**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: A little too personal... Sweet Valley High is in a frenzy when the school newspaper begins to run personal ads. Even Penny Ayala, the shy, serious editor of the paper, decides to place an ad, and a boy named Jamie responds. His letters are witty and sensitive just like hers, and he seems to be Penny's perfect match. Elizabeth Wakefield encourages Penny to pursue her secret admirer. But when she overhears a group of boys laughing about “Jamie”, she realizes Penny's perfect match is only a joke – Jamie doesn't even exist! Can she stop the boys from breaking Penny's heart?
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. What the hell is up with the cover? Is she trying to be some kind of catalogue model? Is she selling me a watch? It's so dumb looking.
{{{Note from future me: I guess it's a scene from later in the book but I still think it's dumb looking.}}}
📢TRIGGER WARNING📢: If you are sensitive to discussion of body size, please skip this one. There are some truly nasty things said about people of a certain body size in this book and I'd rather you not read further if this is going to bother you in any way. I love you and I'll see you next time.
In the last book, Liz wanted to leave for Switzerland to attend boarding school because she thought it would inspire her writing. Steven and Jess schemed to keep her at home and, in the end, she decided she didn't want to leave Sweet Valley. In the B-plot, Winston ends up with a winning lottery ticket that isn't his and agonizes over what to do for the entire book. It was stupid.
Missing, Presumed Dead: Johanna, Patty and Eddie who only existed for one book and were never seen again, remain missing. I hope they are at least being fed well down there in the dungeon. They were joined by Robin and George who can't seem to stay topside for long. EvilNed and Steven were also absent from this book so I assume they are down there doing crowd control.
Released From the Wakefield Dungeon: Michael made his first appearance in a long time along with Sandra and Jean who seem to appear and disappear from Sweet Valley randomly. Sally who hasn't been seen for at least six books made it out of the dungeon somehow. The world must look so bright and chaotic to her after being below ground for so long. Apparently Julie gave a piano recital so she's above ground as well. I guess she just left her sister down there.
We begin with Liz in the newspaper office. The editor, Penny, commiserates with her over writer's block. Liz is trying to write her Eyes and Ears column but there's no good gossip at the moment. She rehashes Winston's lottery dilemma for us but it wasn't worth blogging the first time so I'm sure as hell not going to do it again.
Jess comes in to tell Liz that she's going to do something with Amy after practice so she needs Liz to take over her chore of making dinner. Liz agrees because she's a martyr. The ghostie uses this opportunity to give us the “same but different” speech. The twins are described as having “perfect figures”, “healthy tans” (whatever that means) and “sun-kissed, honey gold hair”. Liz gets a lot of adjectives this round: slow, steady, practical, dependable, loyal and honest. The honest one really made me snort. The only one of those that I think truly applies to our girl Liz is slow. Jess is described as a “spark of electricity, fast and impulsive” and I'll give ghostie that one. They're pretty good at Jess but continue to gaslight us about Liz. We read. We know.
Jess leaves as Lynne comes in. Lynne showed up for the first time in ages at the end of the last book to suggest the paper start running personal ads. She's now in charge of the entire thing despite the fact that she's not actually on the newspaper staff. She has the first batch of ads in her hands and she explains the system to Liz and Penny. The people who place the ads are assigned a number like a PO box. When people respond to the ad, they write the number on their response and then Lynne will match the number to the correct person and give them their responses.
{{{Note from future me: So the back of the book already told you that Penny took out an ad and someone named Jamie responded. Penny then writes Jamie back and they continue to respond by letter. How? How would Lynne know who to deliver Penny's response to when Jamie doesn't exist? It makes no sense and it's a huge plot hole that never gets addressed. It's not just that one, though. Jess gets several responses and somehow writes them back as well. How, Pascal? How does this work?}}}
Liz teases Penny that maybe she should answer an ad and it hits Penny hard. Penny doesn't date and Liz tells us that she doesn't think it's by choice.
Ouch.
Liz is such a bitch.
Questionable Mr Collins comes in and announces that he's going to be a chaperone for the upcoming Spring Fling dance.
How many dances do these assholes have a year? I swear there's one in every book.
Anyway, he says that he wants to dance with all three of them.
Why? Why does he need to be this creepy, Pascal? I mean, seriously. Did any of your teachers ever ask you to dance at a school dance. I'm betting not because it's creepy.
