The Real RPG (Red Panda Girl)

I watched and ADORED "Turning Red," so I had to get this book. 

It's Mei's POV and it's already giving some good backstory and more in depth information.

I'm just going to babble as I come across things worth noting. This won't make any sense unless you've seen the movie. 

So we start out with the girls writing 4*Town FANFIC. YES. We all knew they did. 

The girls are over at Mei's, so they do come to her house with Ming's permission sometimes. There was a discussion about how weird it was to have so many photos of Ming and Mei doing stuff together. I disagreed with that because a lot of it was mother-daughter events, but yeah, the annual tea picture where the only change is how much bigger Mei is is slightly odd. 

And the book solved the main thing that was bothering me about the movie: Ming doesn't like Miriam because she talks about boys too much and Ming doesn't want Mei growing up too fast. I feel like there should have been a clear line in the movie addressing this, because Miriam has a very Jewish last name and it's not gonna look good on Ming's part unless she's very specific about why she doesn't like Mei's Jewish friend. 

Also, I obviously thought Ming was overbearing in the movie because you're supposed to think that, but I thought she was mostly a good person. But in the book, there's a scene in a restaurant and she refuses to tip because they waited "forever" for their food. NO. FUCK YOU, MING. She lost major points with that. 

There's a scene where the girls are working on their fanfic and Ming comes over, so Mei makes them hide it. Then Miriam says something about Devon and Mei covers it up. After Ming is gone, Mei tells Miriam not to talk about boys in front of her mom and Miriam asks why not but Mei never answers her. Would it have been difficult to say her mom isn't ready to hear Mei be interested in boys? Mei hides things from her mom but she also doesn't make it clear to her friends that she basically has a Mom Personality and a Real Personality. I feel like that would have helped a lot. 

A lot of the book is just the movie with little perspective twists or minor additions. There's one great line when Mei is upset about the Daisy Mart incident. 

"It's fine, you'll move to another city, change your identity. Sure, why not? I've always wanted to go to Buffalo."

Heh. I'm from Buffalo. 

There is a great scene with Mei and her dad going to the donut shop for a talk. I hate to say it but I honestly can't remember if this was in the movie or not. I don't think so? But it's a nice father-daughter moment, so it should have been left in. 

There's more in-depth stuff with the aunties that gives them more separate identities. According to the book, Lily's daughter is Vivian, who wasn't in the movie. Helen and Lily are described as Ming's cousins, while Chen and Ping are just "Mom's side of the family." Chen is Lily's mom, but I've read Chen as Ming's sister online. Yet if she was Ming's sister, then Lily wouldn't be a cousin but her niece. So I don't think Chen is Ming's sister. I think she's Grandma Wu's sister. This seems confirmed later in the book when Mei remembers her mother telling her that Chen was jealous of Grandma Wu because Wu inherited the temple and she didn't. So they must be sisters. There's a scene where Grandma and the aunties take Mei for dimsum that's pretty funny. 

So yeah, if you're a fan of the movie, I recommend checking out the book. It's pretty fun. Although it did not answer one of my two big questions from the movie: what is the Goth Girl's name?!!! And if you're looking for more hints about Priya having a crush on her, they're not in a book. Sadly! That scene isn't even mentioned.

Just Be Cool, Jenna Sakai

This is the sequel to Keiko's book, though Keiko isn't a huge presence in it. I loved Jenna from Keiko's book and wished she was in it more. I think Keiko makes a few more appearances in Jenna's book than Jenna did in Keiko's. 

So Elliot, Jenna's boyfriend from the first book, dumps her right before Christmas break. Thanks to her parents' divorce and how they both are, Jenna is not one to talk about her feelings. She thinks they make her weak. She bats away any of her friends' attempts at making sure she's okay after the breakup. 

To distract her, Keiko tries to blend her into her crowd with Conner and the boys. It semi-works, but what really distracts Jenna is her newspaper club. They don't actually write a newspaper but more learn how to do certain types of writing for one. The teacher wants to shake things up and assigns each writer something out of their comfort zone. Jenna is supposed to write a personal essay but she despises the idea. 

Wanting to be alone, she finds a small diner nearby that has a Broadway theme. She begins hanging out in a booth named after Hamilton because it gives her good memories of her dad. Unfortunately, that booth also happens to be the favorite of Rin Watanabe, a boy in her grade that she once was paired with for a disastrous health project. (I think it was health anyway.) Jenna thinks he's a slacker, he thinks she's a teacher's pet. 

Jenna stops going to newspaper club after the teacher keeps pushing the personal essay on her. Jenna tried but turned in something that wasn't personal enough. After hearing the announcement of a writing contest with a scholarship prize, Jenna focuses on that, wanting to expand on a story she and her new friend Isabella came up with. (Isabella is fine with this.) She wants to learn who funded the new cafeteria and why they chose something like that instead of what she thinks the school needed more. She's determined to win a) to beat asshole Elliot and b) because her mom keeps worrying about how she's going to pay for college. 

As she digs deeper, Jenna grows closer with Rin, but that comes to a screeching halt when she realizes Rin's parents were the ones who donated the money for the cafeteria renovation. She gets in a giant fight with Rin and then eventually learns there is no story behind the donation. Everything was on the up and up. It was in part to help kids on the lunch program be able to keep getting free meals because the cafeteria was on the verge of closing down due to outdated equipment. Forced to give up her story, Jenna realizes she's been an ass to Rin and repeatedly tries to apologize. 

