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The Worst YA Boyfriends, Pt. 2

26 Oct

Check out Part 1. I feel that these top five are pretty obvious.

5.Kurt from Sunset Island. Waaaahhhhhh, he’s working class, it’s sooo haaard being on this Island with all these rich tourists,when I had to work for a living, waaaaahhh, they don’t appreciate it, so I’m going to date one of the richest on the island and then throw it in her face all the time. And pressure her to get married. And seriously? The fights with Emma rival the Liz/Todd fights. Who would play him? Jason Priestly and his denim shirts:

4. Bruce Patman, Sweet Valley High. Well, his yuppy Republican charm sometimes gets through to me, but there’s no way we can forgive him for trying to take advantage of Liz while she was in her coma-induced slut phase. That, and the way he wears sweaters tied around his shoulders. Who would play him?


A young John Barrowman.

3.Mars from Pen Pals. Shanon’s pen pal was the goofy one. Firstly, he called himself mars, so there’s that, and he just tried way to hard to be goofy. He invented a pen holder, which was a handle to attach to a pen. I hate him. Who would play him?

Dustin Diamond.

2. Jed from the Caitlin series. Well, attempted sexual assualt is kind of an automatic guarantee to get on this list. But okay, we get it. You’re from Montana, You’re rugged and likem ranching. And you never really have anything interesting to say. Who would play him?

Anotnia Sabato, Jr. in underwear.

1. Todd “Wizzer” Wilkins from Sweet Valley High. Do I even have to justify it? The salty sweet kisses, the bad lovey dovey talk, the fighting, the cheating, the punching. And the fact he dates Liz. Who would play him?

C.Thomas Howell!

Alternative option: a giant douche.

Open -ended survey: Who did I miss on this list?

Worst YA Boys, Pt. 1

23 Oct

To refresh your memory, the “best” YA boy toys are here and here. But of course, doing the worst ones are way more fun.

10. John Pfeiffer, Sweet Valley High: He went from being your friendly Oracle news reporter to a mad rapist. All because he was scorned by his ex-girlfriend. And we all know you don’t fuck with Lila Fowler. Who would play him?

Zabka, obviously.

9. Lenny from the Linda books, as in, My Heart Belongs to That Boy. Break up and made-up almost as much as Liz and Todd, However, his bad boy image didn’t make up for all his whining and neediness. Who would play him?

Jared Leto, the Jordan Catalano years.

8. Chad from Fall Into Darkness. Yea, so he kind of likes to murder girls that scorn him. Which, is like a lot of Christopher Pike male characters, but he was the one that was mostly all evil. Whop would play him?

Jonathan Brandis, duh.

7. Presley Travis from Sunset Island. We get, you’re Southern. And flirty. And named after Elvis, because you were born to rock. Also, he feeds Sam’s ego, which is annoying. And then he cheats on her with Emma. And he’s no Billy Sampson. I also will never forgive him for wearing bike shorts and a neon green tank top. Who would play him?

The Nelson twins would share the roll.*

6. Logan Bruno, The Baby-sitters Club. More Southern annoyingness! Maybe it’s how is accent is spelled phonetically, not that he is actually Southern. I could never really understand out what the big deal was about him. And then he tried to control Mary Anne’s life. And seriously, would a 13 year old boy really want to belong to a baby-sitting club? Who would play him”

Zefron! Don’t hate!**

Top 5 coming soon…..

*I have to share that in seventh grade I was BEYOND obsessed with the Nelson twins. It was almost clinical. I listened to the After the Rain cassette about a thousand times. I had a huge poster of them that I would stare at before I went to bed. [hides in shame]. Between them and Sebastian Bach and all the other hair metal guys in mnakeup, I was really into men that looked like women. Hmmm. Not sure what that means.

**This also made me think that Troy and Gabriella are kind of like Elizabeth and Todd. She’s the brainy studious one, he’s the tool on the basketball team. Quarrels and misunderstandings are almost central to their relationship. Does that make Sharpay Jessica? If you have no idea who these people are, you’re obviously a mature adult who doesn’t watch made for cable Disney Channel movies.

