Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!! This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself. Do NOT continue to read unless you want to know what cold-hearted-bitch-move the twins made this book.
Tag Line: Is Jessica as grown-up as she thinks she is?From the Back of the Book: Has Jessica gone too far? Elizabeth Wakefield knows her beautiful twin can handle almost any guy - most boys are just no match for Jessica's seductive charms. But Scott Daniels, Jessica's latest love is more man than boy, much older and much more experienced than anyone Jessica's ever dated. When Jessica sneaks off to a college beach party with Scott, Elizabeth's afraid of what could happen. And when her twin isn't back by morning, Elizabeth's fear turns to alarm. Where's Jessica? Why has she stayed out all night long?
This book was published in 1984 and this is my first time reading it. Can we
talk about this cover though? Wow. Did they look for the creepiest
guy imaginable for this or what? That pornstache is on another
level. Also, why is Jessica just half wearing her shirt all crooked
like that? It looks super weird.
Meet the Cast
*Elizabeth Wakefield –
identical twin of Jessica and massive fucking martyr.
*Jessica Wakefield – identical
twin of Elizabeth with narcissistic and histrionic tendencies
*Ned Wakefield – neglectful
patriarch of the clan and successful lawyer
*Alice Wakefield – neglectful
matriarch of the clan and an interior designer
*Steven Wakefield – older
brother, university student and general asshole
*Enid Rollins – Liz's best
friend and generic good-girl type
*Todd Wilkins – Liz's
douchebag boyfriend and star of the SVH basketball team
*Lila Fowler – Jessica's
self-absorbed best friend and representative of SV new money
*Bruce Patman – school dick
and representative of SV old money
*Ken Matthews – star
quarterback and resident jock stereotype
*Winston Egbert –
stereotypical school nerd
There are more but these are the main
characters that plague us book after book.
In the last book, the entire school
tortures Robin over her weight until she gets skinny and then
everyone loves her. It was a dumpster fire and I refuse to even link
it here for you to review. I want to forget it ever happened.
We begin with Jess planning to go to a
party with some guy named Scott. Pascal tries to make the
case that when Jess is being mischievous her eyes are green and when
she's being innocent her eyes are blue. I'm not sure Pascal knows
how eye color works. Anyway, Jess has been forbidden to go to this
lake party because it will be full of college kids but she's not
letting that stop her. She's planning to tell her mother that she's
with her friend Cara and it will probably work because Alice
rarely pays any attention to her kids whatsoever. Liz doesn't think
Jess should go because the crowd is too “fast” but Jess just
makes fun of Liz for being a grandmother.
#okayboomer
Apparently the twins have some test the
morning after this party to get their tourist guide licenses. If
they pass, they'll be able to make summer money giving tours of Sweet
Valley. Liz thinks Jess should stay home and prepare for the test
but Jess says she can handle it. She asks Liz to cover for her if
Alice happens to ask where she is but Liz says she won't lie for Jess. Jess
bursts into tears and says that sisters are supposed to stick up for
each other and Liz feels bad. As usual.
(((I thought that maybe school was already out for the summer since they were taking their tourist guide tests on a Monday morning but, no. Apparently these tests for a summer job are being given at the school during school hours. It's weird. Anyway, back to the story.)))
Instead of going to the party at the
lake, Liz, Enid and Todd head to the beach for the afternoon. Liz is
fretting about potentially being put on the spot by Alice later but
not so much that she doesn't notice some surf god out on the waves.
Todd says his name is Sonny and he's a shoe-in to win some
surfing competition. Liz muses that Bill will be upset about
that and for some reason I can't even remember who Bill is. Did we
meet him already? I have no clue. Liz describes him as a loner
without many friends so maybe he's new? {{{shrug}}}
Chapter two has us hopping into Jess's head at the party.
