SVU #3: What Your Parents Don't Know....
I want to start this recap off by saying that Ned and Alice Wakefield are probably some of the shittiest parents in all of literature, ever. In the course of one year their shoddy parental supervision allowed the twins to be: kidnapped (at least once each, once by a cult), almost date-raped (myriad times), hunted by a werewolf, involved with at least one vampire, lost at sea, comatose, stalked by countless crazed murderers, indicted for involuntary manslaughter, involved in gang warfare, engaged to unsuitable men, and runaways from home. So basically the title of this book could apply to any Sweet Valley book. Any.
I think what I miss most in the SVU books are the blond-hair-blue-eyes-size-six spiels. This book begins with Jessica being stood up for a date by Michael “Too Cool For This Series” McAllery. Not only is Mike standing her up, he’s standing her up on the night she’s supposed to move in with him! The very night! All her stuff’s packed and everything! Burn! As Jessica waits, she reminisces about the month or so she’s spent living with Isabella Ricci, and how she’s going to miss living in a dorm. Really? Because from my experience, dorms are shitty. I was so eager to get out of my dorm that I moved into a trailer off-campus with my boyfriend, his psycho-BFF, an ex-Navy Seal, a drug-dealer who grew psychedelic mushrooms in a closet and a dude I never saw who might have been involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But I digress.
Anyway, Isabella comes in and sees that Jess is waiting for Mike and tells her in no uncertain terms that Mike is A Bad Idea. Isabella is all Oracle at Delphi about it. Jessica being Jessica totally ignores her and thinks some more about how awesome Mike is even though he’s standing her up right now. He has a Corvette, though! I find it totally awesome that Jessica is getting misty about leaving Isabella, who’s she’s known for all of three weeks or so, but she didn’t think twice about moving out of the room she shared with Elizabeth.
Tom “Not Todd” Watts and Danny Wyatt (has anyone else notice the prevalence of characters with last names that begin with ‘W’ in this series? Watts, Wilkins, Wyatt, Wakefield, Denise Waters, etc) are discussing the sports scandal that is rocking the campus and thinking about Elizabeth. We get a little of the blond hair, blue-green eyes thing. We find out Tom has written Elizabeth a poem but she hasn’t responded. Danny Wyatt is so enthusiastic about Tom dating Elizabeth that if I didn’t know that F. Pascal would never allow the twins to seriously date a black dude, I’d think it was foreshadowing. Tom and Elizabeth flirt at the station, and Tom “dream[s] about being alone with her,” and “lay[s] awake at night thinking up schemes to get her by herself.” I find that a little rapey. Elizabeth and Tom……zzxglsdl;fg….sorry, I dozed off there. They discuss the fraternity hazings and decide that the Sigmas are dangerous and that something is going to get out of hand. Isabella walks in and has the hots for Tom and Elizabeth thinks she and Tom are an item and is all wounded.
Elizabeth’s Southern belle roommate Celine wants William White. William wants Elizabeth. Get used to it, Celine. You might want to compare notes with Enid “Alexandra Now” Rollins. I bet she has some pointers on how to endure it.
Elizabeth and her friend Nina Harper discuss Tom’s poem. Apparently it is “haunting and beautiful” and “poignant and well-written.” But apparently Tom forgot to sign it, so Elizabeth has no idea who its from! If she could only meet this mystery man she’s sure he would be her soul mate. Hijinks! Elizabeth wants the poem to be from Tom, but Nina convinces her its from William “Not Evil Yet” White. Nina is awfully sure of this, for someone who has absolutely no evidence.
Mike shows up and Jessica bitches at him for being “one hundred and four” minutes, or “two hours” late. I wonder what Jessica’s getting in math this semester? Apparently Mike was late because he had to work. That dog just won’t hunt, Mike. God. Stupid non-college kid, having to work for a living. He gives Jessica a Karman Ghia which means he’s a fast learner, and wise in the ways of J. Wake. She cries and they go make out in her new car, which strikes me as uncomfortable, because those bitches are small, and isn’t his apartment just upstairs? Anyway, it’s a moot point because Steven comes and breaks it up. He finds out Jess is moving in with Mike and he’s pissed.
Elizabeth dreams that Tom is going to win a Pulitzer prize for his story on the sports scandal. Heh. She hates Celine. Nothing new there.
