Sweet Valley High: Bruce's Story
First, I'd like to say congratulations to our community mom, iriniaauthor who went and got married. Let's hope it's happier than any Sweet Valley marriage, eh?
Sweet Valley High Super Star: Bruce's Story
No one can top Lila's Story, as she's clearly the best of all the characters. But I love Bruce Patman too, because sometimes he'll take a break from being a dick and push people in the pool.
In this book, his grandfather comes to Sweet Valley and decides it'd be a really good idea to set his two grandchildren against each other. Bruce and Roger have just become family so it's time they started in-fighting, damnit!
Bruce is freaking out because his grandfather is coming to Sweet Valley for a visit. From the point of view of his cousin, Roger Barrett Patman, we get a recap of how handsome and rich Bruce is (you'd think he wants to date his own cousin). Oddly, it's mentioned that the Grandfather is the one who “made” the Patman fortune which doesn't really mix with Lila's Story, which said the Patmans were really “old” money. Well, maybe the Grandfather is a several hundred years old.
Roger thinks it'll be fun to have the old man around. He hopes grandfather will bounce him on his knee and tell stories about Roger's dear-departed father. Bruce is like, “You've clearly never met him”
Then we follow Roger to lunch with girl named Lisa, that he has a crush on. Then we cut to Roger getting dressed to meet grandpa. He once again tells us how handsome Bruce is. Get a fucking room already, you two. Jesus.
When Alexander Patman arrives (that's the Grandfather's name and I'm relieved I won't have to keep referring to him as Grandfather), he does want to talk all about Roger's father, Paul. He tells the boys all of Paul's great characteristics: “He was industrious, persevering, and above all, hardworking.” No one calls the old man out of the fact that those words mean mostly the same thing. Maybe he's trying to prep his grandsons for the SAT vocabulary?
Alexander tells the kids the next day that he as “two” mottos: “Get rich and work hard.” Roger doesn't like this because it makes it seem like money is everything. Bruce doesn't like it because he doesn't want to work hard. I don't like it because that's not two mottos; it's one motto with two clauses. Someone never saw Schoolhouse Rocks and found out what the conjunction junction's function was!
Going to school, Bruce sees a hot girl named Tracy Atkins. He dings his car because he's so busy looking at her. This is ridiculous! The Bruce Patman I know would never have put a girl before his Porsche!
When Alexander finds out Bruce is going to have the car fixed, he calls its a useless extravagance and disses 1bruce1 as too expensive. He thinks Bruce should get rid of it. Yes, but if Bruce got rid of the Porsche what would we call this community, Grandpa? Ever think of that, huh?
Anyway, Tracy is friends with Lisa, Roger's girl. Bruce asks Roger to ask Lisa to ask Tracy to come to the birthday party the Patmans are having for Alexander. That was a very confusing sentence and I think I need to sit down now.
At school, Mr. Collins calls an assembly. SVH is going to be helping out with a charity program called SAVE which works to fund a school for special needs children. For some reason, the next day the student body is going to vote on who they think should be student representatives to SAVE. This makes no sense to me. Isn't community service usually a volunteer thing, not something you're elected to? What if the person elected can make it to meetings because they have other stuff to do? What if the special needs children creep them out?
As you might guess, Tracy, Lisa, Elizabeth (remember her?) and some other kid that probably doesn't matter are all chosen (note while revising: I was totally right about this kid not mattering).
There's a random insert of a Jessica POV. She talks to Amy at the lunch table about Bruce. Apparently Amy is “still very upset” about what happened to Regina. Huh. I don't remember her being upset in the first place, you?
Bruce's parents announce they're going to Japan. For a month. They're leaving Saturday. Surprise! Have fun with the grandfather, kids! Sweet Valley has some mad parenting skills.