Best YA boyfriends, part 2

11 Sep

5. Almanzo Wilder: yea yea, calling Little House books YA may be a stretch, but I had to put in my Manly love.

Who would play him:

Dean Butler, duh!

4. Dead Peter from Christopher Pike’s Remember Me. He totally can ghost-spy on me in the shower any day. Shari wouldn’t have made in the afterlife without his help. Although he did dork out on her sometimes. And it’s good she got the support, after her boyfriend Dan did it with Big Beth in the jacuzzi at her birthday party.

Celeb who would play him:

Josh Radnor: I don’t like HIMYM, but I want to make out with him.

3. Adam from The Secret Circle Series. Two of the qualities in a guy that for me is an automatic drop of the panties: aloof and has supernatural powers. Same reason I totally want to have a brothel that includes Max and Michael from Roswell and some of the X-Men. That’s a fanfic for another time. I don’t remember too much about this series, haven’t read it in a while, but there was lots of drahma. He was attached the sassy long-haired coven leader, but new girl in town Cassie totally nabbed him.

Celeb who would play him:

Garret Hedlund.  Don’t know why, I just think this guy is hawt.

2. Joe from The Jellyfish Season: sure, he dated a fourteen year old when he was twenty, but he didn’t know! He treated her well and even gave self-esteem to Kathleen and treated her cousins nicely. Plus, there was mention of his hairy legs more than once. That sold me!

Who would play him:

Z-Quint, father of my children

1. Billy Sampson; Sunset Island. Swoonsville! He’s the lead singer of a band, check! He goes for the “curvy”, brainy brunette, check! He’s actually smart and into photography, check! He has his own house on the beach, check! He’s super smokin’, check! It was half cheeseball, half kind of sweet when he pops Carrie’s cherry later in the series. And when Carrie would get all hysterical and self-doubting he’d be all, pull your shit together. I’m going to ignore the fact that half his lyrics seem to be written by Michael Bolton.

Who would play him:

Sebastian Bach, circa 1990.

Coming soon: the most ANNOYING YA boys.  You know I saved that second because I will enjoy it more.

I want to get backstage with Flirting with Danger, if you know what I mean

1 Aug

So I’ve been totally neglecting Sunset Island, and not sure how many of you are into it, but if you are not, you are really missing out. Seriously. Go on ebay, get the whole series, then lock youself in your house for the weekend and read them. Seriously, it’s worth it.

Sunset Scandal so boring I barely remember it. Kurt somehow gets framed for a crime and is in jail and we are reminded how hard it is for him because he is working class, boo fucking hoo, and Emma is so rich, boo-fucking hoo, and Emma and he fight as usual. Think Liz and Todd. All works out in the end. Moving on.

ZOMG! I think I passed out after I read this one, both the first time and recently. So the local band, Flirting with Danger, is holding auditions for back-up dancers and singers (which makes them very much more Wham! than Bon Jovi). So all the gals from the island are falling all over themselves to try out. Of course, Carrie is happy just being with Billy, the singer, and wearing overalls and comfy shoes and being the band photographer. Sam, the slutty crazy redhead, is kind of dating Presley Travis, the hot bass player. Presley is from Nashville and only talks in southern cliches. And his accent is sometimes spelled phonetically, kind of like Logan Bruno. I think that is supposed to be Presley shirtless on the bottom and oh my lord! Hot stuff. I used to think he looked like Mike Tramp of the band White Lion.

Of course Sam makes the cut, and convinces Emma to try out also and of course Emma is also picked because suddenly she can also sing and dance. But….dun dun dun…their arch enemy Diana De Witt is also chosen and they fight a lot because Diana is constantly trying to get into Presley’s and Billy’s pants.

The nineties outfits are rampant, including Emma’s audition outfit: “She had on baggie white shorts held up by a braided leather belt, and a hot pink and white lycra bra top.” Also, another auditioner was “wearing an acid green spandex number with thin straps that ran up the center of her breasts, and nothing underneath it.” I am not sure, but I remember at some point, Presley rocks the bike shorts with a neon green oversized tank top. Shudder.