Questionable Mr C leaves again and Liz asks Penny if she's going to the dance. Penny replies that she's not the kind of girl that guys ask out. Liz thinks that Penny is “pretty and thin” thank goodness but she doesn't “take pains with her appearance” or wear “flattering styles”. Liz tells her that she should lighten up around guys. Penny is quiet for a moment and then says she knows it's her fault that boys don't like her.
Good job, Liz.
We take a sudden hop over to the beach. I don't know if it's the same day or a different day. Jess complains that there aren't any decent guys around. She's been dating Neil off and on but she's not serious about him. Lila asks about that new guy Kirk who appeared toward the end of the last book. Jess says he's a jerk but I don't think that deters Lila much.
Jess wants to use personal ads to find older guys to date. Lila thinks personal ads are for losers but Jess says they're the best way to meet people these days. Lila asks how Jess thinks they'll meet older guys by placing an ad in a high school paper but apparently Steven gets the paper and Jess thinks he'll share it with his friends.
Why would his friends respond to personal ads in a high school paper? Are they also creeps who want to date high schoolers?
They argue about the best approach to writing the ad. Lila thinks they should describe themselves in hopes of attracting the perfect guy. Jess thinks they should describe the guy they're looking for. They argue back and forth and then decide they'll each take out an ad and see who attracts the best date. They bust out paper and pens (who the hell takes paper and pens to the beach???) and write out their ads.
Lila's ad: “Glamorous, sophisticated, mature high school girl looking for someone with the right stuff. I like fast cars, caviar and the Caribbean. Don't talk to me about commitment – I'm looking for excitement, not a bridge partner. If you can keep up with me, I want you. Kids need not reply.”
The last part is meant to discourage high school boys from answering the ad but all it does is reinforce the idea that Lila herself is a kid. College men should not be dating kids. I'm looking at you, Steven.
Jess' ad: “Are you devastatingly handsome? Are you romantic and wild? Do you like girls who aren't afraid of danger? Are you the type of guy who goes for what he wants? Are you in college? If you answered yes to all of the above questions, drop me a line. I've been looking for you.”
We do a lateral slide to a nearby beach towel where Liz and Enid are lounging. Enid asks Liz what she thinks of Hugh. Who's Hugh? I guess some random guy that Enid met a bookstore at some point in between book 38 and this one. They're dating now and he's over in the water with Jeffrey. I kind of think this might be the one and only time we see Hugh but who knows?
Penny walks over and sits down briefly. She also has textbooks, notebooks and pens with her. These people really don't know how to beach. As soon as Jeffrey and Hugh approach, Penny gets up and leaves, saying she doesn't want to be a fifth wheel. Liz immediately tells Jeffrey and Hugh to scram so she can talk to Enid in private.
Liz tells Enid that Penney is “lonely but she doesn't know how to attract boys” and therefore needs to take out a personal ad. Enid thinks Penny is too shy but Liz says they'll just have to convince her. They go over to where Penny has settled and talk her into placing the ad by basically making her feel like it's the only way she'll ever get a date.
Penny's ad: “Hook-nosed hunchback seeks kindred spirit. The ideal candidate will have a doctorate in Australian theology, love caves and speak Urdu. If you're looking for a girl who giggles, don't bother to respond. I'm strictly the guffaw type. Junior or senior will do just fine.”
Liz and Enid are skeptical that this is the right way to go but Penny insists that her perfect match will be smart and have a sense of humor and will, therefore, get what she's saying. The girls gently try to talk her into placing a more traditional ad but Penny stands her ground.
A week and a half passes which means two issues of the paper have gone out and the personal ads are wildly popular. At one point, Jess overhears Kirk reading Penny's ad out loud to a bunch of jeering boys. Amy thinks Kirk is ever so dreamy but Jess says he's “arrogant and conceited”. Amy says that Kirk doesn't matter anyway because she has a crush on Bruce. They're working on some kind of documentary project together and she's convinced that there are sparks between them. Jess discourages her, saying that he and Regina are solid but Amy isn't deterred. I thought this might be our B-plot which has been conspicuously absent but then I realized it's actually setting up the next book. That typically happens in the C-plot. So where is the B-plot?
Penny anxiously awaits an answer to her ad. Lynne comes in every day to sort out the responses and she watches as people like Jess and Lila get a whole pile but she has nothing. Finally, one fateful day, Lynne hands her three responses. The first asks if her ad was a joke and then asks for help with his homework because she seems smart. Penny instantly rejects him for not knowing whether her hunchback reference was in jest. The second wants to compare auras and astrological charts so she rejects that one too. The third is a witty response that matches the energy from her ad, addressed to Quasimodo. It's signed “Jamie” but there's no Jamie at SVH. She figures he's using an alias since she did.