We get a chapter from Tracy's point of view. (I'm sort of pissed. There hasn't been that much Bruce. It's mostly Roger and now we have Tracy too? I might sue Random House for falsely advertising this as Bruce's Story.) Naturally, her younger brother, Jeremy, is one of the special needs kids in the charity. Her family is kind of poor; she makes her own clothes. Tracy's never had a boyfriend herself but she wishes she could be more like that Elizabeth Wakefield. Ugh. That's a road you don't want to go down, honey.
Tracy comes to the party, but she's put off by how ostentatious the house is and how Bruce talks about windsurfing and things she's not interested in. Bruce, for his part, seems stunned she doesn't just fall into his arms. He thought every girl wanted to go to clubs in LA and windsurf?! This would be more believable if we didn't know he dated Regina Morrow, who I doubt was a big club kid (before the coke).
After the party, Alexander has a surprise. It was in his will that the Patman Corporation would go to Bruce's father and then to Bruce when he died. But now Roger's around! Instead of just having the boys share the company or whatever he decides to have a contest. He's giving each two thousand dollars of seed money and when Bruce's parents get back (month), whoever has earned the most wins!
Bruce is stunned. He always took for granted that he would get the company. Now he's mad that Roger might take what is his. He's determined to beat Roger. Roger, on the other hand, thinks this is a crappy idea, and he's right. He just started getting friendly with Bruce and now Alexander has set Bruce against him.
Bruce, naturally, initially spends a lot of his money buying concert tickets to impress Tracy. He neglects, however, to ask Tracy if this is a good idea. She can't go, she's got to babysit. He tries to scalp the tickets but runs into a guy he knows who invites him to a poker game. Bruce decides that's a great way to make more money! I would say something snotty about gambling, but honestly the whole contest is gambling so I can't imagine where Bruce got the notion it's a good idea.
Roger discovers that Lisa's father works at an investment firm. He asks her if her father could give him some advice on stocks, AKA, rich people gambling. Then when it turns out Roger isn't 18 so he can't invest in stocks legally, Lisa's father helpfully does it for him.
Meanwhile hot!Tracy and Elizabeth are working on their campaign to save the special needs children. They're doing something called Harbor Days in which local businesses set up booths and sell things, with half the proceeds going to SAVE. Tracy tells Liz (because everyone likes to tell Liz their business) that she does like Bruce she just doesn't think he's responsible and wouldn't make a good boyfriend. For some reason, Liz convinces her to give Bruce a chance. Boy, if a guy tried to rape me I wouldn't recommend him to friends. But that's Elizabeth Wakefield for you; she's just so nice!
Bruce convinces his poker friends to raise the stakes to a $10 buy-in from a $1. He thinks he'll make more money. Of course, Bruce loses his shirt (to the tune of $800). I barely have to tell you that, do I?
Meanwhile, Roger's stock has gone up $5 a share. He thinks he's a millionaire. Isn't he already?
Bruce sees Tracy and asks to help out with Harbor Days (so he can get close to her). Then he discovers he can keep 50% of the profits of anything he sells and thinks that is how he can make money. (Why not sell some product not at the charity event then and keep 100%? No one asks this but me.) His initial idea is to sell the phone numbers of the girls he's dated to lonely guys. Tracy doesn't think this is a real winner because she's not a crazy person. She tells him he could write a guide to dating instead and sell that.
The Bruce Patman Guide to Dating. I was gonna mock but I think I might buy it just for ya-yas, you know?
On Monday, Roger makes fun of Bruce's gambling loss. Then he learns that his stock has gone down and he's lost $700. That's what you get, mocky. So Roger decides to do something for Harbor Days too because he's too lame to come up with his own idea.
Bruce and Tracy go out. While there, Tracy tells him that Roger and Lisa signed up for Harbor Days. They've purchased “canvas hats” and visors and are going to paint any design people want on them. Like they don't already do that at every mall I've ever been to!
Bruce decides to sabotage Roger on the first Harbor Day. He replaces Roger's water-proof paint with water-soluble paint and thinks his grandfather would “approve.” I'm not going to say he wouldn't approve, because he does seem like a douche bag, but that doesn't make it classy.
