Jessica does a good deed by giving ugly ducking Sandra Ferris a makeover. Elizabeth throws her hand in as well, but most of it is Jessica, being nice for a change.
However, it blows up in her face when Sandra skyrockets to popularity, eclipsing Jessica (in Jessica's mind).
Sandra wins the honor of introducing the mayor at a school assembly so Jessica, who had wanted that, focuses more on being named Sixth Grade Citizen of the Year.
Unfortunately, Sandra overhears Jessica telling Elizabeth about her great idea to make money for the library. Sandra only hears a bit but it's enough that she coincidentally comes up with the exact idea Jessica had...and she rushes to tell Ms. Arnette before Jessica can. Jessica and Elizabeth are both upset about this and confront Sandra, though she says she did nothing wrong and ends up winning Citizen of the Year.
Yeah, she conveniently forgot she did hear Jess say "sell ads," which is what sparked the idea in her brain, as both girls have older siblings who told them about the same commemorative booklet with ad space they used to fund the prom. She didn't do it on purpose, but she absolutely did get inspiration from Jessica and basically use her idea. Thankfully, Sandra thinks about it harder and she realizes she was indeed inspired by Jess, although she didn't get the entire idea from her. That was just coincidence.
So Sandra, being an actual nice person, plays sick so Jessica can ride on the parade float in the Sweet Valley Days parade. Everyone makes up.
One little criticism though: Ned Wakefield, STFU. Don't demand your daughters go to the parade with smiles on their faces. This was an actual injustice, no matter how minor stuff from junior high seems to you. Bad parenting. Again.
Jess spent the last book with dreams of being a fashion designer. Then she realized she hates sewing. So now she wants to be an actress.
After a minor fender bender caused the girls to meet Mrs. Harrington, they're surprised when they learn the rather grumpy, melodramatic old woman is actually Dolores Dufay, an actress from the old movies Jessica had been obsessed with. Mrs. Harrington has given up acting and lived alone since the death of her husband. After her home is robbed, the girls help her clean up and even eventually track down the burglar himself! Jessica is more determined to be an actress and, at Mrs. Harrington's suggestion, signs up for a month-long acting workshop. She does well in her performance and Mrs. Harrington decides to go back to acting, after helping Jessica and even ending up performing the short play with her in the final performance. Elizabeth even gives Mrs. Harrington the kitten Amy and Belinda rescued but couldn't keep.
This is a cute, quick read where Jessica is actually the genuine star of the book and really enjoys the time she spends with Mrs. Harrington. She's not just using her for her own reasons, which is more typical of Jess. I wish she was like this a little more often!
This next book was referred to as "The Wakefields' Visitor" in the back of the previous book. This one definitely shows its age. Why? Because it features a team of EAST German male gymnasts visiting Sweet Valley.
One of the gymnasts, Christoph, ends up staying with the Wakefields. He loves America and after some trouble with an envious teammate, he becomes disgruntled about being under so much pressure, both from the coach and from his father, who refuses to accept anything but the best. He fakes sick on the day he's supposed to return home and then announces he's defecting. The family comes up with a plan to give him a German-themed birthday surprise party that makes him homesick enough to change his mind and return to Germany, though he had a talk with his father and is going to decide whether he actually wants to pursue gymnastics or not.
This one is good and fun, but I think such a serious issue wasn't right for such a short book. It's resolved in too short a time.
And now Jessica wants to be a rock star. She sure is whipping through career choices.
After seeing Melody Power in concert, Jessica is more obsessed with her than ever. When she finds out four boys in school are starting a band, she auditions to be their singer and they do choose her but for the wrong reason. Bruce Patman is in the band and his mother isn't allowing them to practice at their home for three months. When Jessica volunteers her basement, the band picks her, even though they hate her Melody Power imitation singing, which is trying to force her voice to be hoarse. During practices, the boys rarely let her sing, instead having her run errands, make posters and fetch them snacks and drinks. Jess is so caught up in her dreams and she does have that crush on Bruce, that she doesn't see how she's being used.
Thankfully, Elizabeth is more savvy. She knows her twin's new way of singing is horrible but can't come right out and say it. She also hates the way the boys order her around. (I thought better of you, Aaron Dallas.) The final straw comes when Elizabeth sees the boys at the mall and overhears them saying Jessica can't sing and plotting to keep her away from their first paying gig so she won't embarrass them. Elizabeth is torn on what to do, though she does buy a sweater that will match the shirts the boys picked out for their band outfits.
Later, Elizabeth learns Jessica has been practicing in her normal singing voice. She taped the band, including a couple songs where she sang in her forced voice, and she finally realized how terrible she sounded. So she began practicing using her regular voice, which if you remember, is quite good. She has been in musicals and is in the choir after all. Elizabeth tells her to be at her party at 2 instead of 3:30, which is when the boys told her, trying to make her deliberately late. She arrives only slightly late. She is Jess, after all. The band has been failing miserably because they're not good and only Jess's singing saves their asses. Then they all suck up to her after bringing their instruments back to the basement only to have Jess tell them she's no longer singing with the band. She's missed too much Unicorn stuff and two parties and we all know that will not do for Jessica Wakefield.
