Sweet Valley Diaries

35. Out of Control

Will Aaron Dallas destroy Elizabeth and Jeffrey's happiness?

"It's not my fault!" he choked out, his throat constricting with hot tears."Everyone makes me so mad! What do they expect from me? It's not my fault!" - p. 77 So, Aaron Dallas is angry. It doesn't really matter what about; pretty much anything could set him off if he senses it's a slight or insult against him. This is especially problematic during soccer practice, as every rough steal or accidental push sends him into a blind rage. And, since he's the best player on the team, he puts Sweet Valley's championship hopes on the line when the coach threatens to boot him off the team if he doesn't quit wailing on people.  Now, you may be wondering why you should care about Aaron Dallas and his anger management issues (other than the fact that Francine Pascal told you to, which should be enough for some of us). The answer is simple: Elizabeth Wakefield and Jeffrey French are in a fight about it. Rational to a fault (well, not always), Liz sees that Aaron's behavior is way out of line. Jeffrey, though, is Aaron's best friend, and expresses his friendship through unquestioning loyalty instead of concerned intervention. He really doesn't want to hear Liz suggest that Aaron is in the wrong, and Liz is frustrated that Jeffrey won't listen to reason.  Of course, there is a reason that Aaron is so angry. His parents are getting divorced and his mother ran off with another man and left Aaron and Mr. Dallas to fend for themselves. Aaron's dad has anger issues of his own, but these are not the kind of dudes that talk about their feelings, hence the yelling and punching people. There is one thing that calms the Hulk, though, and it's a doozy: baby talk from his girlfriend, Heather. That's right. Baby talk. THE VERY THING THAT MAKES MOST PEOPLE WANT TO PUNCH THINGS IS THE THING STOPS AARON FROM PUNCHING THINGS! Sweet Pascalian irony. Blink and you'll miss it.  Heather is my favorite part of this book, mostly because of the well-deserved grief she causes for Elizabeth. Since Heather is dating Jeffrey's best friend, she and Elizabeth get to spend a bit of quality time together, much to the latter's dismay. To quote Elizabeth,"I mean, she's awfully sweet, but she's driving me crazy!". Liz is irked by the baby talk ("they sound like a couple of kindergartners!"), and by Heather's impetuous habit of sitting next to Liz and "making comments" about what's happening.   Despite the baby talk, I felt like Liz was being awfully judgmental. Sure, the girl was annoying, but so are most of these Sweet Valley kids. What's more, Elizabeth hardly knows Heather. As it turns out, Heather has been underestimated. She makes her own high-fashion wardrobe, and she only does the embarrassing baby-talk to pacify Aaron, who she's really concerned about.  Maybe it's best to let the book speak for itself here: "She was sorry about Elizabeth, because she really liked and respected her. But, well, Elizabeth Wakefield was so poised and smart, Heather felt that she herself always ended up sounding dumb and immature when she talked to the older girl. No wonder Elizabeth didn't want to be her friend." -p. 67 It's really Heather that ends up saving Aaron from himself. She convinces him to see a counselor for help after he punches Jeffrey.  Oh, yeah. He punches Jeffrey. Because Jeffrey was defending Elizabeth, who mentioned Aaron's misbehavior and suspension in an article for the school paper covering the soccer championships. Crazy, right? Why is Elizabeth covering soccer when sports is John Pfeifer's beat?!   The counselor makes everything okay so that Aaron and his dad start talking about their feelings, the coach lets Aaron play in the big match, and Sweet Valley wins. Aaron and Liz and Jeff and Heather can all be friends forever, or at least until some other major life event sets disaster in motion. I give it 3-4 books.

33. Starting Over

Will Sally Larson have to change to stay in Sweet Valley?

