Jessica's Secret Diary: Volume II
Jessica’s Secret Diary, Volume II
I have to say that this book was kind of a rip off. I thought it would be all of the secret behind the scenes gossip but it was mostly chunks of books #40-55. Not only does this make the book boring but it gives it a weirdly disjointed feel because issues that would take up a whole book only have a few pages written about them. So Jessica only has a page or two about her sister almost dying in a boat explosion, which seems a little weird. The book also feels strange because most of the book doesn’t even cover the topic that is the back blurb. We are supposed to learn about the secret relationship between Jess and Todd but for about half of the books they only write and aren’t even interested in each other.
Jessica constantly talks about how hot and talented she is on almost every page. It is good to have high self esteem but she goes a tiny bit overboard. She also mentions constantly that she wants a boyfriend.
Weirdest example of the twin psychic bond- both twins have sex* dreams about Todd. Thankfully not at the same time, although Liz does have her sex dream while Jess is actually making out with Todd.
The book is broken up into sections and I decided it would be best to follow this layout in my recap.
Prologue:
Liz and Todd are having a big fight over Liz going to the movies with her ex Jeffrey and Todd being pissed because he wasn’t told. I’m going to side with Todd, just happening to go to the movies with an ex is shady, especially since we all know that Liz is a cheater. Jess is reminded of her super secret love of Todd (I keep wanting to call him The Todd, like in Scrubs) and he calls her and than comes over. The Wakefield’s sure have a shitty guard dog in Prince Albert, who doesn’t even notice Todd going up the trellis. Who has a trellis that could support the weight of a 16 year old boy? And who has a trellis that leads up to the window of their slutty, troublemaking daughter? The Wakefield parents suck. Jess is nervous about restarting things but not nervous enough not to wear a lacy nightie or kiss Todd. We end the scene by Jess going through her diary.
Part 1:
Jess starts by saying how sad she is that Poor Death Regina bought it but quickly moves onto more important things like Lila’s bday. Jess is a huge bitch about this. She knows that Lila has issues about feeling unloved and ignored and decides to pretend to have forgotten about having a party for her. She actually makes Lila cry, that bitch. Of course, all is forgiven when a bitchin party is held. In this section, we briefly learn that racism is wrong and that Liz almost died. But Lila’s party is most important.
Part 2:
This section is boring. Jess starts writing to Todd and torments Liz about it. Jess participates in video about Sweet Valley and brags on and on about how perfect she is. Jess also almost completely screws up Steven and Cara’s relationship. Don’t most people not want to get involved in siblings’ relationships and not offer advice about spicing about the relationship? Jess tells Cara that her relationship is boring and gives her a lot of terrible advice that makes things worse. Jess also decides that another girl, Abbie, is interested in Steve and freaks out Cara even more. And who says this about their brother, “I’d hate to say I told you so to Cara, but she had to know that if she didn’t spice things up fast, Steven’s eyes would start to wander.” I guess Jess doesn’t think its wrong that her brother could be a cheater. At the end of it all, Jess gets everyone upset and embarrassed and refuses to take responsibility for any of it. Another example of sociopath Jess
Section 3
This section starts with some lame psychobabble. Cousin Kelly comes to visit because she is fighting with her mom. She troubles the twins by dating local bad guy, Kirk. Of course, we learn that Kelly acts this way because she doesn’t realize that her dad is a douche and treats everyone like crap. Kelly is clearly acting out her parental drama. Kirk almost date rapes her, get pissed and throws some beer bottles. Kelly has a flashback to when her dad threw all of these glasses at her mom and now she is cured. She goes back to her mom and realizes that her dad is a jerk, so yay?
Jess starts babysitting for the little sister of this guy who she has a crush on. He is a classical musician so Jess claims to be into music by saying she plays the recorder. Strangely, he doesn’t laugh in her face and eventually declares that he is in love with her. Jess is thrilled with this until he says that he leaving for Julliard in a month. Jess doesn’t do LD relationships and walks out. The best part, she leaves the little girl on the beach playing alone. I was waiting for a follow up where we found out that the kid drowned.
Jess is in a play and in typical Jess fashion doesn’t read her part before auditioning. She is pissed that her character is joke but of course is perfect. She celebrates at a party at Bruce’s (side note: why does everyone keep hanging out with Bruce when he is such a dick. I know he is rich but would Liz dance with someone who tried to rape her?) Bruce plays on mean joke on Julie, sending her to the Patman grotto and sending another guy, Josh, to kiss her. Julie must have some problems because she totally doesn’t realize that she is making out with the wrong guy. How dark is it in that grotto? It all works out because Josh and Julie get together (what a romantic story to tell their children) and Josh gets his revenge by dumping lime jello all over Bruce. The horror.
Section 4
This chapter covers Jess getting together with AJ. This has already been covered but I want to add Jess’ poem.
My heart is heavy
Heavy as cement
Heavy as a tire iron. I would tear it out
Of my body
But I’ll need it if
You ever smile at me again
I can’t believe that Jess only spent a half hour on that opus.
So while Jess is falling in Luv, she continues to write to Todd and doesn’t tell anyone about it.
Section 5
Of course, fickle Jess is already doubting if she really Luvs AJ and she started to wonder why she gets so excited about Todd’s letters. She listens to this tape he makes her and even though she feels bad that Liz still has some feelings about Todd, its not enough to make her stop the relationship.
Jess also decides that she is going to start selling her own jewelry. Of course, being Jess, she charges 900 dollars on her mom’s credit card instead of 200. When she can’t get the money back and no one will buy her jewelry, she has to confess. Jess is pissed that her parents ground her for the weekend and tell her to get a job. We never hear about the job again and if I stole 700 dollars from my mom, she probably would have called the cops. Weirdly here we hear about what a great guy, the future rapist, John Pfeifer is.
Section 6
Jess continues to fall harder for Todd. She even hallucinates that she sees him at a party. Of course, she doesn’t break up with AJ but continues to string him on. Jess meets some random hot guy (Chris) at the beach when AJ is away and Jess and Chris make out for the whole weekend. Chris turns out to be a crazy stalker and ends up kidnapping Liz at knifepoint, because of course, Liz has to cover for Jess so AJ doesn’t know she is a cheater. So Chris gets arrested and AJ never hears about any of this. But Jess decides to suck it up and break up with AJ. Which is a good thing because Todd already has plans to visit. At first, Jess and Todd are all hot and heavy but quickly realize that they have nothing in common and bore each other. They break it off, what a let down to this lame book.
Epilogue
Todd and Jess both decide that getting back together is a bad idea and call their late night conversation a bad dream
Final thoughts- Jess continues to be a ridiculous bitch. I’ve always followed the rule that you shouldn’t date the ex of your friend and I really don’t think you should date the ex of your twin. Of course, Liz does the same but Liz almost gets stabbed to save Jess’ ass. I think Jess is the meaner sister.
*Of course, we don’t get to read that these are just sex dreams, just that the twin and Todd did wild things. I guess I understand why sex is not mentioned much in the SV world, I’m sure that there were fears that parents would be pissed. But it still seems unrealistic that these girls would have long term relationship and sex never comes up. I don’t read much current YA, is sex mentioned in these books?
Thanks for reading my first recap, hope it wasn’t too long.