While setting up for the first Harbor Day, Jessica tells Tracy that Bruce is a creep and she is too good for him. Liz is shocked that Jessica would say something like that. She only speaks the truth. She only speaks the truth!
Meanwhile, Bruce (who is not a creep) is paying off a bratty kid to start a water balloon fight near Roger's booth to ruin all of his products.
Bruce's books sell well, in part because Winston Egbert thinks they're hilarious. AS YOU DO. Then the kids start their fight and Roger's stuff is ruined and customers are demanding their money back. Bruce takes the high road and goes to rub Roger's nose in it. Then he takes Tracy home and she tells him about her brother and they kiss and she thinks she's in love. Really?
Apparently the Harbor Days are only on Saturday, so Roger has a week to plot his revenge. Bruce is afraid so he tricks Tracy into spying on Roger via her friendship with Lisa. (It involves a bogus story about how worried Bruce is about Roger.) While at Tracy's, Bruce tastes the homemade ice cream her grandmother makes and thinks it is good enough to sell. But Tracy wants to give all the proceeds to SAVE, not just half.
Roger's plan is sell copies of Jim Roberts' (see #55: Perfect Shot) photography at his booth. Everyone thinks this is a good idea. Bruce likes it because he thinks it'll be easy to sabotage.
Lisa comes to Tracy wanting to know why Bruce hasn't given his 50% to SAVE yet. Tracy says he intends to give all of it because he's such a lovely guy. Lisa is like “Haha, no.” And she tells her that Bruce was the one to ruin Roger's stupid hats. Then Tracy feels used, as she should, and is mad at Bruce.
Bruce starts making his ice cream, a mental image I find hilarious. But Roger discovers his super secret ice cream location (the basement). So Bruce spends the night down there on the floor, waiting for Roger to come unplug the freezer. Roger does come in the middle of the night, but apparently he has a fit of conscience and leaves the ice cream alone. Bruce can't figure out what is up with him, not having a conscience himself.
Tracy follows Bruce to a photography place, and realizes he is planning on ruining Roger's booth again by exposing the paper to light. She is shocked. Shocked, I tell you! She calls Roger to tattle. But then we find out from a rare Bruce POV that he did not, in fact, ruin the paper. He decided not to since Roger didn't do anything to his ice cream.
At lunch the next day, Tracy rips Bruce a new one . He's all “I can explain” and tells her about the contest. She thinks that's a shitty reason to withhold money from charity and back stab your cousin. ...And she's right. So she dumps him. Bruce realizes he has ruined his relationship with Tracy but also with Roger. This makes him frowny.
Grandfather Patman wants to have another party to welcome the Patmans home from their vacation. Didn't they just have a fucking party? Jesus.
On Saturday, Roger's photography paper is still fine and Bruce's ice cream is cold. But they are both still frowny. They call a truce. Bruce gets a photograph from Roger and Roger gets an ice cream from Bruce. I guess Roger can go back to thinking how sexy Bruce is now, thank heavens.
Liz, Tracy and Lisa meet about SAVE. Apparently, they have not made as much money as they hoped to. That is, until they find an anonymous envelope full of cash shoved under the door. Then a second anonymous donation of nearly the same amount is made later that same day. It's several thousand dollars. That means the school can stay open. I'm just dying to find out who these anonymous benefactors are, aren't you?
When Mr. and Mrs. Patman return from Japan or wherever the fuck they were, Grandfather tells the party-goers about his stupid competition. He makes the boys reveal their earnings in public, which is beyond the beyond if you ask me. Neither boy has any money. They gave it all to SAVE, you're shocked, aren't you? Grandfather is pissed. But Mr. Patman butts in and says that it's more important that they profited in a spiritual sense (?) than monetarily and he doesn't approve of the family fighting against each other. Mr. Patman then further decides to give even more funds to SAVE so that the special needs school can stay open for always, and not have to have shitty Harbor Days to make money every year.
