**This blog contains adult language.**
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.
From the Back of the Book: Geared up for adventure... It's summer in Sweet Valley, and the Wakefield twins and their friends are taking a bike trip up the beautiful California coast. What could be more exciting than four weeks of glorious sunshine, sandy beaches, and endless fun at every stop? But the dream of a perfect vacation soon fades. Elizabeth Wakefield is about to break up with her boyfriend, Todd, over another girl. Her twin, Jessica, chases after sexy Robbie October, who ignores her. Bruce Patman is mean to his cousin Roger. Lila Fowler holds a grudge against Ms Dalton and Ms Dalton is barely speaking to Mr Collins. Can this feuding group unite when an unexpected disaster threatens their lives?
Meet the Cast
*Elizabeth Wakefield – identical twin of Jessica and massive fucking martyr.
*Jessica Wakefield – identical twin of Elizabeth with narcissistic and histrionic tendencies
*EvilNed Wakefield – neglectful patriarch of the clan and successful lawyer
*VileAlice 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
*Winston Egbert – stereotypical school nerd
There are more but these are the main characters that plague us book after book.
This book was published in 1985 and I'm fairly sure this is my first time reading it. I don't know if these books actually exist in the Sweet Valley timeline or if they're completely separate. I guess we'll find out. The cover is okay. I can't tell which twin is which. Normally, it's easier to figure out. I'm guessing the one in the yellow is Liz because she's not showing her shoulders but those shorts are awfully short for The Perfect One.
In the last book, Steven got too depressed to go to college so he came home. Jess spent the entire book feeling like all everyone did was yell at her. She could do no right and Liz could do no wrong as usual. Ned and Alice sucked so hard I changed their names to EvilNed and VileAlice for the remainder of this blog (or until I forget to do it). EvilNed represented Ricky's grandparents who were suing his mom for visitation rights and he couldn't figure out how to argue the case so Liz had to school him in how to be a lawyer. She decided to cover the hearing for the school paper even though Ricky didn't want his private business being broadcast to the entire school and begged her not to write the story. Jess decided to run away with some rando named Nicky but hoped someone would stop her and Liz and Steven obliged. In the end, Steven got undepressed and went back to school and we got hints that Bill might be controlling DeeDee who was suddenly backing out of projects and canceling classes.
Missing, Presumed Dead: Winston was briefly mentioned once in this book but never actually seen. He's definitely still in the dungeon. At least he has company because George and Robin weren't mentioned once.
Released from the Wakefield Dungeon: Bruce, Roger and Olivia all made a triumphant return to ground level in this book. It's been so long since we've seen Bruce that I forgot how much I hate him. He quickly reminded me, however.
We begin with Liz and Jess packing for their bike trip. Everything will have to be carried on their bikes in saddlebags so they have to pack light but Jess is struggling with it. She's hoping to find a boyfriend along the way – either from the group itself or from one of the towns they stay in along the way - and she needs to look her best. Liz suggests that the principal's nephew Barry might be a good place to start since he'll be the new face in the group. Apparently he's flying in from Ohio just to go on this trip with a bunch of kids he doesn't know.
I could never
Liz is looking forward to the trip but worried about their chaperons, the slightly creepy Mr Collins and Ms Dalton the french teacher. Collins and Dalton used to date each other but broke up recently and now Dalton is dating Lila's dad. Lila resents the hell out of Dalton and Jess has a feeling the trip is going to be a little dicey with both of them on it. Also on the trip are Bruce, Olivia and Roger which means the three of them have FINALLY been released from the Wakefield Dungeon. Bruce was in there a hella long time. He's probably going to be super-susceptible to the sun.
I hope he packed sunscreeen.
We skip to departure day. I guess Annie is going as well as a friend of Bruce's named Charlie. Enid has to work all summer and there's no mention whatsoever of Winston. Does he still exist, Pascal? Did he ever exist? Was he just a fever dream or something? Nothing remarkable happens. Everyone says goodbye to their parents and then they start the trip.