At the same time, her dad moves back to town. Jenna has a huge breakdown and they finally have a good talk. He speaks to her mother also and both parents realize that they should have been more open with Jenna about the divorce. (And not done bullshit things like her mom making it sound like Jenna would have to rely on scholarships and work study for college when all along her dad was planning on paying for it. I don't like her mom.) They also realize their inability to discuss their feelings led to their daughter being the same way. 

Thankfully, Jenna also realizes this and strives to change. She finally does make up with Rin and they end up a couple. Keiko and the boys join them at the diner, along with Isabella from newspaper club. And Jenna's final written piece is a...personal essay on how she learned to break down her walls. 

Elliot remains an asshole. So does Audrey from Keiko's book, who made one brief appearance and Jenna should have let her have it but she didn't. I'm praying the author just moves on to another storyverse because I do not want to read a book with bitch Audrey as the POV. Although I wouldn't mind a third book with a new character who becomes friends with Jenna and Keiko and their gang. 

Another great read. I do love Jenna more than Keiko, but it did take some time to get there. You as the reader need her to break down her walls to really get to like her. When she's being pushy, she's not very likeable, but she does make it in the end. 

Keep It Together, Keiko Carter

 
This one scrolled by in one of Amazon's suggested lists and I was intrigued. Thankfully, we've come a long way since I was growing up and even from just a few years back, but some small part of me is still shocked and excited when I see a middle grade book featuring a non-white protagonist. I ordered this and the sequel yesterday, got them today, and devoured this. 

Keiko is dealing with your typical seventh grade issues: friend drama, first crushes and their drama, family issues. Her biggest problem is that she doesn't like conflict and puts it all on her to fix everything. 

Keiko has two best friends. Headstrong, selfish Audrey is one of the four main white characters in the book. The cast is a pretty balanced mix of East Asian and white. Keiko herself is half-Japanese (her mom) and half-white (her dad). Studious, serious, slightly edgy Jenna is Japanese-American. Jenna was in Texas with her father all summer because her parents recently got divorced, so Audrey and Keiko were a twosome. The trio eventually stopped texting but Keiko is hoping now that Jenna is back home, things will return to normal. 

However, problems start pretty quickly. Keiko typically picks a theme for the year. She's chosen Experiences and her idea is that each girl picks a different afterschool activity and all three have to join. Probably didn't quite think this through, Keiko. Three activities is a lot. But Audrey has her own idea and has decided the girls need to get boyfriends before the Fall Ball. They compromise and decide to do both, but immediately problems begin when Jenna joins the newspaper club and the other two don't want to, while Audrey is on the Fall Ball committee and again, the other two don't want to. I don't think Keiko ever even voiced what she might have wanted to do and ends up doing nothing. 

The next issue is that the boy Audrey has decided is going to be her Fall Ball date has been texting Jenna for a couple weeks. Jenna had no idea Audrey liked this guy until the trio got together after she returned from Texas. Jenna tells Keiko but is hesitant to tell Audrey because she knows it will be horrible. Keiko feels stuck in the middle keeping a secret. It eventually all comes out and Audrey blows up. She tells Jenna to give up Elliot, which Jenna rightly refuses to do. Audrey forces Jenna to choose between her and Elliot and Jenna smartly decides to leave. Keiko stays and ends up sleeping in Audrey's older brother's room. 

A quick aside about Conner. All we've seen of Conner and his two friends so far is them making fun of the girls for still being fairly flat-chested (eighth grade boys...ugh) and one of them has a racist joke that's ridiculous. So it's pretty surprising when over the next chapter or so, we learn that Keiko used to be very close to Conner. So close that Audrey did what apparently Audrey does best. She forced Keiko to choose between the two of them and Keiko chose Audrey, which is what led to Conner being so mean. Keiko and Conner, who came home early when he was supposed to be gone and found her in his room, make up and start being friends again, which Audrey flips out about. 

Now Keiko has a crush on a new boy named Gregor. Audrey initially was trying to help Keiko get with him but then decides she's going to be an awful person and starts dating him herself. Keiko is angry. She's also angry that Audrey keeps being mad that she's friends with Conner again. 

Sadly, we barely see Jenna, who's happily with Elliot, during the middle part of the story. Conner takes her place as the intelligent, wise, supportive friend. Keiko begins hanging out with him and his two friends and finds she has a lot of fun. Both Conner and Keiko are really into dogs and he helps her adopt one. 

Keiko's family drama is that her mother took a new promotion with a museum and she's working on writing a grant. This is apparently so intensive that she barely sees her family and it's taking its toll on them. Keiko and her dad both try to tell the mother this, but she really doesn't listen well or even try to understand. She's a very hard character to like, although things do work out well in the end. The grant-writing is done and she's back to her normal schedule. She also realizes she was wrong in not explaining better some of the places she went to (out to dinner all the time, a bar, a spa) that sounded like she was having fun and avoiding being with her family at the same time. 

Eventually, Keiko learns that Gregor has dumped Audrey. Gregor, by the way, is someone Keiko never should have had a crush on because it was immediately apparent that he was casually racist. Keiko confronts Gregor and tells him off in such a spectacular way that Jenna, who was there, is very impressed. Then Keiko confronts Audrey only to have Audrey once again try to separate her and Conner. Conner ends up mad at Keiko because he thinks she likes Gregor when she's already agreed to go to the dance with him. Keiko finally tells Audrey she won't give up being Conner's friend and Audrey goes off on her like the asshole she is. Keiko makes up with Conner and they end the book agreeing to be a couple and having a couple cute kisses. 

