The Moral of the Story:

The Big Deal: Big basketball tournament

Synopsis:

In the prologue, the SVH cheerleading squad is tied up in somebody’s basement, which is filling with water while “Free Bird” plays on a radio upstairs. Oh boy. I can’t wait to see how this happened…

One day, Liz is called to the principal’s office after school. Mr. Cooper introduces her to Diane and Brad, a writer and photographer from Scoop magazine. They’re in Sweet Valley because they’re going to write an article about “The Girls of Seventy-Six.” The “Girls” are the SVH cheerleading squad of 1976, who did nothing more extraordinary than win the state competition that year. Diane happened to be on that squad, but I still can’t imagine why a national magazine would care about it. Anyway, the article is a “where are they now?” kind of thing, and Mr. Cooper has offered Liz up as a research assistant. In exchange, she’ll get a credit in the magazine.

Liz leaves for the library to start her research right away. Brad follows her and obnoxiously starts flirting and asking her where da party at. He’s confused and thinks Liz is the cheerleader who was just showing off for him on the football field. Just so you’re aware, Brad is the best looking guy we’ve ever seen. Liz gets rid of him. In the library, she tells Ms. Swanson, the new shy library assistant, all about the article. We can assume Ms. Swanson mysteriously has something to do with the Girls of Seventy-Six because she wears hippie clothes, says things like “far out,” listens to classic rock and has a bad reaction to Liz’s talk about the article.

Jessica and her cheerleaders are all upset because the school board just made a rule that all school activities must now have a faculty adviser. Finally! They can’t think of anyone who would still let them do sexy moves and wear skimpy outfits and this pains them. Liz suggests Ms. Swanson. Jessica thinks that’s a great idea because she figures she’ll be too shy to tell the cheerleaders what to do. At her very first practice, Ms. Swanson starts to get weird when she confuses the cheerleaders with the Girls of Seventy-Six. Meanwhile, Liz finds out there was another girl on the ’76 squad who dropped out because she had some kind of weird disease. Of course, nobody remembers her name, but I’ll bet you anything it’s Nancy Swanson. Anyway, all this research is taking up too much of Liz’s time and Todd gets pissy like he always does and they have a big fight.

Amy and Jade don’t show up for cheerleading practice on Friday, but Nancy tells the rest of the squad that she sent them up the coast to pick up the new uniforms. Later that night, Nancy sits in her beanbag chair listening to her Doobie Brothers records loud enough to drown out the noises coming from her basement. She remembers being seventeen and suddenly having this unnamed mysterious disease that makes her twitch and stuff. The other girls kicked her off the cheerleading squad and one of them Loretta, stole her boyfriend, George. So I guess it all traumatized her so bad that she wants to punish the current cheerleaders. Whatever. I mean, that’s pretty shitty, but don’t be a crazed maniac because of it. The next day, she kidnaps Heather and throws her in the basement with Amy and Jade. Amy’s and Heather’s mothers both call Jessica to find out if she knows where their daughters might be, but Jessica is too wrapped up in her dates with Brad to concern herself with such things.

Liz accompanies Diane and Brad to Gina Bari’s house. Gina’s sister is Loretta, the captain of the ’76 squad. She tells our gang that Loretta died shortly after graduation, but that she was never the same after “the accident.” Apparently, Loretta and George were driving around when George grabbed the wheel and steered the car off a bridge. George died instantly, and later there was some mysterious ugly girl whose name nobody can remember on Loretta’s front lawn screaming at Loretta for killing her boyfriend. The September after she took her squad to nationals, Loretta got drunk and drowned in the quarry. The story gives Liz flashbacks to the accident that killed Sam. She’s all sad and stuff and decides to stop being mad at Todd because she needs him. Todd hangs up on her when she calls. Ha! But damn, they make up the next day.

On Sunday, Annie and Jessica meet at the mall and realize all the other cheerleaders are missing except Lila. Then Jessica goes home and gets pissed that Lila isn’t there like she said she’d be. *facepalm* Jessica is about to get ready for a date with Brad when a car pulls up outside. Lila’s at the wheel and Annie’s in the backseat. Nancy is in the passenger seat and she tells Jessica to hop in so they can talk. Jessica says she has to be somewhere else, but Nancy pulls out a gun and tells her she’d better just go ahead and get in the fucking car.

So now we’ve caught up to the prologue. The cheerleaders are in the basement and “Free Bird” is playing upstairs while water pours out of a pipe. For some reason, when none of the cheerleaders come home Sunday night, all their parents come to the conclusion that they’re at Maria’s house having a big party because her parents are out of town. Nobody goes over there or anything, but they take the fact that nobody is answering the phone there as proof of this party. Then, when all the cheerleaders skip school on Monday, everyone thinks they’re just a bunch of wild and crazy gals. Nobody worries.

Jessica manages to get herself untied and she unties everyone else. They all gather at the top of the stairs near the apparently watertight door, but the water level is still rising. Liz shows up because she had a flash of brilliance and deduced that Nancy was the missing cheerleader from 1976 and she wants to talk to her for the article. When she gets there, all that happens is that she gets thrown into the basement with the others. Well done.

Since Nancy seems to be living in the past and keeps calling the cheerleaders by the names of the girls on the ’76 squad, Liz comes up with the idea of going along with it and pretending they want Nancy on the squad. The plan gets Amy’s Project-Youth-volunteer seal of approval, so they all start chanting some cheer and then yelling for Nancy to join them. Finally, Nancy opens the door and the water rushes out and knocks her over. The cheerleaders go free and Nancy gets arrested. Hooray!

I guess that’ll show the school board what happens when you try to impose a little adult supervision over the cheerleaders.

Quotes:

“Cowabunga! Brad is looking better and better every minute!”

Did anyone besides Ninja Turtles ever actually say “cowabunga?” Especially as late as October of 1997?