No matter what, she couldn't do anything to jeopardize this new life. If she had to leave Sweet Valley now, she thought she would just die. - p. 50 So I've been sitting on this book for ages now, and I can't really say why. Confusion over the introduction of a real tragic figure (Dana Larson's cousin, who's spent her whole life as a foster child)? Stunned disbelief at this whole Diablo Cody thing (still waiting to hear  from you, Ms. Cody!)? I don't know. But here it is at last: Book 33, Starting Over. Dana is also feeling a bit apprehensive. She's not sure how to act around Sally, and she really doesn't want to tell her peers about Sally's sad past. After she and Sally meet, they hit it off, but this doesn't stop Dana's concern. She wants to spruce up Sally's plain-Jane wardrobe. She even advises Sally to lie about her age so that no one wonders why she's repeating 11th grade (she's behind because she's been bumped around from school to school so often). Dana and Sally become fast friends, but Sally is really greasing the wheels by never saying no to Dana, be it over clothing advice, a new hairstyle, or what to do with her free time. Anybody feel a trainwreck coming on? Dana's brother Jeremy, on the other hand is impossibly rude to and resentful of Sally (nobody asked him if he wanted a new sister! Harumph!). One particularly sad turn of events is when Sally dismisses the affections of Jeremy’s friend Mark Riley, not because she doesn’t like him, but because she doesn’t think Jeremy would like their dating. Worst of all, this go-with-the-flow-at-all-costs attitude isn’t really working. Dana and Jeremy are both feeling upstaged by Sally’s polite helpfulness, not realizing that she’s just trying to hold on to her new family by being a good foster daughter. Naturally, I waited for Elizabeth Wakefield to save the day. Surely the fact that Sally dreams of writing for the school paper would give Liz the chance to intervene! It does, but this volume changes things up a little by having Liz butt in only slightly, with a sensible suggestion that Sally should do what she wants to do with her time, and that Dana would likely understand that choice. In fact, it's Sally herself who solves her family drama — but not without the aid of some local criminals.  Yeah. The criminals, predictably, are not immediately helpful. Right when Sally is sure the Larson family is kicking her to the curb (the girl is NOT super familiar with the whole “family” thing), she, Jeremy, and Dana pick up some shady hitchhikers. To be clear, Jeremy voluntarily ignores Sally’s warning that these guys look like trouble, and then the guys demand to be driven to Kelly’s, where all of Sweet Valley’s street thugs hang out. When they arrive there, shit gets real: “…there’s a couple of things I need from you first,” Jim said, breathing heavily down Jeremy’s neck. “Like your wallet.” Jeremy whipped around in his seat. “What the –” “Or my friend here will think of something to take from your sister here,” Jim continued, a sinister note creeping into his voice.” Whoa! That’s right. He said “here” twice in one sentence! Oh, and he’s threatening to take advantage of Dana. But Sally, resigned to her imagined fate of familylessness, pulls a mega stunt. She pretends to be into the idea of boozing it up at Kelly’s with two crazy ne’er-do-wells. She calls Dana a “dead bore,” and says that she knows “how to have a good time – even if no one else around here does.” Yeah! It’s like that now! Jeremy and Dana drive off. Then Dana figures out what just happened. Feeling terribly guilty, they rush to get the manly Mark Riley and all three head back to Kelly’s. In a dramatic standoff, Dana refers to Sally as “my sister.” Everyone heads back to the Larson home, and to the surprise of all three Larson children, mom and dad have decided to formally adopt Sally. Oh, happy day! She will be Dana’s sister after all! This whole drama is handled with at least as much seriousness and grace as Elizabeth’s kidnapping. Or Regina’s kidnapping. And the book showed some promise in the way it kept Elizabeth out of the debacle – after all, we wouldn’t want our nearly-racy, sensationalist, teen soap-opera series turning into a little-miss-fix-it series, would we? Would we? I wouldn’t. I’m counting on more drama, and I’m hoping for more problems that Elizabeth can’t solve

26. Hostage!

Can anyone save Regina Morrow?