{{{Note from future me: I could recap every chapter of this book as "nothing remarkable happens".}}}
The next chapter is a letter Liz is writing home to Enid. They've made it to their first stop and set up camp. The only noteworthy thing we learn is that Annie and Ricky apparently broke up at some point. Maybe I already knew that. I can't remember. Anyway, Charlie seems to have a crush on Annie who hasn't noticed. Their next stop is in LA where they'll stay three days in the mansion that belongs to some friends of Bruce's parents and then the rest of the trip they'll be in campgrounds or hostels.
At the mansion, they meet Courtney who is the daughter of the Patman's friend. Apparently they don't get to actually stay inside the mansion. They're pitching their tents on the lawn but they can use the hot tub and swimming pool so I guess that's nice. Courtney is pretty snobbish and clearly doesn't want them around. Courtney is dating some guy named Nolan who wears head-to-toe leather, has a mohawk and rides a dirt bike. Mansion dude doesn't like his daughter's boyfriend much but that's probably the point.
We jump into Collins' head. I don't like being in here. This guy gives me the creeps. Mansion dude invites him and Dalton up to the house for a drink and wants to discuss what he can do about Courtney. She's being rebellious and not listening to anything he says and he's very frustrated. He asks if Courtney can join the group and promises to have his secretary make arrangements for the extra person with the hostels. It will mean some of the kids will have to take turns sharing a tent with her but Dalton and Collins agree. I don't know why. Seems like a really dumb decision.
We land back in Liz's head. The group is going to Disneyland for the day. She's highly suspicious of Courtney and thinks that the girl is trying to flirt with Todd who doesn't seem to mind because Todd's a dick. Pascal doesn't even describe their day there. One sentence they're arriving and the next they're leaving because Barry got sick on one of the rides. I don't know why Pascal even bothered mentioning it. It was like two paragraphs of absolutely no consequence.
We're hosted by Jess in the next chapter. She's determined to get rid of Courtney as soon as possible. Courtney is flirting with Todd constantly and he's just soaking it up. The one time Liz tried to say something to him about it, he told her Courtney was just trying to be nice and fit in and accused Liz of being a bad friend. I mean, she's NOT Courtney's friend so.....? Jess is upset at the way Todd is treating Liz because of Courtney and just pretty irritated with Courtney in general so she and Lila devise a plan to get rid of her. They think if they make her extremely miserable, she'll write home to Mansion dude and he'll let her come home. Their first plan is to put something slimy in her sleeping bag.
Are they eight?
This is some rookie shit.
Liz and Todd end up talking and she tells him that she's insecure about all the attention he's showing Courtney. He reassures her that she's the only girl that he loves and says he's only trying to be helpful to Courtney because she doesn't really know anyone in the group and she's obviously hideously out her element. Liz calms down and decides that Courtney isn't a threat to her relationship after all.
Odds this new confidence in her relationship will last more than a chapter: 10%
Bruce can tell Charlie likes Annie so he does some casual slut shaming to discourage Charlie from pursuing her and then makes fun of Barry for being so slow at biking. When Roger sticks up for Barry, Bruce takes a dig at him too. I guess his time in the dungeon did nothing for his attitude.
The group gets to the hostel they're staying in next. It's full of young people, many of whom are on bicycle tours like themselves. Were bicycle tours popular in the mid 80's? I wasn't even a teenager then so I definitely missed this craze if it actually existed. Jess spots Robbie October leaving just as her group is coming in. She asks one of the other people staying there about him and is told that he and his brother are pretty wild. They've been kicked out of other hostels for partying too much and breaking the rules. This just excites Jess even more. She finds out that he and his brother Danny are also bicycling along the coast and going in the same general direction as their group so she hopes to meet up with them again somewhere along the way.