Where the fuck was he when this whole stupid contest was going on, I ask? Oh right, Asia.
Sweet Valley High Super Star: Bruce's Story
No one can top Lila's Story, as she's clearly the best of all the characters. But I love Bruce Patman too, because sometimes he'll take a break from being a dick and push people in the pool.
In this book, his grandfather comes to Sweet Valley and decides it'd be a really good idea to set his two grandchildren against each other. Bruce and Roger have just become family so it's time they started in-fighting, damnit!
Bruce is freaking out because his grandfather is coming to Sweet Valley for a visit. From the point of view of his cousin, Roger Barrett Patman, we get a recap of how handsome and rich Bruce is (you'd think he wants to date his own cousin). Oddly, it's mentioned that the Grandfather is the one who “made” the Patman fortune which doesn't really mix with Lila's Story, which said the Patmans were really “old” money. Well, maybe the Grandfather is a several hundred years old.
Roger thinks it'll be fun to have the old man around. He hopes grandfather will bounce him on his knee and tell stories about Roger's dear-departed father. Bruce is like, “You've clearly never met him”
Then we follow Roger to lunch with girl named Lisa, that he has a crush on. Then we cut to Roger getting dressed to meet grandpa. He once again tells us how handsome Bruce is. Get a fucking room already, you two. Jesus.
When Alexander Patman arrives (that's the Grandfather's name and I'm relieved I won't have to keep referring to him as Grandfather), he does want to talk all about Roger's father, Paul. He tells the boys all of Paul's great characteristics: “He was industrious, persevering, and above all, hardworking.” No one calls the old man out of the fact that those words mean mostly the same thing. Maybe he's trying to prep his grandsons for the SAT vocabulary?
Alexander tells the kids the next day that he as “two” mottos: “Get rich and work hard.” Roger doesn't like this because it makes it seem like money is everything. Bruce doesn't like it because he doesn't want to work hard. I don't like it because that's not two mottos; it's one motto with two clauses. Someone never saw Schoolhouse Rocks and found out what the conjunction junction's function was!
Going to school, Bruce sees a hot girl named Tracy Atkins. He dings his car because he's so busy looking at her. This is ridiculous! The Bruce Patman I know would never have put a girl before his Porsche!
When Alexander finds out Bruce is going to have the car fixed, he calls its a useless extravagance and disses 1bruce1 as too expensive. He thinks Bruce should get rid of it. Yes, but if Bruce got rid of the Porsche what would we call this community, Grandpa? Ever think of that, huh?
Anyway, Tracy is friends with Lisa, Roger's girl. Bruce asks Roger to ask Lisa to ask Tracy to come to the birthday party the Patmans are having for Alexander. That was a very confusing sentence and I think I need to sit down now.
At school, Mr. Collins calls an assembly. SVH is going to be helping out with a charity program called SAVE which works to fund a school for special needs children. For some reason, the next day the student body is going to vote on who they think should be student representatives to SAVE. This makes no sense to me. Isn't community service usually a volunteer thing, not something you're elected to? What if the person elected can make it to meetings because they have other stuff to do? What if the special needs children creep them out?
As you might guess, Tracy, Lisa, Elizabeth (remember her?) and some other kid that probably doesn't matter are all chosen (note while revising: I was totally right about this kid not mattering).
There's a random insert of a Jessica POV. She talks to Amy at the lunch table about Bruce. Apparently Amy is “still very upset” about what happened to Regina. Huh. I don't remember her being upset in the first place, you?
Bruce's parents announce they're going to Japan. For a month. They're leaving Saturday. Surprise! Have fun with the grandfather, kids! Sweet Valley has some mad parenting skills.
We get a chapter from Tracy's point of view. (I'm sort of pissed. There hasn't been that much Bruce. It's mostly Roger and now we have Tracy too? I might sue Random House for falsely advertising this as Bruce's Story.) Naturally, her younger brother, Jeremy, is one of the special needs kids in the charity. Her family is kind of poor; she makes her own clothes. Tracy's never had a boyfriend herself but she wishes she could be more like that Elizabeth Wakefield. Ugh. That's a road you don't want to go down, honey.