Regina stared dully at the floor. Just shoot me now, she wanted to tell him. Just end this agony here and now! - p. 72 Okay, let's cut the crap. Every one of us is probably thinking the same thing right now: didn't you already review this book? The answer is no; you're thinking of Book 13. That was 13 whole books ago! I can understand why you might be confused. After all, that other book was called Kidnapped! Not only does that sound like Hostage!, but those are the only two titles to date with exclamation points – I think the author believes they imply danger. Each book features a strange predator whose hand appears mysteriously behind the main character on the book's cover. And, as you might imagine, both books tell the story of the kidnapping of one of Sweet Valley's major players by someone you've never heard of. If I told you this is where the similarities end, it wouldn't mask the issue at hand here: How can one small town have so many kidnappings?! Two juniors in one year is an awful lot. Add hospitalizations and comas to the list, and it's a wonder the citizens of Sweet Valley haven't fled for nearby Oregon or Nevada. Despite the dubious titular similarities, the plot of Hostage! really is vastly different from that of Kidnapped! And it might ease your worried minds to know that Regina Morrow actually gets kidnapped in Switzerland. She is then taken home to Sweet Valley – to her own home, in fact – where her kidnapper masquerades as an aunt (“Aunt Claire”) who's watching the Morrow Manor while Regina's parents are out of town. And out of town they most certainly are – they, too, are being held hostage in a neighboring village, in the home of a crazed ex-employee of Mr. Morrow's computing firm. The goal of these strange efforts is to use the captive Morrows (including Regina) to steal the planes for a super-powerful, very secret new computer chip the company has developed and sell it, thus becoming rich and ruining the Morrow empire at the same time. Making this whole fiasco a bit simpler is the astounding fact that Regina can now hear! Thanks to the special Swiss procedures she's been undergoing, she now has 80% normal hearing, the excitement of which was somewhat muted in this book by the whole kidnapping thing. Elizabeth is tipped off to the problem when she hears that a grocery store delivery boy (Eddie) saw Regina at home. How strange, she thinks, since no one had any idea Regina was returning, including her boyfriend Bruce. She calls the police, but they are tricked by the whole “Aunt” ruse and ticked at Liz for what they consider a false alarm. They could have spent those valuable minutes trying to solve one of the hundreds of other kidnappings occurring in Sweet Valley every second! And so launches the exciting race to save Regina and her parents.  Elizabeth, Jessica, and Bruce start by hatching an ingenious plot to let Regina know that they’re on the case. They slip a note into a teen magazine and add it to the groceries that Eddie delivers to the Morrow house. She’s able to let them know that her parents are being held hostage. In case you were wondering, yes, there is another member of the Morrow family. At this point, the other Morrow, Nicholas, is intercepted by the Sweet Valley Avengers (Liz, Jess, and Bruce didn’t give themselves this nickname, but I think it sounds snappy!) and brought into the plan. He wants to take matters into his own hands, but the Avengers warn him that solving this problem will take careful planning. This was my big beef with this book – bigger, even, than my concern for the high kidnapping rate in Sweet Valley. Why don’t these kids, once they have the facts straight, go to the police and tell them everything? They could get their parents involved, too. Liz and Jess are scared that their parents will be mad at them for getting involved in something dangerous, and the cops are already upset at them for what they feel was a false alarm, but COME ON! This is, like, totally serious! And so what if they are trying to bring down two kidnappers in two different towns at the exact same time (so neither Regina nor her parents gets shot when their respective kidnapper is tipped off that the plan is foiled)? I spent a LOT of this book thinking that if they took the evidence they’ve amassed to the authorities, the FBI and the SWAT team would probably be able to take it from there.  But no, that’s not what happens. Bruce and Jessica use brute force and feminine wiles, respectively, to try and rescue Mr. and Mrs. Morrow. Elizabeth and Nicholas stand by at the computer chip plant to try and stall Claire as she and Regina exit the building with the hijacked plans. Cops are called eventually, but only at the last possible moment. And yes, yes, it’s all very exciting, except for the fact that you know quite well from page one that everything’s going to work out just fine in the end.  Surely, no more sorrow will ever befall the Morrow family again. Or, at least no more kidnappings…