“Why can’t he cut me a little slack now and then when I’m working on a writing project that matters to me? He does this every single time!”

He really does. Maybe it’s time to BREAK UP!!

The Cover: Very compelling picture, I guess. But not really what happened in the book.

The Moral of the Story: If you have a sad enough story, you’re allowed to be a criminal and escape punishment.

The Big Deal: We’re still in France.

Synopsis:

The royal children come down to the dungeon, tie up the guard and unlock the door so the twins can escape. Jessica thinks they should stick around because running away will make them look guilty, but Liz says that without Jacques, they have no proof of their innocence. They take off for town in search of Jacques, but they turn around when Liz realizes she just has to see Laurent one more time. The children meet them outside the castle and one of them goes to get Laurent. He and Liz have a passionate embrace or two and then the horrible countess comes outside and starts yelling at the twins. Jessica tears Liz out of Laurent’s arms and they go running into the woods. After a while, Liz twists her ankle. Jessica builds a shelter out of tree branches and the twins go to sleep.

Later that night, Jacques gets the feeling that Jessica is in trouble. He really loves her, so he steals a horse and goes riding around trying to find her. He runs into Laurent, who is also out searching for the twins. Jacques offers to help, but he doesn’t want Laurent around if he finds the twins, so he sends him back to the castle, saying he’ll contact him in three hours. Laurent talks to his parents, who tell him they can get the countess not to prosecute the twins if Laurent promises to marry Antonia. Laurent agrees. Jacques finds the twins looking for him in town. They yell and scream at him at first, but then he tells him his whole sad story about how his mother died. Jessica cries and gives him a big hug and even Liz feels bad for him. They ask if he has the diamond necklace and he says he has to go get it from his father and he’ll be right back. He comes back with a note from his father that says he took the necklace. Jacques decides to sacrifice himself for Jessica, so he goes back to the castle with them. They get there just as Laurent is announcing his betrothal to Antonia. Jacques goes to the podium and tells everyone he’s the one who really stole the countess’s jewels. The guards take him away and throw him in the dungeon. Jessica tries to break him out, but fails epically.

Laurent decides he absolutely will not marry Antonia. The countess is pissed. She goes to Liz and tells her there will be an “international incident” if Laurent and Antonia don’t hook up, and that will only happen if Liz gets out of Dodge. Liz freaks out, and without even sparing a thought for Jessica, she packs her bags and takes off for the train station. One of the kids, Pierre, overhears all of this and he goes to tell Laurent. Laurent gets on his trusty steed and gallops away. He gets to the train just as it starts moving, so he’s able to be all dashing and jump onto the train and order the driver to stop. He sweeps Liz off her feet and asks her to marry him. She’s a little overwhelmed at this point and can only stutter, so he tells her to give him an answer later. For now, he’ll just go ahead and take her back to the castle.

That night, Laurent wakes up to find a stranger in his room. The man introduces himself as Jacques’ father. He tells Laurent the same sad story Jacques told the twins: his seamstress wife died because her rich customers wouldn’t help pay for her medicines, so he’s been stealing from rich people ever since. Laurent is just as touched by this story as the twins were, and he gives Louis some money and tells him how to break Jacques out of the dungeon. Seriously? I mean, yeah, that’s a sad story, but dude. The guy’s an international jewel thief.

So, in the end, Jacques and his father go free, Liz tells Laurent she can’t marry him, and then she goes home and makes out with Todd. Dammit, I hoped they were really broken up this time.

Quotes:

“Come on,” Elizabeth grumbled. “Let’s find Jacques and get this thing straightened out so I can take a bath and change clothes. I feel totally grungy.”

You’ve escaped from a dungeon and you’re now hiding in the woods. Is your hygiene really the most important issue here?

“You must swear on your sister’s life, Jessica,” he insisted.

He’s so sexy when he’s intense like this, Jessica thought, her heart thumping.

Yeah, my sister’s mortality always whips me into a frenzy.

The Cover: Whenever I look at this cover, all I can think of is These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The Moral of the Story: If you’re an American in France, you’ll get locked in a dungeon.

The Big Deal: A royal ball

Synopsis:

Jessica is happy that Jacques has come to see her and she can’t wait to let the duke of Norveaux parade her around as his girlfriend. She seems to have forgotten that the housekeeper told her that Norveaux doesn’t actually exist. Jacques dashes her hopes when he says he can’t be seen in the castle. He makes up some story about a feud between his family and the de Saint-Maries. Jessica buys it. Jacques continues to sneak over to the castle on a daily basis, and every day he tries to get into Jessica’s room. Jessica leaves for a minute and when she comes back, she finds Jacques rummaging around her pile of dirty clothes. He tells her he’s folding her clothes to show her he’s a modern man. Jessica buys it. Another time, he asks Jessica to give her back the “fake” emerald he gave her on the train. He says she deserves a real gem and he can’t bear the thought of her wearing a fake. Jessica buys it, but keeps the emerald. Another time, he starts choking and coughing and begging for water. Jessica buys it and leaves to get him a glass of water. As soon as she closes the door, Jacques stops coughing. She peeks into the room and sees him pocketing her jewelry case. They wrestle for it and Jacques even gives her a pearl bracelet to replace the emerald, but Jessica insists on keeping it. She doesn’t know that Jacques and his father are thieves who promised the emerald to a client. When Jacques tells her she only wants to keep it because she’s ignorant, it finally pisses Jessica off enough that she tells him she never wants to see him again.

Liz is having the time of her life with Prince Laurent. Then one day, Laurent’s parents tell him he needs to announce his decision to marry Antonia, the horrible countess’s daughter. Laurent wants nothing to do with her and tells his parents he’s in love with the au pair. They are, of course, scandalized. Laurent doesn’t contact Liz for a whole day and Liz gets freaked out. She goes out to the cottage to see him, but he’s all cold and distant. She storms off in a huff. Laurent comes to see her the next night and tells her he loves her. They make out.

