replace them with a note to Todd telling him to be more patient with his girlfriend. When Liz goes to write the letters, she thinks the letter requestor seems like a nice guy and his girlfriend must be an idiot for ignoring him. She writes the girlfriend a nasty letter, and then writes a really nice one to the other girl.

Jessica drops the ball, of course, and after a few days, Liz gets her own nasty letter in the mail from Todd. She yells at Jessica and demands to know what the hell happened. Jessica explains everything. Liz goes to Todd’s and yells at him for a while, and he acts like Liz being so busy means he had no choice but to get involved with someone else.

Todd and Shelley go out, but it doesn’t take long for them to realize they really just want to be friends. They both confess to using Letters R Us, and are embarrassed about the whole thing. Since Letters R Us posters are hanging all over school, they figure a student is behind it. They decide to stake out the post office after school for a few days and see if they can figure out who it is, then ask that person to make sure their situation is kept confidential.

Todd pounces on Jessica at the post office, and she tells him everything. He wants to make up with Liz, and Jessica tells her so, but Liz still refuses to answer his calls. Todd writes a cheesy request to Letters R Us to write a letter to his amazing girlfriend apologizing and blah blah blah. Liz wraps the present she got him, a warmup jacket, and goes over to Todd’s, where they make up. Again. Todd is so touched by the present that he buys Liz a matching one so everyone will know they’re meant to be together.

In other news, Jessica is tired of her bedroom being Hershey bar brown. She paints everything purple.

Quotes:

Like the time Elizabeth had chosen to boycott the Miss Teen Sweet Valley pageant on the grounds that it was degrading to women.

Jesus Christ, they talk about this in every.single.book. Get over it, already.

“And Jennifer Mitchell was complaining about John Pfeifer the other day in gym. She said he was getting way too bossy with her.”

Oh, John.

And hadn’t [Elizabeth] been instrumental in getting Sam and Jessica back together after the Brandon Hunter episode?

Um, no. You actually had nothing to do with getting them back together.

When Elizabeth and Todd walked into the Oracle office a week later wearing matching blue-and-gold warmup jackets, they caused quite a stir.

That’s because you look like morons.

The Cover: I don’t really get what’s happening here. Liz looks super ugly and Jessica’s turtleneck is out of control.

The moral of the story: Remember the moral of Bruce’s Story? It can also be applied to Todd’s Story.

The Big Deal: Celebratory party at the Dairi Burger

Synopsis:

So, there are a few things wrong with this book first thing:

• It’s summer. Again.
• Cara is in Sweet Valley and apparently has not moved to London.
• But this takes place after Todd has moved to Vermont and back.
• Jessica has not met Sam.
• But the twins’ Jeep is still referred to as “new.”

Todd’s been getting some weird hangup phone calls lately. He and Liz are at the mall one day when Todd sees a guy named Kevin Holmes and freaks out. Todd has never told anyone about this, but when he was living in Vermont, he tackled Kevin in an alley to stop him from mugging someone. After the trial, as Kevin was being led away in handcuffs, he told Todd he was going to get even with him. And now he’s in Sweet Valley. Oh, dear.

Meanwhile, Todd’s having problems with his dad. Mr. Wilkins wants Todd to follow in the old man’s footsteps and get involved in the business. Todd and Liz and a bunch of their friends have lined up two-week jobs at Secca Lake as day camp counselors, but Mr. Wilkins wants Todd to intern at his company after that. Todd doesn’t wanna, and Liz thinks he should say so, but Todd says Liz just doesn’t understand.

The first day of camp at Secca Lake, Todd is horrified to discover Kevin Holmes is going to be a counselor. Kevin, Todd and Jessica will be the sports counselors. Kevin acts like he doesn’t know Todd, and to everyone else he seems like a happy and likable guy. Todd starts to think maybe the guy has reformed, but then Kevin threateningly tells him not to tell anyone about the mugging. Todd tries to tell his parents his concerns, but they say they heard from an old co-worker in Vermont that Kevin was in Sweet Valley to start over. They even try to tell him to be friends with the guy. Jeez, no wonder these kids never want to tell the adults what’s going on.

