The Elizabeth Series, #5: Max's Choice
The Elizabeth Series, #5: Max's Choice
No, the choice is not fish or chicken. Nor is it cake or death. Max does have to pick out stationery at one point, though, which frankly is more interesting than the actual choice: Elizabeth or his fiancée, Lavinia. As if there's any suspense there, considering he's choosing between a Wakefield and a non-Wakefield. If Lavinia were a size ten, this series wouldn't have made it past the first book.
The cover art looks as though it was drawn by a nine-year-old. Max's lips freak me right the hell out, and Liz looks like she's about to squeeze his boob.
The book opens with Elizabeth toiling away as a maid at Pennington House, pausing briefly to summarize the past few books. She reminds the reader that Jessica made out with her boyfriend, Sam, which apparently is the worst thing Jess had ever done to her. Really, Liz? Worse than the time she framed you for manslaughter and stole your boyfriend all in the same week? Or maybe Elizabeth has been holding in the rage over Jessica's sociopathy for so many years that this one minor event sent her over the edge. In hindsight, we're probably lucky Liz didn't rip Jess's head off with her bare hands.
The cook arrives and Elizabeth and her coworker, Vanessa, take a break for tea. Here we learn that there is apparently no coffee in England. The way Elizabeth describes it, they've never even heard of it. Ooookay.
Soon, she's thinking about the new love of her life, Max-the son of the earl she works for. Unfortunately, Max is engaged to Lavinia, "who probably bathes in champagne." This makes me think that Lavinia always smells like booze.
Elizabeth feels lonely and tries to bond with Vanessa, but is shut down quickly. I like Vanessa.
Meanwhile, Max's sister Sarah is hanging out in her room with a friend and talking about Bones McCall. I keep thinking of Bones McCoy. This Bones, though, is the lead singer of a new pop rock band, the Bloody Young Blokes. I think the ghostwriter should have just called the band "Hi, We're British!" It would have had the same effect.
Sarah learns that Bones is going to start attending her school, Welles. Dammit, Jim, he's a pop star, not a student! (Sorry about that. Won't happen again, I swear.) The girls gush about how hot he is and Sarah begins plotting to get into his pants get his attention.
Max is at Oxford, complaining that he has to read a hundred pages by Monday. Seriously? When I was in college, one hundred pages was a light weekday load, let alone the weekend. Does Max go to Oxford High School? What Max really wants to do is work on his spy novel. He thinks about how sons of earls didn't write spy novels. You know, I think if Fergie can hawk Weight Watchers, Max can write a damn book if he wants to.
Soon, he's fantasizing about Elizabeth and how different she is from Lavinia. They're only four minutes apart, but it might as well be four years-oh, sorry, force of habit. As he's pining, his friend James enters and they both talk about how in love they are with hired help-Max with Elizabeth and James with Vanessa. I bet they both have uniform fetishes.
Vanessa herself is on her way to Oxford to confront James. He'd caught her snooping around the countess's room but hadn't told the earl, and she wants to find out why. It turns out she was there to find proof that the earl is in fact her father, because she's angry that he abandoned her mother to poverty and alcoholism. Hmmm... An English person is secretly the illegitimate child of nobility, bitter over the tragic death of their mother. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Watch out for werewolves, James.
That night, Max and Lavinia go with Sarah to a Bloody Young Blokes concert. From now on I'm calling them BYoB. It's shorter-and funnier-that way. Sarah lusts after Bones and starts angsting about whether or not she's ready to have sex. She also briefly wonders if Max and Lavinia are doing the deed, which is kind of gross considering that's her brother. Then again, considering some of the creepy Jessica/Steven stuff in SVH, maybe that's not so bad.
At the same time, James is in his room with a date, thinking about Vanessa. Now, pause for a second. His date is a hot redhead. In tight jeans. Who is sitting on his bed, drinking wine. Now, I get that he's got it bad for Vanessa, but what kind of guy doesn't at least take an interest in this kind of scenario?
While his date all but strips down in front of him, James daydreams about Vanessa. Then, there's a knock on the door. To James's surprise (but not the reader's), it's Vanessa! She sees his date and runs off, followed shortly by the hot redhead. James is left to wonder why Vanessa would come to see him, and resolves to ask her at Pennington House the next day.
Back in her room, Elizabeth (Remember her? She's in this book, too!) writes in her journal and thinks about how much she misses her family and friends. She goes downstairs to get some ice cream and sees Max's Jaguar drive up. After Sarah gets out, Elizabeth watches as Lavinia pounces on Max and sticks her tongue down his throat. Liz feels heartbroken and thinks, "I was the last virgin in America, and I'll be the last virgin in England." Heh. Could that possibly be foreshadowing? Just wait and see...
Outside, Max is fending off Lavinia's advances. He even turns her down when she invites him into her house, suggestively adding that her aunt and uncle are away for the weekend. Okay, are English guys made of stone or what? Every time a hot chick comes onto one, he either ignores her or panics. Bruce Patman would sell 1bruce1 to get that kind of action.
The next morning, Vanessa alternates thoughts of James with plots of revenge on the earl. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is chopping vegetables while she thinks about Max. She really doesn't think about anything else throughout this book. I suspect it's because there's no room in her brain to think about more than one thing at a time. Then Max comes in, and she cuts her thumb. Max hurries over, concerned, which fills her with hope. The cook puts a Band-Aid on the wound, and Liz goes back to cutting vegetables. It doesn't say that she gets a new knife, so I can only assume that she's getting blood all over those vegetables. Eww.
