Crash Landing! #20

We already know this is going to be a super dramatic one because of the exclamation point in the title. Oh, and the cover with Enid lying half-dead in Elizabeth's arms might be a giveaway too.

So as we learned in the last SVH adventure (you DID read my re-cap, right? ) George has been cheating on Enid with Robin Wilson. They met in their flying class, and Robin has already dumped her ex Allen Walters for George. George is planning to drop Enid as well. But before he breaks her heart, he's going to take her on his first flight as a licensed pilot since he promised her he would.

Oh, and did I mention Liz knows about all this cheating? And never tells her "best friend" Enid? I won't even begin to go into how annoyed that makes me, because then I'll be ranting for six pages. Elizabeth really gets me pissed sometimes.

George and Enid go on their flight, and yup, it ends in a Crash Landing! They land in Secca Lake, and Enid risks her life to save cheatin' George who is passed out underwater. Enid ends up temporarily paralyzed, and George walks away with barely a scratch.

Now George feels guilty, and goes to break things off with Robin, at least until Enid recovers. Jessica and Lila see George in front of Robin's house when he's breaking up with her, and Jessica suddenly acts like she cares about Enid and is all like "George is such cheating scum!". Never mind that Jessica herself is quite the little cheater.

Jessica tells Liz who pretends like she didn't already know, and Liz makes Jessica promise no to tell anyone. Jessica doesn't keep this promise, (DUH), and once she tells her friends they all decide to start ignoring Robin. I guess since Enid is seriously injured, they're on her side. I love how all of them suddenly are SO against cheating, when most of them cheat and steal boyfriends all the time! I mean, that's pretty much the plot in 90% of these books.

Robin isn't aware of the cold war being waged on her, and when she goes to sit with her friends at lunch, they all get up leaving her sad, and "looking hungrily at Cara's uneaten ice cream". Haha.
She starts to gain some weight, and thinks, "It took too long too get myself thin. I'm not going to let my figure go". Huh??? Last I checked, Robin dropped that weight in about two weeks

Probably one of the best parts of this so-so SVH book is when Enid shows up at the dance with George and Lila exclaims: "who goes to a dance in a wheelchair? One of the reasons I love Lila. She is both hilarious and awful.

Problems start right away, when it becomes painfully obvious that Robin and George are into each other. Especially when he dances a song with Robin at Enid's insistence, and they totally have a "romantic moment", making it really obvious to everyone that something is going on. Enid dismisses the whole thing the next day, acting like everything is fine.

Enid had a surgery earlier that was supposed to get her walking again, but she doesn't seem to have a will to walk. She knows that George won't leave her as long as she's in a wheelchair,so she's resigned to never walking again. At this point, George can't even hide his disinterest in Enid, making their dates very strained and awkward. Between Enid's desperate cheerfulness and George's indifference, it's almost painful to read about.

Elizabeth must step in and save the day, and of course the first step is to consult Mr.To-Catch-A-Predator (Aka Mr. Collins). She tells him about the whole Enid issue, and he praises her for her "keen understanding of human behavior"". She blushed, and I cringed a little.

After this inspirational chat, Elizabeth thinks up a plan to get Enid back to her usual boring, walking, self, involving Mr. Collins' son Teddy.
Elizabeth invites Enid over while Teddy is at her house swimming in the pool, and leaves Enid in charge of Teddy while she goes inside for a few minutes.

Teddy pretends to drown, and Enid freaks out and jumps out of the chair and into the pool to save him. OMG she can walk!! Elizabeth's little plan is revealed, and within 5 seconds Enid decides that she'll be fine without George, and that he should be with Robin. That was a quick recovery.

They celebrate Elizabeth's successful (and child-endangering) plan with champagne and wine. I thought drinking was only for high school drop outs and school tramps?

The sub-plot is (get ready to be shocked...) Jessica chasing after a guy! Oooh. Jessica's latest prey is the teacher of the cooking class she and Lila apparently signed up for in Showdown, (don't remember that), and he actually sounds pretty hot.
"he was well over six feet tall, his broad shoulders tapering to a slender waist. He had jet-black hair, and chiseled features."

Did I mention he's french and twenty six? Sign me up.

Of course Jessica is absolutely sure that he won't be able to resist her jailbait charms, and works extra hard in the cooking class to earn his admiration. She even plans to ask him to the school dance (since when were 26 year old men allowed to go as dates to high school dances????). Buuut turns out he's got a hot girlfriend already. And she can't even cook! Ouch.