Also, when the gals wanted to look all sexy, they would go braless with a thin shirt. Sam wears “denim cutoffs, a man’s sleeveless white ribbed T-shirt with nothing underneath, and her famous red cowboy boots.” I guess for nineteen year olds with perky ones, that sounds good, but for me I just think pain while walking. Gee Sam, I hope that it doesn’t get cold. But maybe that is what you want!

Oh, then Sam finally locates her birthmother, and is a little peeved that her mother is drab, chubby and Jewish. Seriously.

Sunset Island has poor people too, or Sunset Island #8, Sunset Promises

20 Mar

I don’t know if you can see it, but in the bottom inset, the guy to Carrie’s left (in the sailor hat (?) is a bit stocky and I like that. I don’t know what my twelve year old self thought of him at the time. At that age my idea of male perfection was the Nelson twins. That explains a lot. I’m surprised I’m not a lesbian, because I loved feminine looking guys (Sebastian Bach, pre-bloat Bret Michaels, etc etc)

In Sunset Island, you know what kind of plot you are getting depending on the narrator. With Emma, it’s always about being a poor little rich girl and breaking up and making up with Kurt; with Sam it’s always about being an attention whore and not having sex; with Carrie it’s always some social justice issue. And her hottie rockstar boyf, Billy.

Ahhhhhh!!!! Mention of the perfect size six! What is it with that number? Carrie is self-c0nscious because she is “curvaceous” and not a size six like Sam or Emma. Carrie is maybe a size 10. The horror! I am getting so sick of writing size 6 in this blog.

So anyway, some plot. Carrie meets an old rich Ms. Spencer-Ramsey at the Winterhaven estate. She finds out that Carrie is a photographer, and asks her to help her with a book project (probably to end up as a bargain coffee table book). She wants preety pics of Sunset Island, and as Carrie goes to take them, she realizes that Sunset Island has poor people who are ignored by the rich, seasonal beach-house renters that she and her friends work for. Of course Kurt, poster-child for the working class, shows her the way. Ms. S-R wants to hear nothing of it, but Carrie displays the pics of the shacks at her gallery opening anyway. And then some protest group shows up. And Carrie and the gang save the poor people from a flood. I don’t know. And then…I am not sure what happens because in the next book they are off at the beach club again.

Ian Templeton’s Lord Whitehead and the Zitmen continue to grow musically as a band. They actually mention doing covers of David Bowie’s “Suffragette City” or a Dead Kennedeys song! I’m impressed that this was even mentioned in the same book with a band called Flirting with Danger!

Stop with the social consciousness, Cherie, and more clothes shopping and boyfriends. Sheesh!

Sam almost moves to Japan to be a hooker, or Sunset Island #7, Sunset Heat

14 Jan

These stupid covers! Sam has a hat and a cane, I guess because she is a dancer. But, she’s not a minstrel dancer or anything- she does mostly modern dance and hip hop. What gives? And the boys on the cover, I can only assume are Presley and Kurt. Pres is wearing his boxers, I think. And they are way hiked up. As for Kurt, I think this is when I learned the concept of a “treasure trail”.

So the gals are back on the Island, and Sam is still contemplating her life after leaving Kansas State. And Becky and Allie the slut twins, have changed. Allie now dresses like a nun and is a rip off of Winona Ryder’s character in Mermaids.

Sam meets a new friend Marina, who is a dancer also. They go out to a club (apparently Sunset Island is also home to many nightclubs) and randomly there is a scout or a dance company who offers them jobs on the spot, in Japan. Marina goes right away and Sam still thinks about it for a bit.

To get a passport, she keeps asking her parents for her birth certificate. They are hesitant to send it…because Sam is ADOPTED! And they were never planning on telling her, which is kind of shitty. So that makes Sam want to run away to Japan even more, but then she gets a call from Marina telling her that the whole thing is a sham, and is really an international prostitution ring. Yikes! Sam gets megabucks Emma to pay for Marina’s flight home.

Oh, and lots of stupid flirting with Presley Travis, who only talks in bad Southern cliches.

Heh. The twins call each other “slimey slut lizards”. I’ll have to use that one.

I think this book also has the debut of Lord Whitehead and the Zit Men, which is Ian Templeton (the kid Carrie takes care of)’s band, who plays industrial music. Literally. They bang on washing machines along to the beat of popular music. Kind of cutting edge.

