**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: The final test... Dropout Johanna Porter knows that the students at Sweet Valley High are shocked to see her back in classes. She's never done well in school. Now, with everyone talking about her behind her back, she's finding it practically impossible to succeed. But Johanna's determined to stick with it. Peter DeHaven is one of the reasons Johanna wants to stay. She's always had a crush on him, and she thinks he likes her too. When Peter's girlfriend Amy is away for the weekend, Peter and Johanna go out and have a great time. But when she sees Peter at school, he ignores her. Is Peter like all the others who think Johanna's just a failure? Can she prove once and for all that she can make it at Sweet Valley High?
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 former boyfriend currently exiled to Vermont
*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
*Jeffrey French – Liz's new victim....I mean love interest
There are more but these are the main characters that plague us book after book.
This book was published in 1987 and this is my first time reading it. Judging by the description on the back, I'm not expecting to enjoy it. The cover is pretty typical for this series. The guy looks WAY too old to be in high school but we're used to that.
In the last book, the twins went to Kansas and strutted around a small town feeling like they were way above the poor hicks who lived there. They both fell for a carnival worker who pretended to be twins so he could date them both. Eventually, Liz remembered she had a boyfriend and she called things off with the imaginary twin while Jess continued to sneak around with the real one. Liz figured out the truth but never told Jess. I'm sure it won't matter. It was a Super Edition and these books don't exist in the real Sweet Valley.
Missing, Presumed Dead: Poor Michael is still missing in action as well as Patty and Eddie who only existed for one book and were never heard from again. Apparently there was some kind of coup because everyone else was released and EvilNed and VileAlice ended up in the dungeon. I'm afraid Prince Albert the dog (or whatever his name is) also ended up below ground. #ReleaseTheDogOrElse
Released From the Wakefield Dungeon: There was a mass exodus from the dungeon in this book. Winston, Bruce, Regina, George, Bill, Jean and Sandra were all seen around town at least once. It was like the author suddenly remembered that they existed.
We begin with Jess eating lunch with Liz, Cara and Winston and almost immediately Pascal starts in with her fat phobic nonsense. I'm not going to blog a single word of it but it's there. She needs help.
Jess judges Cara for being “too dependent” on Steven and wanting to spend too much time with him. It feels like it's coming out of absolutely nowhere. The ghostie pauses to give us our standard description of the Wakefield twins. Yes, they are physically perfect in every single way and devastatingly beautiful but they're not the same, y'all. Liz is “organized and dependable” (LIES!!!) and Jess is “haphazard and flighty”. I swear these ghosties don't know Liz at all.
Amy remembers she's a character in these books and makes an appearance. She says she and Peter are having a pre-dance party at her house next week. No, I don't know who Peter is. He didn't even exist until just now I think. I also don't know why they're having another dance. It keeps being referred to as a PTA Dance so I guess the PTA is throwing it.
Liz can't believe that Peter is dating Amy because he's way too smart for her.
Wow.
Liz hit her bitch bullshit way early in this book.
And Amy used to be her best friend for fuck's sake.
Peter is a senior and a genius with early acceptance into MIT. Liz thinks he and Amy are completely mismatched because Amy doesn't even like science. Like people have to have every single thing in common to date each other. I can guarantee my husband doesn't like books as much as I do and I'm not into sports but we manage to do okay, Liz. Believe it or not, people can have different interests and still be compatible. Maybe Peter likes Amy for her personality. Or maybe he just likes dating a cheerleader. Who knows?
Julie, who popped into existence at the end of book 35, comes by. We learn that both her parents were professional musicians and Julie, herself, plays piano exceptionally well. As a child, Julie and her older sister Johanna traveled a lot with their parents and missed a lot of school. Julie was able to keep up okay but Johanna struggled. Mostly because she found school incredibly boring. As a result, Johanna ended up dropping out at the beginning of her junior year. She's worked several jobs since then but none for long because she gets bored and restless and wants to move on to something else.