A diamond necklace goes missing from Antonia’s room and the countess is sure one of the servants took it. The twins convince themselves the countess stole it herself for the insurance money. They go searching in countess’s suite, but find nothing. That’s because Jacques took the necklace and gave it to his father to sell.

Liz overhears some servants talking about Prince Laurent announcing his engagement at the upcoming ball. Because the world revolves around her, she misunderstands their meaning and assumes Prince Laurent is going to announce his marriage to her. She immediately runs upstairs to her room so she can write in her journal. She works herself into a frenzy before deciding she should just go to Laurent’s cottage and talk to him. When she gets there, she finds Laurent in the garden, holding hands with Antonia and having a chat with the countess. Liz goes off on him for not having told her about his engagement. She runs back to the castle and sobs in Jessica’s arms.

The twins get to go to the ball that night because they will be performing a tableau with the children. Jessica decides to wear the damned emerald to the ball. When the countess sees it, she freaks out. After the tableau, the twins go to their rooms to change into their ball gowns. The countess brings a couple guards up to the servant quarters and has them throw the twins in the dungeon. Jessica finally realizes Jacques is a thief.

Quotes:

“Maybe I should wear more makeup,” [Elizabeth] whispered, turning her head from side to side to study the various angles of her face. “How would I look with a more dramatic style, like Jessica’s?”

You’d probably look like Jessica.

“This bracelet is totally awesome.”

I think it’s at this point in time that the ghostwriters discovered the word “awesome.” It seems to appear at least once in every chapter of this book.

I might be left in this medieval dungeon to die…because of Jacques Landeau!

Yeah, Jessica seems to be under the impression that she’s locked in this dungeon and nobody will ever find her.

The Cover: Blond twins shackled to each other in a dungeon. Giggity. (Ew, I just grossed myself out.)

The Moral of the Story:

The Big Deal: Going away party for the twins at Lila’s, big trip to France

Synopsis:

The school year has ended and the twins are off to France to be au pairs for the summer. They’ll be watching the kids of some royal couple, the de Saint-Maries. The night before they leave, Lila throws a big bon voyage bash. Jessica is bored and anxious to just be in France already. Liz isn’t looking forward to being away from Todd for a month and she pulls him away from the party for some alone time. Todd tells her he wants them to see other people for the summer. Liz, who prefers cheating to breaking up, is totally pissed and leaves the party in tears.

The twins arrive in France and get on a train. On what turns out to be the longest train ride ever, Liz sulks while Jessica talks to a cute guy, Jacques, and his father, Louis. Jacques claims his father is the duke of Norveaux, and Jessica is suitably impressed. By the time the men get off the train, Jacques and Jessica are in love and making out. Jacques gives her a huge emerald before he leaves, and promises to come visit her at the de Saint-Maries’ castle. A little while later, a countess on the train starts screaming that one of her gems is missing. The countess is horrible and mean and thinks the twins are scum because they’re not royalty. Unfortunately, the countess and her daughter are also going to be spending the summer with the de Saint-Maries.

The twins’ first day on the job, little Pierre runs into the hedge maze and Liz goes after him. She gets lost for a while, but finally finds the kid peeking through the hedges at Prince Laurent, his half-brother, who is having a little fencing practice in front of a cottage. Prince Laurent de Saint-Marie is eighteen years old and he dreams of meeting a beautiful blond girl with blue eyes and a heart of gold. How convenient. Liz checks him out through the hedges, then Pierre leads her out of the maze. Liz yells at Jessica for letting Pierre run off and the twins start shouting at each other in front of everyone. They decide they can’t work together anymore, so they split the days into shifts so only one of them is with the children at a time.

A letter from Todd comes for Liz, but Jessica burns it before Liz can see it. Damn, I really wanted to know what he had to say for himself. Then Jessica talks to Anna, another servant, and asks what she knows about the duke of Norveaux. Anna says there’s no such thing and Jessica is disillusioned. She can’t believe some guy she didn’t even know would lie to her.

Liz goes to take a walk before dinner one day and gets lost in the hedge maze again. Idiot. It starts to rain and by the time she finds the cottage on the other side, she’s totally soaked and freezing. Prince Laurent lets her in and they spend the entire night talking. When Liz gets back to the castle the next morning, Jessica is so happy to see her that she declares their fight over. Until the next week when Liz skips out on baby-sitting duties to go horseback riding with Laurent. The prince takes her to some romantic spot and tells her he had a dream about her before they met. Liz thinks that’s totally cool because she’d had a dream about him on the plane ride over. They make out.

Back at the castle, Jessica puts the kids to bed and goes up to the tiny attic bedroom she’s disappointed to call her own. Someone grabs her and puts a hand over her mouth. She struggles and squirms, but then a “sexy voice” tells her to be still. She turns around and is overjoyed to see Jacques. She thinks it’s a little weird that he lied about being a duke’s son, and that he sneaked into the castle like a creeper, and that he was going through her bureau, but she makes out with him anyway.

Quotes:

“I just can’t wait to get out of Sweet Valley,” Jessica explained. “I feel like I’ve been dancing with the same ten cute guys my whole life.”

And I feel like I’ve been reading about it my whole life.

Jessica had traveled in the past, and she had even spent some time in England as an intern at the London Times. But still, it seemed strange to be in the midst of a non-English-speaking crowd.

This whole book, the twins act like they’ve never been to France before.

Jessica frowned. She had hoped they would eat with the royal family at the regal dinner table that they had passed.

Why would you assume something like that? You’re the baby-sitter.

“I was dating a guy named Cameron, but it didn’t work out.”

