#25 Nowhere to run

So I STILL don't have book #24, Memories. I thought I'd wait until I got it...then I got distracted by moving, new job etc. By the way, my brother saw my SVH collection when he was helping me move and he looked at me like I had brain damage. Which I probably do. But screw that, I miss this ridiculous blog! So, on to #25, Nowhere to Run. Don't be fooled by the dramatic title, this book is not all that thrilling.

On the cover we have Emily looking distraught and Saint Liz comforting her. So creative. I don't blame the artist. Not their fault that nearly every book involves Elizabeth comforting/counseling/patronizing someone. Emily is also wayyyy prettier than Liz. Funny how the other characters are often better looking than the legendary Wakefields on the covers.

Naturally the book starts off with the obligatory description of the Wakefield (gorgeous, heart-shaped faces, shiny blond hair yadda yadda yadda). Jessica is described as being on "Jessica Standard Time" which is a cutesy way of saying that she's chronically late to everything and too selfish too care about how that may inconvenience others. People that are always late drive me freaking nuts. Annoying.

The Wakefield grandparents are coming to town, and the twins are super stoked. (Yeah I just used the word stoked. I'm bringin' it back.) While Jessica is gushing over the upcoming grandparent visit, Liz is distracted by Droid's drummer Emily Mayer, who appears to be upset. It's like Elizabeth has a radar for people in distress. Someone is having a problem? I MUST MEDDLE! Em and Droids singer Dana are discussing the baby that Em's step mom just had. Dana thinks it must be fun having a new baby around the house, Emily (and me) disagree. Emily makes a dramatic exit, yelling about how her step mom Karen wants to get rid of her and how she won't let that happen. Liz furrows her brow and acts concerned.

Emily isn't being dramatic-Karen really is out to get her. Ever since she had baby Karrie (don't you love the K theme? Is this where Kris Kardashian got the idea?) she's been threatening to send Emily to boarding school. She's convinced Em's dad that the Droids are too wild (HAHAHAHA) and a bad influence. She's a real-life evil stepmother!

Emily joins the school newspaper to make Karen happy, and ends up pouring her heart out to Liz. Elizabeth does her typical concerned routine and it's all very touching. Yawn. Emily bores me. Liz bores me. I'm bored.

So on to the Wakefield grandparents visit! Grandpa and Grandma Wakefield are charming and perfect..and mama Alice is jealous. Yes, Alice is jealous of the attention her in-laws are getting from the twins. She dramatically tells Ned that she must have been neglecting the twins and that she feels like she's "lost touch" with them. Was she ever in touch with them? Even in the SVKids and Twins books, she wasn't paying much attention to them. The whole thing is stupid. (I don't like this book..is it obvious yet?)

Meanwhile, in Emily-land, Evil Karen is forcing Em to babysit and treating her like an indentured servant. Emily's dad seems to be totally oblivious. The one bright spot in Emily's dreary existence is her blossoming friendship/romance with Droids drummer Dan. I don't think band members dating is a good idea, but hey, I'm freakin' tone deaf so what do I know about these things. ('sobs' I'll NEVER get to be in the Droids! So many crushed dreams.)

Before I go further let me mention that Emily's mom is not dead-that's just what she tells everyone. Truth is, her mom ran off with some other guy. You don't want news like that to get around Sweet Valley- cheating is only okay if you're Jessica Wakefield.

Emily invites Dan over to show him her new drum something or other, and Karen flies off the handle. Psycho Karen screams at her and even calls her a "tramp just like her mother". Dayum. It's super awkward for Dan and he leaves. What's the first thing Emily does after this embarrassing scene? Uh-huh..she calls Elizabeth. Never saw that coming. She goes to the Wakefield home and is comforted by Grandma Wakefield, who is actually pretty likeable. A likeable Wakefield? I must be getting soft in my old age.

Em tries to talk with her dad, who refuses to believe that he married a two-faced monster. She avoids Dan and Dan confides in-barf- Elizabeth. Not a close friend, nope, of course not. Liz should really just open a counseling office at the school. I don't recall SVH having a school counselor...maybe they just figure Liz already does it, so why bother? Liz gives her typical vague, useless advice.

The poor girl is so distraught that she decides to sell her drums, hoping that it will placate Super Bitch Karen. Dan buys the drums "for a friend", because he knows she's gonna regret selling them. Aw that's sweet. I'm actually not being sarcastic.

The major dramatic event of this seemingly never-ending book is when Emily saves baby Karrie from choking. Karrie chokes, Karen starts to lose it, Em slaps her to snap her out of it and performs the Heimlich maneuver on Karrie. Em's dad walks in and sees Karen sobbing and holding the baby, and assumes that Emily tried to hurt Karrie. He acts completely unreasonable and kicks Emily out. I'm starting to understand why Emily's mom ran off with another guy.

Speaking of her mom, Emily is at her wit's end and starts planning to take a bus to Chicago and live with her mother. The plan falls apart when Emily discovers that her mom ran off to Mexico with some guy awhile ago and never bothered to tell her. More boring stuff happens. Emily ends up at the Wakefield home again. Krazy Karen and Em's dad go there to talk to her, and everything is sorted out. They apologize to Emily and they all reunite right there at the magical Wakefield residence. Dan surprises Emily with her drums, and they admit to liking each other, I guess. I wasn't really paying attention.

Throughout this engaging novel there's some more crap about how Alice is jelly over all of the attention grandpa and grandma are getting. Dumb. The twins pick up on this and have a special dinner or something to soothe Alice's hurt feelings. Once again, dumb.

Thank God this book is over. I already know the next book is gonna be much better because it involves Regina and a cray cray hostage situation! Bring it on!

Moral of this lame story? Don't save your baby half-sister from choking because your dad will blame you. Don't be too nice to your grandparents, cause' your mom will get jealous. Don't sell your drum set!