After breakfast, James confronts Vanessa in the herbarium and tries to convince her to trust him. She bites his head off. She seems to spend a lot of time brushing people off in this book. I bet Vanessa and Lila would really get along.
The next day, Max and Elizabeth moon over each other some more. Vanessa visits her mother's old home and gets angrier at the earl. The ghostwriter pads out the story. Seriously, we're in the fourth chapter and so far nothing in the plot has moved forward. Sarah's still a horny teenager, Elizabeth still loves Max, Max still loves Elizabeth, James still loves Vanessa, and Vanessa still loves vengeance. Everyone caught up? Good. Back to the lack-of-plot.
While Sarah shops for slutty trendy outfits to impress Bones, she meets her arch-nemesis, Phillipa Ainsley. They exchange insults and fight over who's going to snare Bones, ending with Sarah claiming to have a date with him on Saturday. She doesn't, of course, but it's not like the lie could possibly be discovered, blowing up in her face or something. Oh, wait, that's exactly what could happen.
We get an excerpt from Max's spy novel, which reads like a bad James Bond knockoff. Unlike Elizabeth, though, he has the good sense to recognize that his writing sucks. He blames it on his romantic troubles, but he doesn't even consider that he might simply be a crappy writer.
He spots Elizabeth outside, writing in her journal, and watches her for awhile. Careful, Max-she's had more than enough stalkers for a lifetime. If you want to get her attention, you'll have to either talk to her face to face or threaten her with a butcher knife. I prefer option two.
Max goes with option one, however, and goes out to tell her about his novel. She offers him some advice, and I'd like to think it comes with a shoulder pat and a condescending look. They share a moment before Max rushes off to meet Lavinia. I would say that Max desperately needs to grow a pair, but then again Liz seems to like her men without genitalia. All he needs to do now is mindlessly punch someone and she'll melt for him.
Vanessa is shopping at a flea market when she runs into Stalker Number TwoJames. He hits on her, she insults him, he hits on her even more, and Vanessa begins to waver. Then she remembers the whole "swearing on her mother's soul that she'll get revenge" deal she's got going on and her eyes shoot "fiery sparks." Literally? Because that would be awesome. She pushes him away and runs off before his dastardly flirting can foil her vengeance plans. Or something.
Now we come to that action-packed "picking out stationery" scene I mentioned at the beginning of the recap. Max is bored and pining for Elizabeth while Lavinia explains that they need to order family stationery with their crests on it so they can respond to invitations. Max thinks they should just use e-mail. Oh, Max will be sent to Etiquette Hell for that one.
He blows her off soon after to hang out in a bookstore, where he sees a book with a picture of a beach in Southern California on the cover. Oh, wouldn't it be weird if it was a Sweet Valley High book? I can just imagine Max reading about Magical Vodka and pool pushes. I bet he'd totally be a Bruce/Lila shipper. He buys the book for Elizabeth, inscribing it "Elizabeth-if circumstances were different." No wonder he's having so much trouble with his writing: no one ever taught the guy how to complete his conditional sentences.
Sarah returns to school to find Bones McCall-surrounded by BYoB groupies. She tries to push her way through, only to be thwarted by the dreaded Phillipa. She renews her vow to get her hands on Bones. Between that and Vanessa's revenge vows, there's a lot of vowing going around in this book, isn't there? This entire story is about 90% vowing and pining.
Elizabeth is writing in her journal about how conflicted she feels over Max and how much she wants to confide in Jessica or her old SVU friend, Nina. She closes her eyes to think about Nina and, when she opens them again, Max's face is inches away. Personal space, Max! Stay out of Liz's bubble! He gives her the book, and it turns out that the beach on the cover is actually in Sweet Valley. Because the only beaches worth photographing in the entire state of California-no, in the world-are in Sweet freaking Valley. Max then explains that although he's in love with Elizabeth, he has to marry Lavinia out of duty to his family. Then he makes out with her. Then he scurries off again. I think he's sending some very mixed signals.
As James waits for Max to meet him at a pub, he thinks about Vanessa (who else?) and tries to work out what her big secret is. That's about it. I'm starting to feel like the characters are just stalling while they wait for the scripts to arrive, because Nothing. Is. Happening! Come on, how about a crazy doppelganger? An attempted rape (either fake or real)? At this point I'd settle for a school dance. Instead I get a bunch of random people moaning about how in love they are with other people. At least Vanessa has a revenge plot going on. I wish she'd get on with that already.
Elizabeth wakes up depressed the following morning, and realizes that it's because it's nearly Thanksgiving. She thinks about her family and briefly considers getting in touch with them, but immediately decides against it. I should point out that every time she thinks about her family, she only thinks about Jessica and her parents. I don't think Steven's name has even been mentioned in this book. I'm pretty sure he didn't do anything to piss her off, so why can't she call him? Maybe in this series, he went off to live with Todd's forgotten sisterbrother in oblivion. Poor Steven.