This is also the summer that lasts about 10 years, aka about thirty books.

Seriously, if you haven’t you should start reading these. I have been enjoying them more at age thirty than I did at thirteen. But then again, I’m kind of bizarre.

eating disorders, alcoholism and unemployment, oh my! or Sunset Island #6, Sunset Secrets

9 Dec

These covers are really getting irritated. What is more irritating, Carrie’s jumper or the guy in the short shorts with the parrot? Can you imagine how obnoxious these photo shoots must be?

The gals gear up for another reunion, this time over their spring break. Except they all have secrets. I wonder if that is how they picked the title for this one:

  • Carrie has gained weight during her first year of college, due to stress and her relationship with old boyf Josh. So she becomes bulimic.
  • Emma hates Goucher and is all depressed about rich so becomes an alcoholic (mostly from expensive wine, natch)
  • Sam got fired from her job at Disneyworld and has been waitressing at a Denny’s like establishment and is too embarrassed to tell anyone.

They all plan on heading back to Sunset Island and Graham and Claudia allow the girls to throw a big bash at their mansion while they are not there. Have no idea why, considering Carrie keeps fucking up.
Emma’s daddy buys her a new car out of guilt so she and Sam drive up the Coast together to meet Carrie. They have many madcap adventures and stuff. Blah blah blah.

When they get to Sunset Island, Emma is all mooney with Kurt. Carrie sees Billy and he is dating another gal. This totally broke my thirteen-year-old heart when I read that.

Danny, Sam’s friend from Orlando, comes up with his friend, Kevin.They all have a wild time at the party and decide to go to the beach to watch the sunrise. They are all drunk so Kevin drives. There is a crazy accident and Kevin dies and they all sustain minor injuries, despite being thrown from the car. The fleeting and preciousness of life makes them feel SO ALIVE! They all come clean and admit their secrets to each other. Kevin is forgotten in about 5 pages.

Oh, and all their employers ask them to au pair again next summer. Don’t know why, because at one time or another they all fucked up pretty badly. I feel like this was written to be the last book, but then the series picks up and the second summer lasts about 20 years, and all crazy Sweet Valley High shit happens. In other words, awesome. Like I saud, this stuff needs to be read if you haven’t.

I want to lose my virginity to Johnny Angel or Sunset Island #5, Sunset Reunion

15 Nov

These covers always crack my shit up. So way over the top. Billy looks like a massive tool. Or is that supposed to be Presley? It’s such a 90s view of a rocker. He’s wearing a hat because it’s the winter break and the gals are planning to get together in Orlando because Sam is working as a dancer at Disney World. She dropped out of Kansas State and started working there. Reading this gave me the dry heaves because I, too, worked at Disney World when I was around Sam’s age and it was probably the most horrible experience of my life. So please don’t ask me about it.

No sooner are they there when Carrie gets a call from Rock On magazine. Graham Templeton (the famous rock star she was the au pair for) is doing a concert in Miami and they are doing a feature on him, and Graham recommended that Carrie be the photographer. So they all jet out there on a whim and hang around at the concert. Mega-hot singer Johnny Angel is the opening act, and of course he is curious if Sam’s curtains match the drapes.

Graham is also back on drugs, snorting lines in the bathroom between interviews and the mag wants to print that he fell off the wagon, but Carrie wants to protect him so she gets fired from the gig and who do they hire- none other than the creepy Flash Hathaway! He’s the one that took the porno pics of Sam over the summer. Like there are only 2 photogs in the world. Lorell, their enemy from the island, is with him and they are an item. Ick.

Ok, then it totally goes downhill and turns into a ridiculous SVH novel. They all go to a party on Graham’s yacht, and Emma flirts with a boy and realizes she misses Kurt. Flash flirts with Emma and Lorell gets jealous and proclaims her undying love for Flash. Sam goes down to the bunker with Johnny Angel and they almost do it when Johnny’s girlfriend walks in. Sam is upset because she thought Johnny was her soulmate so she goes and hides on the dingy. Carrie and Sam go to comfort her. While they are talking, Lorell in unhinges it and they are lost at sea. How many SVH plots can you count here?