Jessica actually had another motivation to become a great cook besides hot guys, believe it or not. She wants to show her family that she can cook dinner just as well as Miss perfect Elizabeth, and attempts to cook mussels for them. She doesn't cook them right, causing some major food poisoning that sends Ned, Alice, and Elizabeth running to the bathroom. Coincidentally, Jessica didn't eat the mussels, so she was spared. It's one of the only times you ever hear about a Wakefield going to the bathroom, by the way.

Ned and Alice's wedding anniversary is coming up soon, and Jessica is determined to show up Elizabeth, and get her parents the best gift ever, especially after the whole mussels incident. For some reason she thinks making them a gourmet dinner is a good idea. You think that she would lay off cooking for them, since she like, just made them sick with her cooking a day ago.

But Elizabeth ruins everything as usual by giving her parents tickets to a dinner-theater show on the day Jessica was planning to make their dinner. When she tells them about her present, they make some rude jokes about her crappy cooking and tell her maybe she can cook the next day or something. Then they go back to gushing over Liz for the rest of the book, making Jessica contemplate doing something drastic..like Runaway!

Moral of Crash Landing: don't pretend to be paralyzed to hang on to a man, especially if he's cheating on you. Well, there goes my plan to get and keep a boyfriend!

Showdown #19

Lila is way cute on this cover, even though she's wearing a very blah-looking gray sweater.  I wouldn't think a stuck-up rich girl like her would be caught dead in that sweater. Jessica looks kinda worn-out, and for some reason my first thoughts were "crack head" and "cougar" when I saw her.

We're picking up from the last book, where Lila met the mysterious construction worker Jack. She brags to everyone about him, and plans the mandatory Lila-pool-party to show off her new man. Jessica automatically wants him, (because why on earth should she let her best friend have a decent guy? Thats what friends are for.), and starts trying to get her claws into him immediately.

The second Lila leaves them alone for two minutes, Jessica practically forces her phone number down Jack's throat and tells him to call her. Being the faithful type, he calls Jessica up for a date not long after the party. He also schedules a date on a different day with Lila. What a winner! Jess knows he's taking Lila out, but doesn't care once she gets her date with him.

After one date and a bunch of sappy making-out, (he even names a star after her! Omg romantic!), Jessica is in LOVE. And she just knows that he'll get rid of that pest Lila soon and be all hers. And we just know this isn't going to be nearly that simple.

Jess seems to think that because he's charming and went to a prep school on the East Coast, he must be some kind of royalty. She pictures herself being by his side in some stupid royal castle 12 year-old fantasy.

Jack even tells Lila he wants to marry her, and to keep the "engagement" a secret, because "they'd jump on the story in a second". Who "they" is, no one, including Lila, knows. But naturally she assumes that, wow, he must be really important!! She's totally thrilled to be engaged to this sexy mystery man she barely knows. Ah to be sixteen again.

Oh, and money and valuable items keeps disappearing around Jack, he acts strangely when his past is brought up, and sometimes behaves as if he's on drugs. Tons of obvious signs that everyone misses, and as usual Liz notices something isn't right, but doesn't want to think the worst of someone. 'Sigh'
Basically much of the book is just Jack dating both girls, Lila on the weekdays and Jess on the weekends.

Here's the rundown:

Jessica and Lila "OMG Jack I love you!!! You're so amazing, perfect man, together forever lalalala, he must be royalty since he's sooo mysterious!"

Jack (to both of them) "I love you and I named a star after you! We'll never be apart, just don't ask about my past or I'll get all irritated. But don't worry, I've got nothin' bad to hide..."


Jessica " He's gonna dump Lila any second now! Annnny second...."


Elizabeth "Hmmm this guy sounds suspicious, but I'm going to keep out of this until someone is in danger because for once I'm minding my own business."

And you know someone is about to be in danger. And who else but Jessica? She goes out on another date with Jack, and they go back to his apartment (side note- PARENTS? Hellllllo??? You're just fine with your sixteen-year-old in some adult man's apartment? And yes they met and approved of this older man for their teen daughter. Ugggh) Jess finds all kinds of drugs in Jack's bathroom. Weed, "white powder" and pills of all kinds. Sounds like my kinda guy.

Then when she goes to confront him, she finds him digging in her purse. Yes, instead of making some excuse to leave safely, she confronts an unpredictable drug-user in his apartment. Mmmm smart. Jack drops his nice-guy B.S after she calls him a "phony" (the idea!), and things get violent when he starts trying to choke Jessica out.