Just in case you were wondering about the relationship Jessica spent the last three books desperately pursuing, it “fizzled out” because Cameron had to travel on business all the time.

The Cover: Jessica, take off that stupid beret and the dumb scarf. You are not really French and your shoes are totally wrong for that outfit. Liz, you just keep on rockin’ your barrettes and floral luggage.

The Moral of the Story: Working for a fashion magazine will make you crazy.

The Big Deal: Dinner party

Synopsis:

Enid and black Maria decide their lives just aren’t worth living if Liz isn’t their friend, so they decide it’s time to make up. When Liz tells them what Leona’s done, they offer to help get back at her. They, along with Reggie from the office, come up with a super awesome plan. This plan includes Enid and Maria coming to the Flair office for no apparent reason while Liz calls Gordon Lewis, head of the company, to say she has an idea she’d like to discuss with him. Gordon says he’ll stop by her office the next morning. Liz tells him she works in Leona’s office, and then freaks out about making Leona’s office look like it belongs to Liz. Even though Liz has her very own office just down the hall. Whatever. This is stupid.

Jessica goes out to some awesome nightclub with Quentin and has a terrible time. Quentin doesn’t want to dance because the dance floor is too crowded, and he refuses an invitation to party with Eddie Rook, a rock star who happens to be hanging out at the club. Jessica goes outside and walks a couple of blocks. Then she sees someone who looks just like Cameron leaving a fancy restaurant and getting into a Porsche. Jessica figures it’s just lovesickness making her see Cameron. She decides to make him fall in love with her again, so at lunchtime on Monday she goes to the mailroom with a “gourmet lunch” for him. The guy working there says Cameron quit.

Liz finds out about some party Gordon Lewis will be attending, so she and her posse decide to crash it. Furthermore, they decide to go to Leona’s to “borrow” some of her clothes. When they get to the party, Liz stays out of site while Maria and Reggie talk about her in front of Gordon and make her out to be some really important person in the fashion industry. By the time Gordon meets Liz the next morning, he thinks she’s just the greatest thing ever. He loves her idea and wants her to present it to the board that afternoon.

Todd moves into a really crappy apartment. He’s sure he’ll get more modeling jobs and be able to afford something really spectacular any day now. He invites his parents and Simone over for dinner and then, of course, burns the roast he was trying to make. He serves macaroni and toast, Simone is a bitch, his parents try to be supportive and blah, blah, blah. Who cares?

Things are going swimmingly for Liz and Reggie at the board meeting until Leona comes hobbling in on her crutches. She starts yelling that Liz is only an intern who stole her idea. Liz is fired on the spot. This doesn’t really matter because suddenly it’s Friday and the internship is over anyway, but Liz is distraught. Enid, Maria, Jessica, Lila and Amy all rally around her that night, clucking about how bad they feel for her. Then Leona has the nerve to call Liz and invite her to lunch the next day to apologize. She gives her directions to some restaurant up the coast. Liz plans to bring a tape recorder and trick Leona into confessing to stealing Liz’s idea.

The next day, Leona’s directions take Liz along a road at the top of a cliff. Out of nowhere, some jackass in a pickup truck starts bumping the Jeep. Liz almost goes off the road, but then who should show up but Todd the Great. He was driving around Sweet Valley earlier when he saw Liz in the Jeep and decided to follow her. So now he gets behind Liz, edging out the pickup. Liz and Todd pull over and the jackass drives away. Liz is grateful, but not so grateful that she forgets she hates Todd right now. She decides to forget Leona and go home. Todd goes to the police station and gives the cop the pickup’s license number and a description of the jackass. The cops say the jackass is a freelance thug. They suspect someone hired him to hurt Liz.

The cops find the guy the next day and arrest him, and he says Leona Pierson hired him. Over a fucking magazine article. Jesus. Meanwhile, Liz is at Flair with her tape recorder, determined to get Leona’s confession once and for all. But Leona pulls a gun on her and gives an Evil Villain speech about how important her career is and how Liz doesn’t know anything about getting ahead in life. This bitch is insane. The cops show up and arrest her. That night, Todd pulls a Say Anything, playing the Jamie Peters song that was on when he and Liz first “pledged their love to each other.” Then he climbs up to Liz’s window and they make out for a while. Oh, Todd moves back home at some point, of course.

Jessica is pissed because Quentin decided not to use her photos in the magazine. A week after the internship is over, she gets a package in the mail containing the “blue pages” for the upcoming issue. Turns out Jessica’s going to be in the magazine after all. There’s a letter attached, an invitation to a dinner party at the home of Edward McGee, the owner of the corporation that owns Flair. Jessica thinks that’s kind of weird, but is more than happy to show up. When she gets there, Mr. McGee leaves the room to get his son, who turns out to be Cameron. Cameron is the new vice president of Flair and he wanted to get a feel for the company by starting at the bottom, in the mail room. Even though Jessica was the one whoring herself out for the chance to be a model, Cameron is the one who apologizes. They end up making out all night.

Quotes:

Ken ambled over to the table and sat down in one of the plastic chairs. “So Todd, now that you’re busy with Simone, would you mind if I asked Elizabeth out?”

Okay, so he’s joking. But dude, that’s not even a little funny.

Todd desperately wanted this dinner to turn out perfect. He’d invited his parents and Simone and was eager to prove to all three that he could make it on his own.

Listen, Todd. Simone doesn’t care whether or not you can make it on your own, and your parents know you can’t. Just give it up.

The Cover: Liz looks pretty cute, but this doesn’t seem to correlate to anything that actually happened in the book.

The Moral of the Story: If you’re a dumb jock, modeling can ruin your life. If you’re a Wakefield, modeling is the inevitable next stop on your path to stardom.

The Big Deal: Not much happening.

