Blame it on the a a a a a a alcohol (SVHSY #13 All About Love)
Folks, we’re not in Sweet Valley anymore. St. Elizabeth is no longer an A student, she drinks ALCOHOL of the non-wine-in-paper-cups variety, and sneaks out of the house despite the fact that she is grounded. Yes, you heard it here. GROUNDED. The Wakefields behave a little bit like real parents in this book. On a more frightening note, Jessica acts somewhat responsible and Ned utters the word HELL.
Read on for the puzzling, insufferable, and mind-numbingly dull details…
The book opens with goofy diary entries. Jessica is tired of Elizabeth’s teen rebellion phase and thinks that her sister’s personality is changing for the worse. (Sadly, it’s not as exciting as the time Elizabeth let Bruce Patman caress her booby after her personality-changing motorcycle accident.) As Jessica eloquently describes it, “Kind of like if a cute little caterpillar broke out of its cocoon and it wasn’t a butterfly, but a dragonfly.”
Conner is a bit less philosophical and merely describes Elizabeth as an idiot. I bet Conner gets into Harvard. His agile young mind is wasted in Sweet Valley, or El Carro, or wherever the hell he’s supposed to live. (My apologies, this book makes me so irritable that I’m cursing like a Ned Wakefield.)
Elizabeth admits that her life is in shambles because of academics, her deteriorating relationship with her parents, and her less than sunny outlook on life. However, ElizaDITZ thinks that none of this matters now that she has Conner. Hmm, is that the old Sweet Valley poking it’s way into this alternate Sweet Valley-verse? Remember ladies, you are nothing without a boyfriend and don’t you forget it!
Thankfully we’re done with the opening diary entries. (But don’t be too thankful, there’s at least one before every chapter. There’s just no escape from mundane thoughts and teen angst!)
In the previous book, Elizabeth snuck out of the house while grounded to go to a party and got piss ass drunk. The cops came to break up the party and Conner uncharacteristically rescued her. This book opens with Conner driving Elizabeth back home.
The two spend the whole car ride thinking dirty thoughts about each other. They get to the Wakefields’ newly rebuilt (and hopefully more earthquake-proof) Spanish-style split level home, and Jessica is waiting to help sneak Elizabeth inside. Elizabeth plants a big smoocheroo on Conner and then gets busted by her parents.
Ned smells alcohol on Elizabeth’s breath and asks if she has been drinking. ElizaFIBS lies and Ned asks, “Then why do you smell like a distillery?” (Oh, why couldn’t he have substituted the word distillery with Kelly’s Bar?)
ElizaFIBS backpedals and lies that she only had “one little drink” hours ago. Ned flips the f**k out and yells, “One little drink! On a night when you were grounded. What the hell is going on here, Liz?”
Okay, so I have two problems here. First, is Ned implying that it’s okay for his kids to drink when they’re NOT grounded? Second, since when do Wakefields swear?
Ned threatens to ground her for the rest of the school year and suddenly ElizaFIBS becomes ElizaFITS. She throws a conniption and runs up to her room.
The next morning, a very hung over Elizabeth suffers through a hallway full of kids making fun of her dance moves. It seems she put on quite the show at last night’s party. (I really hope it was an Elaine Benes style dance complete with the thumbs.)
Conner is turned on by Elizabeth’s minor acts of rebellion from the night before and plants a smooch on her in the hallway. Her self-destructive plan to obtain a boyfriend worked! I hope all of you pathetic, boyfriend-less blemishes on society are taking notes.
It turns out that Elizabeth isn’t the only twin who understands the importance of snagging a boyfriend. Jessica is actually dating Will Simmons, the obnoxious twit of a football player who helped spread horrible rumors about her earlier in the school year.
They meet for lunch and Will asks her out on a date for that night. Will gets his pampers in a twist when Jessica refuses to break her plans to go shopping with Tia. Jessica absolutely refuses to bail on Tia, so there may be hope for her yet.
Suddenly, Jessica spots Will’s evil ex-girlfriend Melissa and her minions watching their exchange. Jessica makes an excuse to Will so that she can leave quickly before there’s a confrontation. Will is more concerned that his evil ex witnessed Jessica refusing to be a doormat. Where’s a pool push when we need one?
After that, there’s a boring scene where the guidance counselor breaks Andy’s little heart. (Think of Andy as Winston 2.0, as in he’s a slightly funnier and more likeable version of the original.) Anyway, the guidance counselor informs Andy that his choice colleges probably won’t accept him due to his mediocre grades and lack of extracurricular activities.
After school, Elizabeth can’t focus on her responsibilities as editor-in-chief of the Oracle, because she keeps mooning over Conner. His little sister doesn’t help matters when she informs Elizabeth that Conner’s been acting uncharacteristically goofy, smiley, and enthusiastic. Elizabeth just knows it’s because of her (and the a a a a a a alcohol.)
Elizabeth goes home and finally comes clean with Ned. He lectures her about thinking before acting. The final punishment is still up in the air. The suspense is literally boring me to tears.
Meanwhile, Jessica is at work at the House of Java and is having a hard time facing her co-worker Jeremy. She dumped Jeremy for that shithole Will. Things become more awkward when Will calls on the phone during Jessica’s shift and Jeremy answers.