We hop into Courtney's head while she writes a letter to Nolan. In it, she vaguely sketches out her plan for getting off this bike tour. It has something to do with getting Todd to feel sorry for her (by telling him some made up stories about her home life), breaking him and Liz up, convincing him to date her, writing her dad to tell him that she's now dating Mr Perfect Todd and then convincing her dad to let her come home. Honestly, faking a sprained ankle or a concussion or something would be WAY easier. This plan makes no fucking sense. Pascal sucks at plans.
We hopped back into Jess' head for the rest of the chapter but absolutely nothing happened. She had the same conversations over and over with Lila and Liz and thought the same thoughts she'd already thought. This book is so padded it's unbelievable. Since it's a “Super Edition”, it's twice the regular length but it feels like it has half the story. We honestly don't even have a B-plot going. We barely have an A-plot.
Now we're with Liz. She's dancing with Todd while Jess dances with Collins. That's....creepy. Liz and Todd are both a little tired of all the bicycling but looking forward to the Santa Barbara stopover coming up. They'll be staying in a campground for three full days which means a break from pedaling. Courtney walks up, wraps her silk scarf around Todd's arm and flirtatiously pulls him toward her and the asshole just smiles at Liz and goes off with Courtney to dance with her.
Why are these two together? Why are they Pascal's example of a perfect, healthy relationship?
The first phase of Lila and Jess's plan fails when Lila puts the lime jello in Dalton's sleeping bag instead of Courtney's. I have no idea why a teacher is sleeping in the same tent as a student. This series is so fucking creepy on so many levels. Lila gets blamed for it (rightfully since she's the one who did it) but everyone assumes it's because she hates Dalton so much. No one realizes Courtney was the target.
When they get to Santa Barbara, the group goes out to a nice restaurant. Courtney stays behind at the campsite, claiming a headache despite the fact she seemed fine all afternoon. Todd offered to stay with her, much to Liz's dismay, but Courtney wanted to be alone. When they get back, however, she isn't there. The man who runs the campsite says she left in search of a phone. When Courtney returns, she claims she went to call her dad and check up on him.
The next day, Liz confronts Todd again about all the attention he's giving Courtney. He tells her that Courtney has confided in him that her father is an alcoholic and her home life has been tragic. When Liz expresses doubt, Todd yells at her. If this were anyone but Liz I would be telling her to get far away from this idiot but these two kind of deserve each other. They're both toxic and evil.
The next chapter is 90% review. First Jess writes a letter to Cara reviewing most of the book and then Lila and Jess have a conversation about what Todd told Liz about Courtney (and Liz told Olivia, etc, etc). I swear this book is 90% nothing. Anyway, in the last 10%, Jess sees Robbie at the campsite and tries to get his attention. He tells her he was with a bike tour group the summer before and hated all the rules. Jess brags that she doesn't follow the rules but Bruce spoils it by reminding her it's her turn to cook dinner for the group. Robbie pretty much laughs at her for being a do-gooder, which is the highest of insults to Jess, and then takes off.
We land in Lila's head and finally get the B-plot. I think. She's in some kind of common room and there's a couple of boys from another tour there. She strikes up a conversation with them and one of them mentions that Dalton looks like a teacher named Beth Curtis who disappeared from his high school a year and a half ago. Lila is intrigued because that's about when Dalton showed up in Sweet Valley. She presses them for more information but we don't get to hear it. Pascal wouldn't want us to actually get anything interesting out of this book after all.
Later Lila confronts Dalton. She hints around that she might know something about the teacher's past and then brings up the name Beth Curtis. Dalton gasps and the chapter ends. Throughout the next chapter, however, we see Lila essentially blackmailing Dalton into doing her chores but we don't really know what she has over the teacher.
Back to Liz because Pascal hates her readers. They're staying in an old greenhouse for the night in exchange for doing a few chores for the owner. During the night she hears Courtney start to cry and Todd immediately comforts her, speaking to her soothingly and smoothing her hair. He ends up falling asleep holding her hand and Liz is crushed. The next day she barely speaks to Todd and he gets fed up and demands to know why. When she refuses to talk to him, he pounds his fist on the table in a violent and threatening manner and orders her to talk to him. When she does, he gaslights the absolute fuck out of her and makes her feel like she's the one with the problem. I mean, she definitely has problems but getting rid of him would fix several of them. I guess she agrees because she breaks up with him by the end of the chapter.