She's feeling a little out of place among the college crowd but doing
her best to hide it. The boys are all in the water goofing off but
Jess and most of the girls are laying around on the ground working on
their tans. One of them warns Jess that Scott has a reputation
around campus but before she can ask if it's any worse than hers,
Scott rocks up to interrupt the conversation. He nuzzles Jess's neck
and his pornstache tickles the inside of her ear. I might have died
a little inside just now. She teases him a little and he gets pretty
aggressive with her, pushing her onto her back and kissing her hard.
She knows she's okay with all the girls around but worries about what
might happen when they're alone.
Um.
You shouldn't be worried about that,
Jess. You should be confident that he will respect your boundaries
and only act with consent. The fact that you aren't tells me that
you shouldn't be with him at all.
Beer is broken out and a joint makes
the rounds. Jess pretends she wants to wash her feet off so she can
get out of there without having to say 'no' to the marijuana like a punk-ass baby. Scott
catches up with her and tells her he wants to take a walk. He's been
drinking and he's had a couple of hits off the joint so Jess thinks
it will be okay. Because............? I guess she thinks he's too
high to cause trouble? I don't know. This makes no sense to me at
all.
Scott leads them to some kind of a boat
house in the woods. Because people often park their boats in the middle of woods. As they walk, he keeps putting his hand down her bikini
bottom even though she repeatedly removes it. Inside the structure,
he makes a full court press and she dodges to get away from him.
Unfortunately, she trips and falls and he takes that as an invite to
get on top of her and start untying her bikini strings. Jess is
worried because she's always been able to handle boys but “Scott
was more of a man than a boy, she realized with rising panic.
Someone who wasn't about to take no from a girl who led him on.”
Pascal.
Seriously.
I just want to
talk. Loud and with my fists.
Jess tells him to
stop but he ignores that. She says she'll scream and he tells her
that no one will come to help her if she does. She tries to charm
her way out of it and then she asks him to take her home but he tells
her the party is an all-nighter and if she needs to go home, she'll
just have to find her own way. He leaves and she's left to retie her
bikini.
Jess immediately
gets lost in the woods and starts cursing the fact that she dropped
out of girl scouts because that kind of training might have helped
her. Bitch, my child was in scouts and all they learned to do was
sell cookies and be friendly. She's bitter that Liz didn't make her
stay in scouts and so the whole incident becomes Liz's fault. As
usual. She eventually finds her way to a cabin. To her surprise,
the party has been relocated here. Scott tells her that no one will
take her home until morning so she might as well get comfortable.
Then he passes out cold. Jess resigns herself to her fate and tries
to think up excuses her mom might buy for her being out all night.
Liz wakes up on
Monday morning just 30 minutes before she has to be at school. She
goes to make sure Jess is up and finds that her sister didn't sleep
in her bed. It scares Liz at first but then she just gets angry and
decides that Jess can just find her way out of this situation. THE
GIRL IS 16 YEARS OLD AND SHE DIDN'T COME HOME LAST NIGHT. TELL YOUR
FUCKING PARENTS!!!! Not that they'll care. But seriously, Liz
doesn't know if Jess is in some kind of serious trouble here. The
fact that she just shrugs it off disturbs me greatly. Jess eventually calls and let's Liz know that she's okay but Liz didn't know that for a good long time and still did nothing. In the end,
she decides to cover for Jess because to do otherwise would ruin her
entire martyr persona.
Liz makes an
appearance as herself, leaves, sneaks back in, changes into Jess's
clothes and then makes an appearance as Jess. Distracted Alice
doesn't even notice. Liz is stuck in Jess's clothes at school,
though, and Enid almost refuses to talk to her. Before class, Todd
tells her that he's finally saved up enough money for his motorcycle.
Liz is conflicted. She's happy for him but her parents' most strict
rule is that their daughters never ride on a motorcycle. Seems like
a weird thing to be strict about when they don't even know where their daughters are half the time but whatevs.