Penny asks Enid and Liz to help her write a response back. It's mostly serious this time, talking about her love of reading and writing but she still signs it Quasimodo. She clearly has her hopes up high that she might have found true love.
When Penny gets home that evening, she decides she needs to change absolutely everything about herself in order to be good enough for Jamie.
Great message, Pascal. Why did you do this so often? You knew your readership was mostly preteen and young teen girls. Why did you constantly tell them that they wouldn't find love unless they were skinny, wore certain clothes, did their makeup and styled their hair? It's harmful and you had to have known that. It disappoints me to see this over and over in book after book.
We go back to Jess. She's received seven letters and she takes them all over to Lila's to read. Most of them go into the reject pile but she finds a promising one from someone named Paolo and she writes back. We don't get to hear how many responses Lila got or if she liked any of them.
A week passes. We join up with Kirk as he walks over to Michael, Neil and two randos named Chad and Ron. I was so shocked to see Michael above ground again that I audibly gasped. He's been in the dungeon for so long I wrote him off completely. Kirk waves a letter at them, announcing that Quasimodo has written to Jamie again. Michael tells him to read it, but he passes it off to Neil since Neil is the one who has been writing back. Apparently they saw Penny's ad and thought it would be hilarious to write her back.
In the beginning, Neil went along with it because he desperately wanted to impress Kirk who is quickly becoming one of the most popular boys on campus. I call BS on this. Jess has been dating Neil off and on and she would never date him unless he was already popular in his own right. If he's already popular enough to date The Wakefield, then why does he need Kirk's popularity to shine on him? It makes no sense.
Anyway, Neil is becoming infatuated with Quasimodo even though he has no idea who she is. He feels a connection to her through the letters they are writing each other. He wishes he could write her for real and not as part of this joke Kirk and the other guys are playing.
The other guys watch with “predatory, eager smiles” as Neil reads the letter aloud. They all laugh but Neil thinks Quasimodo is funny and smart. Kirk decides that it's time they set up a meeting to find out who Quasimodo is. He instructs Neil to write her back and ask her to meet Jamie at the mall on Friday. She's supposed to stand outside of the book store and wear something red.
Back to Jess. She's also going to meet her mystery man the next day. All she knows about Paolo is that his name sounds Italian and he goes to college. She has no idea how old he might be. He knows she's in high school.
Not feeling great about Paolo.
It's Friday now and we're back with Neil and the gang of assholes. Originally the plan was for Neil to meet Quasimodo at the bookstore while the other guys watched from the level above but that changes when they get to the mall. Kirk wants to be able to ask Quasimodo to the dance if she's pretty enough so he suggests they all wait on the second level for her to show up. If she's hot, Kirk will go down and say he's Jamie. Otherwise, Neil will meet her. Neil is devastated that he might not be the one who gets to meet her but he pretends not to care so he won't piss off Kirk.
We're back with Liz now. She, Enid, and a very nervous Penny enter the mall. Penny wants to go to the bookstore on her own, so she makes plans to meet back up with Liz and Enid in an hour. The two of them take off and now we're in Penny's head. All this hopping is seriously giving me a migraine. It's worse than usual.
Penny, wearing a red ribbon in her hair, goes to stand in front of the bookstore. People pass. Time ticks away. There's no sign of Jamie. Sally, who disappeared from the face of the earth after book 33, wanders by. I guess she managed to escape the dungeon finally. Those Wakefields need to check their security. Lots of lifers managed to break free in this book. Penny waits for 45 minutes but Jamie never shows up so she leaves the mall in shame. She's too humiliated to even find Enid and Liz and tell them what happened. I guess they'll be standing around waiting for her at 5:00.
Life was tough before cell phones.
Back to Liz who is suddenly at home. She assumes that Penny and Jamie hit it off so well that they stayed at the mall and that's why Penny didn't meet back up with her. Liz calls her to see how it went and Penny tells her that she was stood up. Liz tries to make her feel better but it doesn't work because Liz sucks at empathy.
We do a lateral slide into the other twin's head. Jess is dressed in a tank top and tight blue skirt with a teal scarf tied around her neck. I don't know about you, but this outfit doesn't sound like what a fashionable teen would wear on a first date in the late 80's. Paolo shows up and brings Pascal's fat phobia with him. He's overweight and that's all Jess can think about when she opens the door. He's polite and brings her a rose but she slams the door in his face because he's fat.