25. Nowhere to Run

Will Emily lose everything she loves?

"At first I thought I did have an attitude problem…but now I realize that it isn't me that has a problem. It's my stepmother, Karen." - Emily Mayer, p. 7 WTF! The last few words of Sweet Valley High #25, Nowhere to Run, which have something to do with Regina Morrow being held prisoner by a fake aunt,  have left me so confused that I’m not sure what even happened in this book. Let’s see…somebody was being mistreated by her family…somebody was confided in…there was a blossoming romance that almost didn’t bloom…ahh yes, it’s spring in Sweet Valley. Or so I imagine. Now let’s fill in some blanks. The main character here (after the twins, of course) is Emily Mayer, whom you may or may not remember as the drummer for the Droids, “the Sweet Valley High rock group,” as it’s described on page 5. She’s got a whole slew of pretty serious family problems, not the least of which is the absence of her real mother from her life. Everyone thinks Emily’s mom died years ago, but the secret truth is far, far worse. Emily’s mom is the worst possible type of villain in the world of Sweet Valley: a tramp! She abandoned her daughter years ago, which is too bad, because there’s no way she’s crazier than Emily’s dad and stepmom. Apparently, life changes are totally unbearable for this pair. After getting married and having a new baby, they’ve suddenly decided that Emily has turned rotten. They won’t be swayed by little old facts, either, like the fact that Emily is actually a very nice and conscientious girl, with hobbies, talents, friends, and lots of time to babysit. I don’t need to say much for you to get the gist of Emily’s dilemma. Basically, nothing she does is good enough for her stepmother, Karen. If she babysits four nights a weeks, she should have done it five nights. If she gets a phone call, why does the phone have to ring so loud? But by far the biggest issue is her drums, which she can hardly touch without getting bitched at. And, alas, Emily’s once-reasonable father refuses to entertain the idea that Karen might be overreacting, instead choosing to believe that Emily’s being uncooperative. Elizabeth finds out about this issue when Emily shows up at the Oracle looking  to become a writer. She knows something must be wrong, because Emily is “a musician, not a writer,” as the book makes crystal clear. And she’s right, of course. Emily is actually trying to do whatever her stepmother wants, because otherwise she might get sent to boarding school. Seriously, these people are crazy! One major thing driving Emily to stay in Sweet Valley instead of escaping to the independent bliss of boarding school is Dan, the Droids’ guitarist, whom she has a major crush on. Karen really doesn’t like this guy, and when she catches the two of them alone in the Mayers’ basement, it doesn’t matter to her in the slightest that there was nothing indecent going on. Karen essentially calls Emily a slut “just like her mother.” And when Emily explains what happened to her her father, he accuses her of lying. Yikes. As usual, Elizabeth Wakefield becomes the confidant and de facto problem-solver in this book. For all her practice at this role, you think she’d be better at it. When Emily attempts to run away to the Wakefields’ house, Elizabeth complains to her family that she just doesn’t know what to do. It seems pretty obvious to me that someone just needs to send these people to family therapy, but things have a way of playing out a little differently in Sweet Valley. Speaking of resolutions, the climax of this book has got to be one of my favorites, right up there with the kidnapping/knife fight debacle from Showdown. Emily gives Karen some unsolicited advice about not giving her baby a toy with loosely-attached buttons for eyes, which Karen promptly ignores. Then, lo and behold, the baby (whose name is Karrie) pulls off a button eye, puts it in her mouth, and proceeds to choke on it. Karen freaks out, but Emily knows just what to do. In order to get a crazed Karen to calm down enough to hand the baby over, Emily smacks her stepmother right in the face. Bam! Just after Emily saves her baby sister’s life, Mr. Mayer storms in. Seeing that all hell has broken loose, he immediately accuses Emily of some unnamed act of  evil. and tells her to “Get out!” Shocked beyond comprehension, Emily quickly obliges.  This scene acts as both the final straw for Emily, who afterwards decides to try and find her mom in Chicago, and the wake-up call for Karen, who is suddenly able to see Emily for what she is: a member of the family. Emily returns to the Wakefield house, where Liz frustratingly debates whether or not to “tattle” on Emily by calling the Mayers to tell them where their daughter is. Eventually she does, and we finally get to breathe a sigh of relief as the Mayers come to their senses. If this book seems a little tense for your tastes, rest assured that there is some major accidental comedy to lighten the mood. Near the end of the book, Bruce Patman is seen with an astonishing piece of technology: a cordless phone. Not a cell phone, a cordless phone. “My father’s latest toy” he calls it, “designed for people too lazy to budge. You can keep the phone next to you wherever you go.” Were I next to Bruce at that moment, I might have pointed out that he meant “wherever you go in your own home.” I also would have added “LOL,” but only to confuse him with my future-speak. Even more fun for me was another scene dating this book, in which Jessica has this hilarious interchange with her grandmother: GRANDMA: All these college kids come in with their knapsacks and those little tape players they listen to – you know, with those little headphones. JESSICA:   Walkmen! This sounds exactly like a conversation I’d have with my grandmother about an iPod! The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess. If only that didn’t also apply to teenagers, stepmothers, and dysfunctional family life.