Later, while working in the kitchen, Elizabeth is overcome by emotion thinking about the plight of the Northern Spotted Owl. No, I'm kidding. She's thinking about Max again. She goes outside for some fresh air and starts crying. Max appears again-seriously, if he's not a stalker then he's her fairy godmother, the way he keeps showing up at convenient moments-and gives her a hug. Max suddenly turns nosy and begins prying into her life, asking questions and dragging out her backstory. Now I see why they're perfect for each other: they share a love of butting into other people's personal lives.
Elizabeth recaps the earlier books in the series for Max as well as any readers who may have slept through the last two or three times she's summarized them already in this book. We also finally get a mention of how she and Jessica are the same but different-on page 128! Is that a record?
Max praises her bravery and makes out with her again. Then Elizabeth gets called back to finish peeling carrots. I'm trying to come up with something good and Freudian to say about the imagery there, but I just can't bring myself to do it. Fill in your own "phallic symbolism" joke here.
Speaking of sexual frustration star-crossed love, Sarah is still plotting to get Bones alone. She considers buying an "American-style Miracle Bra," which makes me wonder what an English-style Miracle Bra looks like. She finally hatches a cunning plan. She reserves a hotel room at the Kingsworth, then calls her school with a message for Bones to meet his manager at that room later that day. Does Bones make a habit of meeting his manager in hotel rooms? Makes me think something kinky is going on there.
Max is meeting with the wedding planner, Niles Neesly. Seriously, that's his name. I guess "Nerdy McWuss" was too on-the-nose. Max is thinking about how little he cares about planning the wedding. He "suddenly" realizes that it isn't fair to Lavinia for him to marry her when he's in love with someone else. I think he should have realized that before he made out with Elizabeth at least three times. But I guess I'm an old-fashioned kind of girl. He makes up his mind to break off the wedding, and leaves Niles behind "with a spring in his step." Yeah, nothing puts me in a better mood than when I'm about to totally crush my would-be future spouse.
Meanwhile, Vanessa steals the earl's keys and sneaks into his study. She starts searching his drawers (desk drawers, not underwear) and by chance comes across a secret compartment. Inside she discovers photos of the earl and her mother, looking happy and in love in Venice, as well as a love letter. She pockets several photos and the letter and congratulates herself on finding "such incontrovertible proof of her paternity." Now, I'm not some big-city lawyer, but I don't think pictures of two people together plus a love letter would have quite the same impact in a court of law as, for example, a DNA test. I bet even Ned Wakefield would be able to tear that evidence apart.
Elizabeth continues to sigh over Max as she cleans the house with another maid, Alice. No mention is ever made in this book about Alice having the same name as Elizabeth's mother, so I wonder if the ghostwriters simply ran out of names again. Anyway, Alice notices how upset Elizabeth is and offers to help. Elizabeth turns her down because she considers Alice too "limited" to tell about all of her personal problems. So are you, Liz, but that never stopped you from getting all up in everyone else's business.
Speaking of prying, Vanessa enters at that point, looking upset, but leaves again before Elizabeth can even put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. Wishing she could talk to Nina, Elizabeth notices Sarah's computer while cleaning her room and realizes that she could e-mail her friend. Took you that long to figure out that England has the Internet, Liz?
Fresh from her near-miss with Saint Liz, Vanessa obsesses over how unfair it is that she's cleaning Pennington House rather than living in it. She considers how she should confront the earl with her evidence, trying to decide what method would make him squirm the most. No wonder Vanessa keeps giving Liz the brush-off-the twin she really needs advice from is Sociopathic Jess.
Back to Sarah, who has arrived at the hotel room and has put on her new Miracle Bra as well as a skimpy black dress and high heels. She lights some candles and puts on a BYoB CD, then waits for Bones to show up. Maybe it's just me, but if Sarah actually wants to date Bones, then seducing him the moment she gets him alone might not be the route to take. But I could be way off base here.
While Sarah waits for her chance to jump Bones' bones, Max tries to get the courage to call Lavinia and break it off. Over the phone, Max? Not cool. Remember what I said about Etiquette Hell. He finally figures that out himself, and calls her to have her meet him in person at the Kingsworth hotel to talk. But oh noes! That's where Sarah is meeting Bones! I smell wacky hijinks in the making!
Elizabeth is trying to write in her journal but is too frustrated by thoughts of Max. She figures he can't be just toying with her because he has too much integrity. Yeah, he has the kind of integrity that lets you make out with a woman repeatedly while you're engaged to marry another. What an honorable guy.
Liz decides to go confront him, but when she finds him he's fidgety and nervous. He tells her he has an important meeting in town, but then he wants to talk to her. Elizabeth first guesses that he's going to call off the wedding, but is disappointed when she finds out he's meeting her for tea. "He's taking her out for tea? At the Kingsworth? That doesn't exactly sound like they're on the outs, now, does it!" I want to know where Liz thinks it would be appropriate to take Lavinia to break off the engagement. A cemetery, perhaps?
Sarah's still waiting at the Kingsworth, where Bones is now ten minutes late. Maybe Scotty's transporter malfunctioned. (I know, I said I wouldn't make any more Star Trek jokes. I lied.) Just as she's giving up hope, there's a knock on the door-it's Bones! She explains that she arranged everything just so she could meet him alone and, instead of running in terror from his crazy stalker fan, Bones smiles and compliments her on her taste in music.
