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The Gangs of Sweet Valley, or #121 The High School Wars

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I cannot tell a lie. I had to skim this one. I had to do this so I wouldn’t gouge my eyes out. Dreadful. Ok, remember all the gang stuff that started because someone insulted Ken? And Jessica fell madly and deeply in love like she’s never felt before and with the most gorgeous guy she’s ever seen? Yea, that happened. He’s the rival Palisades gang leader.

So really I’ll just say there’s lots of drama and Jess and Christian Gorman act like they are Romeo and Juliet.They’ve known each other a week, don’t even know anything about each other, and constantly talk about how they love each other. Let’s call it what it is, they are teenagers in lust. Oh, and Ken finds out when he catches them on a “real date”. That’s what the cover depicts. Ken is coming out of a restaurant, not a restroom. Jessica lies to the police about the brawl. And Todd gets arrested for beating the crap out of the Palisades guys. Liz blames the whole drama on herself.

Yeesh, so after the big warehouse dance brawl (which was really some skinny white guys throwing some punches at each other) Chrome Dome calls an assembly. He forbades anyone from wearing school colors or SVH paraphanelia. What if Liz wants to wear her “Oracle” press pass? Is that forbaden now? Wow, my father can relate. He taught at an inner-city school for 30 years where he watched gang fights going on in the hallways and he has had to confiscate razor blades from his students. I should totally tell him to read this, he could relate. The principal is putting together a task force of students to help assuage all the violence. Task force? Liz just had an orgasm. The task force is useless, duh. But it is like a halfway home for forgotten characters. Jade Wu and David Prentiss are on it, and off course, Jade is described as “exotic” and “almond-eyed”. Oh, and A.J. Morgan! He’s there too! He lives! It’s amazing when one of Jessica’s boyfriends gets out alive. I wonder why Jeffrey French is not there too.
Ken has a cell phone! They call Jessica from his car because she is afraid she drowned at the beach while surfing. “Drowned in Christian’s pool of love” is more like it.

Jessica and Christian spend much of their time on an infaltable mattress in the back of his van. Classy.

Todd lives at 1010 Country Club Drive, in case you were wondering. And lives in a mansion. Wtf, he’s rich now?

Yea so…these middle books in the trilogies blow. Just the same scene over and over again. But some good quotes:

“Jessica had kissed plenty of boys, and she’d been in love, seriously in love- but she’s never felt quite like this. It’s like we’ve always known each other somehow, and at the same time it’s so exciting , and brand-new, she thought, gazing deep into Christian’s soulful blue eyes. Like we’re meant to be together. He’s my destiny.” We’ve NEVER heard this before.

Todd calls Liz out on her shit and says “she’s …writing holier-than-thou editorials and campaigning for the Nobel Peach Prize.” Ha! Todd’s been reading this site.

We’re left with the cliffhanger, will the schools ever put their rivalry behind them? What will become of Christian and Jessica? I may never know because I don’t know if I can bear to read the next one in the series. Except that I do know what happens.

Grade: F

The Bloods and the Crips have nothing on SVH and Palisades; or In Love With the Enemy, #120

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As I was reading every word of this, I felt like this book was written to be ridiculed. Like the ghostwriters were giving me a big wink with every inane pararaph. Yes, I know this was written in 1998, but let’s just pretend that they came into the future and knew I would one day be embarking on this project. Also, this convinced me that the ghostwriters were about 67 years old, from another country, or raised in a cave by wolves because their depictions of teenagers and high school is so fucking off-base.

Oh my god. Head spinning. So much to cover. So, the book opens at the big Palisades v. SVH football game. (Isn’t every one of their games the big game?) and Jessica is leading the cheerleaders in a super-amazing, awesome routine. Ready for this? It’s a rap routine and Amy puts on a backwards baseball cap and they point their fingers at the audience like “rappers”. WTF???? So bad I cringed when I read that. I think Heather stole this routine from the East Compton Clovers.

Well, Greg McMullen, a Palisades player, knocks Ken over and he gets all huffy about it. Isn’t that what football is? Get over yourself, pretty boy. After the game Greg and his neanderthalls rough Ken up in the parking lot.

Meanwhile, Jessica and her witches are at the beach during a surf competition, and the winner of the contest gets a trip to Hawaii and a tv interview. So Jessica decides she has to win the trip and be on tv, so SHE DECIDES SHE WILL WIN THE SURF CONTEST. Lucky we have Lila who reminds Jessica that she is a stupid egomaniac. Rosie Shaw, the top female surger totally overhears this and laughs at Jess. I like this Rosie. Can we get a spin-off series please?

So Jess gets up at five every day to try surfing. Luckily, a hunk from the beach is there to help her and of course falls for her instantly. His name is Christian Gorman. He could be Jewish, no? Except for the first name. Of course.

h, backtrack a little. At the aformentioned game, Liz and Enid meet Marla and Caitlin, who are the editors for the Palisades newspaper. They decide they need to out-nerd each other and collaborate on an event that will foster teamwork between the schools. So they wrack their brains and come up with….I’ll let you guess what the event is…haven’t figured it out yet?…. a DANCE. Because they NEVER have the idea to do that. And, it must be a Friday coming up. Also, don’t they need permission from the school? Of course not, when Chrome Dome bends over and takes it in the ass whenever a Wakefield wants something. I’ll bet Mr. Collins will be there.