19. Showdown

Jessica and Lila are in love with the same boy!

Wow! she thought to herself. Before I was only half-serious about stealing him from Lila. But now...    - Jessica, p.9 Foreshadowing is an amazing literary device. At its best, its subtlety suggests excitement to come, but leaves room for incredible surprise. At its worst, it's ham-fisted, making excuses and spoiling any possibility of an unforseen finale. Sweet Valley High is not a series known for its subtlety, but in volume 19 of the series, Showdown, a new facet was added to the gem that is foreshadowing. We'll call it the facet of ridiculousness. Allow me to elaborate. Like so many of the Sweet Valley novels, this one includes a mysterious stranger, one that we were introduced to in book 18. I didn't mention it in my last post, because it really didn't register as a B story. Or a C story. Maybe a D. The stranger's name is Jack...something. His last name is a secret. All we know about Jack is that he seems to be more than he reveals to the world. He meets Lila at one of her father's construction sites. Lila wouldn't normally approach a construction worker, but this particular one was SO attractive that she was forced to look past his probably thin wallet to his tanned and dimpled visage. Bummer. But Lila immediately had a feeling that this Jack could be no mere construction worker. Any one as articulate and handsome as he was must be somebody...and "somebody", in Lila's book, means "somebody with money."  Meanwhile, Jessica is still pretty ticked at Lila for screwing up the history report she wrote for Jessica after losing the Bruce and Regina bet (see Book 18...Lila managed to pull down a B for herself, but could only jot up a D for Jess). So when she finds out that there's a mysterious stranger who meets Lila's high standards of approval, she thinks maybe said mysterious stranger would be the perfect guy for HER.  It should be noted that this is a decision Jessica comes to before ever meeting Jack – before, in fact, she has even laid eyes on him. Truly, the depths of her devlishness are untold. So what about the foreshadowing? Relax, I'm getting to it.  Especially at the beginning, the book focuses mostly on the possibility that Jack has a secret history that he's keeping from us. Most of the characters are pretty sure this history involves something wonderful, like his own island in the South Pacific, or a yacht the size of the Patman Estate. It's only here and there that the book suggests to us that there's probably something a little darker in Jack's nature. For example, in Chapter 3, Lila's father's cufflinks go missing. It's after a big pool party she's thrown, so there's no real reason to suspect anyone in particular. As the story continues, Jessica finds herself on a date with Jack when her spending money goes missing. It's just ten dollars, no big deal, but odd how Jack calmly assures her that she probably left it on her bedroom floor. A conscious reader (by "conscious", I mean not asleep or in a coma) sees that the only new ingredient here is Jack: QED, he did it. Great. Jack's a thief...maybe some sort of con artist? We bide our time through the 9 remaining chapters, waiting for the big reveal. A few other oddities in Jack's demeanor are shared with us, but at this point, they seem inconsequential. He gets really testy when asked to divulge more about his past. He's lying bluntly to the two girls he's dating. His eyes are sometimes bloodshot. He's occasionally seen in a daze. Sounds like your average 18 year old to me.  But wait! How could we forget? This isn't some kind of neo-realist character study…this is Sweet Valley! We forgot to consider the fearlessness with which Pascal's plot bible* approaches even the simplest of story lines. These stories have the courage to be brash. The courage to be insane. The courage to have Annie Whitman try to kill herself over cheerleading tryouts and to have Elizabeth kidnapped by a quiet, dopey orderly. It was this courage that made Showdown's foreshadowing so effective. For you see, NEVER, not in a million years, could I have imagined the truth about Jack's mysterious aura. It's Nicholas Morrow who first riles up Jack's discomfort and anger at being grilled about his past. When Nick suggests that he may have met Jack somewhere before, Jack vehemently denies it as a possibility. He privately reveals to Lila that he is the son of a very important man and, having everything in life planned out and handed to him, he decided to run away from home and try to make it on his own terms before returning to his old life. While we can suspect that this is at least partly bogus, we're unsure where the truth ends and Jack's con begins. But all hell breaks loose when the truth is finally revealed to us by a friend of Nicholas's, visiting from the East Coast, who recognizes Jack as the book nears its end. It seems he and Jack went to boarding school together until Jack was kicked out for robbing a date at knifepoint. That's right, I said knifepoint. When Jack's whole family died in a boating accident, he developed a bit of a derangement, one of the Jekyll/Hyde variety. Sometimes he's sweet, almost normal, but other times his rage flares up and he becomes defensive and dangerous. The Hyde side is fueled by his drug addiction – excuse me, drugs addition, as there are several – and his constant quest for drug money. Possibly strangest of all, he has gradually built up a sort of fantasy word pieced together from his various lies, where his family is much richer than they really were, and he's vacationed in places that he's really only seen in pictures. If that last paragraph left you thinking, "WHAT?" I could leave you, dear readers, with just a simple advisory: remember that feeling. Never underestimate the prospect of a ridiculous surprise. But it would be cruel of me to leave out the story's end, so here goes. Jessica is at Jack's place, and things are getting weird. Meanwhile, Nick and his friend hunt down Elizabeth to try and find Jessica and save her. Elizabeth calls Lila to get Jack's address. Lila is reluctant to help Liz, but when she hears about Jack's dark past, she sees she's dodged a bullet and spills it. Liz, Nick, and Nick's friend storm into Jack's place to find Jack with a butcher knife pointed at Jess, who's fighting him off. There's a struggle! Nick gets cut! He's bleeding! Jessica does a cheerleader kick! She kicks the knife right out of Jack's hand! He's caught! He's arrested! Enid's plane is in trouble! Drama! Yes, yes, my friends. Things are getting good. We should have seen it coming.