In the lobby, Max waits for Lavinia and worries-not about how she'll feel when he dumps her, but about whether or not she'll make a scene. I want to hit him. She arrives and starts talking about wedding plans, and he snaps at her that it doesn't matter. Okay, now can I hit him? He finally tells her that he wants to call off the wedding.
Lavinia is shocked for a second or two, then recovers and acts as though he hadn't said anything. When Max persists, she tells him that she can guess that he's infatuated with Elizabeth, but that the wedding will still take place. He protests, but Lavinia just laughs at him and then threatens to reveal some mysterious family scandal if he doesn't marry her as planned. Oooh, can anyone guess what that secret might be? Vanessa, would you like to offer any theories?
Lavinia tells Max that her mother told her the secret as a sort of "security system" in case Lavinia needed to blackmail him into marrying her. Clearly her mother didn't think too highly of her daughter if she assumed she'd need to coerce him into marriage. Max is shocked and confused. He shouldn't be, though. Lavinia is the Other Woman in a Sweet Valley book. Of course she has to be a total bitch, or else the reader might actually feel sorry for her when Elizabeth steals her boyfriend. And we certainly can't have that.
James arrives at Pennington House again. I think he spends more time there than at Oxford and his own home (assuming he has one) combined. He finds Vanessa outside, pale and trembling. How...melodramatic. He holds her and asks what's wrong, and she rips his clothes off and has sex with him right there. No, not really. I was just getting tired of typing "she yells at him and runs away" yet again. I think this subplot could have been played out in half a page:
Vanessa: REVENGE!
James: Vanessa, you seem freaked out and obsessed with something. What is it?
Vanessa: Go to hell!
James: Why won't you love me?!
Vanessa: REVENGE!
Back at Sarah's hotel room, things are heating up! As they argue about music. They're in bed together! Eating chocolates. But they're also drinking! Perrier. Sarah is disappointed that Bones hasn't tried to get into her Miracle Bra yet, but they do bond over how hard it is to be rich and famous. Then she tells Bones that Phillipa is a whore who has at least one STD. Sarah, he's a pop star with tons of groupies. I seriously doubt whores really repulse him, and chances are that he already has every STD in existence. Nice try, though. Sarah tries to kiss Bones, but he says he needs to leave. I'm definitely visualizing the Cher/Christian movie-watching scene from "Clueless." They leave the hotel, where Max is still in the lobby after his conversation with Lavinia. You know those wacky hijinks I was hoping for? Never happens. Not even any mild hijinks. Sarah just sneaks out the back to avoid being seen.
Elizabeth and the other girls are given the night off, which Elizabeth uses to go to a library and e-mail Nina. Apparently nothing remotely interesting has happened to Nina over the past few months, because she's only interested in hearing about Liz's new boy toy.
The next morning, Elizabeth is depressed because it's Thanksgiving. She finally remembers that Steven exists, by the way. She goes down to the kitchen and nearly falls apart when the cook offers her a cranberry scone. The head housekeeper takes pity on her and gives her the day off, because the best cure for homesickness is total solitude.
Max drives to Lavinia's house that morning to find out if she was serious about the scandal. He demands to know what she knows, and she reveals that his father not only had an affair, but had an illegitimate child as a result. Max splutters that it's impossible, but Lavinia insists that if he calls off the wedding, she will leak the story to the press, ruining his family's reputation and Sarah's future. Of course, if Sarah keeps trying to sleep with pop stars, both of those things may happen on their own soon enough. He leaves and ends up at a bookstore-where he runs into Elizabeth. Considering how frequently all of these characters randomly bump into each other, I assume London is the size of a grocery store.
Vanessa steels herself to confront the earl, but wimps out when she sees him with a member of Parliament. She gets pissed off at him when he asks her to dust a painting, though. How dare he ask a maid to clean?!
Max and Elizabeth are spending the day together, including lunch at a pub and a museum date. Max and Elizabeth are just as exciting as Todd and Elizabeth were.
Vanessa finally confronts the earl and shoves one of the pictures of him and her mother in his face, causing him to turn pale. All that plotting, and that's it? I was hoping for something more complex, perhaps involving a time machine and a bunch of explosions.
That night, Max calls Elizabeth and tells her he has to talk to her. She comes to his room, where he tells her that he loves her, but that he has to marry Lavinia because she's blackmailing him. Liz cries. Then she strips down to her underwear.
No, I'm not kidding. This is it. The moment we've been anticipating for oh, so many books. Somewhere, Todd is punching people left and right because...Liz is about to give it up once and for all! A moment of silence, please, for Elizabeth Wakefield's virginity. It persevered against seemingly impossible odds-longtime boyfriends, summer flings, and horribly deformed psychopaths-but now we must say goodbye at last.
We don't get any raunchy sex scenes; Max and Liz make out and then we cut to the next morning as they lie in bed together. Liz has "never felt so at peace with the world." So it's true! All Liz needed to do to stop being an uptight, nosy little bitch was get laid. As they snuggle, Liz thinks that now the love she and Max share will inevitably triumph over Lavinia's scheming. Because having sex solves everything, I guess. (Shakes head.)
By the way, at no point does the subject of birth control come up, so maybe this whole book is the precursor to this. I'd like to think so, anyway.
So, will Sarah become another notch on Bones McCall's headboard? Will Lavinia pick out the right toothpicks for the wedding hors d'oeuvres? Will Elizabeth get knocked up by live happily ever after with Max? (At least until she finds some really hot guy to cheat on him with?) Find out in I Need You!