So they are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on a dingy, and Emma totally saves the day because obviously her rich white ass has been sailing/boating before. They are obvs rescued, and Emma realized that she CAN set her mind to anything, and is encouraged to fill out her Peace Corps application.

Check out their outfits for their night on the town in Orlando. Emma wears a short pink dress with black bike shorts with lacy trim underneath, Sam wears a short denim skirt with a tapestry vest (remember those?) with no shirt underneath, and Carrie wears a white sheer bathing suit cover up over a white lycra miniskirt and a white sports bra. [Shudder]

These books were never really real, but when you start throwing in rock stars and stranded at sea crap, it makes me hate it.

Sunset Farwell (Sunset Island #4)

26 Oct

I really never liked Emma’s drama. She and Kurt were too much like Liz and Todd. Anyway, it’s soooooo haaaaarrrd being a gazillionaire. Noooooooone undertaaaaaaands her.

I love the little inset pics- Emma is aerobicizing! Sam is playing a guitar! Carrie is…carrying a tire? Wtf?

Emma makes plans to do it with Kurt, finally. She also wears expensive lace lingerie from Paris. They get out to the dunes. The pour champagne on each other and lick it off. Seriously, Kurt goes as far as taking off Emma’s shirt and fondling the ladies and then they have a fight. Then Trent, Emma’s trust-fund boyfriend shows up and tries to get back in Emma’s life and blue-collar Kurt gets all insecure. Oh, and there’s more of Laurel and Diana being bitchy to the trio. Blah blah blah, same same. Can we get some rock star boyfriends in this one?

Oh, and Daphne the crazed anorexic tries to stab Emma in the Play Cafe but Kurt rescues her and they are all lovey dovey again. Blech. But wait- then Diana invites Kurt on a trip to NYC and Emma decides to also visit her aunt in NYC, and Kurt and Diana think that she is following them all to NYC. Then Kurt admits he slept with Diana, and they break up. Oh, and Carrie goes to a show in Bangor with Billy, and they do everything but.

There’s some stupid parallel storyline with the kids they take care of where the younger kid has a friend and his brother steals his friend. Whatever.

One of Sam’s outfits:
“She was wearing her favorite jeans, a white sleeveless men’s T-shirt without a bra, and a wild-looking multi-colored jacket with huge padded shoulders. Naturally she was wearing her red cowboy boots, her trademark.” Wow.

For gals that work as au pairs, they always seem to have the night off and have time to go jetting to New York and on tour with their boyfriends. Seriously.

Why the hell does modeling always have to be part of a YA series plot? or Sunset Island #3, Sunset Dreams

20 Oct

Okay, why the fuck is Sam wearing a big pile of hats? And who is the guy supposed to be at the bottom? Is that Billy or Presley? Because it doesn’t look like either of them.

So, now we get slutty Sam’s point of view. She takes care of twin 13-year old girls, who are total hussies. For instance, they have a rule where they don’t date boys under the age of 16. Nice.

Flash Hathaway, a creepy photog in a liesure suit who hangs around at teenage parties, claims that he can make Sam a famous model. So they set up a time for Sam to model some pictures. He has her posing like a porn star and in see-through lingerie. Sam stupidly thinks they are sophisticated. He sells them to a strip club and they use them as advertisements for exotic dancers. The twins and their Dad see them and Sam almost gets fired.

Meanwhile, things are heating up with Presley Travis, Flirting with Danger’s bass player, and I am not talking about the weather here. He speaks in cliched southern drawls and expressions.

Check out the baby prostitute ensemble Sam wears to her first meeting with Flash: “She had on her tightest white Lycra miniskirt and neon-orange bra top under a cropped white jacket. Her hair was sprayed into a huge mass of red waves and curls, and her orange matte lipstick matched the orange of her bra top. In her white high-heeled ankle boots she stood over six feet tall.” Wow. Orange lipstick? Waves AND curls? My head hurts from the ugliness.

a record release party in Portland! or Sunset Island #2, Sunset Kiss

16 Oct

Ok, this might have been the single most enjoyable reading experience of my young adult life. I was absolutely obsessed with this book. Maybe because the bookish, “curvy” girl gets the rock star. It can happen. It is still giving me hope that Jack White will divorce his supermodel wife and buy a condo with me. Anyway.

