SVH #17 - Love Letters
Sweet Valley High #17 - Love Letters, or, The Girl Who Didn't Know When To Stop
The A Plot: Caroline Pearce has had enough of being unnoticed and unpopular, but instead of realizing her gossiping ways may have something to do with the latter, she concentrates on the former and invents an out-of-town boyfriend, Adam, who sends her romantic letters on a regular basis. Jessica catches on to the fact that something is wrong, when she recognizes parts of Adam's letters in the play Elizabeth is writing about Elizabeth and Robert Browning, and immediately jumps to the - this time correct - conclusion that he's made-up. Instead of just confronting Caroline about it, she decides to bring her down a notch by making Lila throw a party in Adam's honour. Caroline comes clean to Liz, who thinks that Jess is being too mean about the whole thing, and therefore gets Todd to find an Adam stand-in. This allows Caroline to save face, but she realizes she cannot live a lie any longer and confesses everything at the party anyway. The Adam-stand-in ends up being totally crazy about Caroline, so all's well that ends well - except for Jess who doesn't think Caroline got nearly as humiliated as she deserved. My, my, my, what a generous spirit that Jessica has.
The B Plot: Caroline happens to notice a photocopy of a letter in the Wakefield trash, and instead of doing the honest thing and just leaving it be, she reads it and then pockets it, figuring that "she doesn't look for gossip, it looks for her!" The letter is from Alice Wakefield to a company in San Fransisco, saying that she's considering their offer of a job there. Caroline assumes Jessica already knows they may be moving to SF and mentions it in front of her friends. Jessica doesn't want to give Caroline the satisfaction of seeing her shocked, so she plays along, only to freak out on her parents that evening. I actually kinda understand her here, it's a shitty situation. Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield admit that they're considering it, but they didn't want to tell the twins anything about it, until they'd decided. After discovering that throwing tantrums won't get them anywhere, Jessica and Elizabeth decide on a different plan of action - reminding their parents of all the wonderful things about Sweet Valley, while pointing out all the dangers of SF at the same time. As always they go totally overboard, but are totally clueless to the fact that their parents might suspect something was up. Fortunately their parents end up deciding not to take the job, so they all live happily in Sweet Valley ever after... at least until the next crisis.
The List
The A Plot: Caroline Pearce has had enough of being unnoticed and unpopular, but instead of realizing her gossiping ways may have something to do with the latter, she concentrates on the former and invents an out-of-town boyfriend, Adam, who sends her romantic letters on a regular basis. Jessica catches on to the fact that something is wrong, when she recognizes parts of Adam's letters in the play Elizabeth is writing about Elizabeth and Robert Browning, and immediately jumps to the - this time correct - conclusion that he's made-up. Instead of just confronting Caroline about it, she decides to bring her down a notch by making Lila throw a party in Adam's honour. Caroline comes clean to Liz, who thinks that Jess is being too mean about the whole thing, and therefore gets Todd to find an Adam stand-in. This allows Caroline to save face, but she realizes she cannot live a lie any longer and confesses everything at the party anyway. The Adam-stand-in ends up being totally crazy about Caroline, so all's well that ends well - except for Jess who doesn't think Caroline got nearly as humiliated as she deserved. My, my, my, what a generous spirit that Jessica has.
The B Plot: Caroline happens to notice a photocopy of a letter in the Wakefield trash, and instead of doing the honest thing and just leaving it be, she reads it and then pockets it, figuring that "she doesn't look for gossip, it looks for her!" The letter is from Alice Wakefield to a company in San Fransisco, saying that she's considering their offer of a job there. Caroline assumes Jessica already knows they may be moving to SF and mentions it in front of her friends. Jessica doesn't want to give Caroline the satisfaction of seeing her shocked, so she plays along, only to freak out on her parents that evening. I actually kinda understand her here, it's a shitty situation. Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield admit that they're considering it, but they didn't want to tell the twins anything about it, until they'd decided. After discovering that throwing tantrums won't get them anywhere, Jessica and Elizabeth decide on a different plan of action - reminding their parents of all the wonderful things about Sweet Valley, while pointing out all the dangers of SF at the same time. As always they go totally overboard, but are totally clueless to the fact that their parents might suspect something was up. Fortunately their parents end up deciding not to take the job, so they all live happily in Sweet Valley ever after... at least until the next crisis.
The List
- At first I thought Adam's letters were totally unbelievable, and that it was even more unbelievable that Caroline would just show them to anybody if they'd been real and that her eagerness to share them would be my first clue that something was up. But then I thought back to when I was that age - I had a long-distance boyfriend, so our only regular means of communication was through email. Some of the things he wrote (which I thought soooooo romantic back then, and extremely tacky/sappy now) actually weren't all that different from the things Caroline had Adam write. And if I'd thought anybody was interested in reading his letters, I would gladly have let them. So I guess it's not too unlikely after all.
- When pressed for a photo of Adam, she finds one that shows his ARM and nothing else? How does she even THINK that will fool anybody?
- Accidentally seeing a letter in the trash is one thing, but by picking it up, reading it and then pocketting it, Caroline really crosses the line between being a gossip and being a borderline stalker.
- When Caroline presents the letter to Jessica, how come Jess doesn't call her out on where she got the letter from? If I were Caroline I would be too ashamed of having read the letter, let alone take it, to ever admit either! What did she think Jessica would say? "Oh, of course my Mom send's photocopies of all her correspondance to you. Why wouldn't she?" Sheesh!
- I wonder why Caroline never thought about saying that she and Adam had broken up after the party rather than admitting she'd been lying. Kudos to her for being honest, of course, but most 16-year-old girls I know/knew would have taken that way out instead.
- I actually think Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield were unreasonable to seriously consider a move to SF without mentioning it to the girls. After all, they are 16 and not 10. They're old enough and it's a big enough decision that they deserve to have some say in it.
- Apparently spamming people with ads is a good way of making them appreciate the good things about a place? Who knew?
- Oh, but really Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield decided quite quickly not to move, as it wouldn't be fair on the twins, but dear old dad decided not to tell them for a couple of days as a way of punishing them. Punishing them for what? Being teenagers who happen to like where they live, and not immediately being thrilled for their mother's sake that she got a great job offer that requires them to leave? Well, excuse me, I wouldn't have been all that thrilled either!