15. Promises

“Somehow, Jessica will get rid of Betsy!”

Dear Diaries,  Oh me oh my! Yet again, tragedy has struck Sweet Valley, and this time it’s going to stick. Tricia Martin is finally dead, which is really the only way anyone can be dead. Miraculously, Jessica’s icy-cold heart thaws a bit at this event and even she is able to see that the death of her brother’s beloved girlfriend (of cancer, at 17) is kinda sad. But this lapse in bitchiness proves temporary when an apparently greater horror occurs: Tricia’s sister Betsy moves in with the Wakefields. Now, Betsy might not sound like a slutty name and, based on Book 15’s cover, she might not look like a slutty girl. Slap a leather mini skirt and some heavy eyeliner on her, though, and Miss Martin operates at a slut-factor that puts even the formerly “Easy Annie” to shame. SURE, after Tricia’s death Betsy promises to get straight, but come on, why  should Jessica trust that lousy skank? Huh? Or so she argues when Steven and Liz both plead with her to give Betsy a second chance like a decent human being. Surely I don’t have to tell you, clever readers, that such pleading is futile. By the end of the book, Jessica convinces Betsy that she’s just a pitiful charity case, driving her out of the Wakefield house and into someplace called “The Shady Lady” for her first drink and 3-way makeout in weeks. (Surely not the first girl Jess has driven to the bottle.)  Luckily for Betsy, she’s not really a mere charity case to Liz, Steven, and Steven’s cute college friend, Jason. In the course of her stay, the Wakefields found that Betsy was a first-class artist (she drew some killer sketches of her dead sister and the Wakefields eating breakfast — two separate drawings, not Tricia's ghost at the Spanish-tiled kitchen table). Unable to gain the trust of an emotionally damaged and gun-shy Betsy, the three secretly win her a scholarship to an L.A. art school. In the book’s final moments, Betsy finds out that she does have real friends... and that Jason knows karate. Sexy! One interesting thing about this story is that it’s the first time any main character’s “inappropriate" behavior is described with any specificity – or, for that matter, as fact rather than rumor. True, the book does leave a lot of Betsy’s whoring, boozing, and drug use to the imagination. But let me introduce several incidences of saucy behavior that were never so boldly named in previous volumes. Even from several feet away, Elizabeth could smell the alcohol on Betsy’s breath. Her heavy makeup was smeared under one eye, and her skimpy shirt was missing several buttons...”Did I say she couldn’t walk a straight line?” Jessica asked. “She can’t even walk. She’s probably been in every bar in Southern California tonight.”  - p. 8-9 “Elizabeth, a date with Betsy Martin means one thing, and one thing only...And I thought Betsy Martin stories were a dime a dozen.”   - Betsy herself, p.85 “But art school’s not going to do her any good if she’s too trashed to see straight.”  - Steven, p. 137   “Why don’t you guys give up and go home. We’re busy playing games that are out of your league.” “You call drinking a game?” Steven gestured toward her refilled glass. “Drinking...and maybe other things too,” Betsy said...”Charlie here just got his hands on some dynamite pot.”  - p. 140-141   “How positively awful–having to share your home with such low-class trash. Why, our stable boy has more class than Betsy Martin!”   - Lila Fowler, p.43 Okay, so that last one was just for me.  Given how unflatteringly she’s described, it’s amazing how much compassion the author and characters have for Betsy. Which brings us, of course, to the motivation for Betsy’s behavior problems: Alcoholic Dad! You know him well, as he has appeared in countless TV shows, movies, and books; there has never been a time in your life when you were unacquainted with Alcoholic Dad. Oh, he wasn’t always this way...once he had his loving wife, his beautiful young children, a great job! But now, what has he got? Nothing but Jim Beam and a dirty glass to keep him company on those dark, lonely nights and those cruel, endless days...but I digress. The point is, no teenage daughter can survive the wrath of Alcoholic Dad without permanent damage. Well, there’s Tricia. But she was a fluke, and...hey! Wait a sec...she’s dead! She didn’t survive at all. AND her dad probably DROVE her to leukemia! Oh, the sorrow! In closing, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Sweet Valley may be bracing some racier behavior, but those crystalline stereotypes are living as large as ever.