Winston Egbert got so cool at college. Like, he is just the right mix of dork and fun and cool. I would have wanted to date him. But he didn’t get cool enough for the Sigmas but he doesn’t know that. He’s in the middle of hazing and has been wearing a brick around his neck for two days. Elizabeth shows up and talks really loudly about how stupid fraternities are and how Winston is dumb for wearing a brick. Maybe, but that’s awful judgy, Liz. Winston isn’t supposed to be talking and Liz gets him in trouble with the Sigmas. Liz! A simple shoulder-pat would have done!
God, there’s a lot going on in this book! We have an A, B, C, and now D plot. Nina Harper and Bryan Nelson sitting in a tree. NOT k-i-s-s-i-n-g, but obvio it’s going to happen.
Celine Boudreaux has decided that the best way to William White’s heart is to help him get with Elizabeth. O…K. She tells William about the poem Elizabeth got and they know it’s from Tom Watts, like, right away, so how dumb is Elizabeth that she can’t figure it out?
After a day or so, Jessica loves living with Mike in his apartment and thinks Lila, who is a countess, will be jealous of her. She’s also worried her parents will find out she’s cohabiting and be pissed. They let you get engaged to a 20-something-year old when you were 16, Jessica. This is small potatoes. Jessica can’t wait to tell the Thetas about Mike, but Mike doesn’t want her to have any outside friends! But she wants to go! He distracts her with The Sex, and she ends up missing the meeting.
Elizabeth and Tom congratulate themselves for the awesome job they did with the sports scandal story. They really do deserve each other. Todd at his Toddest wasn’t this self-congratulatory.
Steven Wakefield is positively obsessed with his sister and Mike and Billie’s getting pissed. I would be, too, if I were her, especially if I read that part in SVH #13, Kidnapped!, when Steven is in a towel helping his sister get dressed and thinking about how beautiful she is. She tells him Jessica is grown up and he needs to let it go because its not his business. Good advice. Naturally, Steven doesn’t take it.
Mike is further distancing Jessica from her friends. Jessica’s already ruined her new car, by backing it into Mike’s bike. So she ruined his bike, too. Elizabeth will not leave Winston alone about this Sigma thing. She keeps calling him, ostensibly to lecture him about the evils of hazing. Elizabeth is a walking Lifetime movie.
Celine runs into Tom. She decides he’s hot, but again, instead of stealing him for herself, she tells him how much Elizabeth enjoyed the poem he wrote her. So Tom thinks Elizabeth knows he wrote the poem, and that she likes him. We find out in the next scene that Elizabeth has total food issues after her brief brush with fatdom: she’s sprayed all the junk food with Celine’s perfume so she won’t eat it. Shades of Robin Wilson. Tom and Danny think she’s fly, and apparently Danny hasn’t had a date “since September.” What month is this? I have a hard time believing Danny’s hard up because I always picture him as super-hot.
Alexandra shows up to confront Elizabeth about her sports scandal story. Apparently, Elizabeth’s hot tip from the story came from something Alexandra told her in confidence. And now Alex’s boyfriend is going to be thrown out of school. God, Liz is a shitty friend. The way she keeps calling Alexandria “Enid” reminds me of Kunta Kinte. Enid was her slave name; she has renounced it.
Jessica manages to escape…er, leave the house, for a Theta meeting. Mike is upset. Jessica doesn’t care. She doesn’t tell the Thetas about Mike because she thinks they won’t approve of him. That’s sort of shitty, too. When she returns to Mike’s apartment, she runs into Steven and Billie and Steven goes all psycho again. She calls Steven a hypocrite and says that “moving in with Mike is the best thing [she’s] ever done.” That’s pretty sad. What about the First Annual Sam Woodruff dirt bike rally? Or the time you helped old, feeble movie star Dolores Dufay? Or even Miss Teen Sweet Valley? She runs upstairs and Mike isn’t home. He’s gone out, he didn’t wait for her. Even sadder!
Nina’s mother wants her to leave college and she’s upset. She goes to Elizabeth to talk about it but Elizabeth is more concerned with the two dozen white roses she’s just received. She thinks about the white rose William White gave her a week ago and knows they’re from him. She’s disappointed; she wanted them to be from Tom.