Keiko is a pretty likeable character, even though she's obviously frustrating because of what she puts on herself. She's obsessed with chocolate, which is fun. It's very clear from the beginning that Audrey is a horrible friend, so it's hard to see Keiko deal with her and her infinite jealousy and control issues. I'm really hoping the author will not write a book about her. I skimmed the sequel, which features Jenna, and I don't think I saw much of her name, so I doubt they ever make up and that is fine by me. Audrey sucks. Oh, and if you have an issue with dog abuse, be prepared to really dislike Audrey. It's not much but she yells at her brother's dog a lot and I think hits him with a rolled up placemat once, which causes Keiko to seriously bitch her out. It comes out near the end that she's afraid of dogs but that is zero excuse to be abusive to them. Jenna is the character I liked the most, even though we don't see too much of her. I'm glad she's getting her own book. And Conner is pretty great once he stops the childish behavior and makes up with Keiko. 

It's a solid middle grade book and it's so nice to have a non-white protagonist. I love how this has been improving over the years. If anyone has any similar books they'd like to recommend, feel free!

Twisted

I wish I'd been doing my book reviews when I still had a ton of Point Horror. I'm tempted to buy lots on ebay just to revisit those old days of reading these when they came out but...nah. Let's settle for I'll buy them in a thrift store if I see them. 

I can't remember which was my very first Point Horror, but it's quite possible it was the Thrills, Chills and Nightmares boxed set that contained this book by R.L. Stine, both Slumber Party and Weekend by Christopher Pike, and The Lifeguard by Richie Tankersley Cusick. The Lifeguard was so forgettable that even after reading a review/summary of it, I can't remember it. I know I owned this set so obviously, I read it, but nope, can't recall a thing. 

Anyway, the two Pike books are my two favorites of his hands down. I still have my original copies. Twisted wasn't bad but it ended up donated or sold, whatever I did with my collection of these things. 

I recently felt the whim to read it again. Why? I can't remember. But I ordered a copy on ebay and it arrived today. I was picky about it. It had to have the right cover. Or almost the right cover. 

This thing comes in at least these three variants. The middle one is newer and therefore unaccceptable. Heh. I think the red title one was the one that came in the set. I settled for the orange title version because it at least had the right cover art. 

Not that the cover art really looks like Abby, the main character, but whatevs. Nostalgia. 

So the plot is that Abby is pledging for the Tri Gams. She's actually not high school age. Many of these Point Horror are high schoolers. So it's a little refreshing that these girls are in college. Freshman but still, college. The problem is that pledging alongside Abby are her childhood friend Nina (they grew apart AKA: Abby is a snob and thought Nina stayed childish too long) and her enemy Leila. Leila stole Abby's boyfriend Gordon in a situation that is actually never, ever fully revealed. It's likely Gordon dumped Abby for Leila but Abby makes it into this whole big thing that really fucked her up. So much that she had to be taken out of school for a year. 

Yeah, it's pretty obvious from the get go that Abby is The Villain and her "sister" Gabriella is her other personality. Mental health issues were not discussed the same way back when these were written. 

The pledges are taken to a house in a beach town that's basically deserted because it's fall. They're supposed to do a crime to bond them together, because Tri Gams are sisters for life. The crime? Rob an old lady's antique store.

I'll do quick cast blurbs.

Abby: Main character. Clearly has mental issues. Still into Gordon even though it's been over a year. Obsessed with getting into Gamma Gamma Gamma.

Gabriella: Her snarky "sister." 

Nina: Abby's childhood friend. She's supposed to be immature but honestly, she's not that bad. She's just very emotional and takes the entire series of events the hardest. 

Leila: The blonde minx who stole Gordon from Abby AND is Abby's former BFF. Leila is used to getting her way and she's got a horrible temper. She's also calm, cool and collected most of the time. Clearly sexually active with Gordon, which is a bit of a Point Horror rarity outside of Pike's books. 

Andrea: President of the Tri Gams. A bit authoritative. 

Jessie: Only pledging because she's a younger sister. Very loud, casual, obsessed with food, over the top personality that doesn't fit with the "coolest girls on campus" vibe of the sorority. 

Rebecca: Super tall redhead with a squeaky voice.

Emily: Very excited about everything and hard to talk to for long because she's too exuberant. She's pretty far in the background. 

Ruby: "Dark and exotic." I have no idea where Stine was going with this except that she might not be white? Ruby chooses to not take part in the crime after seeing the scene of it and she wears "long dangling earrings." If she's meant to add diversity, she fails. 

Gordon: Dating Leila. Came to see Abby once and ended up making out with her right before this trip. Ends up at the house with the girls, even though these are the days before cell phones and there is no phone in the house, which is a major plot point. I'm guessing he just followed the bus but still. That's creepy, Gordon. 

Mrs. Driftwood: Owner of the antique mall. Assures you that's her real name. 

The driver: Anonymous bus driver who has to be in on this whole situation. 

Okay, so the girls go do their heist but Mrs. Driftwood has a heart attack and Jessie proclaims her dead. Everyone freaks out and flees back to the house. Remember, it's a dead vacation town. There was no one around to see them do anything. The girls fight over what to do. Ruby and Andrea want to contact the cops and Andrea starts going on about how she had nothing to do with it because she was outside the whole time. Bitch, you set this up. You are too in on it. Jessie fights with almost everyone but mostly Andrea. They all go upstairs. Jessie and Nina go outside. They hear a gunshot. Shortly after, everyone discovers Andrea is dead. Jessie once again is the one to say so. (Suspicious yet?) The girls once again fight over everything and then Gordon shows up. They shut him in one of the bedrooms because some girls think he did it, some think Jessie did it. 