No, the choice is not fish or chicken. Nor is it cake or death. Max does have to pick out stationery at one point, though, which frankly is more interesting than the actual choice: Elizabeth or his fiancée, Lavinia. As if there's any suspense there, considering he's choosing between a Wakefield and a non-Wakefield. If Lavinia were a size ten, this series wouldn't have made it past the first book.
The cover art looks as though it was drawn by a nine-year-old. Max's lips freak me right the hell out, and Liz looks like she's about to squeeze his boob.
The book opens with Elizabeth toiling away as a maid at Pennington House, pausing briefly to summarize the past few books. She reminds the reader that Jessica made out with her boyfriend, Sam, which apparently is the worst thing Jess had ever done to her. Really, Liz? Worse than the time she framed you for manslaughter and stole your boyfriend all in the same week? Or maybe Elizabeth has been holding in the rage over Jessica's sociopathy for so many years that this one minor event sent her over the edge. In hindsight, we're probably lucky Liz didn't rip Jess's head off with her bare hands.
The cook arrives and Elizabeth and her coworker, Vanessa, take a break for tea. Here we learn that there is apparently no coffee in England. The way Elizabeth describes it, they've never even heard of it. Ooookay.
Soon, she's thinking about the new love of her life, Max-the son of the earl she works for. Unfortunately, Max is engaged to Lavinia, "who probably bathes in champagne." This makes me think that Lavinia always smells like booze.
Elizabeth feels lonely and tries to bond with Vanessa, but is shut down quickly. I like Vanessa.
Meanwhile, Max's sister Sarah is hanging out in her room with a friend and talking about Bones McCall. I keep thinking of Bones McCoy. This Bones, though, is the lead singer of a new pop rock band, the Bloody Young Blokes. I think the ghostwriter should have just called the band "Hi, We're British!" It would have had the same effect.
Sarah learns that Bones is going to start attending her school, Welles. Dammit, Jim, he's a pop star, not a student! (Sorry about that. Won't happen again, I swear.) The girls gush about how hot he is and Sarah begins plotting to get into his pants get his attention.
Max is at Oxford, complaining that he has to read a hundred pages by Monday. Seriously? When I was in college, one hundred pages was a light weekday load, let alone the weekend. Does Max go to Oxford High School? What Max really wants to do is work on his spy novel. He thinks about how sons of earls didn't write spy novels. You know, I think if Fergie can hawk Weight Watchers, Max can write a damn book if he wants to.
Soon, he's fantasizing about Elizabeth and how different she is from Lavinia. They're only four minutes apart, but it might as well be four years-oh, sorry, force of habit. As he's pining, his friend James enters and they both talk about how in love they are with hired help-Max with Elizabeth and James with Vanessa. I bet they both have uniform fetishes.
Vanessa herself is on her way to Oxford to confront James. He'd caught her snooping around the countess's room but hadn't told the earl, and she wants to find out why. It turns out she was there to find proof that the earl is in fact her father, because she's angry that he abandoned her mother to poverty and alcoholism. Hmmm... An English person is secretly the illegitimate child of nobility, bitter over the tragic death of their mother. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Watch out for werewolves, James.
That night, Max and Lavinia go with Sarah to a Bloody Young Blokes concert. From now on I'm calling them BYoB. It's shorter-and funnier-that way. Sarah lusts after Bones and starts angsting about whether or not she's ready to have sex. She also briefly wonders if Max and Lavinia are doing the deed, which is kind of gross considering that's her brother. Then again, considering some of the creepy Jessica/Steven stuff in SVH, maybe that's not so bad.
At the same time, James is in his room with a date, thinking about Vanessa. Now, pause for a second. His date is a hot redhead. In tight jeans. Who is sitting on his bed, drinking wine. Now, I get that he's got it bad for Vanessa, but what kind of guy doesn't at least take an interest in this kind of scenario?
While his date all but strips down in front of him, James daydreams about Vanessa. Then, there's a knock on the door. To James's surprise (but not the reader's), it's Vanessa! She sees his date and runs off, followed shortly by the hot redhead. James is left to wonder why Vanessa would come to see him, and resolves to ask her at Pennington House the next day.
Back in her room, Elizabeth (Remember her? She's in this book, too!) writes in her journal and thinks about how much she misses her family and friends. She goes downstairs to get some ice cream and sees Max's Jaguar drive up. After Sarah gets out, Elizabeth watches as Lavinia pounces on Max and sticks her tongue down his throat. Liz feels heartbroken and thinks, "I was the last virgin in America, and I'll be the last virgin in England." Heh. Could that possibly be foreshadowing? Just wait and see...
Outside, Max is fending off Lavinia's advances. He even turns her down when she invites him into her house, suggestively adding that her aunt and uncle are away for the weekend. Okay, are English guys made of stone or what? Every time a hot chick comes onto one, he either ignores her or panics. Bruce Patman would sell 1bruce1 to get that kind of action.
The next morning, Vanessa alternates thoughts of James with plots of revenge on the earl. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is chopping vegetables while she thinks about Max. She really doesn't think about anything else throughout this book. I suspect it's because there's no room in her brain to think about more than one thing at a time. Then Max comes in, and she cuts her thumb. Max hurries over, concerned, which fills her with hope. The cook puts a Band-Aid on the wound, and Liz goes back to cutting vegetables. It doesn't say that she gets a new knife, so I can only assume that she's getting blood all over those vegetables. Eww.