It literally says that Jess has NEVER gone out with someone who wasn't thin and she can't picture herself with someone who is fat. I hate Pascal deeply and forever.
Jess is worried someone will see Paolo standing outside her house so she goes back out and urges him to his car. When she hears he's made reservations at a very expensive Italian place just outside of town, she gets in the car with him. She prays no one she knows will be there because she can't be seen with someone who looks like him. He talks to her on the way to the restaurant and he seems sweet and interesting but all she can think about is his extra weight and how she'll simply die if anyone sees them together.
Fuck you, Pascal. Seriously.
Jess feels physically ill at having to sit with this fat boy at the table and he notices that she's looking a little green. She takes advantage of his concern and tells him that she's dying of a terminal illness. She says she really wanted to go on this date and spend a day as a 'normal girl' but the pain is just too much and she really fears that he's going to have to take her home before she passes out.
Fuck this book.
Paolo offers to take her home and then we get this....
“She frowned as a little voice inside told her that she'd just played a mean trick on a polite, friendly and interesting boy. But she ignored the voice. After all, she couldn't help it if she simply couldn't stand to be around fat people.”
I felt kind of bad for him but then I remembered he's a college man trying to date a high school student. Fuck him too.
When Jess gets home, she finds a note from Liz saying that Lynne had a few more responses to Jess' ad and they're on the table. Jess is despondent that she's going to lose the bet with Lila because Paolo turned out to be fat, so she desperately opens the letters. One of them is from a boy named John and he sends a picture of himself along with the letter so she can tell that he's thin enough to be worthy of her presence. She writes him back.
Fuck everything about this. Who let this get published?
{{{Note from me: I just want to state that it's okay to write characters that have prejudices as long as somewhere in the book these prejudices are challenged in some way and shown for how awful they are. Pascal never does this. She leaves all the fat shaming in there without ever talking about how bad it is to judge someone based on their weight. This is why I get so upset about it. If vain, superficial Jess was prejudiced about fat people but then a character came along to challenge her on it and tell her how she shouldn't decide a person's worth based on what number shows up on the scale, then fine. I wouldn't rant about it so much. I might even think it was true to Jess' character and the values she seems to hold. Instead, I think it speaks to Pascal's character and the values SHE holds. Just wanted to clarify. PS Yes, I acknowledge that this book was written by someone other than Pascal (under her guidance and approval) BUT the issue is consistent across the entirety of the series despite the fact the books were written by several different people (Kate William doesn't exist either). That tells me it's a Pascal thing.}}}
It's suddenly Monday and we've hopped back over to Neil. He fills us in on what happened on Friday at the mall. The boys were on the second level and when they saw Penny, they laughed about how they'd dodged a bullet. They think that Penny is boring and a prude and they congratulated themselves on being smart enough to check her out before meeting her. Neil really wanted to go meet her because he kind of likes Penny but he wanted to fit in with the other boys more. He feels horrible about it but I have no sympathy for him. He's doing a terrible thing for terrible reasons. He deserves to feel horrible.
Back with Liz. She and Enid are sitting at a cafeteria table when they overhear Kirk telling Neil how lucky he is that they saved him from meeting Penny. Kirk brags about the Jamie prank right out there in the open, so Liz and Enid know exactly what the assholes did. They immediately place 100% of the blame on Kirk which is total bullshit. The other boys knew exactly what they were doing. They had a choice.
Liz decides she's going to get even with Kirk. I'm sure it will be dumb but everyone will tell her how brilliant she is.
These hops are coming in rapid fire. Neil writes a letter to Penny without the other boys knowing. He says he had an emergency on Friday that prevented him from meeting with her and apologizes profusely for standing her up. He begs her to meet him in front of the Dairi Burger on Thursday but instructs her not to respond to the letter. The responses go to Kirk (I'm still not sure how) and he doesn't want anyone else to know about this meeting.
We're back with Liz. Her grand plan is to pretend that her cousin is a model named Erica who lives in New York City. She cuts out some pictures from a few magazines and makes sure Kirk sees them. When he conveys interest, she tells him that Erica will be in town the next weekend because she has a screen test in LA. He says that he wants to take her to the dance. Liz tells him that Erica has high standards but Kirk is cocky enough to think she'll say yes if Liz sends her a picture of him. Liz agrees to try.
Like I said. Dumb.
Suddenly it's Wednesday and Jess is meeting with John. He's a sociology major and he asks her so many questions that it starts to feel like an interview. He's particularly interested in her motives for placing the ad and how she describes herself. It's screaming 'you're the subject of my term paper' to me but Jess just thinks he's fascinated by her.