During all of this Abby is slowly crumbling. Gabriella comes out of hiding and if it isn't clear that Abby IS Gabriella, it really should be by now. 

Gabriella takes the opportunity to go after Leila but Gordon stops her. The other girls come running to the rescue too and Gordon explains that Gabriella is Abby's other personality. So he went to her room willingly before this trip KNOWING she was fucked up. Dick. Gabriella isn't able to hurt anyone. 

Then Andrea comes down the stairs followed by Mrs. Driftwood. As Jessie hinted at, the entire thing was a set up. A gleeful Mrs. Driftwood says they do it every year. Jessie, being a legacy, knew about it and was in on it. (My only real question about this book was how much of Jessie's wacky personality was real and how much was she putting on for the show?) Leila is rightfully furious and says she's quitting. Nina will join but vows to get this hazing abolished. With the ambulance coming for her, we all know Abby and Gabriella will be in for another "year off school," though hopefully longer to get her the help she needs.

It was an okay book, but there wasn't really a character that I liked or cared about much. That's what's so much better about Pike's books. I even care about the assholes in his stories. At least in Weekend and Slumber Party. We'll get there.

Wait Till Helen Comes

I've somehow skipped highlighting a bunch of my favorite childhood books in this blog. I had the urge to reread Wait Till Helen Comes a couple weeks ago and it's always just so good. 

This is hands down one of the best 80s kids ghost stories, if not THE best. (Not counting the Scary Stories folk anthology type of thing. That's its own genre.) I've had a handful of these since childhood and I'll do reviews for the others shortly. Wait Till Helen Comes was always the scariest and the most poignant, though Christina's Ghost has the scary image that's lingered with me the longest. The other two I reread a lot were The Dollhouse Murders (same author as Christina's Ghost) and When the Dolls Woke (less ghost, more supernatural). 

Anyway, the plot of Helen is that a blended family moves to a very rural area, taking up residence in a converted church. Molly is the POV character. She's 12 and a poet. Her brother Michael is 10 and obsessed with typical "boy science" things like bugs. Their mother Jean is a painter. She married Dave, a potter, and they now all have to suffer his seven-year-old's extreme bitchiness. Heather is one of those kids you love to hate. The cover captures her perfectly. That's a miserable kid right there and she's gonna make sure you're miserable, too. There's something about how she's depicted that just makes me feel completely unsympathetic to her. 

So the main focus of the book is the family's troubles. Not with Helen the ghost right away or even foremost honestly. The main problem is bad parenting. Her mother died in a fire when she was three and she's clearly got deep-seated issues because of that and needs some serious therapy, but there's a throwaway line about her father not believing in it. Instead what happens? Both of these idiotic artistic twats foist her onto Molly and Michael. Both kids had educational plans before the move and now they're stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and they're expected to babysit Heather constantly. Heather, by the way, fucking hates them and their mother and is not at all shy about saying it. Her father always believes her over them and is often rude to Molly and Michael. The entire book is filled with some of the worst parenting I ever read in a kids book in terms of neglect. 

Being that they live in a church basically, there's an old graveyard right behind it. Molly is properly freaked about this, though no one else is, and Dave in particular is cruel about that. I wouldn't want to live next to a graveyard. Nope. No thanks. Not the kind of quiet neighbors I want. 

Heather starts acting strangely, becoming obsessed with an old grave under a tree, where the caretaker has told all the kids not to play because there are snakes. She's horribly rude to him, too. Heather, it turns out, has befriended Helen, the ghost of a young girl who died in the 1800s. She wears a locket bearing Helen's initials, which also happen to be her own, and she frequently threatens Molly and Michael with Helen coming for them. Molly is freaked. Scientific Michael is kind of a dick. 

But come Helen does. She destroys the possessions of everyone except Heather and Dave. the others chalk it up to a weird robbery, but Heather and Molly know differently. 

Upon researching, Molly and Michael learn that Helen used to live in an old ruin that Heather keeps visiting. Her parents died in a fire and Helen ran out of the house, became confused, and drowned in the nearby pond. She was buried alone in the graveyard, her parents' bodies having never been found. 

Everything culminates in Heather running off to be with Helen, but Molly getting to her and rescuing her from drowning. They hide inside Helen's old home to get out of a nasty storm and end up falling through the floor, where they discovered the bones of Helen's mother and stepfather. A sad Helen finds them and begs them to forgive her. She started the fire that killed them just like three-year-old Heather started the fire that killed her mother, which was the bond between the girls. The parents' ghosts appear and reunite with Helen before all of them disappear. When the girls are finally found, a shortish time later, Heather plans to tell her father exactly what she knows about the fire. 

The book ends with Helen and her parents all being buried together in the graveyard under a stone angel. Heather finds Helen's locket dangling from the angel's fingers with a note asking to be remembered. It's a sweet ghostly gesture, though it's hard to forget that Helen likely killed a few people in her years of torment. It's also hard to forget how terrible Heather was, though that little moment at the end did make me like both of them and feel for them somewhat. 

If you can read it without being too critical of the atrocious parenting, the spooky, poignant ending is well worth the quick read it is. That's the part that makes the entire book so memorable and worthwhile. 

I'm very excited to say this book is getting the graphic novel treatment in September, a mere ten days before my birthday. 

SWEET VALLEY TWINS: 11-20 (Including Super Edition #1)

#11: BURIED TREASURE

The brunette on this cover is Ellen Riteman. She makes a few cover appearances and is usually pretty cute. 