Synopsis:

Liz just caught Todd and Simone the supermodel making out. She runs away and hides in a closet or something, but Todd finds her. She tells him to fuck off and he gets all indignant and stomps away and then goes out with Simone that night. They dance at a nightclub until the wee hours, and Todd gets his picture in Los Angeles Living the next morning. His parents are not amused. Todd’s grounded. Ha.

When Todd gets to the Flair office the next day, he brings some flowers up to Liz’s floor. The receptionist buzzes her, and a second later Liz’s voice comes over the intercom, saying she never wants to see Todd again. Todd is humiliated, but Liz doesn’t care. She saw the picture of him dancing with Simone and she’s pretty upset about it. She’s decided to totally throw herself into her work and become just like Leona, her supervisor who has suddenly turned into a bitch in this book. Liz still likes her, but you and I can tell she’s a condescending and power hungry jerk.

Jessica is supposed to go out with both Quentin and Cameron on Friday night. She would much rather go out with Cameron because she really likes him, but he’s just a lowly mail clerk and can’t do a thing to further Jessica’s career. She doesn’t want to cancel on either guy, so she gets Liz to help her out. They decide to do exactly the same thing they did in Who’s Who? Hooray for recycled plot lines. Liz takes Cameron first and is surprised to find she actually gets along with him. She’s also surprised that someone who works in the mailroom is so comfortable at Chez Paul, the super fancy restaurant at which Jessica insisted on dining because that was where Quentin was taking her. The twins switch places a couple times during dinner. As you might have expected, Quentin is full of himself and no fun at all. At the end of the night, Cameron kisses Liz on the cheek and thanks her for a lovely evening. He calls her Elizabeth, and Liz realizes it was her watch that gave her away. Because people the world over know about the Wakefield twins and their issues with watches.

Leona calls Liz at home over the weekend and says she won’t be in Monday. She’s going out of town with her boyfriend and she wants Liz to take care of things. Liz does a fine job at the office, but then Leona calls again and says she broke her leg and won’t be able to get around for a few days. She wants Liz to go to her house and feed her cats and shit. Liz is in awe of Leona’s closet full of clothes. She gets really creepy and puts on one of Leona’s outfits and then walks around her condo pretending she’s Leona. Weird. Liz finds a tape recorder full of Leona’s notes-to-self. The tape contains dictation for a letter Leona wants to write to Gordon Lewis, Flair’s president or something. The letter makes it clear that Leona wants to steal Liz’s “Free Style” idea and pass it off as her own. Liz is so traumatized that she goes home and becomes almost catatonic. She stays in bed the next morning and doesn’t get up until Reggie, one of the girls from the office, calls and asks her what’s wrong. Reggie convinces Liz to meet her for lunch. Liz tells her everything, and they decide to go to Gordon Lewis themselves and tell him what a horrible person Leona is.

Jessica exposes some film, ruining an entire set of Simone photos. Simone has already left for the day, so Quentin has no choice but to use Jessica as his model. Just so you know, none of this makes any sense. Is Simone the only model who is ever in this magazine? Do Francine and her ghostwriters really think that a photographer and his model just show up at the magazine office every morning, take pictures until five o’clock and then go home? Whatever. Quentin tells Jessica the board loves her pictures and has given the go ahead to use her again if he wants to. Then he tries to kiss her. And wouldn’t you know it, Cameron chooses that moment to walk by. After the fiasco with dinner on Friday, Jessica managed to convince him she doesn’t really like Quentin, but now Cameron tells her she’s out of chances.

While all this has been going on, Todd’s been getting too big for his britches. He doesn’t appreciate being grounded, and when Simone says he’s too old to listen to his parents, Todd agrees to meet her at another club. He gets caught again. He really sucks at breaking rules. Then he misses dinner one night and his parents tell him he needs to stop modeling because they don’t like what it’s doing to him. Todd decides he doesn’t like their rules so he’s just gonna go ahead and move out of their house. Oh man, I can’t wait to see how this turns out.

Quotes:

Elizabeth scowled, feeling like a nobody, a nothing. She felt like her entire self had been made worthless. She could change her interests, but she couldn’t change her looks. She’d never be six feet tall. She’d never look like a supermodel.

Oh, cry me a river. Aren’t you one of those twins with golden hair and a perfect size six figure?

Ever since her obsession with Jonathan Cain, a deranged transfer student who had been at Sweet Valley for a month, [Enid’s] life had been entirely guyless.

Oh, now don’t even try to act like he was just some psycho. You know he was really a vampire.

The Cover: Jessica looks pretty creepy in her weird ugly shoes. This photographer guy looks like he’s about twelve. And why is he just holding that rinky dink camera like that? This is such a stupid cover.

The Moral of the Story:

The Big Deal: New York City! Woohoo!

Synopsis:

There’s been an earthquake in Sweet Valley (don’t worry, no refrigerators have fallen on anyone) and the school is going to be closed for a week while the roof is repaired. Lila will be spending the week in New York City and she’s invited Jessica to come along. Lila somehow misses the flight, so Jessica goes alone. She ends up sitting next to Ryder Mitchell, a teen rock star. During the course of the plane ride, Ryder and Jessica fall in love. Of course they do. The plane has to land in New Orleans because of some sort of mechanical difficulties, and Jessica and Ryder go out on the town. Ryder tells Jessica his manager is making him go to New York to announce his engagement to Deirdra La Monde, some other teen sensation. Ryder has only met the chick once and doesn’t even hardly like her, and now that he’s met Jessica he’s decided to call the whole thing off. When they get to New York, Ryder tells Jessica to give him a couple days to let things blow over, and he’ll meet her on Valentine’s Day at the top of the Empire State Building.