If only it would last.
I hate them both.
Annie and Charlie start up a relationship but she's crushed when she overhears him talking to Bruce and realizes that he thinks she's not good enough for him because of her past. She starts to act a little odd and I'm worried that Pascal is going to try to tackle an issue she has no business dipping her toes into.
The group runs into Robbie again in Big Sur. Jess flirts with him and he seems very interested in her skimpy bikini. They make plans to meet up that night at the entrance to the campground after everyone else is asleep.
The next morning, Lila wakes up in her tent alone with no Jess in sight. She still hasn't shown up by departure time so Lila is forced to admit that Jess went off to meet Robbie the night before. She thinks they might have been headed for the waterfall nearby. Todd knows where that is for some reason and the group splits into three. Two of them will search the trails that lead to the waterfall and one will stay at the camp in case Jess gets back.
Boy, the days before cell phones really sucked. I don't know how any of us survived.
Todd, Liz and Courtney are in one group. I'm sure that won't be awkward or anything. Charlie, Roger, Barry and Collins are in the other group. I guess everyone else stayed at camp. Bruce and Annie clear the air and he tells her that Charlie actually likes her and she misunderstood the partial conversation she heard the other day. She's thrilled.
Liz, Todd and Courtney search for awhile but Courtney soon gets tired of pretending to care. She tells Todd that she's not feeling well and she wants to go back. Todd is surprised that she doesn't want to continue to search but she sneezes a few times and bats her eyes and he decides he better stop searching for Jess so he can take Courtney back to camp. Liz is crushed at the betrayal. She meets up with the other group and Todd and Courtney leave.
We skip to Jess. She and Robbie are hiding out in a cave, cornered by a bear. They spent the night lost in the woods and then dashed into the cave that morning to get out of the rain. Unfortunately, the cave was occupied by the bear and her cubs and now they're stuck. Barry eventually finds them because he was lagging behind the others as usual and alerts the search party. They all go back to the cave and Barry distracts the bear while Jess and Robbie escape. Barry nearly gets mauled but then one of the bear's cubs cries and she leaves Barry to check on her baby.
This is so dumb.
Annie and Charlie make up.
I really don't care.
Lila finally tells Jess what she has on Dalton. Apparently her real name is Beth and she used to be married to a man named John. John was extremely rich but one day Beth decided to leave him. He was so despondent that he killed himself a few days later. Beth moved to Sweet Valley and changed her name to Nora Dalton.
Except.....
That doesn't make any sense.
To get a job as a teacher she'd have to have a degree. A license maybe. References. How would she fake all of those. Pascal, think about it a little, would you?
In the middle of the night, Courtney creeps from her tent to go to Todd's. She puts on a big act about being upset and begging him to come out to talk to her. He decides to change clothes first so she goes to smoke a cigarette a few feet away. She tells us that her dad agreed to let her come home when she called him earlier. Since he thinks she's dating Todd now, he feels like she's straightened out her life and doesn't need to rough it anymore. Now all she has to do is convince Todd to go with her.
Todd approaches and she flicks her cigarette into the bushes.
Odds Pascal is going to fit a forest fire into the last 30 pages of the book: 99%
Courtney tells Todd that she's really worried about her dad. Every time she calls to check in, he just sounds worse and worse. She wants to leave the trip to go home and be with him so he doesn't drink himself to death. She tells Todd that she wants him to come with her to protect her because her dad can be abusive when he's drunk. Todd's so dumb he agrees immediately. He kisses her and somehow doesn't taste the cigarette she just smoked.
Todd's clearly bad at kissing, y'all.
We're back with Liz and she can smell something burning. She comes out of the tent to see the entire area on fire and screams for everyone to wake up.
Y'all.