At the end of #10, Ellen and Jessica were helping Ellen's little brother Mark dig a grave for his parakeet, which was killed by their cat. Nice family pet drama. Mark gets over it really fast when they dig up an old metal box. He accidentally knocks into Jessica, who pretends that he hurt her bad ankle and he has to go to her house for her crutches. It's all a typical Jessica ruse designed to buy her and Ellen some time alone with the box. They open it and find two old photographs, some love letters...and two hundred dollars. Guess what Ellen and Jessica decide to do. Split the money and go spend it.

The main issue with this is that the money is from the 1920s and cash looked different then. I think it was even bigger. So two girls running around with historical cash would not have worked. 

Anyway, Jessica and Ellen show Mark the box with only the letters and photos, but he senses that they're hiding something. Then they march into school with new earrings (Ellen) and a new Walkman (Jessica). Not long after this, the class trip money goes missing. You can see where this is going. 

To add to the drama, Elizabeth is running for class treasurer. Amy is her campaign manager and Amy is also the student in charge of the trip money, which is kept in teacher Ms. Wyler's locker in the teacher lounge. This is stupid on many levels. One, don't put a kid in charge of that kind of money. If the entire class is going to Disneyland on this, then it's not a small amount. Two, don't keep money in a place that isn't secure. It's mentioned during the course of the story that everyone knows where Ms. Wyler keeps her key. Keep it in the damn office. Three...we'll get to later. 

So while Elizabeth is running for a position that manages money, her sister is now one of the rumored trip money thieves. And who started that rumor? Amy. Elizabeth confided her theory to her best friend, who immediately told Caroline Pearce the school gossip. You see, people were starting to look upon Amy with suspicion. So I kinda get why she did it but then she's cold to Elizabeth almost right after and that's ridiculous. 

Now we've got Ellen and Jessica swearing they're not thieves, while Amy sees Ken comforting Elizabeth and is convinced he likes her now, so that makes their fight even worse. Amy quits managing for Elizabeth and helps her opponent, Peter DeHaven, who's a nerd trying to get a new, cooler image. 

Finally, Ellen and Jessica confess what they did. At the same time, the granddaughter of the woman in the photo arrives at Ellen's house and she says it's okay for the girls to keep the money, because the letters mean more to her and helped her figure out her own dilemma. The girls give their remaining $50 to Mark so he's happy. Meanwhile, Elizabeth (who won treasurer) and Amy get locked in a supply cabinet and end up both talking things out AND finding the "stolen" money. It wasn't stolen at all because Ms. Wyler put it in there when dropping off some posters. So my "three" from above is make sure the teacher in charge of the cash isn't a fucking idiot. It's not written but she really owed Ellen and Jess an apology, as well as Amy and the entire sixth grade class. 

All's well that ends well. Also, there was a brief Nora Mercandy scene! She and Brooke are gossiping about the theft, so it looks like Nora is part of Elizabeth's extended friends group.

#12: KEEPING SECRETS

Oh, gods, I'm only a couple chapters into this one and I'm already way bored. The twins' dad teaches them his childhood secret language called Ithig and expects JESSICA WAKEFIELD TO KEEP A SECRET. Ned Wakefield, have you lost your damn mind? That's gossip queen Caroline on the cover there behind the twins, by the way. 

Now that I've read the entire thing, this was the stupidest one yet. So the twins learn a secret language that means a lot to their dad and swear to keep it a secret. Too bad Caroline already heard and told everyone. Amy and Lila both get completely unrealistically mad at the twins and freeze them out. They're at bully level. You expect it from spoiled Lila but Amy? You disappoint me, Sutton. Lila is having a big party and some celeb tennis guy will be there. So aside from bullying Jessica, she's also rubbing a party in her face. You know Jessica's gonna crack and she does. Soon everyone knows Ithig. Elizabeth is pissed. Their father is unhappy. It was really a stupid idea though. It's a pretty basic language and super easy to figure out, so the fact that it could stay a secret for more than a couple hours is totally unrealistic. 

The music teacher has a new baby, so he goes on leave, and the class decides to punish the substitute by using only Ithig. Elizabeth decides to be generous and teach it to her, only to have her learn that the teacher figured it out already. That's how basic this thing is. So the class prank fails, Lila looks stupid and makes a fool of herself in front of the supervisor she was trying to get the teacher in trouble with, everyone is friends again, the end. It was a total yawn.

#13: STRETCHING THE TRUTH

Jess, who is that with you on the cover? Guess we'll find out. It's certainly not Mary, who this book is about. 

Ah, okay, it's Bruce Patman. 

Anyway, Mary's mom just got married and Mary is having trouble sharing her with her new stepfather. She feels left out of the family. It wasn't long ago that Mary and her mom found each other again, so I get it. She ends up telling some white lies about her stepfather and then worries the Unicorns will find out. It's not a horrible book, but not much goes on aside from that family drama, which is solved in the end. I was disappointed there wasn't more about the jewelry-making classes most of the kids took. We didn't even get a single scene set during a class.

#14: TUG OF WAR

Oh, gods, the twins are running against each other for president. How fast can I read this thing and get it over with?

Pretty fast. The plot moves quickly and it's no surprise. Elizabeth has the better platform and actually wants to be president. Jessica's platform is just using the book fair money to throw a party and she has no clue what the president even does. The third candidate, Randy Mason, I don't think has been mentioned before. He's a quieter, nerdy kid but he takes his joke nomination seriously and comes up with even better ideas than Elizabeth. 