Kevin keeps beating Todd at volleyball and basketball. Todd handles it badly and it makes him look like a sore loser. Everyone loves Kevin and can’t figure out why Todd doesn’t like him. Liz is totally idiotic and thinks Todd is so moody lately because he wants to break up with her. Kevin and Jessica have been making eyes at each other all week at camp, and one night he asks her out. Liz, who clearly hasn’t been paying attention, thinks they should make it a double date. She’s sure that if Todd just spends enough time with Kevin, he’ll warm up to him. Somehow, Todd gets talked into letting everyone meet at his house before the movie. When Kevin gets there, he starts kissing Mr. Wilkins’ ass, and Mr. Wilkins ends up offering to try to find him a job at Varitronics, his company.

In every scene at Todd’s house, his parents talk about how nicely Kevin turned out and how great it is that he turned over a new leaf. After Todd lies and says he had fun with Kevin and the twins on their date, his parents tell him to invite Kevin over for dinner that night. Instead of lying and just telling them Kevin can’t make it, Todd actually invites Kevin over. Todd catches Kevin looking through Mr. Wilkins’ desk and runs to his father to snitch. Mr. Wilkins tells Todd he asked Kevin to bring him something. Now he’s all disappointed in Todd for being so unforgiving.

On Friday, Todd puts himself between Kevin and Liz, and Liz gets all pissed off and wants to know what Todd’s problem is. He says he would just like her to stay away from Kevin. Liz wants him to explain, but Todd can’t. So Liz breaks up with him. She thinks this whole thing is about her because Todd is unable or unwilling to communicate with her.

Christ, I’m bored. This book is going on forever. We’re only halfway through.

On Monday, Kevin spends all day at camp flirting with Liz while Jessica stands off to the side with her hands on her hips. Todd is watching them when one of the kids in his group starts drowning in the lake. He jumps in, but Kevin swims faster and gets there first. Once the kid is safe, Kevin says Todd should have been paying attention. Todd finally snaps and says something about Kevin turning the rescue into a competition. So now Todd looks like an ass, like he just cares who made the rescue and not that the kid is okay.

Ever since camp started the week before, people’s stuff has gone missing: Liz’s lavaliere, Winston’s lucky hat, Cara’s keychain. And on Tuesday, Todd reads in the paper that an old man was beaten and robbed just a few blocks from the apartment Kevin is renting. At camp that day, he spends the lunch hour alone in the lodge, leaving everyone outside to talk about him. Kevin tells some lies about the way Todd was in Vermont, saying he had a reputation as a bully and had once had a problem with a girl who had jumped out of his car to get away from him. All Todd’s friends say they don’t believe it, but you can tell they totally do.

On Wednesday morning, everyone is talking about the second mugging that took place the night before. Kevin joins in the conversation and acts all concerned. Todd can’t believe a person could mug someone at night and be so calm about it the next morning. So now he thinks Kevin must be innocent. Someone interrupts Todd’s thought process to ask him what he thinks about the muggings. Todd doesn’t know what to say and gets all weird and walks off. That afternoon, Kevin asks Liz out to dinner. At that moment, Todd is walking by and Liz thinks that if she can catch Todd’s eye and if he looks hurt or upset, she’ll turn Kevin down. When Todd just looks at Kevin all angry and bitter, Liz thinks he doesn’t care about her, so she tells Kevin she’ll go out with him. On their date, Liz realizes Kevin is kind of a jerk who only wants to talk about himself and keeps talking about how “things are falling into place.” And he gets angry when she doesn’t want to kiss him goodnight.

Later that night, Todd is restless so he drives out to Secca Lake to hang out. While there, he sees Kevin mug Melissa, one of the other camp counselors. Todd is too shocked and stupid to do anything about it, so he goes home. The next day after work, Todd decides he has to get some of this off his chest, so he tells Winston and Aaron about his history with Kevin. He’s decided he’ll go to the police in the morning. He goes to the lake early Friday morning to tell the ranger he’ll need to take part of the morning off, but the cops are there and they arrest him. A pen with his initials on it was found in the “precise location” where Melissa got robbed. And no, this isn’t enough to arrest a man, but when asked, Todd says, “I wasn’t carrying the pen, it was in my car, and I didn’t go on the beach, I stayed in the grass.” So stupid.