Because of Jessica’s plane troubles, Lila gets to the Plaza Hotel first. When she walks in, she’s a little surprised to have a bunch of photographers take her picture, but she really doesn’t think anything of it and chalks it up to people knowing how important she really is. Man, I love Lila, ego and all. The hotel staff keeps calling her “princess” and they give her the penthouse suite. She thinks this is all just as it should be, but she can’t figure out why the desk staff can’t get her messages right. She goes to the hotel restaurant to have dinner and is shocked to see Bo there. He flew in to New York to surprise her, but he’s upset that she blew him off that morning. Lila has no idea what he’s talking about until the next morning when she goes downstairs to the lobby and sees Bo being threatened by a bunch of bodyguards. The bodyguards are surrounding a girl who looks just like Lila. Lila looks at a newspaper and sees a picture of herself arriving at the hotel, but the article is about Princess Charlotte from some nonsense country.

When Jessica arrives, she, Lila and Bo take full advantage of the mix-up. They get excellent treatment everywhere they go. Meanwhile, the real Princess is also taking advantage of this opportunity to hang out in New York without anybody bothering her. She meets a guy named Allan and they work at a soup kitchen together. Hmm, she sounds an awful lot like Princess Eliana. All princesses really have hearts of gold and all they really want is to work in soup kitchens.

On Valentine’s Day, Jessica and Lila spend all day getting ready for their dates and then hop into a cab. The cab is unfortunately being driven by a couple of bad guys who think they’ve kidnapped Princess Charlotte. Bo knows something is wrong when Lila doesn’t show for their date, but the police just think he’s been stood up. Bo, rich as he is, decides to call a television station and buy some ad time. Ryder is in his hotel room feeling sorry for himself when he sees Jessica’s face on TV. He learns that she’s missing and calls the number on the television. Bo tells him to come on over to his hotel room.

The bad guys, Vincent and Mr. G, finally figure out they fucked up and Lila’s not really a princess. They’re all set to kill the girls when Lila tells them she’s the daughter of a wealthy man. The bad guys can’t get a hold of Mr. or Mrs. Fowler, so they think Lila’s lying. Lila tells them about Bo and says he’d pay anything to get her and Jessica back. So they call Bo’s hotel room and tell him to bring a million dollars to Yankee stadium.

Jessica and Lila manage to get themselves untied and then lock the kidnappers in the room. They escape the stadium in the bad guys’ cab, and just miss Bo and Ryder coming in. The boys find the room the kidnappers are locked in, go inside and get clubbed over the head and locked in. Ugh, this is annoying. Jessica and Lila, instead of calling the police, go back to their hotel. Bo isn’t in his room and they run around searching for him. Lila runs into Princess Charlotte. The princess, grateful to Lila for inadvertently giving her a few days of freedom, listens to the girls’ story about their kidnapping and how they now think their boyfriends are being held prisoner. Charlotte sends her very own bodyguards to the stadium and they burst into the storage room just as Vincent and Mr. G are about to kill Ryder and Bo.

A day or two later, Ryder puts on a spontaneous concert at the Empire State Building. Jessica gets to kiss him on stage. It’s all very exciting.

Quotes:

The moment Lila stepped onto the red carpet in front of the hotel, the cameras of dozens of paparazzi started flashing…Lila tossed back her brown hair and waved regally, gracing the photographers with a dazzling smile. This is the kind of welcome I deserve! she thought.

I absolutely love that this is Lila’s reaction to unexpected paparazzi.

The Cover: What a boring cover, especially the inside. I don’t see any reason this one had to be a stepback.

The Moral of the Story: Jessica Wakefield always gets her man. Especially if Enid is her competition.

The Big Deal: Party at Jonathan’s creepy mansion

Synopsis:

Todd shows up at Liz’s house just in time to see her in Joey’s arms. He gets pissed and gets back in his car. Liz says they can fight later but they have to find Jessica right now. Todd is all, “Fuck off, bitch,” as he drives away. He goes home and rips up his pictures of Liz and decides he’s not going to be Mr. Nice Guy anymore. I really hope this means they’re breaking up for good. Joey and Liz jump in Joey’s car and she explains everything to him on the way to Secca Lake to see if the murder victim is Jessica.

It isn’t. We know this because Jessica is at this moment at Jonathan’s house making out with him. He stops kissing her and tells her to get the out “before it’s too late.” Jessica thinks he’s afraid he won’t be able to resist making out with her or something and just keeps flirting. Jonathan finally gives up and closes the front door. He starts making out with Jessica, but then tells her he can’t get involved with her and she’ll have to leave.

Enid is having Jonathan withdrawals. She drives to his house and curses the Wakefields when she sees the twins’ Jeep out front. She looks in the window and sees Jessica and Jonathan kissing. She gets all discouraged until Jessica runs out of the house, crying. Then she goes inside and Jonathan starts making out with her. This guy gets around. He starts sucking on Enid’s neck and that’s the last thing she remembers until she wakes up in the morning in her bed at home.

At school, good old Chrome Dome Cooper holds an assembly and says the girl who was murdered on Saturday night was a cheerleader from Palisades High. Sweet Valley is going to start enforcing a curfew: nobody under the age of eighteen is allowed out after ten o’clock. After the assembly, Jessica tries to tell Amy and Lila about her makeout session with Jonathan. They start giggling and tell her Jonathan gave Enid a hickey the same night. Ha, remember hickeys?

Todd dyes his hair black and joins the goth movement. Actually, all the guys want to look like Jonathan and have all started wearing black. Even Winston is doing it, though he makes a joke out of it all by wearing black tuxedo jackets with brightly colored ties. I’m starting to love Winston a little bit. The guys think the curfew is a total bummer and they decide to liven things up at SVH by getting Jonathan to throw a party. Jonathan says he doesn’t want to do that, but Todd and Bruce start inviting people anyway.

