Jimmy really earned his paycheck on this cover. Love how Liz is wiping away the single tear.
Previously, Ned and Alice were having marriage trouble. Ned has moved out temporarily to try and work things out or something. They keep mentioning that it is temporary, so why is everyone all upset? On the other hand, I can see why they may be a little upset, because in Sweet Valley, if your parents are divorced or you do not have a hetero-two parent family, you end of as a raging slut, have ‘roid rages, have really bad self-esteem, are dirt-poor, are pathetically boring, are distrustful of men, die of some terrible disease, drop out of school, just to name a few. So yea, I guess I’d be upset.
This fight brings out the absolute worst in the twins. Shall we start with Liz? First, she thinks the break up is all her fault because back when the fam tried to take a ski weekend, she gave her mom’s secretary the number where they will be and when then the secretary called, it caused Alice to leave and make Ned mad. So Liz has the gall to think that she is so INFLUENTIAL that she is the CAUSE of her parents breakup. So she mopes about it the whole time in a whoa is me fashion. She totally martyrs herself and cancels all her plans to TAKE CARE of her mother, because forgot the fact that Alice is an adult that can take care of herself. And then, her parents breakup makes her GIVE UP ON LOVE and if a couple so perfect and in love as her parents can’t survive, how can any relationship survive? So she breaks up with Todd for no reason and pulls the histrionics all day. I can see her walking around, and when anyone approached, heaving a HUGE sigh and waiting for someone to ask her what is wrong.
I am not sure who is worse, Elizabeth or Jessica. Jessica doesn’t care about anyone in her family, and sees the separation as a good thing. When Jessica gets in trouble with her mom, she runs to her dad to complain and has her Dad call her mom to debate the punishment. And then she uses her Dad’s guilt to get money from him to buy a new outfit. But should we expect less from Jessica?
Finally Jessica and Steven find out she gave Alice’s secretary the number to where they were vacationing, and Jessica and Steven get mad and oh my god! How dare Elizabeth be so important as to ruin an adult’s marriage! She needs to get away from them! She doesn’t have the balls to pull a Jessica and actually run away, so she goes to stay with Enid, who of course is foaming at the mouth over the opportunity to have Liz stay at her house and get all of her attention. Liz doesn’t want her parents to find her, so she takes Enid’s phone off the hook without telling Enid or her Mom for the whole weekend. Wtf? And Mrs. Rollins doesn’t get pissed at that? Enid on the other hand, doesn’t care, and sleeps clutching the sheets that Elizabeth slept on.
The secondary storyline only serves to enrage me even more. Jessica has been calling a teen party line. Remember party lines? How trashy. She’s met a guy through one of them, Charlie, who has a sexy voice and who she has hit it off with.Although he is hesitant to meet her in person, but finally agrees. They meet at the roller rink, but the guy who meets her there is cute but boring. It takes like three more meetings for Jessica to realize that this is not the same guy that she has been talking to on the phone. Turns out he thinks he’s not that great looking. Despite being totally into him when they talk on the phone, Jessica doesn’t even CONSIDER meeting him and instead comes up with this brilliant plan:
Suddenly, a wonderful idea came to her. Amy had called this morning and said the guy in her tennis class had turned her down. So she didn’t have a date eithetr. Why not get Amy and Charlie, the real Charlie, to go to the dance together as blind dates? Jessica could go with the other Charlie, the handsome one. What was his name anyway? And the four of them could double-date. That way Jessica wouldn’t be mortified by being caught out in public with someone who wasn’t good-looking. And at the same time she would be able to enjoy the benefits of being with bothy Charlies and having both of them be in love with her! It was the perfect plan!
Seriously, I still can’t figure out if the ghostwriters are aware that Jessica is a pain in the ass selfish brat, or hope that readers will find Jessica’s actions endearing. It’s keeping me up at night.
So they used the same cover as the one where Jessica runs away and stuck the famous hair clips in to be able to distingish them?
Like the book where Jessica runs away, this book has caused my brain to start singing “Running away together, running away forever, Angeloooo…“
Poor Liz. She has a martyr complex like a certain vampire-fancying, fictional Washington state resident. 😉
“Poor Liz. She has a martyr complex like a certain vampire-fancying, fictional Washington state resident. ”
Maybe that’s why I keep reading those books! Because Bella reminds me of Liz. Now it makes sense. ^_^
Mal, Jess has a gray sweatshirt and a red gym bag on the cover of that book.
There’s actually a Sweet Valley Kids book where the twins *do* run away together… albeit only to the fort in their back yard. Still though. How many times do they need to run away. I’m pretty sure they vow never to do it again in that book 😛
Ihatewheat, did you read the copy with the reader of the month? I loved your updates on those.
I had completely forgotten about teen lines! And as a Jessica (who has a sister named Elizabeth, and grew up during the heyday of the SVH series) I find her neither amusing nor endearing. I mostly want to poke her with sharp sticks.
So how many Todd break-ups does this one make?
I can’t count that high Rio.
Have I developed a neurological disorder or is this web site snowing all over the place? No, seriously, what is going on? I need to lie down!
Yea, it’s a wordpress thing. I think it looks like dandruff.
