About the Book
-
Author:
- Francine Pascal
You guys! Are you so excited? Like, Jesse Spano-on-Caffeine Pills level of excitement? Sweet Valley High is BACK, bishes!
I know exactly how you feel. When I’m not reading a Sweet Valley High book and playing the drinking game, a sort of depression falls over me. It’s characterized by a lack of stabbing pains in my kidneys and fewer people shooting me derisive glances at the local bar. I mean, they still shoot me derisive glances. Just less often.
Right! So! Where we left off, Emily from The Droids was sad because her stepmom was suffering from post-partum depression, not that we in Sweet Valley care about that sort of thing. And Elizabeth was meddling in someone else’s shit, because she is a horrible human being who I wish to punch in the throat. What surprises await us in this recap? Read on and see!
The Official Sweet Valley High Drinking Game:
Take 1 drink anytime:
• the words “blonde,” “sun-streaked,” “blue-green eyes” or “perfect figure” are mentioned in relation to the Wakefield twins’ looks
• anyone goes to the beach, or talks about going to the beach
• Liz and Jess get to drive the Fiat
• Jess mentions the number “37” (you guys, seriously, she does this a lot)
• they mention Steve, the eldest Wakefield child
• Bruce Patman shows up
• Jessica flakes on chores, Elizabeth talks to herself, or Todd or Enid are lame
• “Eyes and Ears,” the gossip column that Elizabeth writes for The Oracle, the student newspaper, is mentioned
• the fucking matching lavaliers are mentioned
Sweet Valley High Super Edition: Special Christmas
In which Suzanne Devlin comes back to town, misdiagnosed and ready to party down
Number Of Drinks Taken: 19
First Page On Which the Twins Are Described As “Blonde, Blue-eyed, All-American Good Looks” or equivalent: page 5. This is a Super Edition, after all.
Main Plot: You guys! Suzanne! Suzanne Devlin is back in Sweet Valley! You may remember Dastardly Devlin from that time she tried to steal Elizabeth’s lavaliere. Such hijinks will not stand in Sweet Valley! Petty theft of the Pretty Princess’s house? How dare she?I mean, that really puts the tiny nuisance of all those rapes and overdoses into perspective!
Anyway, yes, Suzanne is back for CHRISTMAS! Christmas, as the song will tell you, is the most magical time of the year! ESPECIALLY in Sweet Valley, where Jessica and Elizabeth can spend all of winter break working on their tans. Elizabeth really pities people like Todd, who have to spend their Christmas holiday in places where it’s COLD and it SNOWS and there are MARSHMALLOWS. I also pity Todd, but for other reasons.
Suzanne has come back to Sweet Valley to make amends for her terrible behavior. Of course, Steven, Elizabeth and Jessica have no intention of letting down their guard around Devious Devlin. No, they mean to punish her for her earlier offenses, but good! But, you know, the Wakefields are pretty lame, so they mostly settle for being vaguely unfriendly and sending her some lame Secret Santa gifts. Oh, Wakefields. This is just disappointing. You’re bringing a pool noodle to a gunfight!
It seems Suzanne has changed, though. She’s quiet and nice and gets dizzy a lot. The Wakefield Parents know that Suzanne is suffering from a terrible illness – MS – but have not told their kids at Suzanne’s request. So, they’ll just let their kids continue to be shit heels to Suzanne, and we’ll all just hope that Suzanne doesn’t die any time soon, yeah?
Anyway, a bunch of Christmas stuff happens that I will not dwell on because I refuse to let the Wakefields ruin Christmas for me, and Suzanne’s doctor sends her a new prescription in the mail. It comes in an envelope, with no instructions. I just want to be clear, here. Suzanne’s doctor sends his patient, who has Multiple Sclerosis, a new prescription in the mail and does not list any contraindicators. Okay? Just so we’re clear.