Of course Liz has already figured out that Jack is a fake, because Nicholas and his friend David know Jack. They tell her the real story about him. His whole family died in a boating accident, and he started doing drugs and making up crazy stories about his life. They all rush to get Jessica (somehow, they know she's at his apartment), after Elizabeth makes a call to Lila and gets his address. Lila seems more annoyed about Jess trying to sneak behind her back with Jack then anything else.

You know the rest, Elizabeth and friends get there just in the nick of time to save Jessica, and give her most of the credit for saving herself, even calling her a "heroine". Um, ok. Jack goes to jail, and the worst parents ever, (Ned and Alice), wax on about how they think a "troubled boy like that" needs counseling, not jail. How about you two just don't give advice?

Sub-plot is Elizabeth catching Enid's boyfriend George in an embrace with former fatso Robin Wilson. Turns out they fell in love during flying school, and they have this whole sob story for Liz about how they didn't mean to fall in love and cheat on their respective significant others, it just happened! Liz is a terrible friend, so she agrees to say nothing to Enid until George is ready to tell her. What!?! If I found something like that out, I would tell my best friend right away!

See how all of this goes down in the next book, Crash Landing!

Moral of this lovely story? If a guy is super mysterious, he's probably a drug addict with major issues. What would I do without the dating advice I've gotten from SVH? (Possibly I'd actually get dates, and not sit around recapping SVH books....)

Head Over Heels #18

Bruce is dressed like a grandpa, but he's still pretty hot on this cover, as far as cover drawings go. Regina is cute, but not nearly as amazingly gorgeous as they say she is in the books. But I should expect that by now.
Regina is falling for Bruce hard (you might even say she's "head over heels") and just about all of SVH doesn't approve, because Bruce is a well..a douche.

Todd expresses his concern about this relationship to Liz in a insanely a dorky way:
"I hope the Beast doesn't break the Beauty's heart"
Oh please, as if you and Elizabeth have such a solid thing going.

Lila and Jessica even make a bet over Bruce and Regina. Jessica is sure they'll break up before two weeks, Lila thinks they'll stay together. They don't bet money, because Lila says that her dad thinks betting money is "vulgar". Hmm. Instead, they bet that whoever loses has to write both of their term papers for History class.

Regina's been offered an opportunity to go to Switzerland to get some mysterious, vague-ly described, treatment to cure her deafness. Oh I mentioned she was deaf and reads lips right? She doesn't want to go, because it means she'll be away from Sweet Valley (and Bruce!!!!) for a whole year.

Yes, a boy and friends that she's only known for like two books are much more important then being able to hear. Well, that's sixteen-year-old girl logic for you. Her family is totally frustrated and desperate to get her to go, and because Elizabeth is such a good friend of Regina's (...except Regina and Liz hardly spend any time together at all) Regina's mom Skye confides in her about the whole Switzerland deal. Why do all adults feel they can confide in Liz? Elizabeth agrees Regina has to go ,and promises she'll try to find some way to convince her.

Surprisingly, the family doesn't just rely on Liz to convince Regina. They bring in someone who used to be deaf, and can now hear because of the treatment. His name is Donald Essex, and the family hopes he can get her to agree to the treatments. Regina, on the other hand, is sure her parents will get over this whole not being-deaf-anymore-operation thing soon.

While all of this is going on, Jessica is scheming to break Bruce and Regina up so she's not stuck writing two term papers. (The bet with Lila, remember? Good.) She starts by trying to call Regina. Yes, Jessica attempts to call a deaf person. Guess I can't laugh too much since I'd probably do something just like that.

Jessica knows Bruce is running for some Citizen of the year/student committee crap against Ken Matthews, and decides he's probably dating Regina just to look good so he wins. She manages to plant the seeds of doubt in Regina's head, which works because Bruce never told Regina he was even running. He had wanted to make it a surprise for her, or something like that.

Bruce and Regina get in a big  typical SVH couple's fight and break up for like a whole 3 days. Regina agrees to go to Switzerland since things with Bruce are over. Bruce runs to Elizabeth (OF COURSE) and asks why Regina broke up with him/how to get her back. Once Liz explains the whole Switzerland thing to him, Bruce actually cries.

He does something else totally uncharacteristic and self-less, leaving her a note in her suitcase explaining everything and saying he'll wait for her while she's gone. She finds it on the plane to Switzerland and everything is okay now. And yeah, I'm a little jealous. I mean seriously, where's my romantic letter from Bruce Patman?