Liz is fretting
about Jess missing her tourist guide test and considers just taking
it for her since their tests are staggered an hour apart. Todd
thinks it's a bad idea and points out that Jess uses Liz too much but
Liz feels guilty. Because.....reasons. I can't figure Liz out at
all. She gets pissed at Todd and tells him that he's only being such
an ass because he doesn't like Jess. I mean, Todd's an ass all the
time but okay. He tells her that she's too easy on her sister and
she yells at him that he's calling her a cheat and an idiot.
Which.....no? Not really. For some reason this leads them to break up and I.
Am. Confusion.
I seriously have no
idea what happened there. I guess Pascal needed some more conflict
but that was just dumb.
Liz ends up taking
the test for Jess but she's pretty sure she failed even though it was
the exact same questions, just worded a little different. She was so
broken up over her fight with Todd that she just blanked. Enid tries to
comfort her but I don't know why. She shouldn't have been taking the
test for Jess in the first place. Liz sobs about Jess not being a
tourist guide and Todd never talking to her again. Enid tries to
soothe her but it's pretty clear that Enid thinks Liz fucked all this
up herself.
#teamEnid
Mr Collins (the
semi-inappropriate journalism teacher) asks Liz to cover the surfing
competition that weekend because their usual sports guy will be on
another assignment. Liz is thrilled to have any chance at at byline.
Collins offers to give her a ride home because she “looks pale”
but Liz says she needs the fresh air and will walk. As she's leaving
the school, Jess finally comes in. She complains to Liz about Scott
being a douche and then bounds off to cheer practice without a care
in the world.
And that, dear readers, is the last time we hear about Scott at all. Wasn't this book supposed to be about him and Jess? I'm so confused. Again.
A week passes and
Liz and Todd have not patched things up. The world weeps. The tour
guide test results are posted. Liz passed but “Jess” did not.
Jess thinks Liz bombed the test on purpose because she was jealous.
Liz points out that she never should have been taking the test for
Jess in the first place but Jess waves that off. That doesn't
matter. All that matters is that Liz betrayed her for some selfish
reason. Liz doesn't bother to defend herself because that would just
ruin her martyr complex. She feels awful about not passing the test
for Jess.
Liz goes outside to
sit on the bleachers and mope. Todd rocks up and says he doesn't
really want to apologize because he feels like they were equally
wrong in the situation (WRONG! IT WAS ALL LIZ.). He just wants to
call a truce and move on because he misses and loves Liz. She misses
and loves him too, so she agrees to just forget the last week ever
happened and they make out. I guess that's all wrapped up now.
Jess ends up
getting a retest because she told them she'd been sick during the
test or something. It's backed up by the fact that she missed all
her classes that day so it looks legit. She apologizes to Liz about
blowing up on her and that's wrapped up too.
We skip to the
surfing competition on Saturday. It turns out Bill has been skipping
school to practice on his new surfboard (sold to him by Todd who
needed the money for his motorcycle). The competition starts. Sonny
has more speed and power but Bill has more grace and style. Bill
ends up winning by six points. Jessica doesn't attend because she's
come down with poison oak from her trek through the woods back in
chapter two.
Wait.
She didn't show
symptoms for OVER A WEEK? Is that even possible? I'm going to
Google.
Okay, it says that
most cases appear within 24-48 hours after exposure, but in rare
cases it can be 6 days. I still feel like it's been way too long.
The book suddenly
ends by setting up the next book. Todd will be getting his
motorcycle the next Friday and he wants Liz to take a ride with him
on Saturday. She still hasn't told him her parents have forbidden
her to ride.
So this book was a
waste of a tree. Nothing really happened. It said it was about Jess
and Scott but he was gone by the end of chapter two and never really
mentioned again. Liz and Todd broke up and got back together a
chapter later but otherwise this was really a non-entry in the
series. I only took three-and-a-half pages of notes. Why did Pascal
even bother with this one? At least Enid came back.