That afternoon, the counselors are having a barbecue to celebrate the last day of camp. Everyone is all sad about Todd getting arrested. Everyone except Kevin, who suggests a game. He says he has a Frisbee in his car and Jessica offers to get it. She finds Liz’s lavaliere in the backseat, then gathers Winston, Aaron, Enid and Cara around her. They decide that if Kevin stole the necklace, he could have stolen all the other stuff, too. And if he did that, then maybe Todd was telling the truth about what happened in Vermont. And if that’s true, then maybe the wrong man is behind bars!

Todd’s father picks him up. Todd is a minor so he’s being released to his parents until the hearing. He has his father drop him off at the lake so he can pick up his car. At the same time, Liz and Kevin are taking a walk. As soon as they’re in the woods and away from everyone else, Kevin gets all weird and starts telling Liz she shouldn’t care so much about Todd. He starts to get really angry and Liz gets scared. Todd gets to the lake and asks Jessica and the others where Kevin is. They realize both Kevin and Liz are gone. In the woods, Kevin starts babbling about a car accident that killed his brother and about how he never meant to hurt anyone. Then he tells Liz he wants Todd to know what it’s like to lose everything. He starts strangling Liz, and then Todd comes out of the woods to save the day.

At the police station, Kevin’s big confession is that he killed his brother in a car accident a few years ago. Kevin’s parents have never gotten over it and have always treated Kevin as if they wished he was the one who died. So that’s why he’s a lunatic.

Everyone goes to the Dairi Burger that night to celebrate Todd’s heroism.

Quotes:

“You could’ve let things slide and lived with the fact that Todd wasn’t giving his share to your relationship. Instead you took a positive step to change things.”

I love that Enid thinks it was so good and right of Liz to break up with Todd for having a few bad days. I mean, seriously, call him moody or whatever, but she broke up with him after only five days of him acting that way.

Kevin was asking her for a date. Her first instinct was to turn him down. With her heart aching over Todd, Elizabeth knew she couldn’t enjoy herself with another boy, particularly a boy her own sister was very interested in. At the same time, it seemed cruel to reject Kevin outright.

It’s not cruel to turn down a date with someone you don’t want to go out with. It’s okay to say no!

The Cover: Ew, look at this guy. First of all, his shoulders are way too big. Second, he looks like he’s at least thirty. Third, he looks like he thinks he’s really awesome.

The moral of the story: Don’t go out with eccentric guys who spend all their time drawing. They’re all evil.

The Big Deal: School dance, party at Maria’s

Synopsis:

Todd breaks up with Liz. We know it’s because of this girl named Peggy Abbott who’s been hanging all over him lately, but Liz is under the impression that it’s just a “trial separation” and that Todd isn’t interested in anyone else. Jessica finds out about Peggy and tries to tell Liz, but Liz is in denial.

Meanwhile, Enid is lonely and missing her old boyfriend, Hugh. She and Liz take a drive up to Big Mesa to see if they can find him. They see him in front of a café and have a soda with him. At Liz’s insistence, Enid calls him a few days later and says she lost an earring at the café and wants Hugh to look for it next time he’s there. Interestingly, he finds Enid’s nonexistent lost earring. They make a date to meet up again, but Enid’s mother needs the car. Liz lets her borrow the Fiat, but it’s been acting up lately and it dies. Enid gets stuck and misses her date with Hugh. This is a dumb story line, so I’ll just tell you they get together in the end.

Liz survives her first week without Todd. She’s sure they’ll get back together and that he’ll end up asking her to go with him to the upcoming dance. He runs up to her at lunch one day, saying he needs to talk to her. She’s all ready to accept his invitation to the dance, but he says he’s going with Peggy and didn’t want Liz to hear it from someone else. Liz is upset, but keeps her cool and tells Todd she’s going with someone else, too. There’s this weird senior, Kris Lynch, who’s been following Liz around and he asked her to the dance. She told him she’d have to think about it, but now she’s decided she’ll go with him.

Kris picks Liz up for the dance in a pink Cadillac limo. He comes to the door with candy and flowers. It’s all really nice, but Liz just isn’t into it. She spends the whole night watching Todd and Peggy and hardly pays any attention to Kris. She feels bad, though, and agrees to go to a movie with him the following week. After that, people start thinking they’re a couple, including Kris, who accepts an invitation to a party on Liz’s behalf. Liz realizes she has to break things off and for some reason thinks Maria’s party is the perfect place to do it.