Other stuff: There's a carnival coming up to raise money for handicapped kids, and of course Elizabeth and the usual suspects (Olivia, Enid , Todd, etc.) are on the committee to help. Carnival goes as planned and isn't very exciting to read about.

Donald Essex meets Jessica when she goes to poison Regina against Bruce, and she mega-flirts with him. He then sees Liz and Todd later, and acts all familiar and flirty around Liz, totally pissing Todd off and confusing Elizabeth. If either of them had a brain, they might remember that Liz has a flirty twin who very possibly could have already met Donald. Instead they get in yet another Liz and Todd Fight. But don't worry they make up. As if you didn't know.

Since Lila loses the bet (even though Regina and Bruce do technically reunite) she's the one stuck writing both papers. Predictably, she gets a B- on her own paper, and a D on Jessica's. Pretty dumb to trust Lila Fowler to write a good paper for you after losing a bet. You should know more then anyone Jessica! Now Jess may not pass History. Gasp!

And last but not least, Lila meets a sexy, intriguing construction worker while going to see her father at his new building. She decides that he's not just some average blue-collar guy, because he seems soooo classy and different! Yeah he's different, but not in a good way. Stay Tuned for our next thrilling story, Showdown.

Moral? I guess the moral is that even super douches like Bruce Patman can change. All they need is a pretty deaf girl to help them change!

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!

Just wanted to share..

I just ordered the Sweet Valley High board game, complete with all of the pieces, from Ebay! I'm so excited, I'm going to force my best friend and my little sister into playing this with me when it comes. I'll make sure to give it a review as well :)

Rags to Riches #16

Roger looks asian here, and nothing like his last cover. Guess getting rich really does change you. Jessica looks appropriately evil, as usual, and that shirt is really not flattering.
So, Roger is now super-rich, in case you haven't caught that. When his mom died, it was revealed that his real dad is Paul Patman, Bruce's uncle who died in a plane crash. Paul was "seeing" Roger's mom behind his wife's back, and was planning to divorce his wife and marry her. Before he could do that he died, but he left a huge amount of cash to his then-unborn son.

Roger moves into the Patman's estate, and is thrown into the world of rich people, which apparently includes dressing up for dinners at home, and being super stuck-up at all times. Oh, and using 3000 different kinds of utensils. Poor old Rog isn't doing such a great job at this whole rich thing, and it probably doesn't help that his girlfriend, Olivia Davidson, has started acting even more insecure and emotional then normal.

Now that he's rich, Jessica is all hot for Roger. Who would've thought? There is a random barbeque at the Patman mansion and the whole freakin school is there, like at every party. During the BBQ, Jessica sucks up hardcore to Mrs. Patman. Mrs P makes it pretty clear she'd like Jessica to replace Olivia as Roger's date to an upcoming country club party.

It has to be said that Bruce's mom is just a horrible throughout this book. She refers to Roger's award-winning running as a "dreadful habit", and when he spills a few drops of wine on her at dinner, she loses her mind. It's all pretty clear now why Bruce acts like such an douche nozzle. His mother's attitude may also explain why he treats most girls he dates like crap. Hmmm.

But enough analyzing Bruce. In the sub-plot,  Regina has been acting kinda weird lately. Some of the girls have seen her hanging out with 'gasp' an older man! This, of course, starts a ton of stupid rumors about Regina dating an old man. Because he couldn't possibly be a family member or something.
Todd and Elizabeth go spy on her to find out what's going on for themselves, instead of just asking her. Even thought they're supposed to be her close friends. Okay.

There's a few more awkward encounters and sightings of Regina and her mystery old man, and more rumors crop up. Regina confides in-who else- Elizabeth, telling her that the older guy is a modeling agent and she's going to be on the cover of popular magazine Ingenue. For reasons I can't understand, this is treated like a huge secret. Lila finds out about the cover while on her own little spy-on-Regina mission, and swears she'll steal that cover.

This is so stupid because why would the magazine trash their already-shot cover to shoot some random chick? If they liked Lila so much, she would get an future magazine cover, not Regina's.
Just sayin....

Lila's plan fails and after listening to Mr. Important Agent gush about Regina, she's told that her face would look flat in photos and modeling isn't for her. Ouch.

Jessica starts in on her operation-destroy-Olivia plan, although she doesn't have to do much, since Olivia is great at making herself look bad already. All she really does is drop some hints about how the Patman's and Olivia just don't mix (true), Liv and Roger are growing apart, etc. Olivia is so insecure that that's all it takes to make her start second-guessing their relationship.