After breakfast, James confronts Vanessa in the herbarium and tries to convince her to trust him. She bites his head off. She seems to spend a lot of time brushing people off in this book. I bet Vanessa and Lila would really get along.
The next day, Max and Elizabeth moon over each other some more. Vanessa visits her mother's old home and gets angrier at the earl. The ghostwriter pads out the story. Seriously, we're in the fourth chapter and so far nothing in the plot has moved forward. Sarah's still a horny teenager, Elizabeth still loves Max, Max still loves Elizabeth, James still loves Vanessa, and Vanessa still loves vengeance. Everyone caught up? Good. Back to the lack-of-plot.
While Sarah shops for slutty trendy outfits to impress Bones, she meets her arch-nemesis, Phillipa Ainsley. They exchange insults and fight over who's going to snare Bones, ending with Sarah claiming to have a date with him on Saturday. She doesn't, of course, but it's not like the lie could possibly be discovered, blowing up in her face or something. Oh, wait, that's exactly what could happen.
We get an excerpt from Max's spy novel, which reads like a bad James Bond knockoff. Unlike Elizabeth, though, he has the good sense to recognize that his writing sucks. He blames it on his romantic troubles, but he doesn't even consider that he might simply be a crappy writer.
He spots Elizabeth outside, writing in her journal, and watches her for awhile. Careful, Max-she's had more than enough stalkers for a lifetime. If you want to get her attention, you'll have to either talk to her face to face or threaten her with a butcher knife. I prefer option two.
Max goes with option one, however, and goes out to tell her about his novel. She offers him some advice, and I'd like to think it comes with a shoulder pat and a condescending look. They share a moment before Max rushes off to meet Lavinia. I would say that Max desperately needs to grow a pair, but then again Liz seems to like her men without genitalia. All he needs to do now is mindlessly punch someone and she'll melt for him.
Vanessa is shopping at a flea market when she runs into Stalker Number TwoJames. He hits on her, she insults him, he hits on her even more, and Vanessa begins to waver. Then she remembers the whole "swearing on her mother's soul that she'll get revenge" deal she's got going on and her eyes shoot "fiery sparks." Literally? Because that would be awesome. She pushes him away and runs off before his dastardly flirting can foil her vengeance plans. Or something.
Now we come to that action-packed "picking out stationery" scene I mentioned at the beginning of the recap. Max is bored and pining for Elizabeth while Lavinia explains that they need to order family stationery with their crests on it so they can respond to invitations. Max thinks they should just use e-mail. Oh, Max will be sent to Etiquette Hell for that one.
He blows her off soon after to hang out in a bookstore, where he sees a book with a picture of a beach in Southern California on the cover. Oh, wouldn't it be weird if it was a Sweet Valley High book? I can just imagine Max reading about Magical Vodka and pool pushes. I bet he'd totally be a Bruce/Lila shipper. He buys the book for Elizabeth, inscribing it "Elizabeth-if circumstances were different." No wonder he's having so much trouble with his writing: no one ever taught the guy how to complete his conditional sentences.
Sarah returns to school to find Bones McCall-surrounded by BYoB groupies. She tries to push her way through, only to be thwarted by the dreaded Phillipa. She renews her vow to get her hands on Bones. Between that and Vanessa's revenge vows, there's a lot of vowing going around in this book, isn't there? This entire story is about 90% vowing and pining.
Elizabeth is writing in her journal about how conflicted she feels over Max and how much she wants to confide in Jessica or her old SVU friend, Nina. She closes her eyes to think about Nina and, when she opens them again, Max's face is inches away. Personal space, Max! Stay out of Liz's bubble! He gives her the book, and it turns out that the beach on the cover is actually in Sweet Valley. Because the only beaches worth photographing in the entire state of California-no, in the world-are in Sweet freaking Valley. Max then explains that although he's in love with Elizabeth, he has to marry Lavinia out of duty to his family. Then he makes out with her. Then he scurries off again. I think he's sending some very mixed signals.
As James waits for Max to meet him at a pub, he thinks about Vanessa (who else?) and tries to work out what her big secret is. That's about it. I'm starting to feel like the characters are just stalling while they wait for the scripts to arrive, because Nothing. Is. Happening! Come on, how about a crazy doppelganger? An attempted rape (either fake or real)? At this point I'd settle for a school dance. Instead I get a bunch of random people moaning about how in love they are with other people. At least Vanessa has a revenge plot going on. I wish she'd get on with that already.
Elizabeth wakes up depressed the following morning, and realizes that it's because it's nearly Thanksgiving. She thinks about her family and briefly considers getting in touch with them, but immediately decides against it. I should point out that every time she thinks about her family, she only thinks about Jessica and her parents. I don't think Steven's name has even been mentioned in this book. I'm pretty sure he didn't do anything to piss her off, so why can't she call him? Maybe in this series, he went off to live with Todd's forgotten sisterbrother in oblivion. Poor Steven.
Later, while working in the kitchen, Elizabeth is overcome by emotion thinking about the plight of the Northern Spotted Owl. No, I'm kidding. She's thinking about Max again. She goes outside for some fresh air and starts crying. Max appears again-seriously, if he's not a stalker then he's her fairy godmother, the way he keeps showing up at convenient moments-and gives her a hug. Max suddenly turns nosy and begins prying into her life, asking questions and dragging out her backstory. Now I see why they're perfect for each other: they share a love of butting into other people's personal lives.