Thank god. I always blame insanity first, the internet second.
I thought maybe my epilepsy had taken some weird turn…bizarre flakes!
I thought the flakes were Liz’s tears!
Sorry, but I just have to know – what happened on the double date? DID they both fall in love with her?
Gawd I read this little trilogy of the wakefield family trauma maybe a year ago. Seriously, what the fuck did Ned and Alice do to these girls as babies? There has to be a reason why Jessica is such a psychotic attention starved monster.
And I love how Liz’s idea of running away is spending the night at her best friends house…
Anne,
ihatewheat is actually the reader of the month. We learn about how she saved her babysitting money and got her big sis to drive her the special B. Dalton in the mall where she purchased these literary masterpieces. She identified with Elizabeth because of their mutual love for writing.
I remember a SVT book with almost the same plot. The twins’ parents were fighting -I think Ned wanted to go into politics and Alice didn’t want him to, so they almost split up. And then Jessica was running up a huge bill on a teen line. It had to be SVT because I’ve never really read SVH.
Boo-hoo-hoo, smug WASP nuclear family learns what life is like for the Other Half–you know, for the Martins and the drugged up Enid Rollinses and the Lynne Henrys. For the trash.
In fact, what shocks me about this one is that Jessica isn’t actively lobbying to get Nalice back together…precisely to avoid the social death that comes with having a BROKEN FAMILY in SV.
And Jimmy: no one who has ever cried has ever wiped away a tear like that.
RollingStone they both ended up falling for Amy
I only read this book after the recaps in Liz’s Secret Diary, and I gotta say, reading about the whole situation from Liz’s self-absorbed, self-pitying POV only makes it TEN TIMES WORSE.
It’s also really hard to feel any sympathy for the kids when you just KNOW that Ned and Alice will reunite in two books’ time, and they will all hold hands and skip in a circle. I feel sorry for any children who were given false hope by this book that their parents might reconcile!
Taren, that was actually this book-the big fight happened in the book before this which I am sure I will get to eventually.
As far as Charlie goes, his nose was crooked or something like that, god forbid, and he was a funny guy. I almost liked him. Amy was dressed as a cheerleader for the costume party and Charlie thought she was being ironic. Amy didn’t know what ironic meant, but she’s pretty so of course Charlie was lucky to be with her, even if her personality sucked. It was really fucked up.
The snow thing just doesn’t look so great on a white blog. 😦
This whole book was nutty.
My vote is that the snowing blog is awesome. And I realize that sentiment puts me in the minority column, but I can accept it. (I do have black hair and am a horrid size eight, after all.)
Randomly, ihatewheat, I have now realized that I’ve been reading for your blog for a YEAR already, because I remember commenting on how much I liked the snow the first time I saw it! bwahaha.
Shut up, Nalice. LEARN TO PARENT!
I remember the snow here last year too Jade Wu. And my silver and blue christmas tree is standing proudly in my living room, thanks to the inspiration of SVH, which I remember discussing on here last year too.
Happy whatever you celebrate at this time of year ihatewheat! Thanks for bringing me the joy of snark!
Thanks for staying with me for a year! Or more! I do wish I can turn this damn snow off, but I can’t figure out how. I live in California for pete’s sake, snow is irrelevant.
Omg, that was so svh to say.”I walk around Oakland thinking everyone else is so pathetic for not living here.” Actually I do, I love Oak-town.
Thanks for the holiday wishes, I don’t celebrate any holiday except the time off from work.
Enid clutching the sheets Liz slept on made me weep with laughter! Happy New Year, Sweet Valleyians!
That cover is disturbing me. Liz has cold, dead eyes. If there was an actual tear there, which I highly doubt, it would be made of ice. I think that’s where the ‘blog snow’ is coming from.
I kind of want to reach into the screen and pat Elizabeth condescendingly on the shoulder. Then punch her condescendingly in the face.
Looking at the pic some more… I swear I had that shirt Liz is wearing.
Sarah C, I agree, Ihatewheat had to have been the ROTM… but I think she would have identified most with Heather… the girl Aaron Dallas was seeing when he was MAD at the world… cause she totally called Liz on her bs and snobbishness.
I identified with Liz, because, of course, I am a condescending bitch too… wait… no I think it was the writing thing, though it’s not something I pursue any more.
“Actually I do, I love Oak-town.”
As a former denizen of Oak-town’s neighbor Alameda (a.k.a. The Island Nation), I have to agree with ihatewheat. There are some wonderful areas and things to do in Oak-town. The Piedmont Theater springs to mind: http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Market/SanFranciscoEastBay/PiedmontTheatre.htm
i kept going back and forth from this page to jezebel, trying to see if i was going crazy and seeing little floaty things or if it was really just this page…
i guess i’ve been watching a little too much house…. lol
annoyed at hell by liz from this book, too *rolls eyes*
annoyed as* hell
although hell annoys me too i guess….?
Your blog seriously is too funny. I used to be so obsessed with the Sweet Valley books and read all of them. But they are so unrealistic…hahaha oh Elizabeth Wakefield..she’s too much!
woah =/= woe
woe = oh, sadness
woah = Keanu Reeves