So Suzanne takes her new medication and washes it down with a glass of champagne, as the Wakefield Parents have left their underage children a bottle of champagne to drink before driving to a holiday party (God, I love the 80s). And then Suzanne borrows the Fiat to go meet Aaron Dallas at a pre-party (this is a set-up by Jessica and Aaron, in which Aaron will totally stand Suzanne up and she’ll be sad and go home) and, of course, wrecks it, because her medication reacts poorly to alcohol.
Finally, the cops find Suzanne and everyone tearfully gathers at the Joshua Fowler Memorial Hospital in order to apologize for being such crappy hosts to their very ill friend. Except! Suzanne’s doctor flies in and guess what! Suzanne doesn’t have MS at all! Turns out she just has mono!! Because it’s SO DECEPTIVELY EASY to mistake fucking mononucleosis which kids get ALL THE TIME with Multiple Sclerosis, which requires brain scans and lots of involved testing to diagnose.
But, don’t worry kids! Now that Suzanne is, in her words, normal again, she can get back to kissing Todd and infecting him with mono!
Sub-Plot Not In Least Bit Related To Main Plot: You guys! Todd is back for Christmas!! Aren’t you excited???? Yeah, me neither.
In typical lameass Todd fashion, he likes to say things to Elizabeth like “when I get there I’m going to hug you so hard.” Um. Yeah. No long-distance boyfriend says that to his girlfriend, unless that person is Josh Duggar and he is talking to his wife Anna, and it’s followed up with”because Jesus hates sex and also why does every girl I know wear her hair in the exact same fashion?”
But Todd is carrying around a terrible secret! No, it’s not that he has syphillis, sadly. It turns out he ran into Suzanne at a ski resort in Vermont a few months ago and, well, he sorta kinda . . . likes her.
But, of course, he’s supposed to be soulmates with Elizabeth, so basically he just mopes around all week until Liz dumps his ass. And then, because she is the LAMEST CHARACTER EVER, Liz is actually super happy for Todd that he’s in love with someone else. This is vomitous. This is unhinged. Liz, you can be a little sad that your dudebro boyfriend dumped you for another girl. It’s okay! Try valuing yourself as a person! For once!
Anyway, Todd and Elizabeth break up for the bazillioneth time, and Todd and Suzanne go and hug each other real hard.
Also, in other news, Jessica thinks her awesome Secret Santa is Hans, the hot German foreign exchange student. Of course, everyone knows her Secret Santa is actually Winston Egbert. I took a random poll this past weekend of the mailman, my neighbor, a coworker, the guy who served me my burger at Love Shack, and my cat, and they all knew that it was going to be Winston Egbert. In fact, I even polled an egg as it drifted from one of my ovaries into my fallopian tubes and was on its way to dissolving, unloved and unfertilized, and it also told me that Winston Egbert was clearly the Secret Santa, and why did I bother it with such obvious questions.
Improbable High School Moment: Really? A whole bottle of champagne? I mean, my parents would give me champagne, but not when I was DRIVING! That’s just crazy.
Most Offensive Portion: SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS THEY MISDIAGNOSED MONO AS MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS HOW DO THESE PEOPLE HAVE JOBS!
Sweet Valley High 26: Hostage
In which the Morrows sans Nicholas are KIDNAPPED!
Number Of Drinks Taken: 32
First Page On Which the Twins Are Described As “Blonde, Blue-eyed, All-American Good Looks” or equivalent: page 2
Main Plot: Ripped from the Headlines! Of the Wall Street Journal! Probably! Once! Regina Morrow and her parents have been kidnapped! And it’s up to Bruce and the twins to mount the LAZIEST RESCUE EVER to save them! Oh noes!
Yes, Regina has been kidnapped by a crazy lady while in Bern, Switzerland (where she’s receiving treatments to hear again so that people can stop talking about her deafness and her mom can quit eating Valium to dull the guilt) and taken to . . . her house. Which is where she’s being held, by the crazy lady. Does this make sense? Not at all. Are you surprised? Not so much, I bet.
Elizabeth discovers that Regina is home and starts to think something fishy is going on when Regina’s “aunt” opens the door and says that Regina doesn’t want to see anyone. Because who would not want to see Elizabeth “Sun Shines Out of Her Ass” Wakefield?