That night, Jonathan is pacing around his house, all upset because of his “hunger.” He wants Jessica, but she’s too important to him and it’s too dangerous. So he calls Enid and asks her to come over. ‘Cause it wouldn’t really matter if he accidentally killed her in a fit of vampire passion. Jessica calls but he tells her he’s sick. She decides to come over with some homemade chicken soup. This girl doesn’t even know how to do laundry, but she can make her own chicken soup. I’m so sure. When she gets there and sees Enid with her wild hair and smudged lipstick, she throws the thermos of soup at Jonathan and leaves. Enid tries to help him clean up the mess, but he gets pissed and tells her to get out. Jonathan is grateful to Jessica because if she hadn’t shown up, he would have hurt Enid. He’s one of those tortured vampires who really doesn’t want to kill anyone. He just can’t help it. A few nights later, Jessica can’t find Jasmine the cat. She goes outside and finds the cat’s dead body. Ewwww.

Liz has been going out with Joey ever since Todd found them together, but she isn’t sure she really likes him anymore. He’s acting all condescending ever since he started college. And he keeps taking Liz around Sweet Valley and showing her places like Miller’s Point and the Dairi Burger as though Liz hasn’t lived here her whole life. At the Dairi Burger, Joey asks Liz if she wants to do something the next night. Liz promised Jessica she’d go with her to Jonathan’s party, but she doesn’t want to bring Joey and flaunt her relationship with him in front of Todd or something so she lies to him and says she’s going to a movie with Jessica. Then, of course, Caroline Pearce comes over and mentions the party and how much Jessica is looking forward to going. Joey gets pissed and leaves Liz at the restaurant.

Jonathan’s party is just awesome. Jessica sneaks upstairs to meet Jonathan. The lights go out while she’s sitting on his bed. He comes in and they start kissing. Liz is downstairs freaking out. She somehow convinces Todd to help her get the lights back on. They go downstairs and mess with the breakers. When the lights come back on, they hear somebody scream upstairs. They run up and find Amy’s visiting cousin (and Todd’s date), Katrina, dead, her blood drained.

Quotes:

Todd turned up the collar of his black leather jacket and swaggered slowly into the cafeteria on Tuesday at lunchtime, imitating Jonathan’s walk. He was wearing black jeans and a black denim shirt with a white T-shirt underneath. His face was unshaven, and he’d dyed his hair black. Todd’s new look gave him a sense of fresh confidence.

UGH.

The Cover: These kids seem to think this party requires formal dress.

The Moral of the Story:

The Big Deal: The only big deal in this book is Jonathan Cain.

Synopsis:

Ah, jeez. Vampires.

Jessica has gotten a pair of diamond earrings from her grandmother, but she loses one at the Dairi Burger. She and Lila go digging through the Dumpster to try to find it. There’s a dead body underneath all the trash and the dead man has a bite mark on his neck. Gross. When the police get to the scene, they discover the body has been drained of blood.

Liz is all fucked up about Joey Mason, her summer fling. She can’t even stand to be around Todd because she feels so guilty. She ends a date early and Todd spends two pages trying to figure out what he did wrong. When they get to the Wakefields’ house, there’s a police car in the driveway. They run inside and Jessica tells them what happened. She introduces them to Jasmine, a cat she rescued from a tree outside the Dairi Burger. Everyone keeps saying Jasmine is the only witness to the murder.

At school on Monday, Jessica is a superstar and everyone wants to know what happened. Chrome Dome holds an assembly to talk about the murder. Enid sits with Maria and Liz, but Liz ignores her and just talks to Maria. Liz hasn’t told Enid about Joey, so Maria is the only one she can talk to about the fact that Joey will be going to UCLA and be within driving distance of Sweet Valley. Enid feels left out. Mr. Cooper introduces a new student, Jonathan Cain. He’s wearing black leather pants and a black t-shirt and of course he’s totally gorgeous. Enid and Jessica both decide they’re in love with him, and Liz immediately hates him because she recognizes him as the guy that bumped into her that morning and didn’t apologize.

Jessica tries to get Jonathan’s attention in a variety of ways, but he totally ignores her. She sits next to him in French class and passes him a flirtatious note. He passes one back telling her to leave him alone. Jessica gets all excited about what a challenge he’s going to be. Meanwhile, all the girls at school think Jonathan is totally hot and they start dressing like him and painting their nails black and shit. Lila and Jessica think it’s totally gross and stick with their lavender nail polish. Enid tells Liz she wants to dye her hair black, but Liz tells her it’s a stupid idea. Enid goes to the salon anyway and gets her hair dyed and straightened and also learns all about how to apply emo makeup. Liz is annoyed at everyone trying to copy Joey. Even Todd starts wearing black all the time.

Liz comes to a decision: she’s going to forget about Joey. She burns his letter and starts trying to convince herself she’s still in love with Todd, but it’s hard going, especially when she finds a canoe paddle in her locker. Wtf? I guess Joey put it there thinking it would be cute, but I’d sure be creeped out by it.

Enid turns into a creepy stalker and follows Jonathan after school one day to a dilapidated mansion on the outskirts of town. She sees him go inside, but nobody answers when she rings the doorbell and then knocks on the door. She walks around the house and looks in the windows. The house is disgusting and it’s clear nobody lives there. Enid gets freaked out and drives home.

Jessica finally gets Jonathan to give her a ride on his motorcycle. He takes her home and Jessica thinks it’s totally awesome that he knows where she lives. He drops her off, tells her again to leave her alone and then drives off. Liz can’t believe Jessica took a motorcycle ride. Jessica wakes up from a nightmare later and finds her missing earring on her windowsill. Weird. The next day, Jonathan tells Liz to keep Jessica away from him. Liz makes Jessica promise to leave him alone, but Jessica sneaks away on Saturday night while Liz is in the shower. She goes to the address Enid said she had followed Jonathan to.