13. Kidnapped!

“Elizabeth’s nightmare is about to begin...”

When I try to decide what, if anything, there is to say about whatever absurd volume I’ve just finished reading, it’s always nice when I can come up with some singular thing about it that’s jumped out at me. Frequently it’s impossible. There are just so many tiny little details and quotes I’ve earmarked for their hilarity, so many tidbits that I’m desperate to tell you about, that the prospect of finding some unifying flag they can all fly under seems utterly hopeless. Pleasantly enough, Kidnapped! is an exception to this dilemma. Even as I write this, it occurs to me that it will be somewhat difficult to describe exactly what it is that stood out about Book 13. But I’ll give it a try: imagine a bell curve. High in the center, tapering off to nothing on either side. Have you got it? Okay, this graph represents my level of involvement with, and also sympathy for, Elizabeth and her ordeal, where x = time and y = me giving a shit. When it was time for me to start reading this book, I put it off for as long as possible. Knowing how frustrating even the most tamely-titled SVH book can be, I was dreading subjecting myself to the ridiculous events I knew were in store in a book called "Kidnapped!".  I knew what had happened: at the end of Book 12, a strange orderly at the hospital, Carl, had snatched Liz on her way to the car and thrown her in the trunk of his van – a windowless child-molester van no doubt. It was quite a cliffhanger, but as it came out of almost nowhere, I didn't really want to subject you to it in my last installment. Sorry? But while a cliffhanger usually leaves us begging for more, this one just left me thinking, "Jesus, I don't want to deal with that." So I didn't. I put it off for a week and a half before cautiously beginning the novel. Much to my delight, there was no mention of Elizabeth's kidnapping in Chapter 1. Or Chapter 2. As the book opens, we find Jessica preparing for a party at the estate of some Sweet Valley newcomers, desperately awaiting her sister's return from a day filling in at the hospital and tutoring Droids frontman Max Dellon so he won't fail English (thus destroying the band). Quite a day for Liz, really, so Jess isn't concerned when her sister doesn't come home early – that is, she isn't too concerned about Liz. She's plenty concerned for herself, as she's desperate to be the first to get her claws into Sweet Valley's newest rich, sexy bachelor, Nicholas Morrow. Nicholas is 18, and it's his 16-year-old sister Regina who's throwing the meet-and-greet at the largest home in town, previously unoccupied. But I digress. Jessica can't wait a moment longer for her sister to return, so she leaves for the party with Cara. What she doesn't know is that she could have spent all night waiting. Liz isn't going anywhere soon. Thus the ascent begins – up the curve, I mean. Now that I'm a little caught up in the story, my defenses are down, and I begin to worry about Liz myself. Where could she be? I'll tell you where. In a trunk. Chloroformed and tied up. This is bad! Really bad! The next thing she knows, she's tied to a chair in a strange and disheveled house, and she realizes for the first time that it's this creepy Carl guy who's kidnapped her. But she doesn't know why. Is he going to kill her? When Carl finally reveals himself (only his identity, thank God), Elizabeth finds out that he’s kidnapped her so that he can be near her. That's it. Creeeepy! He loves her, and this was the only way he could think of to be with her. (Elizabeth's inner monologue: Did you ever toy with the idea of SPEAKING to me? Just a thought.) He says that she's like "a beautiful bird...So beautiful and yet so willful". Shudder. The situation worsens when Liz asks to go to the bathroom and uses the momentary freedom as a chance to bolt. When Carl catches her, he is more afraid than ever that she doesn't really WANT to be there (surprise!) so she ends up tied to that chair one more time. Back in Sweet Valley, the whole town has lost it. especially the police: they think Liz ran away. As if! Worst of all, a lot of people think that Max Dellon, the rebellious boy that Elizabeth was supposed to be tutoring the night she was kidnapped, has something to do with her disappearance. This is mostly because he was found snooping through Liz's car that night (he was looking for clues to her whereabouts after she didn't show up to tutor him). I can understand their misguided suspicions, though. I mean, who can trust a guy who's failing English? And a musician, no less. He might as well write “guilty”on his forehead! As I'm hoping you can imagine, now that I'm effectively immersed in the story, my concern for Elizabeth is pretty high. I mean, this dude that kidnapped her is seriously insane. He buys her creepy presents like random gift shop novels and he feeds her dry frozen pancakes. He’s stupid, but not stupid enough to stop going to work - he doesn't want to arouse suspicion. Unfortunately, Liz never told anyone about her weird encounters with Carl in the hospital, where he seemed to stare at her constantly but from a distance, and never spoke to her. And now, he's planning on cashing in some vacation time so he can take Elizabeth away to a shack in the mountains...and never return!! It will be so perfect Elizabeth! I'll love you forever and you will never get away!!! Yikes. A scary prospect indeed.  Alas, this, my friends, is where we hit the top of our little bell curve. Because while Carl is at his "last day" of work, Elizabeth sits, arms and legs bound, on her couch-bed, and tries, TRIES to regain a bit of sanity by remembering the good times...beach strolls with Todd, sleepovers with Enid, pillow fights with Jessica...it seems like only yesterday that she saw them all! Well, dear readers, it freaking WAS yesterday! She's been kidnapped for 2 DAYS! A horrible experience, to be sure, but give me a break! If you're struggling to remember your twin sister after 2 days away from her, a little Stockholm Syndrome is the least of your troubles. Jesus! The downward slope is quick and sharp. I have no doubt about where y finally returns to zero, and I return to the level of disdain for the whole affair that I began with. It's in the final chapter, when Elizabeth and Jessica throw a party to celebrate her return. (Yes, yes, she's alive. Big whoop. Carl saw Jessica at the hospital and, thinking she was Liz, inadvertently confessed it all.) At this party, Enid's boyfriend arrives and greets Liz "for the first time since the kidnapping." For the first time, that means, in two measly days. And he says to her, no kidding "It's good to have you back." As if she's freaking Liz Smart, returning to the real world after years of painful searching and heartache! Usually, once a book gets ahold of you, you care about the story right through the final page. But when this one was over, I was also SO OVER the whole thing that I barely noticed the bombshell on the final page. Remember Nicholas Morrow, the rich sensitive hunk that Jessica had her eyes on before ever meeting him? Well, when he arrives at the party, he takes one look at Elizabeth and can see no one else. And Liz knows it. I smell trouble...hopefully Book 14's plot curve will be a little more x=y, if you know what I mean. And if you don't, don't fret. I'll fill you in next time.

