Shannon's Sweet Valley High Blog

The Moral of the Story: Melissa is a bigger freak than Jessica ever was.

Synopsis:

Conner and Alanna: Conner keeps calling Alanna but she’s not answering. The only thing he can think to do is ask Tia to go talk to Alanna for him. Tia is a judgmental brat so she can’t stand Alanna, but she agrees to help out. She manages to convince Alanna that everything Conner did was because he loves her, and he was only hanging out with Elizabeth because they both like to write. Then Tia goes home and tells Andy she doesn’t think Conner and Alanna should be together.

Alanna finds out from Megan that Conner is going to an AA meeting, so she goes to meet him there. They make up in the parking lot and then go into the meeting together. One of the other alcoholics starts talking about how her sponsor told her she shouldn’t start any new relationships during the first year of sobriety. Alanna starts freaking out and doesn’t want anyone at the meeting to know she and Conner are together because she doesn’t want anyone to try to tell her they shouldn’t be. She’s relieved when Conner says he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with them dating.

Alanna’s dad yells at her because she never finished writing a letter he asked her to write. Mr. Feldman tells her how irresponsible she is, and Alanna can’t believe how much pressure he’s putting on her when she’s trying to stay sober. Letter writing is, like, so hard, you guys. So Alanna calls Conner to tell him about the fight, and then gets mad at him when he doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal. She doesn’t have anyone else she can call, so she finds the number for her “interim sponsor,” Sandra.

Sandra meets Alanna for coffee, and she says Alanna shouldn’t take her father’s stupidity so personally, which is exactly what Conner said. As soon as Sandra leaves, Alanna calls Conner to apologize. He asks her if she wants him to go to an AA meeting with her, but Alanna says no because she doesn’t want Sandra to see them together and know she has a boyfriend. Sandra actually does see them together at the coffee shop later and she sends Alanna an email asking about the guy. Alanna totally freaks out and decides to avoid Sandra altogether because she doesn’t want her to know she lied about having a boyfriend.

I cannot express in words how much I can’t stand Alanna. I’m tired of reading about her.

Alanna goes to an AA meeting at the YMCA in the hopes of avoiding Sandra, but wouldn’t you know it? Sandra always goes to the Thursday night meetings at the Y. Sandra asks her who the guy at the coffee house was and Alanna comes clean and says Conner is her boyfriend. She says she was afraid Sandra would tell her she wasn’t allowed to date anyone. Sandra is very understanding.

Melissa: Aaron thanks Melissa for tutoring him and says he has a test coming up. If he does well, he’ll bring up his average and be able to stay on the basketball team. Melissa isn’t finished working on her crazy revenge plans, so she decides to make sure he passes the test, but not with a high enough grade to stay on the team. After Aaron gets the B- Melissa expected, they get together to study again. Melissa can tell Aaron wants to make out with her, so she leans in and kisses him. He pushes her away and asks her what the hell she’s doing. Melissa runs away. Ha! Total burn.

Melissa lies to Will and says Aaron tried to kiss her, and of course Will wants to go beat him up immediately. Melissa convinces him not to because she knows Aaron will tell him what actually happened. Will tells his friends at school the next day that Aaron is a big jerk, and Aaron finds him at the end of the day and says Melissa was the one who kissed him and he can prove it.

Aaron gives Melissa a note saying he wants her to meet him on the soccer field and give him a second chance. So Melissa makes herself all sexy and goes to seduce Aaron. She assures Aaron that she won’t tell Will anything this time, and then Will and Cherie comes out of their hiding places. Everyone is pretty pissed off. Melissa can’t believe everyone is so mad at her.

Andy: Andy gets a call from Dave, who tells him he won some kind of scholarship. This makes Andy feel bad about himself because all his friends are always winning awards but he never does. (Andy, you have to actually do something award-worthy to win one.) Tia tells Trent and Dave about the time Andy did open mike comedy in New York, and they all convince him to do another open mike act at the club in Big Mesa. He tries to write himself an act, but all the jokes he comes up with are about his friends. He doesn’t feel right making fun of his friends in front of an audience, so he goes up there with nothing planned and totally bombs. Some guy stops him on his way out and tells him he has talent, but he needs some decent material. Both he and Dave encourage Andy to write what he knows and just go ahead and joke about his friends.