Elizabeth recaps the earlier books in the series for Max as well as any readers who may have slept through the last two or three times she's summarized them already in this book. We also finally get a mention of how she and Jessica are the same but different-on page 128! Is that a record?
Max praises her bravery and makes out with her again. Then Elizabeth gets called back to finish peeling carrots. I'm trying to come up with something good and Freudian to say about the imagery there, but I just can't bring myself to do it. Fill in your own "phallic symbolism" joke here.
Speaking of sexual frustration star-crossed love, Sarah is still plotting to get Bones alone. She considers buying an "American-style Miracle Bra," which makes me wonder what an English-style Miracle Bra looks like. She finally hatches a cunning plan. She reserves a hotel room at the Kingsworth, then calls her school with a message for Bones to meet his manager at that room later that day. Does Bones make a habit of meeting his manager in hotel rooms? Makes me think something kinky is going on there.
Max is meeting with the wedding planner, Niles Neesly. Seriously, that's his name. I guess "Nerdy McWuss" was too on-the-nose. Max is thinking about how little he cares about planning the wedding. He "suddenly" realizes that it isn't fair to Lavinia for him to marry her when he's in love with someone else. I think he should have realized that before he made out with Elizabeth at least three times. But I guess I'm an old-fashioned kind of girl. He makes up his mind to break off the wedding, and leaves Niles behind "with a spring in his step." Yeah, nothing puts me in a better mood than when I'm about to totally crush my would-be future spouse.
Meanwhile, Vanessa steals the earl's keys and sneaks into his study. She starts searching his drawers (desk drawers, not underwear) and by chance comes across a secret compartment. Inside she discovers photos of the earl and her mother, looking happy and in love in Venice, as well as a love letter. She pockets several photos and the letter and congratulates herself on finding "such incontrovertible proof of her paternity." Now, I'm not some big-city lawyer, but I don't think pictures of two people together plus a love letter would have quite the same impact in a court of law as, for example, a DNA test. I bet even Ned Wakefield would be able to tear that evidence apart.
Elizabeth continues to sigh over Max as she cleans the house with another maid, Alice. No mention is ever made in this book about Alice having the same name as Elizabeth's mother, so I wonder if the ghostwriters simply ran out of names again. Anyway, Alice notices how upset Elizabeth is and offers to help. Elizabeth turns her down because she considers Alice too "limited" to tell about all of her personal problems. So are you, Liz, but that never stopped you from getting all up in everyone else's business.
Speaking of prying, Vanessa enters at that point, looking upset, but leaves again before Elizabeth can even put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. Wishing she could talk to Nina, Elizabeth notices Sarah's computer while cleaning her room and realizes that she could e-mail her friend. Took you that long to figure out that England has the Internet, Liz?
Fresh from her near-miss with Saint Liz, Vanessa obsesses over how unfair it is that she's cleaning Pennington House rather than living in it. She considers how she should confront the earl with her evidence, trying to decide what method would make him squirm the most. No wonder Vanessa keeps giving Liz the brush-off-the twin she really needs advice from is Sociopathic Jess.
Back to Sarah, who has arrived at the hotel room and has put on her new Miracle Bra as well as a skimpy black dress and high heels. She lights some candles and puts on a BYoB CD, then waits for Bones to show up. Maybe it's just me, but if Sarah actually wants to date Bones, then seducing him the moment she gets him alone might not be the route to take. But I could be way off base here.
While Sarah waits for her chance to jump Bones' bones, Max tries to get the courage to call Lavinia and break it off. Over the phone, Max? Not cool. Remember what I said about Etiquette Hell. He finally figures that out himself, and calls her to have her meet him in person at the Kingsworth hotel to talk. But oh noes! That's where Sarah is meeting Bones! I smell wacky hijinks in the making!
Elizabeth is trying to write in her journal but is too frustrated by thoughts of Max. She figures he can't be just toying with her because he has too much integrity. Yeah, he has the kind of integrity that lets you make out with a woman repeatedly while you're engaged to marry another. What an honorable guy.
Liz decides to go confront him, but when she finds him he's fidgety and nervous. He tells her he has an important meeting in town, but then he wants to talk to her. Elizabeth first guesses that he's going to call off the wedding, but is disappointed when she finds out he's meeting her for tea. "He's taking her out for tea? At the Kingsworth? That doesn't exactly sound like they're on the outs, now, does it!" I want to know where Liz thinks it would be appropriate to take Lavinia to break off the engagement. A cemetery, perhaps?
Sarah's still waiting at the Kingsworth, where Bones is now ten minutes late. Maybe Scotty's transporter malfunctioned. (I know, I said I wouldn't make any more Star Trek jokes. I lied.) Just as she's giving up hope, there's a knock on the door-it's Bones! She explains that she arranged everything just so she could meet him alone and, instead of running in terror from his crazy stalker fan, Bones smiles and compliments her on her taste in music.
In the lobby, Max waits for Lavinia and worries-not about how she'll feel when he dumps her, but about whether or not she'll make a scene. I want to hit him. She arrives and starts talking about wedding plans, and he snaps at her that it doesn't matter. Okay, now can I hit him? He finally tells her that he wants to call off the wedding.