Julie tells everyone that Johanna is in the office right that minute filling out forms so she can come back to school. She'll finish out her junior year, do a little summer school, and then move onto her senior year next fall. It means she'll graduate with Liz and Jess instead of with Peter like she was supposed to.
We land in Johanna's head. She's in the bathroom when two seniors we've never heard of and probably will never hear from again (Liza and Yvonne) come in. They're surprised to see her and get a little catty about her being back. Johanna is uncomfortable with all the attention.
Johanna feels like she isn't really good at anything. She sucks at school and she didn't inherit any of her parents' musical talent like Julie. The only thing she's been remotely good at is waitressing at the Whistle Stop cafe and that's not exactly something she's super proud of. She really wishes she could find where she belongs in the world.
Hey, Pascal, she can be proud of being a good waitress. What do you have against waitresses?
And, Johanna, every person on the planet feels this way at some point or another but particularly in their teens and early twenties. Hang in there, sweet girl. You're going to be fine.
Johanna only came back to school because she found her mother's journal. In an entry shortly before she died, her mother said that she wished Johanna hadn't dropped out and expressed sadness about not knowing how to talk to her daughter about it.
We skip a few days I think but ghostie isn't clear on the timeline. Johanna is really struggling to catch up with the junior class which makes perfect sense. She left at the beginning of her junior year and we're post spring break now in Sweet Valley. She's missed several months of material and probably forgot a lot since she's been out in the real world for a year or so. She's overwhelmed and bored and the only thing she looks forward to all day is seeing Peter. She's had a crush on him since they were kids and is dismayed to find out he's dating Amy. Particularly because she sees Amy as “silly and vain”.
Child, you've known Amy for mere days. There's no way you know her well enough to have pigeon-holed her like that. What is it with Sweet Valley that turns everyone into judgmental assholes? There must be heavy metals in the water.
Peter seems happy to see Johanna back and offers to help her get caught up with her chemistry class. Johanna gets all the butterflies but Amy isn't too pleased.
We're back with Jess. She's hanging out by the pool with Liz and Cara and just badgering Cara about going out with other guys. Cara says she isn't interested in other guys because she has Steven. Jess says that long distance relationships are stupid and that Steven probably thinks less of Cara because she waits around on him instead of living her life. Cara just kind of laughs her off but you can tell that seeds have been planted. Jess encourages Cara to go to the PTA dance with Ken to “keep Steven on his toes”.
Liz leaves and goes over to help Johanna with an English paper. It's too boring to even recap.
We're back with the A-plot. It's Friday now and Johanna has stayed after school to work on some chemistry labs she's missed out on. Peter comes in to collect some materials for a class he's teaching at the middle school to gifted students and Johanna is all kinds of impressed that he's being allowed to teach.
Peter tells her all about his early acceptance and she listens raptly. Then he starts talking about the computer program he's writing for his science fair project. It's a simple question and response program that's supposed to offer relationship advice to the user. Sounds like an ethical nightmare to me but this was the 80's. A friend of a friend has some printouts of some sort that are going to help him with some of the coding but he has to drive out to the canyon to pick them up. He asks if she wants to ride along. Of course she does, so he says he'll pick her up at 7:30. She's unsure if it's a date but it feels like it might be.
After he leaves, she realizes that he didn't ask her a single thing about herself. He talked the entire time about himself and his life but didn't show any interest in her or her life. She excuses it by telling herself that everyone knows she's boring and directionless so he was really doing her a favor by not making her say it out loud.
That's just sad.
When she gets home, Johanna tells Julie about her conversation with Peter. Julie remarks that Peter's been pretty cocky since he got into MIT and reminds her sister that he has a girlfriend. She says that Peter probably only asked Johanna to go because Amy is out of town for the weekend and warns her not to read too much into it. Johanna gets upset. Julie says she just doesn't want Johanna to get hurt but Johanna is determined not to let her sister spoil her fun.
Steven comes home for the weekend and apparently he's going to be staying through the following week. I guess his spring break didn't line up with the high school's. Jess immediately starts in on him, telling him that Cara has been too busy to miss him. She implies that Cara is going out constantly and hiding it from him.