Tracy comes to the party, but she's put off by how ostentatious the house is and how Bruce talks about windsurfing and things she's not interested in. Bruce, for his part, seems stunned she doesn't just fall into his arms. He thought every girl wanted to go to clubs in LA and windsurf?! This would be more believable if we didn't know he dated Regina Morrow, who I doubt was a big club kid (before the coke).
After the party, Alexander has a surprise. It was in his will that the Patman Corporation would go to Bruce's father and then to Bruce when he died. But now Roger's around! Instead of just having the boys share the company or whatever he decides to have a contest. He's giving each two thousand dollars of seed money and when Bruce's parents get back (month), whoever has earned the most wins!
Bruce is stunned. He always took for granted that he would get the company. Now he's mad that Roger might take what is his. He's determined to beat Roger. Roger, on the other hand, thinks this is a crappy idea, and he's right. He just started getting friendly with Bruce and now Alexander has set Bruce against him.
Bruce, naturally, initially spends a lot of his money buying concert tickets to impress Tracy. He neglects, however, to ask Tracy if this is a good idea. She can't go, she's got to babysit. He tries to scalp the tickets but runs into a guy he knows who invites him to a poker game. Bruce decides that's a great way to make more money! I would say something snotty about gambling, but honestly the whole contest is gambling so I can't imagine where Bruce got the notion it's a good idea.
Roger discovers that Lisa's father works at an investment firm. He asks her if her father could give him some advice on stocks, AKA, rich people gambling. Then when it turns out Roger isn't 18 so he can't invest in stocks legally, Lisa's father helpfully does it for him.
Meanwhile hot!Tracy and Elizabeth are working on their campaign to save the special needs children. They're doing something called Harbor Days in which local businesses set up booths and sell things, with half the proceeds going to SAVE. Tracy tells Liz (because everyone likes to tell Liz their business) that she does like Bruce she just doesn't think he's responsible and wouldn't make a good boyfriend. For some reason, Liz convinces her to give Bruce a chance. Boy, if a guy tried to rape me I wouldn't recommend him to friends. But that's Elizabeth Wakefield for you; she's just so nice!
Bruce convinces his poker friends to raise the stakes to a $10 buy-in from a $1. He thinks he'll make more money. Of course, Bruce loses his shirt (to the tune of $800). I barely have to tell you that, do I?
Meanwhile, Roger's stock has gone up $5 a share. He thinks he's a millionaire. Isn't he already?
Bruce sees Tracy and asks to help out with Harbor Days (so he can get close to her). Then he discovers he can keep 50% of the profits of anything he sells and thinks that is how he can make money. (Why not sell some product not at the charity event then and keep 100%? No one asks this but me.) His initial idea is to sell the phone numbers of the girls he's dated to lonely guys. Tracy doesn't think this is a real winner because she's not a crazy person. She tells him he could write a guide to dating instead and sell that.
The Bruce Patman Guide to Dating. I was gonna mock but I think I might buy it just for ya-yas, you know?
On Monday, Roger makes fun of Bruce's gambling loss. Then he learns that his stock has gone down and he's lost $700. That's what you get, mocky. So Roger decides to do something for Harbor Days too because he's too lame to come up with his own idea.
Bruce and Tracy go out. While there, Tracy tells him that Roger and Lisa signed up for Harbor Days. They've purchased “canvas hats” and visors and are going to paint any design people want on them. Like they don't already do that at every mall I've ever been to!
Bruce decides to sabotage Roger on the first Harbor Day. He replaces Roger's water-proof paint with water-soluble paint and thinks his grandfather would “approve.” I'm not going to say he wouldn't approve, because he does seem like a douche bag, but that doesn't make it classy.