I like that she got back at the boys in the end, though I do think Elizabeth should have told her about the boys' plot. After she upstaged them, of course.
Super Chiller! I have been so eagerly awaiting these. These were some of my favorites.
This one was basically Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" but with Jessica in the Scrooge role. She and Elizabeth both see a porcelain carousel horse they fall for at the mall and Jessica asks for it while lying and saying Elizabeth didn't like it. Elizabeth is working on fundraising for the children's hospital and Jess shirks her duties. Then Elizabeth gets a teen actor to help with fundraising. He misses their meeting because his limo broke down but when he gets there, Jessica is there and she doesn't tell Elizabeth about how he said they'd meet on the 27th to discuss the fundraiser. She plans to keep the lunch date herself.
All this selfishness leads to Jessica having the Christmas Carol series of dreams with three spirits. The first is her younger self, taking her back to the past and showing her how generous young Jessica was. The second is the fierce purple unicorn from the poster Lila got her for Christmas and he shows her being nasty in the soon-to-be-present but from inside Elizabeth, so Jess can hear Liz's thoughts about how disappointed she is about missing Beau Dillon, the actor. The third is a white-robed figure that shows her the future where Jessica is as well-dressed and lovely as ever, but a complete social pariah because of her selfishness.
Jessica wakes up and there are hints the dreams weren't just dreams. Her right slipper is missing and she has scratches on her ankles. Naturally, she begins being extra generous. She tells Elizabeth about Beau Dillon and then gives her the carousel horse, even though Mrs. Wakefield bought it for her. She offers to let Elizabeth borrow her new sweater. So future popularity crisis averted.
This one had a moment where Jess recognized Todd Wilkins even though he hasn't been in the Twins series yet. And they were mentioned as being twelve. I don't think they've turned twelve yet. I need to go double check but it's possible I have this one out of order in the series and I read it too soon.
Amy is shocked when her pen pal, who hasn't written her in ages, shows up unannounced on her doorstep. She's even more shocked when Sam takes a liking to the Unicorns, ignores Amy for them, and weaves a bunch of too good to be true tales to keep their attention. Jessica shows them Sam is lying and they plot to embarrass her, but are foiled by Amy and Elizabeth after they find out the truth. Sam actually ran away from home because her parents have been ignoring her to spend all their time with her sick younger sister in the hospital. Her parents arrive, she works things out with everyone, the end.
This is the first book where the series jumps in length. #34 was only 102 pages but #35 is 137. And those extra pages do drag when the story isn't that engaging.
What? Another one about running away after they just had one? Well, maybe it isn't. After all, the girls did tell Mary NOT to run away at the end of the last one.
I swear, poor Mary has the wildest life. Poor girl lived in foster care, then found her mom, then her mom got remarried. What could it be now?
This one is so out there. Mary has disappeared and left a lot of loose ends. She was supposed to type an article for Amy and doesn't and she has the only copy. She was supposed to report on the Unicorns' treasury and doesn't. So the twins, Amy, Lila and Ellen all go on this crazy mission because they're convinced Mary has been kidnapped. But no, it gets weirder. What they actually foil is ANOTHER girl's kidnapping. It turns out Mary was in Mexico with the Altmans, her former foster family.
This was handled so poorly. Mary did call and talk to Steven, leaving a message about the treasury. But she never did anything about Amy's article. Even with only having a couple hours' notice to pack for her trip, she should have left it where her mom could get it to Amy and apologized for not being able to type it. That part wasn't like Mary at all. And then her mom was totally bitchy when her friends called and were obviously getting worried about her. Why not just tell them Mary went on a surprise trip with the Altmans? It was so stupid. Definitely forced a lot of unrealistic details to make the ridiculous plot work.
Ugh, this one was also so stupid.
So the Unicorns aren't happy that The Sixers never publishes news about them. Their idea of news is Ellen's trip to Santa Monica and some fan club letter Lila got. Not actual news. But Elizabeth makes the giant mistake of letting Jessica write an article of Unicorn news to go into the next edition of the paper. Why she did that, I'll never understand because she doesn't run the entire paper and everything is not her call.
Anyway, there's a lot of news this week and the Unicorn article gets bumped. Jess is furious and the twins fight in homeroom with Jessica saying the Unicorns will have to start their own paper.
That goes how you'd imagine with a bunch of lazy snobs (and Mary). Janet takes over and assigns work but no one really listens, no one can even write, and Lila is an idiot because she buys dark purple paper to print it on...on a ditto machine. Dunno if anyone remembers dittos but they print...in purple. So the first edition is a complete flop.
The Unicorns decide to give it one more go with Jess at the helm because Janet is too busy organizing the school dance. This time they make their paper a hit but do it by printing a fake interview with Donny Diamond, a rock singer. This spirals into the school thinking the Unicorns personally know the singer and that he will be the special mystery guest at the dance.