HA! Jessica only has fifty-five cents in her bank account! She decides to impersonate her sister and steal money from Elizabeth’s account, which is totally a serious crime. But Elizabeth has bigger things to worry about! William White has asked her out! And he’s not Tom! Speaking of Tom, he and Elizabeth have decided to investigate an old story about a string of deaths during fraternity hazing. Always with the fraternity hazing in this one! Apparently there’s been a death due to hazing every seven years for the past fifty years. That’s…a lot of deaths. Like 7 or so. Most colleges get two or three and it’s kaput on the hazing. SVU must be run by Ned and Alice Wakefield.
Billie wants Steven to just call his parents and tell them Jessica is living with Mike so it will be out of his hands. Billie has HAD it, y’all. Steven decides the better thing to do is break up his sister and Mike “before it goes too far.” Billie is all, they’re living together, how much farther can it go? Oh, Billie. Why did you have to ask that?
Everyone’s pissed at Jessica. Elizabeth found out she stole the money from her account. The Thetas are mad she’s not showing up to events. Isabella shows up to confront Elizabeth, asking if she knows where Jessica is? She’s worried, y’all. Elizabeth, however, is more concerned with her story about FRATERNITY HAZING OMG. She and Tom decide a secret society is involved, which is a pretty logical assumption. Anytime there’s something shady, I just think ‘secret society,’ too. Right off the bat.
William totally creeps Elizabeth out on their date. She wishes he were Tom. Celine is all upset and sour grapes-y.
Isabella tells Jessica that everyone’s mad at her, but Jessica is broke. That’s a bigger problem. She hits Isabella up for cash and Isabella refuses, which must be one of the only times in her life Jessica has been denied something she wants. Jessica’s outfit is described as a long pink dress over a gray bodysuit, which sounds very pretty, actually. As far as outfits in these books go. Elizabeth tells her sister to get a job. She’s got an opinion for everything, doesn’t she? Denise Waters comes up to Liz and tells her about what a rough time Winston is having during hazing and that is the wrong thing to say, Denise. Of course Liz is all amped up, like, she’s gonna STOP THIS!
Jessica gets a job! As a waitress. Her boss calls her a ‘sorority type,’ haha. She works one day and she hates it. I wonder what Mike “Abusive Non-Husband” McAllery thinks about her being away from the house for so long? He strikes me as the type who would really care that his girl working sends the wrong impression, like he can’t support her or something. But Mike doesn’t seem to mind. He is all about the sex when Jess gets home and tells her to stay away from Peter Winterborne (another W name!), president of the Sigmas. She’s like, dude, you won’t let me hang out with my friends, much less people I don’t know!
Winston is forced by the Sigmas to drink a cup of Death Punch. According to my calculations he drinks two cups and passes out. The recipe for Death Punch must include some quantity of the magic vodka from the Jungle Prom.
The Thetas show up at the restaurant where Jessica works. She’s all ashamed and runs away. I hope her ass gets fired. That’s just unacceptable.
Tom finally, finally asks Liz out, but she has a date with William the same night. Liz! You don’t like William and he creeps you out, and you really like Tom! Blow him off!
The Thetas show up at Jess’s restaurant again and this time she can’t get out of serving them. They’re nasty to her. Apparently, “the Thetas don’t have to work for money.” Jessica finally grows a pair and tells them she doesn’t give two shits about being a Theta, which is obviously a lie but still awesome. Go, Jess!
Elizabeth finds out from Celine that Winston is going to have to pass one final hazing test that night. She rushes over to Sigma house, where Winston is standing on the roof and drinking. Exactly what kind of test this is, or what he’s supposed to do up there on the roof is unclear. Of course Elizabeth and Tom manage to talk him down just in the nick of time.
Nina and Bryan are coming home from a Black Student Union event and somebody attacks them. Ouch.
Elizabeth is all broken up about what happened to Winston, like, more broken up about it than Winston, who only has a bad hangover. She’s crying and everything. Tom finds her and comforts her. With kisses. They look up and William White is standing there, watching them. Oh, snap!
Jessica has prepared a romantic dinner for Mike and of course he’s late getting home. She’s sad. He gets home and he smells like beer. He won’t tell her where he was. She tells him she’s quit the Thetas so she can spend more time with him, and really, this book is depressing. I hate clingy-girlfriend Jessica. What happened to awesome Jessica who embarrassed asshole guys on TV and stuff? Really, I’m so depressed about this.