Lavinia is shocked for a second or two, then recovers and acts as though he hadn't said anything. When Max persists, she tells him that she can guess that he's infatuated with Elizabeth, but that the wedding will still take place. He protests, but Lavinia just laughs at him and then threatens to reveal some mysterious family scandal if he doesn't marry her as planned. Oooh, can anyone guess what that secret might be? Vanessa, would you like to offer any theories?
Lavinia tells Max that her mother told her the secret as a sort of "security system" in case Lavinia needed to blackmail him into marrying her. Clearly her mother didn't think too highly of her daughter if she assumed she'd need to coerce him into marriage. Max is shocked and confused. He shouldn't be, though. Lavinia is the Other Woman in a Sweet Valley book. Of course she has to be a total bitch, or else the reader might actually feel sorry for her when Elizabeth steals her boyfriend. And we certainly can't have that.
James arrives at Pennington House again. I think he spends more time there than at Oxford and his own home (assuming he has one) combined. He finds Vanessa outside, pale and trembling. How...melodramatic. He holds her and asks what's wrong, and she rips his clothes off and has sex with him right there. No, not really. I was just getting tired of typing "she yells at him and runs away" yet again. I think this subplot could have been played out in half a page:
Vanessa: REVENGE!
James: Vanessa, you seem freaked out and obsessed with something. What is it?
Vanessa: Go to hell!
James: Why won't you love me?!
Vanessa: REVENGE!
Back at Sarah's hotel room, things are heating up! As they argue about music. They're in bed together! Eating chocolates. But they're also drinking! Perrier. Sarah is disappointed that Bones hasn't tried to get into her Miracle Bra yet, but they do bond over how hard it is to be rich and famous. Then she tells Bones that Phillipa is a whore who has at least one STD. Sarah, he's a pop star with tons of groupies. I seriously doubt whores really repulse him, and chances are that he already has every STD in existence. Nice try, though. Sarah tries to kiss Bones, but he says he needs to leave. I'm definitely visualizing the Cher/Christian movie-watching scene from "Clueless." They leave the hotel, where Max is still in the lobby after his conversation with Lavinia. You know those wacky hijinks I was hoping for? Never happens. Not even any mild hijinks. Sarah just sneaks out the back to avoid being seen.
Elizabeth and the other girls are given the night off, which Elizabeth uses to go to a library and e-mail Nina. Apparently nothing remotely interesting has happened to Nina over the past few months, because she's only interested in hearing about Liz's new boy toy.
The next morning, Elizabeth is depressed because it's Thanksgiving. She finally remembers that Steven exists, by the way. She goes down to the kitchen and nearly falls apart when the cook offers her a cranberry scone. The head housekeeper takes pity on her and gives her the day off, because the best cure for homesickness is total solitude.
Max drives to Lavinia's house that morning to find out if she was serious about the scandal. He demands to know what she knows, and she reveals that his father not only had an affair, but had an illegitimate child as a result. Max splutters that it's impossible, but Lavinia insists that if he calls off the wedding, she will leak the story to the press, ruining his family's reputation and Sarah's future. Of course, if Sarah keeps trying to sleep with pop stars, both of those things may happen on their own soon enough. He leaves and ends up at a bookstore-where he runs into Elizabeth. Considering how frequently all of these characters randomly bump into each other, I assume London is the size of a grocery store.
Vanessa steels herself to confront the earl, but wimps out when she sees him with a member of Parliament. She gets pissed off at him when he asks her to dust a painting, though. How dare he ask a maid to clean?!
Max and Elizabeth are spending the day together, including lunch at a pub and a museum date. Max and Elizabeth are just as exciting as Todd and Elizabeth were.
Vanessa finally confronts the earl and shoves one of the pictures of him and her mother in his face, causing him to turn pale. All that plotting, and that's it? I was hoping for something more complex, perhaps involving a time machine and a bunch of explosions.
That night, Max calls Elizabeth and tells her he has to talk to her. She comes to his room, where he tells her that he loves her, but that he has to marry Lavinia because she's blackmailing him. Liz cries. Then she strips down to her underwear.
No, I'm not kidding. This is it. The moment we've been anticipating for oh, so many books. Somewhere, Todd is punching people left and right because...Liz is about to give it up once and for all! A moment of silence, please, for Elizabeth Wakefield's virginity. It persevered against seemingly impossible odds-longtime boyfriends, summer flings, and horribly deformed psychopaths-but now we must say goodbye at last.
We don't get any raunchy sex scenes; Max and Liz make out and then we cut to the next morning as they lie in bed together. Liz has "never felt so at peace with the world." So it's true! All Liz needed to do to stop being an uptight, nosy little bitch was get laid. As they snuggle, Liz thinks that now the love she and Max share will inevitably triumph over Lavinia's scheming. Because having sex solves everything, I guess. (Shakes head.)
By the way, at no point does the subject of birth control come up, so maybe this whole book is the precursor to this. I'd like to think so, anyway.
So, will Sarah become another notch on Bones McCall's headboard? Will Lavinia pick out the right toothpicks for the wedding hors d'oeuvres? Will Elizabeth get knocked up by live happily ever after with Max? (At least until she finds some really hot guy to cheat on him with?) Find out in I Need You!