Liz spends most of Maria’s party trying to get Kris alone, but people keep interrupting them. She takes his hand and leads him to Mr. Santelli’s study, but when she opens the door, she sees Todd and Peggy on the couch. She closes the door and turns around. Kris seems to think she’s upset because they can’t find any place to be alone. He starts kissing her right there in front of everyone. Liz tells him she wants to leave, but he misunderstands and, once they’re in the car, suggests Miller’s Point. Liz says she wants to go home. Kris again misunderstands and thinks Liz means that her parents aren’t home and they’ll have the place to themselves. Liz finally says she wants to go home and she doesn’t want to see Kris anymore. Kris loses his shit. He starts driving really fast and yelling really loud, accusing Liz of leading him on. She tells him to stop the car, which he does, surprisingly. She starts to get out, but Kris grabs her arm and starts trying to kiss her. Liz’s purse falls on the floor, and she scoops everything up as quickly as she can and gets out of the car.

Monday morning, Kris gives Liz a white rose and apologizes for being such a dick on Saturday night. Liz forgives him. That afternoon, Todd tells Liz he was breaking up with Peggy in Mr. Santelli’s study. He really wants to be with Liz. Liz couldn’t be happier, and they go for a walk on the beach. When she gets home, Jessica tells her the latest gossip is that Kris and Liz went to Miller’s Point after they left Maria’s party and had a really wild time. Liz laughs it off, saying anybody who knows her would know that isn’t true.

Todd hears the rumors and confronts Kris. Kris says Liz really loves him and that she’s told him all about Todd. He starts listing all the most intimate details about Todd’s relationship with Liz. Todd can’t believe Liz would betray him like that. (By the way, throughout the book, Liz’s journal has gone missing quite a few times.) Kris does the same thing to Enid later. Now Jessica is Liz’s only friend. She asks Enid what her problem is, and Enid tells her Liz betrayed her trust to Kris. Jessica says Liz would never tell Kris anything, she doesn’t even like the guy, but Enid says it’s the only way he could know what he knows. (I refer you to the plot of #2: Secrets.) Jessica talks to Todd, who tells her the same thing, then she decides it’s time to talk to Kris.

When Jessica confronts him, Kris tries to get to her by talking about things like Jessica joining a cult. Jessica is unimpressed and tells him she’s going to figure out how he knows all these things. That night, she realizes Kris must have read Liz’s journal. She goes to his house the next day after school and tells him she knows everything. He breaks down and confesses to reading the journal. He’s really sorry and wishes he could do something to fix things. Jessica says there is, then takes him to the Dairi Burger to meet Todd and Enid. He tells them everything, and they feel appropriately ashamed for bailing on Liz. Everyone apologizes to her and everything goes back to normal.

Quotes:

“I’m sorry,” [Lila] said, “but I just can’t believe this. Kris Lynch is eccentric. Everybody knows that. He’s always drawing in his sketchbook and he’s never played any sports. The only normal thing about him is that his father belongs to the country club.”

I love the black and white world Lila lives in.

Now that the worst was over, [Jessica] was feeling a little annoyed with Todd and Enid.

Me, too. Except I’m always annoyed with them.

The Cover: I guess that’s Jessica, but at no point does Jessica ever read Liz’s journal, except for catching a glimpse of one line when Liz fell asleep with it open in front of her. Anyway, I don’t get what kind of shirt Jessica is wearing. Or the dead-doll look in her eyes.

The moral of the story: You can only be happy if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend.

The Big Deal: Party at Patty Gilbert’s house, battle of the bands

Synopsis:

Patty Gilbert is having a party to celebrate the fact that her boyfriend, Jim, is in town for the weekend. Any excuse for a party, right? Dana is telling anyone who will listen that she’s fed up with love. She’s been looking for a boyfriend but can’t find one, so she’s given up entirely. Liz keeps trying to tell her she’s wrong because she and Todd are so happy, but Dana won’t hear it. Liz and Todd move over to the snack table where Aaron Dallas is scowling at everyone. He agrees with Dana. His girlfriend, Heather, moved away recently and he doesn’t like that every party turns into a makeout session. He gets himself all worked up talking about it and storms out the door. Liz decides to get Aaron and Dana together and calls her plan Operation Pair-Up. She and Todd make a bet: if Aaron and Dana hook up, Todd will grant Liz three wishes. If not, she’ll grant him three wishes. Good idea, but you know their wishes are going to be totally lame and smut-free.