Meanwhile,the two schools start to prank each other, which includes stringing toilet paper all over Ken’s lawn, spray-painting the foo0tball field, and other hardcore gangsta stuff. It reminded me of the East-West Coast rap wars.

Bruce, Ronnie Edwards, Ken, Todd and others go really hardcore and show up in school wearing jean jackets and sunglasses. WATCH OUT! They may start…breaking out in song! To save money, I am surprised Bruce didn’t pull out his Club X leather jackets. Also, I wonder if they are also wearing jeans? Because that would be horrifying, a jean jacket with jeans, which I call a jean tuxedo. It’s a big no-no.

Liz is all pissy that Todd is involved and that Todd is thinking for himself, and Jess actually doesn’t care what Ken is doing because she is ducking face with her mysterious surf teacher. He doesn’t tell her anything about himself and that unbalance of power in the relationship only makes Jess want him more. They exchange I love you’s after two days together.

So the rumor is that a big throwdown is going to happen at the upcoming dance, which is now a masquerade ball and will take place at an abandoned warehouse. This sounds more like a rave to me…where are the glowsticks? Also, who is funding this? Liz and Enid and Caitlin and Marla consider cancelling it, but it turns out the rumble will happen anyway, so they figure it is better to have people around. I don’t even know why Enid is involved, it just seems she is doing it because Liz is. Enid needs to go back to crystal meth, she was way more interesting then.

So the dance happens and the SVH gang heads out back to start the rumble with the Palisades guys, who are in leather jackets and sunglasses. They start to fight and it like West Side Story, although more like the the Gap commercials than the real thing. Ken goes down and Jessica runs out to see….that the gang leader is none other than Christian Gorman! Gasp! Then she passes out for some reason. Cliffhanger!!!!

Grade: A+ for being a complete parody of itself.

At the dance Bruce tells Jessica she looks like a bruise because she is wearing blue and black. Love that Bruce.

Liz and Enid meet Caitline and Marla over brunch at a swanky place. Now, I brunched all the time when I lived in NY, but what teenagers do this? Liz is a fucking grandma.

The one that is a big commercial for a Ouiji Board or Super Thriller: Deadly Summer

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I have been reluctant to do a Super Thriller, because I remember them being tedious and quite frankly, not all that scary. I was RIGHT!

The timeline of this one is blowing my mind! So it’s summer, AGAIN. But Liz is dating Jeffrey, in the summer. But didn’t Todd move back to SV before the end of the school year? Was this before or after they spent the summer in Malibu? Or after the big bike trip? My head is exploding! Also, the twins are interning at the Sweet Valley News. Why would Jessica even want to do that? And wouldn’t she get fired during her first day? Also, what the hell really happens in Sweet Valley? But the office is always bustling like it’s the Daily Planet or something.

The first half of the book doesn’t have much thrill in it. Elizabeth chided Lila for believing in a Ouji board, and Lila was pissed and plans to get back at Liz for being a condescending asshole. You and me both, Li. She and Jess plan to trick Liz into making her scared of the Ouji board by haing it predict things that will actually happen. The big Endless Summer concert is postponed, and they lead her to believe that the Ouji predicted it. Then Jess reads one of Jeffreys letters to Liz and has it predict that. Soon Liz is believing it and getting freaked out and Lila is loving every moment of it. And so am I- Liz being made the fool is okay in my book.

They also trick Liz into believing that Bruce is dying of an unnamed illness, so of course Liz is going to jump in and comfort him and act like Mother Teresa because she can’t resist “saving” someone. Bruce finds out about Jessica and Lila’s plan, and totally hams it up to manipulate Liz into fooling around with him. He’s actually a little bit hilarious. Liz seems to forget the whole coma-forced-intercourse thing. Jeffrey finally arrives home and is super jealous that Bruce and Liz are spending time together. (Jeffrey had been working as a camp counselor in San Francisco. I think that means he was camping it up in San Francisco, if you know what I mean. Wink. ) The folks who wrote Almost Married should have read the other books first to realize that the Liz/Bruce romance thing had already been done.

Okay, we finally get the the Super Thriller part. Some guy is an escaped from a mental insitution. When he was in high school about 10 years ago, he was in love with a pretty cheerleader who snubbed him so he kidnapped her for a while.

If you do not see exactly where this is going, then you are a moron.

He is also planting fake bombs everywhere, sending SVH into a panic. Liz is also getting prank phone calls. Yawn.

Liz is also doing some baby sitting for Elsa Bennett. One night when she is there a strange guy stops by, looking for Elsa, claiming that he is an old friend, and that Liz “looks like someone he used to know”.

Oh, this is the best: it’s the middle of the summer, and the cheerleaders hold a pep rally at SVH to “get the school back in the team spirit”. Is this legal to have a school event during the summer? Can these people take a fucking break from SVH and get away?

Okay, I’ll admit that I totally skimmed the rest: This crazy guy, Donald, who is Elsa’s brother,takes Liz, Bruce, and Jeffrey hostage at the stadium and threatens to set off a bomb. Becauase Liz looks like the pretty girl that snubbed him. It’s just the curse of being beautiful! Bruce saves the day by grabbing the bomb and running off with it and it explodes. He emerges with like soot on him and a singed collar. It is like in the cartoons, where something explodes. Was the bomb made by ACME? Whatever.

Liz has been kidnapped/held hostage like eighteen times. How does she not have PTSD?

Super thriller my ass.

Grade: F