So our B-plot is seriously going to be Jess trying to break up Steven and Cara? This is so dumb. Jess was the one who campaigned to get them together in the first place. Pascal has definitely run out of ideas for the B-plots.
Jess makes a comment that it must be stressful to be in a long distance relationship while also dating other people. Steven says he isn't dating other people and asks if Cara is. Jess just laughs.
Back with Johanna and the A-plot. She puts on a pretty dress and Peter compliments her when he picks her up. As they drive to the canyon, Peter talks non-stop about his science fair project and it's clear he expects to win. They get to the house to pick up the printouts that Peter needs and the friend of a friend is clearly interested in Johanna. He asks her a lot of questions about herself and she's surprised that he wants to learn more about her.
{{{Note from future me: I expected this dude to pop back up at some point but he didn't. I'm not sure what his point was.}}}
When they leave, Peter suggests a drive through the canyon and Johanna is thrilled. They end up parking and he asks if he can kiss her. She consents even though she knows he has a girlfriend.
It's really spread to Sweet Valley lately.
They make out for awhile and then we just immediately jump ahead two days. That was some powerful kiss.
Johanna visits the Wakefield Compound for some more english tutoring. She tells Liz about her crush on Peter and their kiss. Liz is judgmental of course, despite all the times she's had Cheater Fever herself. While they're talking, Steven grumps into the room and says that Cara thinks he's cheating on her and he doesn't know why. He throws some homework down on the table that he's been having issues with. It's that stuff where you get unfolded shapes and you have to determine what they'll look like when they're folded up.
I hate those things.
Johanna picks up the paper and solves the problems easily. Liz and Steven are amazed that she has functioning brain cells because they're both judgmental assholes. Steven says that the exercise was upper level math and I have to call bullshit here. As it's described, this is the stuff my kiddo was doing in grade school. I remember having problems like that on my middle school standardized tests. It's not college level math and Steven should probably have been introduced to the concept by now. I'm not saying he should know how to do it because it's a difficult exercise for some people (like those of us with aphantasia) but he definitely should have been exposed to that type of problem by now.
B-plot again. Cara wants to talk to Steven to work things out but Jess says that Steven will take her for granted if she does. This is such a dumb plot. Jess tells Cara that Steven is seeing other girls and Cara is devastated which makes NO FUCKING SENSE because Steven said Cara already accused him of this. Ghostie got things in the wrong order here.
Jess thinks that Cara and Steven will thank her someday for breaking them up because they're too young to be in such a serious relationship. Well, one of them is. Steven's just a creep.
Later, Liz blabs to Jess about Johanna and Peter. Jess is appalled. They both agree that Peter is a rat and that both girls are going to get hurt. Liz makes Jess promise not to tell and she does but we all know how that's going to go.
Odds Jess tells Amy about her rat boyfriend: 100%
Also, you can't tell me Liz is loyal when she goes around breaking confidences like this and you can't tell me she's smart when she refuses to learn her lesson regarding her sister.
Johanna again and it's suddenly Monday. She wonders if Peter will ask her to the dance that weekend. She hopes so because he's ever so dreamy.
Some random students bully Johanna about dropping out of school and she vows to do well just to prove them all wrong. Johanna wants to succeed for everyone else – her mother, Peter, the haters – she needs to want to succeed for herself.
When Johanna bumps into Peter in the hallway, he gives her the cold shoulder because he's with Amy and Johanna is hurt. Later he catches her in private and apologizes. He says he needs to “let Amy down easy”. He promises to break up with Amy gradually and then he and Johanna can be together. For some reason, Johanna is okay with this.
During english tutoring, Johanna confides in Liz that her father doesn't care about her because she's not musical. Liz is convinced Johanna is wrong despite the fact that she's never met the dad and has never seen him and Johanna interact in any way. She says that Johanna is simply insecure and she needs to get over it.
I hate Liz.