Andy tells Dave he’s going back to give the open mike another try, but he doesn’t want anyone else to know because he’s still not sure about using his friends in his act. Dave promises not to tell anyone, but then he immediately emails Tia and tells her to round up all of Andy’s friends and get them to the comedy club. Andy has the club cracking up, and even his friends think it’s funny when he starts in on them. Only Dave gets upset and he picks a fight with Andy. What a sissy. They make up the next day and everything is fine.

Quotes:

I can’t believe it. Aaron, Cherie, and Will were all working together to make me look bad. How could they do this to me?

Do I even need to say anything about this quote?

The Cover: Alanna and Conner, I guess. That does not look like the same Conner model from the other covers. I hate his hair.

The Moral of the Story: If your best friend won’t speak to you, break your leg. As I’ve said before, everyone always makes up at the hospital.

The Big Deal: Basketball game

Synopsis:

Liz pretends to be over Conner: Conner keeps trying to call Alanna, but she’s not speaking to him because he ratted her out to her parents. Tia tells Liz she can’t hang out with her and Jeff because she plans on spending the evening making sure Conner’s okay. Liz’s heart flops around at the mention of Conner’s name, as usual, until Jeff walks in and his prettiness makes her forget all about old whats-his-name. When Tia tells Conner she wants to hang out, he says he’d rather be alone.

Liz goes to the Riot on Saturday night to watch DJ Jazzy Jeff do his thang, but she gets bored. She sees Conner at the bar and resolves to not go talk to him, but then she notices he’s about to down a glass of something that “wasn’t a soda.” She races over to the bar just in time to see him down half the glass, and then she feels like an idiot after she makes a big deal out of it and Conner tells her it was just seltzer water. Liz and Conner talk for a second, but then Jeffrey comes over looking jealous. Conner is irritated.

Melissa is a manipulative bitch: Melissa goes to Aaron Dallas’ house to help him study as part of her plan for revenge. They flirt all night, and then Melissa pumps Will for information about Aaron under the guise of trying to help Cherie get with him. She finds out Aaron likes rap, so she goes to the music store. Cherie is there because she already knows Aaron likes rap and she wants to get him a CD for his upcoming birthday. Melissa tells her all guys like classic rock, so Cherie should get Aaron a Who album just to be safe. Cherie is grateful for Melissa’s help.

Melissa goes to tutor Aaron again the day after his birthday date with Cherie, and Aaron says he didn’t really like the CD Cherie gave him. Melissa is all, “Oh, that’s too bad,” as she opens up her Discman and pulls out a rap CD. Aaron is impressed and asks Melissa to burn him a copy. Melissa has also found out that Aaron likes classic movies, so she makes sure to mention that she’s going to go rent Rear Window. Aaron is once again impressed and Melissa feels smug.

Shut up, Alanna: Alanna’s mother tells her she wants to spend Sunday with her doing mother-daughter things. Mrs. Feldman seems like she’s really trying, but Alanna has a miserable time anyway. They go to a spa and get full-body mud masks, and Alanna breaks out in hives because the mud has avocado in it and Alanna is allergic. Mrs. Feldman takes her to the hospital. A couple days later, Mrs. Feldman comes to Alanna’s room all excited because she’s gotten two tickets to see Boy Toy, some boy band Alanna hates. Alanna doesn’t tell her mom she hates boy bands, but then she’s all depressed because her mother doesn’t know her at all. I hate you, Alanna. I hate you a lot.