Soon, she recruits both Bruce and Jessica to the cause, and the three kids try to figure out how to save Regina. Mind, this amounts to the following:
• slipping a note into a copy of Ingenue magazine
• flirting with boys
• swimming
• saying, “That’s all we can do for right now; might as well go to the beach”
Mostly through luck and Regina’s help, the kids also discover where the Elder Morrows are being held (in Crazy Lady’s friend’s home) and they find Nicholas and hatch a plan.
Apparently, the Morrows are in such jeopardy because Mr Morrow has developed some sort of computer chip. A crazy man who used to work for Mr Morrow but got fired for stealing wants the chip. So he kidnaps the Morrows and Regina simultaneously, so that he can threaten them and bluster a lot. I have no idea how he knows the Crazy Lady that kidnaps Regina and poses as her aunt. That sort of true crime element is obviously far too unseemly to discuss in wonderful Sweet Valley.
Anyway, even though the rescue attempt is incredibly juvenile, our junior detectives manage to save the Morrows. Let’s party!
Sub-Plot Not In Least Bit Related To Main Plot: There mostly isn’t one, because Regina is JUST THAT AWESOME. You don’t NEED a sub-plot when Regina’s around. RIP Regina! I love you most of all!
Improbable High School Moment: Look, I’m just saying, Elizabeth Wakefield is no Nancy Fucking Drew, okay?
Most Offensive Portion: Okay, like, it was 12 months ago when the Morrows moved to town. (even though no one ages in Sweet Valley, time still passes. It’s a strange phenomenon that is never addressed. I mean, you’d think they could shoehorn one book in to explain how the Theory of Relativity works in the Sweet Valley vortex, in between, say, the book where Jessica dates a werewolf and the one where Elizabeth almost marries a prince.) When the Morrows moved to town, Mr Morrow donated a computer to the school/set up his plant. You’re telling me that in 12 months, he managed to get the plant off the ground, hire the Crazy Kidnapper Dude, fire the Crazy Kidnapper Dude, design and construct a new computer chip while the Crazy Kidnapper Dude was in jail for theft, and then there was enough time for the Crazy Kidnapper Dude to get out of jail on parole, learn about the chip, find a buyer in South America who was interested in the chip and then kidnap the Morrows in order to steal the chip? You guys. Right now I am rewatching Prison Break on Netflix Streaming, but can I just say thatthe plot of this book is actually the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen all week? And on Prison Break right now, Michael Scofield just engineered a prison break out of a Panama prison in under a week. With Bellick as an assistant. BELLICK! Fuck’s sake.
Sweet Valley High 27: Lovestruck
In which Ken the Football Star is failing English
Number Of Drinks Taken: 18
First Page On Which the Twins Are Described As “Blonde, Blue-eyed, All-American Good Looks” or equivalent: page 3
Main Plot: Oh no, you guys!! Ken Matthews, Star Quarterback, is failing English! Dreamy Mr Collins Who Looks Like Robert Redford may not let him play in the big exhibition* game! Everyone’s making fun of Ken for failing English, but he’s mostly worried about what his girlfriend, Susanne Hanlon, thinks of him. Because, you see, Susanne is Rich and also A Snob. She cares about things like Mozart! And art exhibits! And Shakespeare and Bergman films! This is how you can tell that Susanne sucks! There’s no place for art- or culture-lovers in Sweet Valley!
Anyway, Liz meddles (drink) and loans Ken one of her short stories and outlines so that Ken can see how a real writer does things (she pretends to be more modest than that, but I can sense her preening nature). Ken, of course, then steals the paper and turns it in as his own, because otherwise the writers of Sweet Valley High would have had to attempt to surprise us in some way, and that is far too much trouble.
So, because Liz is, like, THE WORLD’S GREATEST WRITER, the story that Ken turns in is raved over. Everyone wants to publish it in the Centennial version of The Oracle! Liz is pretty sad, but she also refuses to say anything, because Liz is a dope and a half. Oh, Liz. Seriously! Try valuing yourself as a person! It could work for you!