Elizabeth can't seem to figure out why Jessica is suddenly BFF with Olivia, even though it should be pretty obvious .Um, why would Jessica suddenly want to spend time with Olivia of all people? She's clearly never liked the girl. Her dislike for Olivia is even more obvious when Liz says she saw Liv downtown looking really bad (meaning depressed), and Jessica's reaction is to exclaim, "oh no what was she wearing now?!" Hint, hint Liz, Jessica is not hanging out with Olivia for altruistic purposes. Come to think of it, Jess doesn't do anything for altruistic reasons.

Olivia just keeps getting more insecure and clumsy, and finally she and Roger get into the Big Fight. Roger asks Jessica to be his date, after she convinces him that Olivia was just going to dump him right before the party so he'd be left without a date, because she's jealous of his money. To me, this sounds nothing like Olivia. Roger briefly thinks the same thing, but then decides to believe Jessica over his girlfriend.

Well no wonder Jessica manipulates and lies so much, seems like everyone in Sweet Valley is so naive that they'll believe anything! Roger finally gets the picture right before the party, when he overhears Mrs. Patman talking on the phone about how Jessica got rid of Olivia for her. He goes to the place everyone goes when they need help, the Wakefield house. He tells the twins about how he wants Olivia back. When Liz sees Jessica's obvious annoyance about this, she's all like oohh maybe Jessica wasn't really helping Olivia... Yeah... DUH!!!!!!

Roger and Elizabeth rush off to Olivia's, while Jessica stays at home and finds another date in under five minutes.
Rog and Liv have their little we're-back-together moment, (I'll spare you the details), and the Patman's grudgingly accept Olivia... kind of. Everyone oohs and ahhs over Regina's magazine cover at the party, and Caroline shows off old-timey sounding love letters from her new man Adam (why is Caroline invited to this party?) More about those love letters, and Caroline here.

Olivia's outfits; I just had to throw in some outfit descriptions since Liv may have the most random "style" in SVH. No wonder the Patman's didn't approve!

"Oversized army pants, sandals, and a bright-yellow T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Her usual bandana was twisted into a thin band around her forehead"

"The dress didn't have much shape to it, though it was certainly long enough. Olivia had designed a deep neckline that plunged in a vee, and had made a soft, gathered sash to cover the waistline. It wouldn't be half-bad as a bathing suit cover up. But to wear to the biggest party of the season?"
*side note-don't you love how every party/dance is the "biggest" of the year/season/month/week/decade?

"Her brown curls were held back by a silver-and-gold braided rope, and she was wearing a loose, man-sized cotton shirt belted over a flowered skirt."

Ahh Olivia. A true free spirit. I gotta admit I like her, despite my complaining. At least she's got some personality that's not totally sociopath-like, (talking to you, Jessica) or condescending (That'd be you, Liz!).

Moral of the story? If you get rich, stay with your hippie girlfriend and don't let an evil blonde manipulate you. That's pretty much all I got.

Promises #15

Well it's pretty obvious from this cover that Betsy and Tricia had one thing in common: they both had grandma style. I'm disappointed that the town tramp, (She took over full-time after Annie Whitman retired.), wasn't wearing something...sluttier on the cover. Jessica looks more like a mom than a high-schooler.

We start with Tricia's sad, depressing, (if you liked Tricia, that is), death. The whole Wakefield family is there to say goodbye to her while her dad and sister, Betsy are out getting wasted. Because the Wakefield's are perfect and the Martins are trash! Just in case the last 14 books didn't get that through your head.

Right before she dies, she makes Steven promise her that he'll take care of Betsy after she's gone. Most of the book is based on this promise, if you didn't guess from the title.

Besty shows up too late and drunk, and the Wakefields take her to their house to stay for awhile and get herself together. She drunkenly swears that she'll change her life and it's all very touching. She has no idea where her dad went. They assume that he's on a drinking binge and will return in a few days.

Jessica tells Elizabeth on the way home from the hospital that she hopes he comes back soon and takes Betsy out of their house, cuz eww she's sooo trashy! Annnnd she heard Betsy was up at Miller's point with two guys last week! (A Sweet Valley threesome? That's right!)

Keep in mind she tells Liz that story after she talks about her own most recent Miller's point makeout session (the guy kissed "sort of like a dead fish". Ew.)
Elizabeth makes Jessica promise to be nice to Betsy after giving her the customary "people can change" speech. Jess agrees, but let's be honest, this promise won't last 5 minutes. After all, we know how Jessica feels about slutty girls.