John ends up taking her home early, saying he has to study for a test. She hopes for a goodnight kiss but he just drops her off at her door and leaves.
Now we're with Penny. She reads Jamie's letter but isn't sure she believes him. She goes back and forth for awhile but eventually decides to take a chance to meet him.
We immediately hop into Neil's head on Thursday outside of the Dairi Burger. Right when Penny arrives, Kirk and a couple of the others guys show up. Kirk sees Penny standing there and asks if Neil was planning to meet her. Neil knows if he says 'yes', Kirk won't be his friend anymore. He thinks about it for a few seconds and then decides he doesn't care. He tells Kirk he is meeting Penny. Kirk just kind of blows him off and goes inside. It's anticlimactic.
We hop into Penny's head but I can't be bothered with the graphic anymore. It's too much. Penny thinks she's being stood up again but then Neil races up. He tells her that he's Jamie and she's thrilled. They go inside and sit at a table. Neil comes clean about absolutely everything. I'm shocked. I figured he wouldn't tell her and then Kirk would walk up and reveal everything out of spite. He apologizes and tells her how ashamed of himself he is. She forgives him way too easily. He asks her to the dance and she accepts.
Back with Jess. She's out with John again. He's again asking her a ton of questions and now I'm 100% sure he's writing a paper or something on her. Jess really wants him to meet Lila (to win the competition) so she asks him to go to the dance with her. He says he already has plans for that night but agrees to go to the beach party before the dance with her.
It would be hilarious if he was also dating Lila.
We briefly check in with Liz who tells Kirk that the model cousin will meet him in front of the gym before the dance. She advises him to get Erica a very fancy corsage because she will expect the best.
We skip to the next day at school. Jess tells Lila about bringing her date to the beach and Lila agrees to bring hers as well. Sandra, Jean, Cara and Amy decide they will evaluate which of the girls got the best date and therefore won the competition. The loser has to go to the dance alone. Jess was already going to the dance alone so I guess it won't matter if Lila beats her.
We skip to the beach party. Somehow Lila and Jess show up in the exact same leopard-print bikini. The scandal. They're dealing with that when Jess notices a swarm of girls on the beach. They all seem to be around a guy and she's stunned when that guy turns out to be John. It turns out that John answered more than a dozen of the ads placed in the SVH newspaper – including Jess' AND Lila's – and then went on dates with all of them to do research for a sociology project.
His project is about how people present themselves in personal ads and how that differs from who they really are.
So, John should definitely fail this project and let me tell you why. When you're doing any kind of research project that involves gathering data from actual human beings, you are supposed to get something call informed consent. That means you have to give the subjects of your study a basic outline of what you're going to be doing (in this case, asking them questions about themselves and about their ad) and tell them whether this study poses any emotional, physical or financial harm to them so they can decide if they want to take part. In this case, John wouldn't have to tell them exactly what he was testing for (ie: whether they told the truth in their ad – whether they were intentionally or unintentionally misleading and why) but he would have to tell them that he answered their ad in an attempt to collect data from them and that he wasn't really interested in dating them. He didn't do that. He let all of these girls think he was dating them because he was interested in them. None of these girls were told they were taking part in a study and none of them agreed to do so. You can't do that.
Jess, Lila and the other girls are understandably crushed but Jess and Lila eventually laugh about it and decide no harm done. That's not actually true. John could have caused a lot of harm with this and that's why informed consent is so important.
Anyway...
We skip to the dance. Penny is dancing with Neil when Questionable Mr Collins comes up and threatens to cut in. WHY DOES HE HAVE TO BE THIS FUCKING CREEPY?
Kirk, of course, gets stood up by Erica the fake cousin. I don't think he actually learns anything from this and all Liz proved is that she's willing to sink to his level. Kind of proves she isn't the saint that Pascal tries to make her out to be. So.....
Regina shows up without Bruce because he's working on the project with Amy. The book just ends there after telling us that Bruce has been spending a lot of time with Amy lately and Regina doesn't know if she should be concerned or not.
This one was a dumpster fire. Everyone was awful. Even Paolo who seemed nice, was a college boy willing to date a high school student. I'm pretty sure everyone in Sweet Valley needs to go directly to jail.
Coming Up Next: I don't know. I guess Amy will try to break up Bruce and Regina. I can't be arsed to care because Bruce is a sexual harasser/ assaulter. I haven't forgotten, Pascal, even if you have.
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