At school on Monday, Liz gets Olivia and Penny to help her out. They start whispering loudly about how Aaron couldn’t stop talking about Dana the other night. When Dana approaches them, they quickly change the subject. Todd, Winston and Neil pull the same thing on Aaron in the locker room. So now Aaron and Dana each think the other likes them, and they start blushing whenever they see each other.

Liz doesn’t want to tell Jessica about her plan, but when Jessica asks her why she just overheard her say Aaron and Dana’s names together, Liz breaks down and tells her everything. Jessica’s pissed because she and Aaron date sometimes and she doesn’t know why Liz is trying to set him up with someone who’s clearly not his type. Jessica wanders away and sees a poster advertising a battle of the bands. Three other bands have challenged the Droids to a battle, which is being sponsored by a radio station. The winners will play a show in L.A. Inexplicably angry at Dana because of Liz’s plan, Jessica hopes the Droids lose. She decides to be a roadie for one of the other bands and ropes Lila into joining her. They decide to work for a  band called Spontaneous Combustion. The band members are named Spy, Motor and Wheels. They’re ugly, they smoke and they call the girls “chicks.” Jessica hates them, but wants them to win so she can go to L.A. with them when they win the battle.

Todd and Liz get Dana and Aaron to go to a movie with them. Afterward, at Guido’s Pizza, Dana is surprised when Aaron speaks intelligently about the movie. They really start hitting it off, but then Aaron mentions a song Dana wrote called “Fed Up with Love” and tells her how right she is because love stinks. Dana totally agrees with him. Liz is sure she’s losing the bet. Todd tells Aaron about an outdoor jazz concert he and Liz are going to see. He tells Aaron to invite Dana and the four of them can go together.

At the concert, Aaron and Dana start talking about music and how being in a band is a lot like playing soccer. No, really. Dana says she’s never been to a soccer game and Aaron is appalled. They talk during the whole concert and then Dana says she’ll come to the next soccer game. Then she all of a sudden remembers that she’s supposed to be down on love, so she says, “friends should take an interest in each other.” Way to kill the mood, Dana. But at the soccer game, she totally falls for Aaron while watching him play. You know, it’s because of these books that I always thought people would love me if they could just see how talented I was at something.

Todd and Liz are going to a play and they invite Aaron and Dana to go with them. Liz has to cancel to baby-sit for Teddy Collins, so it becomes a real date for Aaron and Dana. The day of the play, Dana finds a romantic card in her locker. It says, “Roses are red, violets are blue, I’ve changed my mind, how about you?” Dana’s all lovestruck and shows the card to Liz, who recognizes Todd’s handwriting. She tries to convince Dana not to mention the card to Aaron that night, saying he might be feeling shy about it. But of course she does mention it. She and Aaron are having a nice time after the play when he says he doesn’t know anything about the card. Dana shows it to him and he recognizes Todd’s handwriting, too. They realize Todd and Liz have been trying to get them together. Dana freaks out and feels like an idiot for thinking Aaron really liked her. He tries to tell her that even though he didn’t send the card, he really does like her, but she interrupts him by running out of the restaurant. She goes home and calls Liz to tell her how pissed off she is. Then Liz yells at Todd and accuses him of trying to sabotage her plan so he’d win the bet. Todd leaves in a huff, and then Jessica comes home from a particularly obnoxious practice with Spontaneous Combustion and yells at Liz, because in her mind, she never would have had to become a roadie for such a crappy band if Liz hadn’t tried to hook Dana up with Aaron. I don’t get it. Jessica makes up with Liz a couple days later, but Todd and Dana are still not speaking to her.

The battle of the bands is being held at the high school (of course). Dana’s worried about how she’s going to perform, lovesick as she is. Then Aaron comes to find her and takes her out to the soccer field to tell her he’s fallen for her. After they make out for a few minutes, they decide to get Liz and Todd back together. Dana goes inside and the Droids play better than ever before. Then Spontaneous Combustion gets onstage and Jessica plugs something into the wrong outlet. As soon as they start to play, there’s a bit of an explosion. Aw, too bad. The Droids win. Of course.