Jessica plays dirty tricks to ruin Elizabeth's campaign. Elizabeth plays one right back at her and gets in trouble. They both do, but Mrs. Wakefield seems more mad at Elizabeth, which is really unfair. You raised Jessica, ma'am. That mess is partially your doing. Everyone just lets Jessica get away with way too much shit. 

Elizabeth one ups her in the end though. During the campaign speeches, she drops out of the race and backs Randy, encouraging people who were going to vote for her to do the same. Randy wins. Jessica pouts. Then later, she's relieved because she had no idea what a time commitment being president would be. Randy makes Elizabeth an advisor and asks Jessica to help plan the party. He really was te best choice. 

#15: THE OLDER BOY

As if this guy wouldn't know this is a twelve-year-old. 

Okay, this one took me a while to get through. I let myself read it in spurts, like while I was eating. It's pretty painful. 

So Jessica is obsessed with the idea of a older guy. At the roller rink (oh, 80s), she meets Josh Angler, a 16-year-old junior at Sweet Valley High. She manages to not only convince him that she's a 14-year-old freshman that he's just never seen before, but also gets a date with him. 

Thanks to help from Lila, Jess is able to go on her first date, which is somewhat painful because apparently teens in the 80s went on double dates ALL THE TIME, so she was stuck there with another guy and his date, a girl who was also a freshman. So Jessica not only had to be believable to Josh but to two other people, one of whom was in her supposed class. She was also spotted by Caroline Pearce, the town gossip. The most unbelievable part of this book is that Josh didn't notice that Jessica was 12. The second most unbelievable part is that Caroline did not immediately call the Wakefield house later that night and ask about this date. Especially because, as we will see, she had a personal stake in it. 

Josh plans a second date for the next Saturday, though he won't tell Jessica what they're doing. So she tells her family she's invited to Kerry Glenn's cabin by the lake, even going so far as to have Lila call Mrs. Wakefield pretending to be Mrs. Glenn. 

Josh picks up Jessica, then his cousin. Turns out it's another double date and they're going to the circus. The circus that Jess was so upset about missing out on that she almost cancelled this date. The circus that the entire Wakefield family will also be attending. Jess begins to feel her imminent doom. And then...they drive up to her house! Josh's cousin Megan's date...is Steven Wakefield. Steven, instead of immediately outing Jess, goes along with her being a freshman and their having the same last name but not being related. I think he's partially in shock at her audacity but also wants to maximize the chaos of this whole incident. 

They arrive at the circus and Jess has a moment to talk to Steven alone. he agrees to go along with her but points out that their family is sitting right across the ring from them. Jessica also manages to matchmake. Josh's ex is Anita PEARCE, Caroline's older sister. This is why, if I were Caroline, I would have called the twins to find out what was going on. Caroline knows Anita isn't over Josh and they broke up over some stupid fight. So Jess runs into Anita in the bathroom and convinces her to go talk to Josh, saying that Josh isn't over her (which he did basically tell her). This works and the two of them get back together. Jess tries to escape early, but Josh talks her into staying, saying what great friends they'll still be. She shouldn't have been swayed so easily, because right at the end, boom, they run into the Wakefields, who have been searching nosily for Steven to check out his new girlfriend. 

The truth comes out quickly. Josh is angry at first, but then seems to think everything is funny, because he'd once gone on a joyride at thirteen and insisted to a cop that he was sixteen. Steven is amused. Jessica is humiliated because now Josh is treating her like a kid sister. And once they get home and the family learns everything, Elizabeth is amazed at her sister's ability to spin a situation, the parents express parental "we can't trust you" disappointment and ground Jess for two weeks, and...that's it. She gets off pretty light. There's also the bonus of her turning into a minor celebrity at school, because she went on a date with a 16-year-old in his car AND he kissed her. Everything, once again, is turning up Jessica. 

This one is about two brothers: Tom and Dylan McKay. Tom is in sixth grade, while Dylan is in seventh. Tom is popular, smart, funny and good at sports. Dylan is awkward and feels he has no special skills, though he does enjoy writing. The main plot of the book is how Dylan feels constantly overshadowed by Tom, even though Tom is super nice all the time, even when Dylan punches him in the cafeteria. Dylan plans to run away, but he's stopped by Tom and Elizabeth. Elizabeth tells him that some people prefer Jessica to her and that she's fine with it. They each have different friends and different talents. She also entered his essay in a statewide contest and he won, so when she drops that bombshell on him, he's happy. So Dylan begins to find his way to a happier life. 

The side plot is that the school's sixth and seventh graders have been split into mixed groups to each create a business and sell their products. Jessica's group is doing a boutique. Elizabeth's is making  a book. Each idea being the appropriate twin's. Elizabeth's goes well. Jessica's ends up making no money because all the group members wanted to trade clothes instead of sell them. So Elizabeth finds out what went on and gets Jessica to unload the giant bag of "traded" items and they end up selling out. One of those times where you can't help but like Elizabeth, because she's truly nice in this book, but on the other hand, Jessica isn't THAT stupid. I would have liked her to succeed without Elizabeth's help. 

I did like this one for the introduction to Tom. I remember him as being one of my favorite Sweet Valley boys, along with Aaron Dallas. Although maybe, like Nora Mercandy, it was based on this single strong appearance? I'm not sure yet. Nora has been popping up here and there in a few books, though not as any sort of real character. 

Ah, the sexist teacher one. Yeah, this was just as painful as I figured. 