Eventually, Ken fesses up by writing a new short story, is not punished in the slightest for cheating, wins the big game, and dumps his snobby girlfriend Susanne. Three cheers for Sweet Valley High!
*An EXHIBITION game! That is a game that ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT MATTER. So why do we care that Sweet Valley will lose if the Quarterback fails English? Also, maybe they should be using this time to develop the second string, non?
Sub-Plot Not In Least Bit Related To Main Plot: It’s the Centennial! The town of Sweet Valley is celebrating their 100th birthday, which means that they can now officially be mentioned on The Today Show while Al Rucker is doing the weather. Does Al still do the weather, or is he too important for that now? Does Smuckers still sponser the Celebration Of The Olds? Everytime I see Smucker’s Jam, I think about octogenarians being told that they’ve still got a good two decades to go before anyone will care that they’re still alive. Keep up the dream, octos! And try not to break your hips!
Anyway, because Sweet Valley has been a soul-sucking timeless vortex for 100 years, there’s a big celebration! Bruce (who is Centennial Captain, or something) puts Jessica in charge of the big Centennial picnic. Jess runs around wheedling favors from people; a trillion things go wrong, but in the end everything works out fine.
Improbable High School Moment: Oh my god, SERIOUSLY? A kid CHEATS on a major paper and just because he says he’s sorry, everyone’s okay with it and he’s not suspended or anything? I am totally going to call the UIL committee and report this malarky!
Most Offensive Portion: What’s wrong with liking Shakespeare, and Bergman and going to the museum? Why does Susanne have to be portrayed as such a snob just because she dares to watch foreign films in high school? I HATE YOU, FRANCINE PASCAL CABAL!!
Sweet Valley High 28: Alone in the Crowd
In which we pretend to care about a character we’ve never met before and will never meet again
Number Of Drinks Taken: 19
First Page On Which the Twins Are Described As “Blonde, Blue-eyed, All-American Good Looks” or equivalent: page 2
Main Plot: Lynne Henry is Ugly. Even though she’s slender, 5’10” and has amber-colored eyes, she is an Ugg. Why? Because she wears GLASSES and SWEATSHIRTS, duh! Anyway, everyone pretty much overlooks ugly ol’ Lynne, except for her neighbor, Guy Chesney (no relation to Kenny), who is the keyboardist for popular Sweet Valley band, The Droids.
The Droids announce a songwriting contest, which is inexplicably well-received, even though high school bands, by definition, suck. Don’t think so? One time The Killers came to play a party in my college house. You probably like The Killers, don’t you? Think that first album’s pretty catchy? Wish they hadn’t veered quite so soundly into Bruce Springsteen’s musical backyard in the second? But still roll down the windows and sing really loudly when Mr Brightside comes on the radio?
Yeah. THEY BLEW. What I mostly remember from that night is how the drummer managed to lose his shirt and pants and then sat on the couch in only his boxers, wearing a sign that said Will Drum for Pants.
My point being, bands unilaterally suck when they’re in high school or college. They can’t help it; it’s not their fault. They just haven’t honed their skills or sweated their way to the top yet. Anyway, this is why things like High School Battle of the Bands or your cousin’s garage band for which he plays bass are an amusing time, but not actually something you wet your knickers over. Except, I guess, for The Droids, since everyone in Sweet Valley loses their shit over them.
Anyway, Lynne submits a song – anonymously, of course, because she is Ugly – and to absolutely no one’s surprise, her anonymous submission is the clear winner. In fact, Guy Chesney (no relation to Kenny) is so obsessed with the song that he FALLS IN LOVE WITH THE ANONYMOUS SINGER, because Guy Chesney (no relation to Kenny) is at his heart a twelve-year-old Fall Out Boy fan.
Emboldened by the anonymous praise, Lynne eventually ditches her glasses and sweatshirts and figures out that, hey! Actually she has the perfect body to wear pretty much all fashion ever created, because the Fashion Gods choose to frown upon those of a shorter or curvier physique! Hooray, Lynne!