Liz has the world’s biggest ego: In creative writing on Monday, Conner reads one of his short stories. It’s about a musician losing his guitar, and Liz is absolutely certain it’s a metaphor that means Conner is still in love with her. Good lord, the ego is strong on this one. So now everything Jeffrey does is annoying her. Liz sits with Tia and Conner at lunch the next day, much to their surprise, and says she’s having trouble with her creative writing assignment. Conner says he can help her, so they agree to meet at House of Java the next night. All the next day, Liz can’t stop thinking about Conner and their study date, but then Jeffrey tells her Michelle Mann, Liz’s favorite author, is doing a book signing in town. Okay, if it was me, I’d for sure go see my favorite author (I’m talking to you, Stephen King) and reschedule with Conner. But Liz is an idiot and she tells Jeffrey she can’t go because she’s studying with Conner. Jeffrey doesn’t like it, but he’s placated when Liz assures him that she and Conner are just friends.

Liz and Conner get together to study again on Friday night. Liz is feeling nervous and excited and wondering how she’ll break up with Jeffrey if she and Conner get back together. Then Conner says he wants to change his guitar story and make it so the musician destroys the guitar in the end. Liz figures this means that either Conner wants her dead or the story was never about her in the first place. She feels like an idiot.

Meanwhile, Alanna is having absolutely no fun at the Boy Toy concert and she blows up at her mother in the parking lot afterward. She screams that she hates Boy Toy and just wants a mother who will listen. Mrs. Feldman fails to point out that Alanna never said anything worth listening to (such as, “I don’t like Boy Toy and don’t want to go to their concert.”), but starts crying about how she just wants to make things better between them. This somehow makes Alanna realize she wants to talk to Conner, so her mom takes her home to get her car.

Liz has apparently gotten over her mortification, and she and Conner are playing Scrabble when Alanna shows up. When Alanna sees Liz, she turns around, gets in her car and drives away. Liz is disappointed when Conner follows her. She goes home and thinks about things, and she suddenly realizes she really loves Jeff and not Conner. So am I supposed to think she’s over him now? With only seven books left in the series, now she’s finally over him? Whatever. Conner catches up to Alanna at a stop light and starts to get out of his car, but she speeds through the intersection and nearly gets hit by a truck. Conner decides he should just leave her alone if she’d rather get into a wreck than talk to him.

Trent and Jeremy renew their man-love: Trent is tired of Jeremy being mad at him, so he’s aggressively trying to win back his friendship rather than wait around for Jeremy to forgive him. Jeremy gets food poisoning one night and can’t go to work the next day, so Trent goes in his place. When Jeremy finds out, he thanks Trent but tells him it doesn’t make up for him trying to hook up with his girlfriend. Trent and Jeremy are on Big Mesa’s basketball team and Trent gets hurt during a game. He tries to play through it, but Jeremy tells the coach he thinks Trent should go to the hospital. Coach agrees, but Trent is convinced Jeremy wanted him taken out of the game for personal reasons. It isn’t until his leg is in a cast because of a hairline fracture that Trent realizes Jeremy might have been right. Out in the waiting room, Jeremy is wringing his hands and hoping Trent will forgive him for being so jerky the last few weeks. They make up. Because that’s what happens at hospitals.

Quotes:

[Conner] couldn’t believe this was what he had come to – spending Saturday afternoon brooding.

How is this different from any other Saturday for Conner?

The Cover and Title: Who’s back? Conner? WHY DO YOU CARE?

The Moral of the Story: Despite all evidence to the contrary, horrible parents really do care.

Synopsis:

Dance aftermath: Melissa is pissed and feeling sorry for herself because none of her stupid friends have called to make sure she’s all right. Alanna wasn’t supposed to go to the dance at all, and now her parents want to ship her off to a boarding school because she broke the rules. Erika ditched Will last night and he’s pretty much over her now.

Alanna is an alcoholic: Alanna doesn’t want to go to any dumb boarding school, so she uses the credit card her parents gave her and books a flight to Chicago. Her best friend, Lisa, moved there a while back, and she lets Alanna stay at her house. Meanwhile, Alanna’s parents notice she’s gone and Mrs. Feldman calls Conner demanding to know where her daughter is. Conner has no idea and the fact that she’s missing and didn’t call him worries him. He goes to all her favorite hangouts to try to find her, and finally goes to her house to tell her parents she’s not with him.