We start out at a Graham Perry concert. Apparently he does like a concert all the time on Sunset Island. And why does Sunset Island have a coliseum? Anyway, the gals are backstage because of course Carrie got them passes. She is borrowing Billy Sampson’s camera to take pics to try to sell to Rolling Stone. Um, yea. Billy is the singer of Flirting With Danger, who is the opening act. Because major rock stars always have shitty local unsigned bands open for them. Just go with it. I have.

Kristy Powell, local slut and columnist for Sunet Island’s paper is all over Billy and Carrie is jealous. Onstage, Billy dedicates his song (it’s called “What? U Lie”) and the gals think it is for Carrie, but Carrie thinks it’s for Kristy Powell, a local columnist that he has been hanging around. It’s probably for neither. Apparently when Billy sings, he sounds like Bon Jovi or Jim Morrison. Who sound nothing alike. Just go with it.

The next night at the Play Cafe Billy shows up. Carrie goes to the bathroom to put on makeup, and when she comes out she realizes her nipples are hard. Billy notices too and asks her out. Nice.

Problem: Carrie doesn’t have the night off so she decides to sneak out and leave the kids alone after they are asleep. I know the BSC wouldn’t approve!

So they go to a record producer’s party in Portland (Maine). Carrie’s date outfit, styled by Sam: an orange t-shirt dress that she rips a slit up the side to her waist, and safety pins up the slit. And another ripped down the front to her navel, also done up with pins. And no bra. Holy shit. Carrie also “borrows” Claudia’s five hundred dollar wedge sandals.

So she downs two glasses of straight vodka and has a blast at the party, until she realizes its almost time for the last ferry so she can get back in time to sneak back in. So Billy takes her and she yacks off the edge the whole time. Kurt, Emmas’ boyf, drives her back in his taxi and she gets in on time. Phew! It is nice to see characters who actually drink underage.

So later Billy asks her to some after hours clam bake or something and she buys a new suit with a thong back. Ew. So the party is crazy! Someone is smoking pot! Kristy the slut is there and is dancing topless! She and Billy are totally getting along and they make out for a lil. Then Kristy gets high and wants everyone to go skinny-dipping in the ocean. Billy doesn’t want to, but Carrie thinks it will make her look fun and exciting. So then the cops come and arrest everyone, and Billy is peeved that Carrie acted like an ass. Graham Perry and Claudia have to pick her up from the station and she admits everything and about sneaking out and all is forgiven.

Finally, on the beach the next day Carrie loses her three-year old charge on the beach and Billy helps her find her, and Billy realizes what a caring person she is. Then they talk about photography more and realize they are in LUV. And Billy likes Carrie the way she was, so why did she try and pretend to be a sex god?

The parallel kid story is that Ian Templeton, the other kid Carrie takes care of, wants to hang out with older kids but they make fun of him. I think that also results in the message that you should be yourself.

The good thing is, they even give descriptions of boy clothes! On their first date, he wears “a western style denim shirt and black jeans”. What, no bolo tie? The guys often wear denim cutoffs and neon muscle shirts. Ah, the 90s.

In high school, Kristy was voted “girl most likely to” as in girl most likely to do “it”. Seriously, these kids need to get out more.

Also, Cherie Bennett is pretty cool, despite not answering some of your fan mail! Since Wikipedia did not exist in 1992, I did not know that she wrote for a soap opera. And she wrote other series? Anyone ever read them?

So an heiress, a tramp, and a nerd walk into a bar….or Sunset Island #1

10 Oct

Okay, originally when doing a blog, I wanted to blog the Sunset Island books, by Cherie Bennett. A year ago I was super depressed so I ordered the whole series on ebay (best $60 I ever spent) and read them over again…I think I gave away my original copies. It totally worked better than prozac, these books always give me the warm fuzzies. I think I was in junior high when I read these, and if I do say so myself I was quite an advanced reader (I read Flowers In the Attic in the seventh grade) so they did seem a bit childish. But awesome nonethless.