And then Guy Chesney (no relation to Kenny) finds out it’s her, and I presume he pours his heart out to her via some sort of penis-in-vagina action.
Sub-Plot Not In Least Bit Related To Main Plot: Jessica, dear sweet Jessica, has decided that the cheerleaders need to have a fundraiser in order to purchase new uniforms. So she settles on a Rock Around The Clock marathon, in which the cheerleaders are sponsored to rock, in a rocking chair, for an hour at a time.
I THINK THIS IS BRILLIANT. Think about it. When you were doing some sort of sponsorship-for-charity-or-fundraising thing, what did it involve? I’ll bet it involved PHYSICAL LABOR of some kind. Like, walk-a-thons, or marathons, or bike-a-thons, or whatever-a-thons. No one ever wants to pay you for doing something awesome, like sleeping! In fact, the only awesome, non-physical-labor “athon” I can think of is the Scully-a-thon, which X-Files fans of a certain breed used to have every year. Basically, people sponsored people to watch Scully-centric episodes of the X-Files; the more episodes watched, the more money raised. Except, no one ever sponsored me to do this, because they realized it was a sucker’s bet. Because I will watch The X-Files for LITERALLY DAYS AT A TIME. You don’t even want to front with me! I WILL DO IT.
Anyway, all this is to say, I would have rocked the shizz out of the Rock Around the Clock marathon.
Improbable High School Moment: This entire book is improbable, unless it were a movie, perhaps starring Freddie Prinze, Jr, in which case it would be completely plausible. Instead, I will use this space to share with you Lynne’s lyrics to her prize-winning song. Presented without comment:
Day after day, I’m feeling kind of lonely,
Day after day, it’s him and him only.
Something in his eyes
Made my hopes start to rise.
But he’s part of a world that doesn’t include me
Nothing he says could ever delude me.
I’ll never win
That’s how it’s always been.
I’m on the outside . . . looking in.
Night after night, I’m saying a prayer.
Night after night . . . that somebody will care!
Somebody to hear me
Somebody to stay near me . . .
But nothing’s going to change.
Dreams can’t deceive me.
I’m all alone.
You’ve got to believe me.
I just can’t win.
That’s how it’s always been.
I’m on the outside – on the outside . . .
Looking in
So, there you have it. I guess if you wanted to enter the Amerian Idol songwriting contest, you could build off these lyrics? Just add some rainbows and unicorn tears, or something.
Most Offensive Portion: OH MY GOD WEARING GLASSES AND SWEATSHIRTS DOESN’T MAKE YOU UGLY, SHUT UP PEOPLE FROM MY HIGH SCHOOL!! SOMETIMES PEOPLE JUST LIKE TO BE WARM AND ALSO BE ABLE TO READ THE BOARD, OKAY?
Sweet Valley High 29: Bitter Rivals
In which Amy Sutton is BACK, bishes!
Number Of Drinks Taken: 39 (they go to the beach! or talk about going to the beach! A LOT!)
First Page On Which the Twins Are Described As “Blonde, Blue-eyed, All-American Good Looks” or equivalent: page 1
Main Plot: Amy Sutton has come back to Sweet Valley! Don’t know who Amy Sutton is? Shame on you for not fulfilling your reading pre-requisites! Amy Sutton was Elizabeth’s very best friend back in sixth grade when they were both writing for The Sixers, the school newspaper, and rivaling Jessica’s Unicorns club. Then she moved to Connecticut and after a while Liz met Enid and made her an equally boring best friend.
Amy moves back and it turns out that she’s now cool less serious and studious than she used to be. Liz has a sad. Now Amy isn’t going to want to have boring outings and talk about her feelings and tell Elizabeth how smart and special she is anymore! Oh noes!
Liz keeps fighting the good fight, thinking that Enid and Amy will like each other and they can all be super-special bestest friends. Liz is evendumber than my parents’ dog, who still falls for me saying, “Hobbes! Outside there’s a bone! A bone, Hobbes!”