So the twins have a new homeroom teacher. Homeroom in Sweet Valley apparently is:

a) way longer than any homeroom I've ever seen

b) a way to group students for activities, like performing arts and sports (Again, not like anything I've ever known.)

The new teacher is named Mr. Davis and Mr. Davis is a raging fucking sexist. His excuse is that he taught at an all-boys school so he doesn't know much about girls. DUDE. Were you BORN a teacher? Even if he himself went to an all-boys school, there's no way he's never been around a female his entire life. He's not a fucking monk. And there's no way he hid away from seeing the accomplishments of women. The very idea that there's a guy this ignorant is unbelievable. He gives them cleaning jobs, insults their intelligence, has them make sandwiches for the field trip to the zoo when they'd already contributed money for lunch at the zoo, totally ignores their existence, and allows the boys to take over the follies skit performance, completely leaving the girls out of it. Even worse, the boys start to mimic his attitude. 

The girls are rightly pissed off and band together to get back at this guy on their own. I have two issues with this. First, the twins won't tell their parents because they said they didn't want to hear any complaints about teachers. Apparently, there was a lot of bitching about the homeroom subs they had. It is homeroom. What's there to bitch about? You're not learning anything! Not the best parenting there either because they have the twins feeling like they can't say anything even though this is a real problem that should be talked about with parents. Also, the twins should be smart enough to realize this is an Actual Problem and that overrides any "no bitching about subs" crap. They did hint at the sexism but it was quickly shut down with more bad parenting in the form of "teachers aren't like that." If the twins hadn't felt too afraid to use actual examples, they could have shown their parents that they were right. Second, while the Wakefield twins couldn't talk to their parents, there was literally zero reason every single other girl couldn't have talked to theirs. This issue needed parental involvement. 

So they start acting like the prissy weaklings the teacher expects, but that gets them kicked off the homeroom softball team, which several of them excel at. They are able to make the teacher look bad in front of the principal twice, by showing how much he ignores the girls. They come in uniform to the championship softball game and it's clear the boys need help. Jessica uses her Unicorn Power to spread the word through the crowd, which begins to chant "We want the girls." The girls lobby not only their way back on the team, but also for equal treatment in class. The teacher finally might just see that he's been a fucking asshat this whole time and the girls win the game. Jessica of all people is a fantastic fielder, Amy is a great hitter, and Nora is a really fast runner. 

All's well that ends well, but this should never have been handled by kids alone. Never. 

On the plus side, it was great to see all the girls work together for once, instead of it being the Unicorns vs. Elizabeth and her gang. This was also the most we've seen of Nora Mercandy since #3. She had a pretty strong showing. Go, Nora. 

 

Mrs. Wakefield isn't feeling well and it turns out she's likely got a random unknown virus, but she also has a lump on her neck that needs a biopsy. Jessica freaks out and blows everything out of proportion. Mr. Wakefield is in New York working on a case, so Jessica takes over running the house, which basically means having fun waiting on her mom while she gives Steven and Elizabeth the actual chores. Steven and Elizabeth are mad, but stupidly go along with it. Seriously, their mom isn't that sick. They should have told her what Jess was doing or simply teamed up against her and taken turns doing the harder stuff. I'd expect this pushoverness from Elizabeth but Steven? 

Anyway, Jess lets it slip to big mouth Caroline that her mom is sick and that turns into Mrs. Wakefield is DYING, which gets Jessica some special treatment at school. She's even handed the lead in the musical that she wants. Thankfully, Mrs. Wakefield is fine and everyone is thrilled. Jessica lets that stay secret for a day or so longer than she should have, but eventually she gives her part to Dana Larson, who's a better singer, and takes a smaller role. Elizabeth and Steven also finally stand up for themselves and make Jessica do all their chores as well as her own while they take care of their mom for the weekend. 

Not a great one, but not horrible. One of the highlights for me was an appearance by Winston Eggbert, who's maybe finally going to become more of a character.

We're taking a break from the regular series for our first super edition! BSC called their bigger books super specials, so of course Sweet Valley had to be different and it's super editions. 

This cover is questionable. Ellen on the left looks adorable and Jess is next to her, but Elizabeth is third and...why is she in purple? She hates purple. It was well-documented in the earlier books that purple is her least favorite color. Then there's random guy. We'll assume it's Tom, because he's blond and cute like Tom on the cover of #16. He's also next to Liz and they're friends. 

This one is...not my favorite. Caroline Pearce asked Elizabeth to sit with her on the bus ride to the amusement park the class is going to. Elizabeth told her she'd already promised to sit with Jessica. She tells Jess this and she agrees, but in true Jessica fashion, forgets and tells Lila she'll sit with her. Elizabeth, now stuck with Caroline, is mad. 

At the park, Elizabeth obsesses over the broken promise. Lila abandons Jessica to go off with a boy she ran into and knows from camp, so Jessica ends up trying to find Elizabeth. Elizabeth snubs her, then feels guilty. On a castle-themed ride, she and Amy bump heads really hard. 

Then things get weird. Elizabeth is determined to make up with Jessica, so she goes off to find her, and soon realizes she's in a fairy tale land. There's a bit with a medieval castle, kings and knights, then Tom Sawyer and a talking mouse show up. Then there an evil queen and a witch, a friendly sea serpent, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, Thumbelina, and Peter Pan. Elizabeth goes on a bunch of adventures in her efforts to save Jessica, who just keeps getting kidnapped by the villainous characters. They finally beat the witch and restore magic to the kingdom, then head back to their world. 