When Liz gets out of the shower, she hears on the radio that another murder victim has been found. It’s a blond girl at Secca Lake and all her blood has been drained. Liz searches the house for Jessica and realizes she’s not there. She freaks out and does the only thing she can think of: she calls Todd and asks for his help. He says he’ll be right over and Liz panics until she hears a car in the driveway. She opens the door, but it’s Joey. She gives him a big hug and suddenly forgets that her sister might be dead. Of course, that’s the exact moment Todd shows up.

Jessica’s not dead. She’s at Jonathan’s house knocking incessantly on the door. Jonathan finally lets her in. He sets down his goblet of red wine and kisses Jessica. Then he pushes her away and says she should have left him alone.

Quotes:

“We’re trying to get that new guy, Jonathan, to join the basketball team,” Todd told Elizabeth.

Oh, Todd. Goth kids don’t play team sports.

I need new friends, Enid decided. Lynne Henry, Julie Porter, and Jennifer Mitchell, all of whom had also adopted Jonathan’s gothic style of dress, were sitting together at a nearby table.

So basically all the poor girls with no self-confidence are the ones being taken in by this new craze, but perfect and confident twins are immune.

Why can’t he admit that he cares for me?

This is Jessica, after Jonathan has done everything he can possibly do to show that he does not, in fact, care for her.

The Cover: Did anyone else wear those awful velvety black chokers back in the day? I thought I was so totally cool and goth when I wore mine. I imagine Jessica thinks it’s just the thing to make Jonathan fall in love with her. Jonathan looks like a total creeper up there in the window.

The Moral of the Story: Nothing brings people together like a crazed woodsman.

The Big Deal: Summer camp color war

Synopsis:

Even though camp is almost over, Liz is suddenly all spooked out by the camp legend, which is this: A long time ago, a counselor fell in love with a guy who lived in the forest and chopped wood all day long. When the camp owner found out about it, she told the woodsman he could never set foot in the camp again and the counselor wasn’t allowed anywhere near him. So the girl ran away into the forest to be with her woodsman. There was a search after she disappeared, but nobody ever saw her or the woodsman again. People assumed she died, but sometimes you can still hear the sound of chopping wood…

Whatever. It’s a stupid story, but Liz based her play on it and now she’s walking around with a sense of impending doom. ‘Cause she’s psychic, don’t forget. Joey tells the story while everyone sits around the campfire one night and says there’s more to the it, something about an ax murderer named Crazy Freddy. Later, Liz makes out with Joey in the woods for a while and then goes back to the cabin, where she starts to panic because Jessica isn’t back yet. Jessica and Paul woke up in the middle of the night from where they fell asleep looking at the stars. I guess Paul’s parents took his car and are never coming back or something. He and Jessica walk to his neighbors’ house and Paul borrows one of their horses to take Jessica back to camp.

There’s a big camp color war coming up. The teams are announced, and of course Nicole and Liz are the opposing captains. Nicole is crazier than ever and thinks she deserves Joey because she likes him the most or something. She wants to fuck up Liz’s life, so she writes Todd a letter and includes a picture of Joey and Liz kissing. Maria catches her and won’t let Nicole send it. Dammit. Nicole gets Liz out into the woods alone one night and starts swinging an ax around, trying to scare her. Maria has a talk with Nicole and she agrees to stop being such a bitch.

Paul is in big trouble for stealing the neighbor’s horse and he’s grounded or something. This has Jessica in a tizzy, and the day of the color war, she sneaks out to see him, leaving Liz to cover for her and participate in all her color war activities as well as her own. Paul and Jessica have this great idea that they’re going to pretend to be Crazy Freddy and sneak into camp and scare everyone. That goes just great for about five seconds. Then an actual crazed ax murderer grabs Jessica and starts to drag her away. Tanya, Paul’s sister and one of Jessica’s campers, runs into the woods and starts yelling at the guy to let Jessica go, so the guy punches her and takes her with him. He takes them to a cabin where they cower in a corner.

There’s commotion at the camp about Tanya having gone missing. Joey says he knows of an abandoned cabin and runs into the woods alone. The rest of the counselors pair up and start searching. Nicole and Liz have to work together to save the day. Aww. They meet up with Paul, who tells them Jessica was with him and she’s missing now, too. The three of them find the cabin. They look in the window and see Joey, Jessica and Tanya. There’s some plan that involves Nicole and Liz acting as bait and Paul getting the better of the guy, but of course Liz nearly gets captured. Nicole distracts the guy and he captures her while Liz gets away. Meanwhile, Paul breaks a window at the back of the cabin, climbs inside and cuts Tanya and Jessica loose.

You know what, whatever. You know they all get away in the end. Nicole and Liz become friends for the last two days of camp and everything is great. Nicole also gives Liz and Joey her blessing because she’s pissed at him for running into the woods alone like some kind of macho man and she doesn’t want him anymore.

While all this has been going on, Lila and Bo have gotten lost in the woods. It’s kind of hilarious because they’re walking along talking about how they don’t even mind being lost together because they’re so in love. They end up sleeping on a gravel road, and they wake up the next morning to a crop dusting plane landing nearby. The pilot calls his boss to see if he can take Lila and Bo back to camp, but the boss says no way. The guy starts grumbling about how he only needs a thousand more dollars to buy the plane and go into business with his brother. Lila and Bo decide to invest in the company and they each give him five hundred dollars. They get back to camp, where nobody has really even noticed they were gone. I guess if you’re not a Wakefield or a cute eight-year-old, nobody cares about you.

Quotes:

She shoveled a forkful of dry, tasteless scrambled eggs into her mouth.

Ew. Please stop with the forkfuls of food being shoveled into people’s mouths.

Will I be able to stop loving Joey when I return to Sweet Valley?

I predict you will forget all about him.

The Cover: This cover cracks me up. Just look at that madman back there. Ha ha.