Melissa is psychotic: Will goes over to Melissa’s house to try to get back together with her since things didn’t work out with Erika and because he’s a co-dependent wuss. Melissa doesn’t let him in because she’s so pissed at him, and she doesn’t think she wants to get back together with him. But then she sees her friend Cherie’s car passing her house, so she hugs Will and tells him she’ll take him back. She knows Cherie saw them, and she figures that by the next morning it’ll be all over school that she and Will are back together and everything will go back to normal.

Cherie tells Melissa she really likes Aaron Dallas but she doesn’t know if he likes her. Melissa’s brain goes into overdrive and she comes up with some hare-brained scheme to “get back” at both Cherie and Will. She finds out Aaron needs help in English and tells him she’ll be his tutor. I imagine this will end up with them making out or something, but I guess we’ll have to wait until the next book to find out.

I’m halfway through the book and Tia hasn’t made a single appearance so I don’t know why she’s on the cover.

Ken blah blah blah: Ken’s dad actually seems to take an interest in him, and he takes Ken to a couple of the schools he applied to. He embarrasses Ken when he asks if athletes are held to the same academic standards as everyone else, and he seems displeased when he finds out they are. Ken goes to school on Monday and Mr. Nelson tells him his sophomore guidance counselor made some kind of mistake with Ken’s classes, and now he doesn’t meet the math requirements to get into any of the schools he applied to. Ken feels sorry for himself and decides he’s too stupid for a big fancy school anyway. I’ll second that.

Blah blah Ken mopes about college blah blah. His father apologizes to him for riding him so hard all year and tries to convince him he really does think Ken is smart enough to get into a college based on grades rather than football. I could not possibly care less about Ken or his stupid dad.

Tia is a nosy bitch: Conner’s freaking out a little by Monday afternoon, and he tells Tia he’s not going to his guitar lesson because Alanna is missing. Tia goes crazy, talking about how he needs to prepare for his future. Conner has an audition on Wednesday for some awesome music school, and I guess Tia thinks missing this one practice is going to prevent him from getting in. She’s not letting that happen on her watch. Man, she’s getting to be as bad as Liz.

Conner remembers Alanna mentioning her friend who moved to Chicago, so he calls another of her friends, gets Lisa’s number and gives her a call. Lisa says she can neither confirm nor deny Alanna’s presence in Chicago, so Conner figures that’s where she is. He tells Andy what’s going on and asks him for enough money for a plane ticket, and then gets pissed when Andy says he doesn’t think it’s a good idea for Conner to miss his audition, and besides, he doesn’t have that kind of cash.

Tia tells Conner that if he goes to his audition, she’ll get him to Chicago. The audition goes just fine and then Tia drives Conner to the Feldmans’ house, despite his protests. The Feldmans start bickering with Conner and Tia calms them all down and says the three of them should fly out to Chicago together because Conner is probably the only one Alanna will talk to. So they all go to Chicago and Conner goes to the homeless shelter to get Alanna and bring her to the hotel. As soon as she sees her parents, she starts freaking out and yelling at Conner about his betrayal. She starts to settle down a little when she realizes her parents are in tears and are really just glad she’s safe.

Quotes:

He knew Andy must have a savings account, or a college fund, or something his parents had probably started for him years ago. And if he really wanted to, he could get the money. Conner was sure of it.

And Andy should just give you money out of his alleged college fund just because you asked him to?

The Cover and Title: So this is the larger version of that other cover. I still don’t get why she’s even on the damned cover, considering she’s barely in this book. And I guess the title means she’s never going to give up on Conner? I thought it meant she was going to try to get him back, so at least that stupidity didn’t happen.

The Moral of the Story: Any excuse for a dance, right?

The Big Deal: President’s Day dance

Synopsis:

Melissa is a manipulative bitch: Melissa is totally pissed that Will kissed another girl, but she figures he can make it up to her and then things will be back to normal. So she goes to school all ready to listen to his groveling, and she’s thoroughly confused when Will never shows up at her locker. She finally sees him near the end of the day and he tells her he thinks they should break up. The cheerleaders have to organize a President’s Day dance (don’t ask), and Melissa is determined that she and Will are back together before the dance can happen, and that way she won’t have to go dateless and nobody will ever know about the breakup.