At school on Monday, Liz gets a card in her locker. It’s typewritten, but clearly from Todd. She thinks it’s cute that he tries to make up by sending her an anonymous card when such a card was what got them fighting in the first place. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t think that was cute at all. The card instructs her to meet Todd under the clock after school. Todd is waiting for her and they immediately run into each other’s arms. He mentions the card she sent him and she’s all confused until Aaron and Dana drive by, honking and waving. Liz and Todd realize they were set up. Todd says it looks like Liz won the bet and he’ll grant her three wishes. She wishes that a.) they never argue over something so stupid again, b.) they’ll always be together and happy and c.) Todd gives her the biggest kiss ever. Todd says, “One Todd Wilkins Deluxe Smooch, coming right up!” I want to puke.

Setup for the next book: Some ass named Charlie Cashman is picking on a guy named Andy Jenkins.

Quotes:

With Todd’s strong arms wrapped around her, Elizabeth felt both loved and lucky. “We are a happy couple, aren’t we?” she murmured.

Just keep telling yourself that.

Dana opened her mouth, about to confess to Elizabeth and Enid that she liked Aaron, too. Then she stopped herself. I’ve sworn off love—I can’t change my tune just like that.

Dana’s so obnoxiously stubborn through this whole book. It was your idea to swear off love, Dana. You can change your mind whenever you want.

The Cover: Todd looks ridiculous. Why is he looking at me? He looks like Zack Morris talking to the camera. Liz looks like a blow-up doll.

The moral of the story: If your whole family is fighting, they’ll probably all make up if you run away from home.

The Big Deal: Costume party

Synopsis:

Before we were so rudely interrupted by Bruce’s sad excuse for a story, Ned and Alice Wakefield were in the middle of splitting up and Jessica was spending all her free time talking to a guy named Charlie, who she met on a teen party line. Ned had just decided to run for mayor of Sweet Valley. This book opens with Ned moving out of the Wakefields’ lovely split-level home and into a crappy apartment that makes Liz want to cry. Liz wants to cry a lot of the time, actually, because she’s determined to blame herself for her parents’ breakup.

Alice gets the phone bill and Jessica has to tell her it’s so high because of the party line she’s been calling. Alice tells her she’s suspending Jessica’s allowance and making her get a part-time job to pay off the bill. Jessica thinks that’s unfair, so she complains to daddy and he offers to talk to Alice about softening the punishment. At school, Amy and Lila are hounding Jessica about Charlie and making fun of her for having a boyfriend she’s never even met, so Jessica tells them she and Charlie are going roller-skating on Saturday. This is a great big lie, and Jessica decides that she’ll have to convince Charlie to go roller-skating with her, and if he comes up with another excuse not to meet her, she’ll tell him it’s all over between them. Luckily (I guess) for Charlie, he agrees to meet her at three o’clock on Saturday at the roller rink, and he’ll be carrying a red rose.

Liz does poorly on an English paper and wants to tell Mr. Collins what’s going on, but doesn’t feel like talking about it. Then she goes for a bike ride and ends up staring at her father’s apartment building for twenty minutes. When she gets home, there are two messages from Todd on the answering machine. Liz forgot she was supposed to go shopping with him to help him pick out a birthday present for his mother. Liz apologizes and says she wants to stay home with her mom. Todd tells her to remember he needs some attention sometimes, too. What an incredible jackass. So now Liz is feeling guilty about that. After school on Friday, Todd tells Liz he got tickets to some show and wants to take her out that night. She tells him she wants to be with her mother and he gets all disappointed and tells her it seems like she doesn’t want to be around him anymore. She kind of says, “Yeah, you’re right.” She breaks up with him because she’s so disillusioned about relationships and she’s sure she and Todd would break up sooner or later anyway. She’s also feeling like such a screw-up lately that she figures Todd is better off without her.