While setting up for the first Harbor Day, Jessica tells Tracy that Bruce is a creep and she is too good for him. Liz is shocked that Jessica would say something like that. She only speaks the truth. She only speaks the truth!
Meanwhile, Bruce (who is not a creep) is paying off a bratty kid to start a water balloon fight near Roger's booth to ruin all of his products.
Bruce's books sell well, in part because Winston Egbert thinks they're hilarious. AS YOU DO. Then the kids start their fight and Roger's stuff is ruined and customers are demanding their money back. Bruce takes the high road and goes to rub Roger's nose in it. Then he takes Tracy home and she tells him about her brother and they kiss and she thinks she's in love. Really?
Apparently the Harbor Days are only on Saturday, so Roger has a week to plot his revenge. Bruce is afraid so he tricks Tracy into spying on Roger via her friendship with Lisa. (It involves a bogus story about how worried Bruce is about Roger.) While at Tracy's, Bruce tastes the homemade ice cream her grandmother makes and thinks it is good enough to sell. But Tracy wants to give all the proceeds to SAVE, not just half.
Roger's plan is sell copies of Jim Roberts' (see #55: Perfect Shot) photography at his booth. Everyone thinks this is a good idea. Bruce likes it because he thinks it'll be easy to sabotage.
Lisa comes to Tracy wanting to know why Bruce hasn't given his 50% to SAVE yet. Tracy says he intends to give all of it because he's such a lovely guy. Lisa is like “Haha, no.” And she tells her that Bruce was the one to ruin Roger's stupid hats. Then Tracy feels used, as she should, and is mad at Bruce.
Bruce starts making his ice cream, a mental image I find hilarious. But Roger discovers his super secret ice cream location (the basement). So Bruce spends the night down there on the floor, waiting for Roger to come unplug the freezer. Roger does come in the middle of the night, but apparently he has a fit of conscience and leaves the ice cream alone. Bruce can't figure out what is up with him, not having a conscience himself.
Tracy follows Bruce to a photography place, and realizes he is planning on ruining Roger's booth again by exposing the paper to light. She is shocked. Shocked, I tell you! She calls Roger to tattle. But then we find out from a rare Bruce POV that he did not, in fact, ruin the paper. He decided not to since Roger didn't do anything to his ice cream.
At lunch the next day, Tracy rips Bruce a new one . He's all “I can explain” and tells her about the contest. She thinks that's a shitty reason to withhold money from charity and back stab your cousin. ...And she's right. So she dumps him. Bruce realizes he has ruined his relationship with Tracy but also with Roger. This makes him frowny.
Grandfather Patman wants to have another party to welcome the Patmans home from their vacation. Didn't they just have a fucking party? Jesus.
On Saturday, Roger's photography paper is still fine and Bruce's ice cream is cold. But they are both still frowny. They call a truce. Bruce gets a photograph from Roger and Roger gets an ice cream from Bruce. I guess Roger can go back to thinking how sexy Bruce is now, thank heavens.
Liz, Tracy and Lisa meet about SAVE. Apparently, they have not made as much money as they hoped to. That is, until they find an anonymous envelope full of cash shoved under the door. Then a second anonymous donation of nearly the same amount is made later that same day. It's several thousand dollars. That means the school can stay open. I'm just dying to find out who these anonymous benefactors are, aren't you?
When Mr. and Mrs. Patman return from Japan or wherever the fuck they were, Grandfather tells the party-goers about his stupid competition. He makes the boys reveal their earnings in public, which is beyond the beyond if you ask me. Neither boy has any money. They gave it all to SAVE, you're shocked, aren't you? Grandfather is pissed. But Mr. Patman butts in and says that it's more important that they profited in a spiritual sense (?) than monetarily and he doesn't approve of the family fighting against each other. Mr. Patman then further decides to give even more funds to SAVE so that the special needs school can stay open for always, and not have to have shitty Harbor Days to make money every year.
Where the fuck was he when this whole stupid contest was going on, I ask? Oh right, Asia.