Even if she's right, she should be supportive of Johanna's feelings. They didn't develop out of nowhere.
Johanna goes home. She and Julie talk about the dance. Julie is going with John the sports editor. Johanna says she hopes to go with Peter which confuses Julie because everyone knows he's going with Amy. When she points that out, Johanna gets pissed and calls Julie a know-it-all. Julie tries to diffuse the situation but Johanna calls her stuck up and mean.
I kind of hate Johanna too. Why does everyone have to be so awful?
We land briefly in Jess' head to check in on the asinine B-plot. Jess once again urges Cara to ask Ken to the dance to “give Steven something to really worry about”. What the hell is Jess doing here? None of this makes sense when she campaigned so hard to get Steven and Cara together in the first place.
Why am I trying to make this make sense?
Johanna is studying in the library when Amy and a gaggle of cheerleaders come in talking about Amy's predance party. Johanna is sad to hear that Peter is planning it with Amy and therefore is unlikely to be breaking up with her before the dance. This feeling is reinforced when she passes Peter in the hall later and he acts like she doesn't even exist.
Later Peter finds Johanna alone – which is becoming a pattern – and tells her that he can't break up with Amy before the dance because it means a lot to her. He says he cares about Johanna because she listens to him and he wants to be with her but he can't stomp on Amy's feelings in the process. I guess it's okay to stomp on Johanna's though.
To make up for not breaking up with Amy, Peter asks Johanna to come over to his house. She should tell him to jump off a cliff but she accepts his invitation instead. He spends the entire evening showing her photo albums and scrapbooks of his life but shows zero interest in hers. She excuses this yet again because she thinks she isn't as interesting as he is.
Johanna asks to see the computer program he's working on for the science fair and he blows her off, saying there's no way she'd ever understand it. Then we get this...... “Before she worked at the Whistle Stop, she had worked for a couple of months in an office downtown doing secretarial work. She had full use of a personal computer and when she wasn't word processing her boss's letters, she had fooled around with the computer and had actually written a few programs of her own.”
Um.
Excuse the absolute fuck out of me?
In order to “write a few programs”, Johanna would have to either have access to some kind of programming software that pretty much does it for you or she would have to know a programming language. I doubt some random office had programming software so that's probably out. Where would she have learned a programming language? I would imagine that very few high schools had programming classes back then and she doesn't mention having taken one. There was no internet for her to learn on her own. I guess she could have read a book but she doesn't mention that either. She just “fooled around” and somehow taught herself how to program? Highly doubt. I don't think Pascal or ghostie knew what writing a computer program meant.
Anyway......
We time skip to Wednesday. Johanna gets the highest score on the chemistry test. Her teacher recommends AP science and math classes for her senior year. She'll just have to take some classes over the summer to get caught up. He also grants her access to the computer lab which tells me that she didn't have it before and there couldn't have that much experience on a computer.
B-plot time. Yay. Jess tells Amy about her plan to break up Cara and Steven because she thinks they've gotten “stale”. Amy asks her why it's any of her business and what gives her the right to decide when someone else's relationship is stale. Jess doesn't appreciate the lecture and retaliates by telling Amy that Peter's being seeing Johanna behind her back.
That didn't take long.
Amy immediately goes to Peter and confronts him about it in front of a bunch of people. Embarrassed, Peter denies everything. Amy isn't sure she believes him but she lets it go.
Back to the A-plot but we briefly land in Peter's head. He tells us that he truly cares about Johanna and he feels bad about jerking her around. He doesn't know why he's still dating Amy but I think it's because dating a cheerleader feeds his ego. He knows he isn't treating either girl right but he doesn't care enough to do anything differently. He can't stand the idea of looking Johanna in the eye right now, so he writes her a letter saying he can't see her anymore and he puts it in her locker like a fucking coward.
Johanna gets the letter and decides there's no point in being at school if Peter doesn't love her so she vows to drop out again.
Liz yells at Jess for telling Amy the secret but it's entirely Liz's fault. If she'd just kept her mouth shut, none of this would have happened.