Anyway, eventually Liz figures out that her old best friend is way too interested in being fun and vivacious, and makes up with her current best friend, Enid. And I guess everyone’s happy or something; this book was seriously the most tedious book i’ve ever read in my life, topping even Anna Karenina, which is a book that I know everyone else totally gets a boner over, but is nevertheless a book I fucking hate. I got the metaphor eight pages ago, Tolstoy! STOP POUNDING IT IN. My patience has run out of lubrication and all you’re doing is chaffing me.
Sub-Plot Not In Least Bit Related To Main Plot: I can’t even remember! I just read this book two days ago, but itwas really boring BUT they were at the beach a lot and so I was drunk. Um. Oh! Yeah! Lila’s cousin Christopher, who is apparently the bee’s knees, is coming to town. Everyone’s pretty excited about getting some fresh meat in that town, but Christopher totally falls for Enid, because they knew each other from, like, Summer Camp for Bores, or something. Everyone else – Amy included – is INCENSED that Enid has stolen their man! But no one ever mentions Christopher again after this book, so does it really matter? Does anything matter?
Improbable High School Moment: Lila gets the number 1 band in LA, coincidentally called the Number Ones, to play at the party she throws for Christopher’s homecoming. This isn’t really that improbable, I guess, but the fact that she’s not being followed around by MTV cameras for My Super Sweet Sixteen is improbable!
Most Offensive Portion: It probably took me at least 45 minutes to read this book, and it was so unmemorable that I can’t remember the basic plotline TWO DAYS LATER. I’m offended this was even published. Worst ghostwriting yet!
Sweet Valley High Super Edition: Malibu Summer
In which the girls are au pairs and Erin gets alcohol poisoning
Number Of Drinks Taken: 56. I just received a text from my liver that said “thx 4 the good time but i dont think we should c each othr nemore.” My liver is a chatspeech writer, but can you blame it? It doesn’t have thumbs.
First Page On Which the Twins Are Described As “Blonde, Blue-eyed, All-American Good Looks” or equivalent: page 3
Main Plot: Jessica really wants to spend the summer with Lila in Malibu, but lame ol’ Ned and Alice won’t let her unless Elizabeth goes too. So the girls get jobs as au pairs for rich Malibu families! Jessica chooses to work for a young couple with a baby (who they call Sambo, because if there wasn’t some casual racism going on in these books, then I wouldn’t know what to do with myself) because the cousin of the couple is none other than the famous Tony Sargent, who I guess is like an unCanadian Justin Bieber. Elizabeth, meanwhile, works for a super-rich couple who totally neglect their pretty awesome little girl, Taryn.
One night, while Elizabeth is babysitting Jessica’s charge (so Jess can go to a party), she meets the Sargent’s new houseguest, a guy named Jamie. He’s 21 and in college, and in no time at all, he and Elizabeth are clutching at each other and speaking in husky tones. (Everyone speaks huskily in Sweet Valley.) Elizabeth is worried because Jamie is so much older than her, but what she doesn’t know, because she has the cognitive reasoning abilities of a throw pillow, is that Jamie is actually . . . dun dun dun . . . Tony Sargent!! So, while he’s not too old for her, his hair is probably better than hers.
Anyway, there’s some crazy guy out for Tony’s blood, due to Tony sticking it to his groupie girlfriend, and then he tries to attack Tony with a knife and then Elizabeth hits him in the head and then the truth comes out and then Elizabeth is super sad because Tony lied to her and then he sings her a special song at his concert, and she feels better. You know what this is like! The amazing George Strait movie Pure Country! Which I totally own on digital video disc! Because I love that movie! And the way George Strait’s butt looks in Wranglers.
Sub-Plot Not In Least Bit Related To Main Plot: So, Taryn, the neglected daughter of Elizabeth’s boss, is totally depressed and withdrawn, because of how no one loves her or pays attention to her. Elizabeth totally sucks as a babysitter, but Jessica totally wins the little girl over. Because Jessica is awesome!! And then Taryn overhears her parents fighting and her dad telling her mom that they shouldn’t have even had Taryn, and the little girl tries to run away. Unfortunately, she tries to run away during a giant storm, and she nearly dies, but Jessica rescues her! And then her parents reunite and promise to do better. I’m not going to be snarky about this, because I sort of maybe, at one point – because I was drunk! – actually teared up and said “aww” outloud. Oh, Taryn. I like you, kid.