Predictably, what actually happened was that Elizabeth blacked out when she smacked heads with Amy and dreamed the entire thing. Though there's a moment at the very end where a costumed mouse character says goodbye to her and uses her name so it's left ambiguous. 

Definitely not a fan of the fantastical side of Sweet Valley unless it's one of the chiller books. This one just did not do it for me. 

Seventh-grader Dennis Cookman is the school bully, mostly picking on younger, smaller kids. He's huge, standing a foot taller than the biggest sixth-grader, Aaron Dallas. 

That is Lila Fowler on the cover there, cowering behind Jessica, who did manage to stand up to Dennis for about ten seconds. It's nice to see Lila look pretty for once. They definitely did not factor in for Dennis's size though. That is not someone that's a foot taller than Aaron Dallas. He's at best only a head taller than Jess there. 

Aaron, Ken, little Jimmy Underwood, Amy and Elizabeth for a little team that plots to change Dennis's ways. After a couple frustrating chapters of them not telling adults (and a missed opportunity for the writer to teach kids the difference between "tattling" and when you should talk to an adult), they go to Mr. Bowman, but his interference doesn't help anything. They take matters into their own hands and spend the book with the good guys each faking spending a night in a supposedly haunted cave. Aaron knows a back way out, so all they each do is spend an hour there, go home, and come back a half hour before they're supposed to come out.

The B-plot is Grace Oliver's journey to become a Unicorn. Jessica has decided to bring back the initiations, though Ellen and Lila both have reservations. Janet doesn't have nearly enough say in this. She's the president, but she's barely in this book and Jess is making all the big calls. It was nice to see both Ellen and Lila being on the side of right for once. Jessica's final initiation is for Grace to get Dennis to have lunch with her. She tries and eventually Jessica sees the errors of her ways and makes up an easier final task, but then Grace's efforts pay off and she spends a couple lunch periods getting to know Dennis. There's never any backstory behind Dennis's behavior. He says once that people call him names for being so big, but that's it and that's not enough to provoke the bullying level he was at. 

The book ends with Dennis himself forced to do the dare, but the drainpipe the other kids escaped through also helps let rainwater into the cave, flooding it. So of course a huge storm breaks out and the kids have to work together to save Dennis. He's grateful and learns how to get along with people, even eating lunch with little Jimmy. 

This one is nice because it introduces some newer characters. Grace is sweet. Olivia Davidson, the artist, makes a brief appearance. Aaron is my favorite of the boys and he's pretty awesome in this. Add that to good showings for Elizabeth, Amy, Ellen and Lila and it makes for a solid book. The biggest flaw is that it doesn't teach kids a damn thing about dealing with bullying and what is "tattling" and what isn't. There's a huge missed opportunity there but it was 1988. That was a different time. I was 10 then, so almost the twins' age, and I remember what school was like then.  

 

Okay, so a teen soap star is filming a scene in Sweet Valley on a Monday afternoon. The Unicorns all want to go but obviously it's during school. 

Brooke Davis is down because her father is working on the show and is ignoring her again. Elizabeth suggests she write for the paper with her and offers her an interview with a ballet dancer. 

Then Jessica finds out Brooke's dad knows the soap star, so she and Lila scheme to have Brooke try out for the Boosters instead and then grateful Brooke will get them passes to go on the show set. 

Sadly, all of this works. Brooke is enticed by Jess and Lila and gets them the passes, though she does still want to work on the paper, just not that particular interview. 

Jess and Lila decide to skip lunch and gym class (thanks to learning from Caroline that the gym teacher will be out that day) and go to the set. Then Elizabeth learns Caroline was wrong, the gym teacher is there. She races after Jess and Lila but doesn't get to them until it's too late and they're all playing hooky. They're spotted by the principal's secretary, but when they return to class, it's only Jess and Lila who are summoned to the office. Elizabeth escaped notice. 

Now it's also the girls' basketball championship on Friday and Jessica is their star player. Her punishment is to wash blackboards after school but also to miss all extracurriculars. No basketball for her and everyone in school is pissed at her. She gets Elizabeth wrapped up in this ridiculous swapping scheme, including poor Liz unknowingly having to clean the blackboards and miss her interview with the ballet dancer while Jess is "Elizabeth" at basketball practice. That one is almost saved but then Jess fucks up again by giving Brooke, who was subbing for Elizabeth on the interview, the wrong location for it. 

Things work in Liz's favor though when Brooke's dad brings the soap star teen to dinner. The girls interview him and get the best article their paper has ever seen. Jessica as Elizabeth helps lead the team to victory, though it's Elizabeth's name on the MVP trophy, not Jess's. 

A guilty Elizabeth ends up confessing the entire thing to her parents, in true Elizabeth fashion. She ends up with the same punishment as Jessica, though she does get Jess to swap with her at least once for a much-owed bout of blackboard-washing. 

This one was pretty decent, in typical Jessica scheme fashion. Lila had a pretty good showing, being snobby but not downright horrid. Brooke was a little too gullible but I can excuse that as not being quite on top of her game due to being upset over her dad. 

We met two new characters. Sarah Thomas was briefly in the last book, painting a mural alongside Olivia Davidson. She's a friend of Elizabeth and Amy and she's having some sort of trouble that makes her hate weekends. She's the focus of the next book, so we'll find out why. Then there's Belinda "Billie" Layton, who is a tomboy that's about to play basketball, softball and run cross-country. Ken seems to be a big fan of her already. Watch out, Amy. Not that their little romance has had any mention in ages. Billie will get her chance to shine in #25.

That wraps up another batch of SVT. I'm already itching to start the next one!