Outed by their gym teacher, Jess and Lila admit they faked the entire thing. Ms. Langberg agrees to provide Lila with her missing mystery guest (her uncle's connections fell through) but the Unicorns have to get up on stage and admit they lied. Once onstage, the girls do so and then Ms. Langberg's cousin reveals himself to be...Donny Diamond! Which is how she knew everything they printed was fake. Despite their lies, the Unicorns still come out on top, though they give up the paper and they have at least temporarily learned a lesson.
This whole book was typical Unicorn silliness. It was enjoyable but also pretty stupid. Not that I should be looking for great plots from SVT or anything, I know.
Lois vs. Bruce Patman! Fuck you, Patman! Go, Lois!
There's going to be a bike-a-thon to raise money for the library. This library always seems to need money, doesn't it?
Lois Waller wants to win because she'd love the prize: a new mountain bike. She wants a paper route and getting a new bike would help. But Bruce Patman's endless bullying of her leads him to enter against her. They manage to get about the same amount in pledges per mile but that means Lois has to go the entire 30 miles to beat him. Everyone is sure Bruce will make it because he has an Italian racing bike.
Lois manages 22 miles, which is great for the girl that gets made fun of for being overweight. Bruce insists he made it the full way but his story has holes. Elizabeth puts her mind to it and eventually gets Bruce to confess that he cheated. He crashed his bike and made it only eight miles, then faked the punches on his mile card to get his parents to pay their $600 in pledges.
Lois wins the bike and one-ups Bruce, as well as getting a start on being more healthy herself. She's already losing weight from the exercise at the end of the book. It's nice to see a very often forgotten side character like Lois get some time to shine. She needs friends. Elizabeth helps her here but you get the feeling she isn't ever fully included, which is odd because Elizabeth always seems to befriend the less popular people at school and turn them into actual friends.
I was on track to have this batch of books done in less than two days, but this one derailed me because I just did not care.
With Mrs. Wakefield out of town, Mr. Wakefield is taking care of the house and working on something big for his job. He's a bit grumpy and after being annoyed with Jess for being on the phone, he asks her to deliver an envelope of money to a man who lives three blocks away. She gets sidetracked by Caroline with gossip about Bruce and misses the guy, so she stashes the money in the ball pocket on the cover of a tennis racket Steven borrowed from his friend. Why not in your own room, Jess? Idiot.
Mr. Wakefield goes on a cleaning binge after said racket bops him on the head and it gets returned to Steven's friend. Jess has to tell Elizabeth what happened and the two embark on a mission to the friend's house and then the country club to retrieve the money. But it's missing! Then they start an odd jobs business with Elizabeth doing the grunt work but they soon realize they can't earn that much money that fast. After losing a radio contest, Jess is forced to tell her dad what happened...which of course she should have done right away...only before she does, he rushes out of the house and an envelope falls out of his pocket. HE had the money all along. After Jess messes with him a bit when he gets home by making him check the jacket pocket and briefly panic because the envelope was gone, he says the money fell out of the racket cover when he was cleaning and he put it in his jacket to discuss it with Jess later. Then he got so busy he forgot. Forgot $500? Come on, Ned.
This whole thing was a ridiculous mess.
Oh, hooray, another Chiller! That brings us one closer to Chiller #3, which I think was my favorite.
Sam Sloane has just moved to Sweet Valley but he's familiar with a lot of places and especially drawn to one old house. He initially believes it's a sign of reincarnation but while investigating the cemetery, he sees a ghost with his face. Accompanied by the twins, he returns to the cemetery and again, the ghost appears...only it's not a ghost at all. Sam has a twin brother! Sam and David's parents died when they were less than a year old and they were adopted separately. Sam's parents didn't know David existed but David's parents did know.
Still drawn to the old house, Sam and the others meet the caretaker, an old man named PJ, who tells them the old house used to belong to Sam and David's family but they lost it to their great-grandfather's underhanded business partner. Sam and David both have the same dream of someone in a storm and Sam keeps investigating his family history. He learns his great-grandfather and his son both drowned during a storm while out sailing the day before the boy's twelfth birthday. Which happens to be that very day for Sam and David. Worse, Sam learns David is out for a sail with his father. Sam and the twins run to the rescue but it's too late. David's father is rescued but he isn't. Then Sam uses his twintuition and is able to direct the Coast Guard to where David is. David says he was rescued by PJ, the ghost returning to save his descendant when he failed to save his own son. And now his spirit is at rest but he manages to lead the boys to the legal papers proving the old house is theirs.
This was a good one with a side plot involving Jessica playing a reincarnation-based prank on Lila. A lot of the SVT books are unbelievable on their own, so these Chillers work even better for me. If I'm reading something unbelievable, just make it supernatural.
Sweet Valley's most talented track star is newer student Danny Jackson. However, Danny also acts out in class a lot, to the point that he eventually gets removed from the track team.
Elizabeth being Elizabeth manages to figure out what's wrong. Danny has trouble reading. After Jessica finds a magazine with an article about a track star that couldn't read until he was 19, Elizabeth writes to the man, who happens to be somewhat nearby. He comes to pay Danny a visit and Danny finally has the courage to ask for the help he needs.
A little unrealistic because Sweet Valley sure does turn to star power to solve their problems a lot, but a definitely an important message so I'll give it a pass.
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