Melissa and Jessica are both assigned to work on music for the dance, and neither one of them is happy about it. Melissa is so depressed about Will that she just tells Jessica to do all the work herself. Jessica makes some crappy flyers to let everyone know she’s looking for a band (aw, I guess the Droids broke up or are no longer the go-to band for dances), and then gets pissed when Melissa says she sent a mass email to the students telling them when their bands could audition. Jessica thinks the best way to get back at Melissa (for what, actually helping?) is to overwhelm her with work. So she gets Jeremy to put up flyers at Big Mesa and Steven to put up flyers at the university.

Audition time rolls around and Jessica the genius has a headache from listening to so many terrible bands. She really didn’t think this one through. A couple of girls are gossiping outside the auditorium, and Jessica hears them say Will dumped Melissa after he made out with Erika Brooks. Melissa freaks out and leaves, and Jessica actually feels bad for her. Why? Some guy named Ronald comes up to Jessica and gives her a CD. Ronald and Jessica apparently shared a locker back in eighth grade and now he’s a DJ. He offers to work at the dance for a sweetly discounted price. Jessica hires him.

After a weird pep talk from her mother (“remind Will of what he’s missing”), Melissa decides to go snag a college boy toy. She puts on a black leather miniskirt, heads out to the SVU campus and crashes the first party she can find. She starts flirting with a good looking guy, but backs off when he introduces himself as Steve Wakefield. She finds what seems to be the most lecherous guy in the room, Kel, and makes vaguely sexy promises to show him a good time if he’ll go with her to the SVH dance. Kel, apparently willing to go to considerable lengths for jailbait, agrees.

Andy and Dave are gay: Dave’s father has been avoiding him since Dave announced he’s gay, but his mom is really cool. Dave tells her about Andy, and Ms. Niles insists on taking the two of them to dinner so she can meet him. Andy sweeps her off her feet and the three of them have a lovely time together, so Andy thinks everything is awesome now. He can’t believe it when Dave doesn’t want to go to the dance with him.

At the dance: Andy is overjoyed when Dave shows up after all. Alanna kind of freaks out a little when she realizes someone has spiked the punch, but she manages not to drink any. Melissa, on the other hand, gets totally sloshed and Will is sickened because she’s letting Kel put his hands all over her. Will is having a bad time anyway because Erika is pretty much ignoring him, and the night just gets worse when he and Melissa are voted as President and First Lady (because it’s a President’s Day dance, of course). Melissa gets angry about this for some reason and makes a huge scene. She tells Will that she and Kel are leaving to have some “real fun.”

After they leave, Ronald the DJ tells Jessica that Kel is a total perv whose dad has a lot of money so “charges against him tend to get dropped.” Kel apparently did something to one of Ronald’s friends, and he’s worried something bad is going to happen to Melissa. Jessica finds them in the parking lot. She can tell Melissa doesn’t really want to be anywhere near Kel, so she makes something up about Melissa needing to come back inside. Kel starts to get fresh, but Jeremy and Trent come out as backup. Kel leaves and Jeremy and Jessica take Melissa home. Jessica thinks Melissa is asleep in the backseat and she tells Jeremy she was really looking forward to the dance because it would have been their first dance together. Melissa hears this and leaves a CD in the car for Jessica and Jeremy to listen to. They pop it in and dance around in Melissa’s driveway. I think. I kind of stopped paying attention toward the end there.

Quotes:

Mrs. Fox: It’s very simple, Melissa. All you have to do is remind Will of what he’s missing.

Melissa: You think I should just prance around in some hot outfit and flirt with other guys until Will starts paying attention again?

Mrs. Fox: That is precisely what I think.

Well, at least we know Melissa comes by her crazy honestly. It clearly runs in the family.

The Cover: I think I’d look pretty bitchy too if I had a Wakefield giving me pitying looks all the time.