We skip to Friday night and Amy's party. Cara is with Ken and Steven is with someone from college.
Wait.
What the hell is Steven doing at a high school party if he's not there with his girlfriend? Steven, you seriously get more and more creepy all the time.
We only spend a page at the party. Liz laughs at all the miserable couples like the asshole she is. Seriously, Pascal, when are you going to admit that Liz is the worst of them all?
Immediately we're dropped into the dance. Steven is there as well. Why? He doesn't fucking go to the school and has no business being at a PTA dance! Why did they let this college man in? This is seriously fucked up.
We randomly get introduced to a girl named Susan who is “well known for her expensive clothes and hobbies”. I bet she's going to end up being the A-plot for the next book. Lila resents her because she's cool I guess and Jess just wants to be her.
Ken is tired of his date mooning over the creepy college guy who shouldn't be at a high school dance, so he tells her to go talk to him. She does. Within a sentence and a half they realize Jess was fucking with them. Why couldn't they figure that out before? Because Pascal didn't have another idea for a B-plot. Steven is pissed but Cara says if they truly trusted each other they wouldn't have fallen for it. Jess gets no consequences as usual and the stupid B-plot ends.
It's about damn time.
The dance is boring. Liz refers to Amy as a “silly creature” which is just bitchy as all hell. Amy accuses Johanna of cheating on that chemistry test and I'm honestly surprised this didn't come up before. It was such an obvious plot point. It goes nowhere now though. Liz unleashes a justified tirade on Peter but I hate her so much that I'm not going to take her side even though she's right.
Even though she swore she was dropping out, Johanna returns to school on Monday. Peter tells her about a problem he's having with his computer program. It's a simple thing where one response leads to another question but he's getting twisted up somewhere. Johanna suggests plotting it out in tree form so he can see where the problem is but he basically laughs at her and tells her it's a dumb idea. She's hurt.
The entire school knows about Peter and Johanna now and she's getting a lot of shit for getting between him and Amy. I'm not sure why she's surprised. She knew he was dating Amy before she kissed him. Yes, it's HIS fault but she had to know that she'd look like the bad guy in this situation. Anyway, she gets so upset that she decides to drop out AGAIN.
This is so dumb.
Peter has an inner monologue about how he's with Amy because she's not an “emotional risk” and he knows he won't get his heart broken by her. He says he feels “threatened by Johanna's maturity” whatever that means. She doesn't seem too mature to me. She's always just running from her problems. Peter doesn't think he's ready to fall in love – particularly since he's going away to college in the fall – and he knows he could fall in love with Johanna if he let himself.
This is a cop out but whatever.
Peter ends up taking Johanna's advice and plots out his program with a tree of questions/responses. He's able to find and correct his problem. He calls Johanna to celebrate and finds out that she's dropped out of school and gone back to waitressing. Peter goes to the Whistle Stop cafe and tries to convince Johanna to come back to school. He says she's “too smart to be a waitress”. What the fuck, Pascal? A lot of very smart people do that job. You're awful. Anyway, Johanna refuses to change her mind.
Johanna goes home after work and talks to her father. He tells her that she needs to do things for her own reasons and not someone else's. He says he hopes she finds what makes her happy someday. They cry together over missing her mom. Johanna decides to un-dropout. AGAIN.
Peter wins the science fair because of course he does. He thanks Johanna for her help and asks her out. She turns him down because he's too self-centered and doesn't truly care about anyone but himself.
Wow.
Maybe she is mature.
Lila and Jess gossip about Susan to set up the next book. Susan lives with a woman named Helen but she wants to find her “real” mother. They speculate that Susan's mother must be someone famous and then the book just ends.
This one was dumb. I know I say that all the time but we barely had a plot here. The entire book was Johanna ping-ponging between going to school and dropping out. No one had any kind of character development. The twins were awful. Steven's a creep. The only person in this entire book that I liked was Julie and we're probably never going to see her again.
Sigh.
Coming up Next: Susan looks for her mom I guess.