Ned calls for Alice and they have a fight about Jessica, then Alice yells at Jessica for going behind her back to Ned. A few days later, Jessica asks Lila if she can borrow some money to buy a new outfit for her date with Charlie. Lila says no, but tells Jessica how to play her father for money and gifts now that he’s probably feeling all guilty about the separation. So daddy buys her a suede vest and “western-looking” jeans and she goes off to the roller rink. Amy tags along just to make sure Charlie is real. There’s a guy with a red rose who introduces himself as Charlie, but Jessica thinks his voice is different than it sounds on the phone, and he acts all stiff and weird. Then Charlie calls her later that night to tell her what a great time he had and Jessica assumes he’s just bad at first dates. They have dinner on Wednesday, and Jessica tells him afterward that she doesn’t want to see him again, though she’d still like to be friends and talk to him on the phone. One day, she calls the party line again and talks to one of her phone friends, Sara. Sara tells Jessica that the guy she met wasn’t really Charlie. The real Charlie doesn’t think he’s good-looking enough for Jessica, so he got a friend of his to pretend to be him.

After a conversation with Jessica, Liz decides breaking up with Todd was a good idea, and she’s going to play the field from now on. She goes to school on Monday wearing one of Jessica’s miniskirts and by lunchtime she has a date with Paul Jeffries, who is apparently a womanizer, at least according to Enid. On Tuesday, she goes out with a different guy. Jessica starts to get annoyed that Liz is getting so much attention from the guys at school. She picks a fight with her after school one day and Steve gets involved. The whole thing escalates until Jessica says their parents’ breakup is all Liz’s fault because Liz gave Alice’s assistant the phone number at their cabin in Tahoe.

Liz tells Enid she’s going to run away from home. She figures either her grandparents in Michigan or her aunt and uncle in Texas will take her in. Enid tells her she’s crazy and offers to let her stay at her house. Liz agrees and writes a letter explaining that she’s staying with “a friend.” She and Enid deliver the letters to Ned and Alice. When Ned gets his, he goes to the Wakefields’ house and everyone is all frantic about where Liz could be. Enid’s phone is busy all night and nobody else has seen her. The next morning, Liz feels much better after a whole night of relaxation. She puts Enid’s phone back on the hook and waits for her mom to call. Alice comes to pick her up and the whole family sits down to talk. Liz finally gets it through her thick skull that she’s not to blame for her parents’ breakup.

Things are almost back to normal, or at least on their way to normal (I can’t tell if Ned’s moved back home or not), but Jessica wants Liz and Todd to get back together. She enlists Steve to help her. On Sunday afternoon, Jessica gets a look at what Liz is wearing and then dresses the same way. She calls Todd and tells him to meet her at Secca Lake to talk. At the lake, she tells him she wants to get back together. He says he loves her and wants that, too. Liz hears the whole thing because Steve made her take a walk with him to a spot where they could eavesdrop. Jessica pretends she needs something from her car and gets up, letting Liz take over from there.

There’s a costume party at school and Jessica is all pissed that she doesn’t have a date. She knows Amy doesn’t have a date, either, so she decides that she’ll take Fake Charlie and Amy can take Real Charlie to the party. She calls Charlie up and tells him she knows the truth and somehow manages to convince him to go to the party. Brook (Fake Charlie) is as boring as ever and is dressed as a golfer. Charlie is a pirate, Jessica is an “intergalactic princess,” and Amy is a cheerleader. That’s right, she just wears her cheerleading uniform. Jessica expects Charlie and Brook to be fighting over her all night, but it doesn’t happen and it makes her furious. (Setup for the next book:) She decides she’s going to help her father win the race for mayor so all her “friends” will be jealous when she’s the daughter of such an important person.

Quotes:

“But I need your help choosing a birthday present for my mom, remember? What am I going to do now? Her birthday’s tomorrow!”

Hey, Todd, how about you shop for your mother yourself? Jackass.

“Why should this time be any different from usual? I’m impulsive and Steven’s stubborn and only Elizabeth is perfectly reasonable.” She glared at her sister. “Why don’t you stop and listen to yourself for once? You sound so self-satisfied!”

Tell her, Jess!

True, he wasn’t classically handsome. He had a bumpy nose, he was a little too thin, and his eyes were spaced too close together, but there was something very appealing about him.

Jeez, I’d hate to see know what Jessica would think of real people who live outside Sweet Valley.

The Cover: I love the tagline. “Elizabeth is running away!” Yeah, she spends the night at Enid’s house. Hardly the dramatic act I was envisioning. This cover ranks right up there with Jessica’s runaway cover.