In other subplot news, Lila falls for a 15 year old, much to her own chagrin. However, that’s not what matters. What matters is that Lila totally comes out of the closet and no one even notices!!! Check it, page 9:
“I’m more than excited,” Lila said. “I’ve already decided I’m going to fall madly in love this summer.”
“With whom,” Elizabeth asked, amused.
Lila gave her a scathing look. “Who knows?” she said airily, waving her hand. “There are a lot of great-looking girls in Malibu.”
Lila!!! Congratulations for coming out! You just missed the Pride parade, but that gives you like 357 days to come up with an awesome costume for next year!
Improbable High School Moment: High schoolers are au pairs now?
Most Offensive Portion: I can’t believe everyone just ignored Lila’s outing like that!! That’s so rude! I mean, at least buy her a subscription to The Advocate, or something, come on!
Sweet Valley High 30: Jealous Lies
In which two people we don’t care about do some things that we don’t care about
Number Of Drinks Taken: 23
First Page On Which the Twins Are Described As “Blonde, Blue-eyed, All-American Good Looks” or equivalent: page 3
Main Plot: Remember Pi Beta Alpha, the world’s most useless high school sorority? Well, it’s pledge time again, and pretty Jeannie West really wants to join. Her BFF, Sandra Bacon, is super jealous of Jeannie, because of how effortless everything is for Jeannie, and also because of her “perfect white skin.” (seriously, that’s how she’s described. Did Mel Gibson write these books?) Sandy feels like Pi Beta Alpha is the one thing she has that Jeannie doesn’t, so she sets out to keep Jeannie from pledging successfully.
Jeannie’s pledge task is to ask Tom McCay (no relation to Dylan) to some sort of sorority party. Sandra totally “slips” and tells Tom that Jeannie’s only asked him out to fulfill a pledge challenge. So Tom stands Jeannie up, and Jeannie is mad.
So then Jeannie plots to get her revenge on Tom, by making him fall for her, and then publicly humiliating him. But, of course, she falls for him too, and then she and Sandra make up, and Jeannie doesn’t humiliate Tom, and she gets into the sorority anyway and why does every single one of these books resolve in such a way that makes the reading of the book seem like even MORE of a waste of time than it already is? God. I can’t wait for the serial killer to show up.
Sub-Plot Not In Least Bit Related To Main Plot: Steven Wakefield has decided to drop out of college and work on a cruise ship. Great idea, Wakefield! It’s totally an awesome idea to drop out of school your freshman year in college and then go work for the VERY STEADY AND SECURE cruiseline industry!
The twins convince their parents and Cara to pretend that they’re completely behind Steven’s hare-brained idea. It’s totally successful, and Stephen soon realizes that he was being a moron. Hooray! The Wakefields win again! Just like EVERY OTHER TIME.
Improbable High School Moment: Again. SORORITY. IN HIGH SCHOOL. Also, that’s a pledge activity? Asking someone out on a date? I mean, the fraternity across the street from where I lived in college made their pledges dig a pool in their house’s yard, every year, and then would have a pool party for the members and their dates, and then would make the pledges fill in the pool and resod the lawn. In AUGUST. And they were Fijis, like, the dumbest of the dumb. Come on, Pi Beta Alpha. Doesn’t the Greek name mean anything anymore? (Answer: no.)
Most Offensive Portion: What could be offensive about reading the phrase “perfect white skin”?!?!?!?!
That’s it for this week, kids! I hope that those in the US have a very happy and safe 4th (please remember not to add gunpowder to dud fireworks. I’ve done that and it usually doesn’t turn out well. However, I think my singed eyebrows are very striking.) and everyone else enjoy your weekend! Remember that if you’re going to drink, don’t drive, and if you’re going to watch Eclipse, definitely drink.