11. Too Good to Be True

“Is Suzanne as perfect as she seems?”

The 2018 podcast episode about this book can be found here. Even though I have lived within 50 miles of America's 3rd largest city for my entire life, there's just something about growing up in the Midwest that makes most other places seem glamorous. New York was always high on the list, but California pretty much topped it; the sun, the ocean, the mountains, the sun, everyone in the pool all year, movie stars everywhere, the palm trees, the sun...and I'm not just talking Los Angeles. The Tanners may have lived in San Francisco, but the Beach Boys didn't mind driving up there to pay them a visit. California is a big state, sure, but few images of it didn't seem appealing to me. Hell, why am I using the past tense? Years later, I am still bound for California, as are many of my Midwestern compatriots, and when I hear it described as "another planet", I want to buy my tickets as soon as possible. Maybe it's just a case of Californian grass being greener, but when I imagine Sweet Valley, it is definitely glamorous. It's downright perfect, a place where the rich people have estates instead of mansions and the middle-class drive Italian sports cars. And yet, in Too Good to Be True, Sweet Valley is constantly described as a boring little town. Somebody somewhere has forgotten about all the recent sexual assaults and comas! But if Sweet Valley is a boring little town, its podunk residents are the perfect prey for a villainess from the last remaining glamorous land: New York City.  Her name is Suzanne Devlin, and her plan is simple, if pointless. She will pretend to be the sweetest, most helpful girl on the face of the earth and in so doing she will lure the naïve townsfolk into trusting her completely. Then she will be free to corrupt their men and steal their jewelry! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha! Seriously though, this is the plot. And don't you start crying to me about spoiling the surprise - if the title alone weren't enough to let you know Suzanne would prove herself evil, you could take one look at the cover picture (above). That girl has "Bitch" written all over her face! And Elizabeth is looking quite suspicious. To be perfectly honest with you, this took a bit of the fun out of it for me. Since I knew "Suzy" was going to turn out rotten, I was a little impatient with the Sweet Valley crew for the way they worshipped her – and that's just what they did. They worshipped her because she was sweet, but mostly because she was beautiful. mature, and glamorous; because she was from New York City. Speaking of New York City, this is where Jessica spends the duration of Book 11. While Suzanne comes to stay with the Wakefields, Jessica stays in the Devlins’ ritzy townhouse, and she is, of course, beside herself with delight. That is, until she realizes that in Suzanne's circle, everyone is a Jessica Wakefield - they all love to manipulate men, they all love to be condescending. Jessica is a big lake bass who suddenly finds herself in the Atlantic Ocean, if you get my meaning. I suppose that makes Suzanne's boyfriend, Pete, some sort of hammerhead shark who is pretty sure that this lake fish would be tasty...and that it so obviously wants to be eaten! Ok, leaving my super-apt analogy behind, Jessica, once again, has to face the fact that some boys think "yes" means "yes." When she tries to be coy, she ends up getting assaulted AGAIN. Someone (cough, Jessica, cough) needs to decide whether or not she's a slut already. Needless to say, she just wasn't fancy enough for the fancy New York fancy-pantses, and she has a miserable time because there's no one to pay attention to her. Back in Sweet Valley, Suzanne tries to seduce super-hunk English teacher Mr. Collins. When he refuses her because she's too young and "acting foolish," she vows to destroy him. This girl, we come to see, is like a thousand Jessicas in one. She's so angry with Mr. Collins for not falling for her that she pretends he tried to rape her (!!!). This almost gets him fired, since everyone believes sweet, beautiful Suzy's absurd story. But when Elizabeth finds a necklace she lost in Suzanne's luggage, she gets the feeling that it all might be an act. FINALLY. It only took her 16 chapters to realize what she could have found out just by reading the title page. Incidentally, have you ever met anyone from New York City, female or otherwise? Of course you have. A lot of people live there, and sometimes they leave. Perhaps you are, in fact, from New York City yourself. When I was in college, I swear it seemed like a good 20 percent of my peers were from New York City. And while all of my New York City friends had the annoying habit of being very sure that they came from the greatest city on Earth (this really pisses off Chicagoans - just ask any one from the Tri-State Area how he/she feels about the Macy's buyout of Marshall Field's), none of them ever pretended to be something they were not. Pretty universally, I think true New Yorkers loathe fakeness to a fault. That's why New York and LA are so far apart.  At any rate, as I read Too Good to Be True, I couldn't help but feel that the author had a deep-seated grudge against the Big Apple. There is no doubt in my mind that Suzanne and her friends are meant to seem horrible BECAUSE they are from New York. That's all the motive they need for drinking heavily, lying to an entire town, stealing, and being callous. This somehow strikes me as both stupid and hilarious. Hmm...much like my entire infatuation with the Sweet Valley series...oh, Francine Pascal et al, you've done it again! Well played, my mysterious friends, well played. [Ed.: I've since learned that Francine Pascal actually lives in New York (when she's not in France). So...there goes that series. Unless this book's characterization of New Yorkers was the work of an angry ghostwriter.]

5. All Night Long

“Is Jessica as grown-up as she thinks she is?”

Everything about the cover of Book 5 screams “'70s porno”: the buxom blonde with a coy smile, the X-rated title, and, most of all, the leading man’s sexy disco mustache. But if you’re a fan of '70s porno, you should probably steer clear of this one, lest its disappointing tameness, well...disappoint you.

Basically, the story here is simple. Jessica and Elizabeth need to study for a tour-guide qualification exam, but instead of studying, Jessica is planning to sneak out of the house for a beach party with the lecherous Scott. Elizabeth doesn’t approve. She tells Jessica he’s “too old” for her, but we know that what really bothers her about Scott is the creepy way he behaves—shamelessly looking Elizabeth up and down when he meets her, referring to the twins as “double the fun,” and don't get me started on the drunken party he and his cool college friends once held in which they put out mattresses instead of chairs. Convincing argument against his character, no? Yet, somehow Elizabeth keeps these observations from her sister. 

This perplexed me at first, but then I realized: in Sweet Valley talk, “too old” does mean “too much of a sexual predator”. Jessica talks about being able to “handle anything,” but she’s really trying to assert that she’s sexually mature enough to handle whatever Scott – or any other man – throws at her. I could go on about how obviously untrue this assertion is on her part (see Book 3!), but I’d rather just make this point: For the giant role sex has thus far played in the SVH books, the word has never been uttered. “Sexy,” yes; “sex,” no.

As All Night Long rounded Chapter 7, the “night” in question had played itself out, and I was honestly beginning to believe that the worst was over for Jessica and Elizabeth. Clearly, this was wishful thinking of the most foolish variety. How, I now ask with crystal-clear hindsight, did I expect the remaining 58 pages of the book to unfold? With one or two playful adventures, completely devoid of heart-wrenching catastrophe? Stupid, stupid, STUPID. 

What happens when Jessica doesn’t show up for breakfast the following morning is a long story. About 50 pages long. And it involves Elizabeth and her perfect boyfriend Todd (expect more about them in our next installment) getting into what is surely the first of many fights that basically go like this:

TODD: Elizabeth, you are letting your bitch-ass sister take advantage of you. Stop covering her shit! 

LIZ: Todd! That’s my sister you’re talking about! My  twin sister! You just don’t understand!    I hate you forever, dick!

At which point I become totally fed up with this story and begin praying for its swift ending, which is, of course, happy. Next time, I’ll remember to expect less from these books, and life will be much sweeter.

Looking for the podcast episode about book 5? Click here to warp back to the future.