They were basically a combo of the Baby-sitters Club, Sweet Valley High, and Beverly Hills 90210. And like the BSC, there were vivid descriptions of outfits, which were my favorite to read. And with some drinking and some talk of sex. Shocker! The three gals are au pairs on Sunset Island, which is a fake island off the coast of Maine.

Ok, so the characters are:

  • Emma: super-rich heiress who wants to break away from her privileged background and hides her wealth from people because she feels people will jusge her. Is very prim and proper.
  • Sam: a redheaded tease who was wild and crazy. She was from Kansas and a dancer. And very thin, as we are told every page. She has a dance scholarship to Kansas State.
  • Carrie: the “fat” one. She got accepted to Yale and was a photographer and had low self esteem. Oh, I’m sorry, they used “curvy” not fat. She is going to Yale in the Fall.

Omg! Hot dogs and sea shells! Double tank tops! Yay! These things represented the epitome of fun. This whole book was kind of like BSC #8, Boy-Crazy Stacey, except for the whole series!!! Did I just blow your mind???

Well, Emma meets the hot swimming instructor Kurt, and he is all working class and she doesn’t want to alienate him by declaring her heiress status (I think she is worth about 125 mil) so she lies to him and her friends. She and Kurt go out on some cheesy dates. Meanwhile, her arch nemesis from boarding school, Diana and her friend Lorell show up on the island and try to make things hell for Emma. They basically act like Jessica and Lila. Finally, Kurt and her friends find out she is rich and yell at her for lying and get mad at her but then they all make up in the end.

Other stuff:

They meet the members of a local band called Flirting with Danger, namely Billy Sampson who Carrie gets a major crush on and some guy Presley who has a southern accent that the author needs to put in all the pronunciations. Sam is all over him. Also, like the BSC, stuff goes on with the kids that they take care of that mirror what is going on with their lives and teach them lessons. The kid that Emma takes care of is in love with her and buys her expensive presents he can’t afford. The lesson is to stop lying to people you care about about your socioeconimc status. Or something.

Emma’s mother is a mess. She dates a 25-year old artist named Austin Payne who shows up on Sunset Island and is all over the teenage girls. Yuck.

Some creepy photographer named Flash Hathaway also hangs out on the island trying to convince girls o pose for him. Creepy, and comes into some plots later on.

Lots of fun outfit descriptions! When she gets to the island, Emma goes to the trendy shop and spends two thousand dollars on stuff like a read leather mini skirt and matching cropped jacket. Noyce. Carrie’s outfit: “an oversized loose-weave pink sweater over a long, flowing gauze-and-chiffon flowerprint skirt. When the oversized sweater slipped off one shoulder Emma could see the narrow strap of a lacy pink loetard. Sam looked stunning in a sheer antique white lace blouse and a black and white polka-dot lace miniskirt”. Holy early nineties, Batman!

We even get boy-clothes descriptions! Billy was wearing “torn, faded jeans and a navy t-shirt that he filled out to perfection. His streaky blond hair was tied back with a piece of rawhide, and he had a tiny diamond stud in one ear.” Welcome to Jon Bon Jovi, circa 1989.

Okay, their interactions with the boys are ultra cheesy, but they actually do have somewhat real conversations about stuff other than their relationship [cough-Liz and Todd-c0ugh].

Emma’s dream is to study primates in the Peace Corps in Africa. Uh, she may want to do some research into the Peace Corps and realize that’s not the point. Plus, they may be a veiled racist statement but I won’t give the author much credit.

Carrie is an au pair for Graham Templeton and his trophy wife Claudia. Graham is a famous rock star (I think is supposed to be like Bruce Springsteen) who happens to have a house on the island. Sam is an au pair for ultra-slutty thirteen year old twins. Think the Wakefield twins if they both were like Jessica.

Grade: A

I know there was some interest in these a while back, and I will try to put these in the mix. Since I read them about a year again, I am not sure I will get all the nitty gritty details because I spend enough of my time reading SVH novels, but some really fun shit happens that I will try to remember. The girls end up becoming back-up singers for Flirting With Danger, Emma and Carrie start a perfume business, Sam designs clothing and they fight and break up with boyfriends a lot. And they wear really bad (i.e. awesome) nineties fashions.

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