Elizabeth later stumbles in on Betsy drawing and we learn that she has a secret talent for art, because all troubled people must be artists.

Even when getting ready for Tricia's funeral, Jessica is majorly rude and insensitive. When Elizabeth asks her why she's more worried about what she's wearing then the fact that they're about to bury Tricia, she responds:

"Lizzie, dear, someone in this family has to look respectable. To make up for having you-know-who with us."
Ok, seriously, she acts like the Wakefields are royalty or something.

On the way home from the funeral, Betsy demands to go to sleazy bar Kelly's to drink her troubles away. Frankly, I think that they should just let her have a few drinks. Maybe get her a bottle on the way home... are there even any liquor stores in Sweet Valley? But of course Steven refuses because he's boring. I want to see Steven get drunk just once! Even Elizabeth has been drunk before!

Steven tells Betsy the Wakefield home is her home for good, which he never asks his parents about, but whatever. Not like Alice and Ned would mind anyway.
Jessica searches Betsy's room when no one's home, sure she's going to find condoms or drugs, or something. She goes through Betsy's art and finds, gasp, a picture of Steve! And she knows that Betsy must be madly in love with Steve.

She tells Liz, but Elizabeth is on her way out and doesn't pay much attention.
I should note that Elizabeth is on her way to meet Todd, Nicholas Morrow, and his sister Regina at the Box Tree Cafe. Kinda strange since Nicholas just tried to steal Liz from Todd. Todd is really a bigger doormat then Liz at times.

Turns out Jess is right, and it soon becomes pretty clear that Betsy is falling for Steve. Steve and Betsy walk into the beach disco together and run into Steve's friend Jason, who's interested in her and her art, since he's an art teacher at the local community center. He offers her a spot in his class, and she goes all bananas on him and assumes he's heard all the stories and is just trying to get in her pants. Steve and Jason convince her to try just one class.

Betsy really starts to cling to Steven, and even Liz thinks it's not healthy. Steven knows he needs to go back to college and spend some time away from Betsy. Before he goes, Steve, Liz and Jason all come up with a plan to enter Betsy's art in an L.A Academy art school competition without her knowing. (She was too paranoid about Jason wanting to do her that she wouldn't accept his offer to help her enter. Oh please. You aren't that hot, girl.)

Betsy's dad finally shows up at the Wakefield house, and Betsy panics and calls Steve. He rushes right down from college, prompting Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield to actually act like parents. They tell him that he's not responsible for Betsy and needs to start re-building his own life. Steve spills the whole thing about his promise to Tricia, and Jessica overhears.

Naturally Jessica sees this as her opportunity to send Betsy packing, and tells her about the promise in her usual sneaky way. Betsy flips out.
"Don't 'Betsy' me. No one cares about Betsy. It's only Tricia who counts."

That is pretty much true, since apart from this book, there's almost no mention at all of Betsy after Tricia's dead. 

Betsy heads down to the bar with local bad guys Crunch McAllister and Charlie Cashman. Steven and Jason storm in like the Moral Police and tell Betsy she's leaving with them. Jason punches out Charlie and he and Betsy finallllly gets it through her thick skull that he's not just interested in hooking up with her, but wants a relationship. Ooh SVH romance!!

Betsy wins the competition and is accepted to art school, earning her a Wakefield barbeque and a congratulations three-way hug (instead of an actual three-way) with Steve and Jason. Aww.

Sub-plot- Winston broke the pizza eating record at SVH, and is now trying to do the same record-setting pizza eating thing at Guido's. He unfortunately falls short of his goal of eating seven pizzas. The news and a crowd actually show up for this, and I got seriously hungry reading about it.

Oh, and Roger Barrett's mother has had a heart attack! He has to find some way to pay for a surgery and flight to Houston to save her.  Jessica is still more pre-occupied with Roger's date-ability then this tragedy, thinking to herself one day,
"Too bad he didn't have a penny to his name. Otherwise he might be high on her list of desirable boys."

Bruce Patman's father comes out of nowhere and offers to foot all of the bills to save Rog's mom. No one can figure out why, since the Patman's have never been known for their generosity (they're more known for things like date-rape). Roger's mom dies despite the help.

We find out why the elder Patman got involved at the very end, when it's revealed that Roger's real dad is Paul Patman, Bruce's uncle who died  in a plane crash. Roger is going to live with the Patman's, and he's now stinking rich! How will Roger adjust to his new status? Find out here.