Pascal seriously fucking had them put out a forest fire. These Sweet Valley assholes fought a forest fire with water bottles and blankets and t-shirts and successfully put it out.
#bullshit
Liz assumes the fire was her fault because she was the last one up. She thinks she failed to put the fire out properly and decides that she has to fess up to Collins and leave the trip.
Collins confronts Dalton and asks her what the hell is going on and why she's acting so weird around Lila. She confesses that her name is Beth. She was married to John who was a drunk and had mental health issues. He hit her so she eventually left him. When she refused to return, he shot himself. His family blamed her so she changed her name and moved so she'd have a fresh start.
Sigh.
No, Pascal. She'd have to have proof of a degree to get a teaching job. She couldn't have that if she changed her name. No.
This is a hill I'll die on.
Dalton tells him that Lila's father knows who she really is. He works with John's family and knows the entire story. Collins thinks Lila's father is blackmailing her into being in a relationship with him but she denies it. She says she just spends time with him so he won't spill her secret. Um....isn't that basically the same thing? Anyway, she figures Lila will tell everyone now so she'll have to change her name and leave town again.
Why exactly? So people won't know her abusive husband killed himself when she left him? Why is that something you need to change your name and leave town over? I don't get it.
Make it make sense, Pascal.
Collins convinces her to stay because he loves her and they can fight any demon together.
This book is so dumb.
Courtney announces to the group that she and Todd are leaving the next day and that he's going to spend the rest of the summer with her. Liz is so distraught that she takes off running through the forest. Collins catches up with her and asks her what the fuck she thinks she's doing. She tells him the whole story about breaking up with Todd and then admits that she was the last one out and therefore responsible for the fire. He takes a minute to digest the information about his perfect Liz and then tells her that the story Courtney's been spreading about her father isn't true. He sent her on the trip to get her away from Nolan and no other reason.
Which is true but honestly Collins doesn't fucking know. He doesn't know that Mansion dude isn't an alcoholic. He doesn't know that Courtney hasn't had a rough home life. He knows dick about the situation but here he is saying Courtney's a big liar.
I know she is and you know she is BUT COLLINS DOESN'T.
Armed with this info, Liz goes back to the group where Dalton is just finishing up explaining her story to everyone. Everyone agrees to help the teacher through the tough times ahead. I still can't figure out what is going to be so tough but whatevs. Liz starts to tell everyone that Courtney's been lying to them but stops in the middle to tell them that she started the fire. Todd tells her the fire was definitely out when he met Courtney to talk about going home. Then he finally realizes that he saw her smoking a cigarette.
Courtney flips out and calls Todd a liar and then tries to get him to leave with her. He tells her no and then says he can't believe he was ever so blind. He apologizes to Liz for believing Courtney's lies....
LIZ NEVER FUCKING FINISHED EXPOSING HER!!!!!!!!! TODD HAS NO IDEA WHAT SHE LIED ABOUT!!!!!!
Damn it, Pascal.
Todd apologizes to Liz and tells her he loves her. She decides to forgive him for reasons I will never understand. Courtney spits on the ground and tells them they deserve each other.
I couldn't agree more, Courtney. I couldn't agree more.
Well, that book was a major clusterfuck. I should have had double the notes since it was twice as long but I ended up with less than usual. Clearly the book was padded to make a “Super Edition”. Conversations were repeated over and over. People write letters home reviewing everything. It was exhausting. The conflicts in the book were stupid. I still don't understand why Beth/Dalton thought she had to change her name and run away. I still don't understand why she thought she'd have to leave Sweet Valley (except for the fact that she must have gotten her teaching job through fraudulent means). The encounter with the bear was dumb and over within a few paragraphs. The Sweet Valley crew successfully fighting a raging forest fire without any kind of major water source was RIDICULOUS and over within a few paragraphs. Neither created any tension because they were FUCKING ABSURD.
Coming Up Next: I still don't know if any of this fluff will be mentioned in the next book. I guess we'll see. I think it's about Bill and DeeDee.
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