Love Letters #17

Caroline looks like she's a few french fries short of a happy meal on this cover, and kinda hamster-ish. Elizabeth looks constipated and nosy.

Let me start by saying that I often find Caroline annoying (and I'm not the only one), but I liked this book a lot. It had a fake boyfriend disaster and no Todd and Elizabeth B.S. Good enough for me!
So, Caroline is feeling alienated and lonely because she has no real friends and her cool older sister ignores her. This is probably due to the fact that she is the biggest gossip ever and super nosy.

Instead of realizing this, she invents an over-the-top romantic boyfriend who lives two hours away named Adam, and writes letters to herself that are supposedly from "Adam".

Because she's lazy and not such a great writer, she copies the letters from the books of poet Robert Browning's love letters to his love Elizabeth. Convienently, our own Elizabeth is doing a play in some kind of competition, with those exact letters from the books. This comes in later on in the story.

These letters were written a looong time ago, so they don't sound anything like letters a sixteen-year-old boy would write anyway...
"My dearest, inexpressibly dearest, Caroline. Your flower is the one flower I have seen, or see, or shall see. When it fades I will bless it till it shines again."

And for some reason, all of the girls buy this crap and really think Caroline has some uber-romantic guy in love with her.

The only one who isn't totally convinced is Jessica. I thought Lila would be more skeptical, but she seems to buy the story for awhile. Jess is determined to prove that Caroline's a liar, and she gets Lila to plan a party in honor of Caroline and her new man. Caroline panics and tries to get out of it, but Lila and Jess get bus tickets for "Adam" and make sure there's no excuse for him not to show up.

Now, normally I would be making fun of Caroline's stupid fake-boyfriend plan more, but I have to admit I've done it. Not with old-timey letters, but made-up stories about my "boyfriend". Plus SVH is all about couples and dating, and she's one of the only single, date-less students there. Plus, she's like the only red-head in Sweet Valley (besides Julie Porter, but she barely counts). I can't blame her for losing her mind and making boyfriends up. But I digress.

Enter B and C plots : B plot- Caroline finds a letter in the Wakefield's trash from Mrs. Wakefield thanking a firm in San Francisco for their job offer.She mentions in the letter that she'd have to think it over ,and her family would need a month to move.
Caroline catches Jessica making fun of her and pulls out the letter to embarrass her. Things like this may be why people don't like you Caroline.

To avoid looking bad in front of Lila and Cara, Jessica acts like she already knew about the possible move when she really had no idea. Yes, their parents never mentioned they might be moving to a different city in about a month. Another fine example of Alice and Ned Wakefield parenting genius.

Why no one really questions how Caroline got a personal letter, or why a letter that Alice was supposed to be sending to San Francisco was in the Wakefield's trash can in Sweet Valley, I don't know.

Jessica tells Liz, and they confront their parents, who have the nerve to call them selfish for not being happy about their mother's job opportunity. What? Yes, the twins can be quite selfish, (especially Jessica), but them not being excited about a sudden move to a new city is understandable. Liz plans to wait to tell Todd, but Caroline screws that up when she tells Liz to tell Jess she's sorry about the letter incident....right in front of Todd. Way to go Caroline. She's batting 1000 in this one.

The twins start a Sweet-Valley-is-perfect campaign to get their parents to stay, sending them pamphlets on Sweet Valley hangouts.
I can't figure out why they think spamming their parents to death will make them want to stay in Sweet Valley. But I guess I'm missing something, since it does work and they get to stay in Sweet Valley. Of course. Sweet Valley would collapse on itself without the Wakefields!

C plot isn't much of anything except a few pages about Regina and Bruce going on a date. Will Regina fall for SVH's resident player/date rapist? I'm going to spoil the surprise and say yes, in fact, she falls Head Over Heels for Bruce.

So back to our fabulous A-plot. Elizabeth reads some of her play at the dinner table, and Jessica knows for sure after hearing it that "Adam" didn't write those letters. For some reason Liz thinks that maybe "Adam's" just a plagerizer, copying the plays and sending them to Caroline, instead of realizing that, HELLO! Caroline is writing the letters to herself!

Sometimes I want to tear my hair out at how dense and overly-trusting Liz is. Don't we all?
 The party is all set for the weekend and Caroline is freaking out. She confesses the whole thing to Liz ,(who else?), and asks her not to read her play at the competition, because then everyone from school will know Adam didn't write the letters. They're going to know when that party rolls around the next day anyway, but Caroline is apparently both selfish and stupid.
Elizabeth actually ends up agreeing to not enter her play, which is so ridiculous. Jess couldn't have said it better:

"I thought you were the brains of the family Liz, but that's about the stupidest thing you've ever done in your whole life. I can't believe you'd jeopordize your entire literary future for that spoiled brat!"
Thank you.

But all is well in the end, because Caroline realizes she can't hide forever and tells Liz to read the play. She pours her heart out to her older sister, Anita, about her fake boyfriend. and crippling loneliness. Anita's response is to spend two hours telling Caroline all of the reasons no one likes her. The tough approach works, and Caroline apologizes to all of the people she's gossiped about and vows to change.

Because Liz is everyone's guardian angel, she decides to help Caroline out of her jam. She gets Todd's random out-of-town friend, Jerry, to play "Adam" at the party. You'd think that Caroline would just go with it and save herself the embarrassment, (I know I would), but because we have to learn a moral lesson, Caroline confesses her lie to the whole party.
But it's cool because Jerry likes her for realz and wants to write to her and be her real-life Adam. Awww.

Moral of the story? Don't invent fake boyfriends. No seriously, don't. It's really embarrassing when you get caught in the lie. I'm still embarrassed about my fake boyfriend incident from over 10 years ago!