The next day at school, Jessica convinces Elizabeth and Conner to go on a double date with her and Will. Conner is less than enthused, but agrees to go to be with Elizabeth. Jessica tells Will about the double date after school and he gets his pampers in a twist yet again. He whines a lot, but finally gives in to Jessica.
Jessica goes home and talks her parents into letting Elizabeth out of jail for the night. Instead, Ned and Alice basically let Elizabeth off the hook completely.
Ned stipulates, “You’ve got one month. In that month you have three conditions: You’ve got to pull up your grades, spend more time working on the Oracle, and get a job. If you agree to those conditions and show us some effort right away…then you’re officially ungrounded, and you can even go out on this double date with Jessica tonight.”
So, how exactly is Elizabeth supposed to show effort that she’s working on her academics, the newspaper, and finding a job in a matter of hours? I think that our beloved Sweet Valley may be infiltrating this alternate Sweet Valley-verse…
Before we go on the double date, we have to suffer through Andy’s depression over college admissions. He looks through a giant book of colleges and realizes that it will be a struggle to even get into the local community colleges. He doesn’t have the grades or SAT scores to qualify. Andy decides it’s time to start buckling down so that he can get into a good college. Unfortunately for him, he’s already halfway through his senior year. I also don’t understand how he wouldn’t be able to get into community college. Community colleges don’t necessarily require high grades or test scores…
And now on to the double date from Ned Wakefield’s hell! Will repeatedly tries to get Jessica to bail on Elizabeth and Conner in the middle of the date. After repeatedly refusing, Jessica finally responds, “You can push all you want, but you’re not going to talk me into this. I’m not Melissa!” Will storms out, stranding Jessica at the restaurant. Conner and Elizabeth end up driving Jessica home.
Will gets home in a foul mood and finds that Melissa dropped off a box of his things while he was out. Will gets all upset thinking that this means that Melissa is over him.
Jessica doormats a bit when she calls to apologize the next morning. Will acts a bit miffed but agrees to go out with her that night.
Will finds a sweater in the box of crap that Melissa dropped off the night before. He falls to pieces because the sweater never belonged to him and was a gift that he once bought her. He drives over to her house to give it back and finds her sunbathing in a bikini on the front lawn. Tacky, n’est-ce pas? Will gets whatever the Sweet Valley version of a boner is while Melissa pretends to barely acknowledge him.
Later that evening, Will and Jessica go out to dinner. Jessica becomes angry when Will orders her meal and tells her which colleges to go to. They get into a big fight and Will screams, “God! Chill out, Melissa!” Jessica ends the date and demands that Will take her home.
Elizabeth spends the day sucking up to her parents and they agree to let her go to a party in Big Mesa with Conner. In a strange turn of events, they insist on formally meeting Conner before allowing the kids to go the party. So much for our familiar Sweet Valley, it was fun while it lasted…
Jessica goes with Elizabeth and Conner to the party and ends up running into Jeremy. Will shows up at the party and gets angry when he sees her with Jeremy. Will demands that she leave the party with him, but Jessica refuses. Jeremy stands up for her and Will gets ready to punch Jeremy. Jessica stops the potential fight.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Conner sneak upstairs into a bedroom to make out. The door to the bedroom opens and Tia walks in with a guy she just met. Conner is shocked to realize that Tia is cheating on her boyfriend who is away at college.
After Will storms out of the party, he goes crawling back to Melissa. Will basically admits to himself that Melissa is unstable but that he’s going back to her because it’s familiar and comfortable. Healthy!
Thankfully this torturous book is finally over!
Read on for the puzzling, insufferable, and mind-numbingly dull details…
The book opens with goofy diary entries. Jessica is tired of Elizabeth’s teen rebellion phase and thinks that her sister’s personality is changing for the worse. (Sadly, it’s not as exciting as the time Elizabeth let Bruce Patman caress her booby after her personality-changing motorcycle accident.) As Jessica eloquently describes it, “Kind of like if a cute little caterpillar broke out of its cocoon and it wasn’t a butterfly, but a dragonfly.”
Conner is a bit less philosophical and merely describes Elizabeth as an idiot. I bet Conner gets into Harvard. His agile young mind is wasted in Sweet Valley, or El Carro, or wherever the hell he’s supposed to live. (My apologies, this book makes me so irritable that I’m cursing like a Ned Wakefield.)
Elizabeth admits that her life is in shambles because of academics, her deteriorating relationship with her parents, and her less than sunny outlook on life. However, ElizaDITZ thinks that none of this matters now that she has Conner. Hmm, is that the old Sweet Valley poking it’s way into this alternate Sweet Valley-verse? Remember ladies, you are nothing without a boyfriend and don’t you forget it!
Thankfully we’re done with the opening diary entries. (But don’t be too thankful, there’s at least one before every chapter. There’s just no escape from mundane thoughts and teen angst!)
In the previous book, Elizabeth snuck out of the house while grounded to go to a party and got piss ass drunk. The cops came to break up the party and Conner uncharacteristically rescued her. This book opens with Conner driving Elizabeth back home.
The two spend the whole car ride thinking dirty thoughts about each other. They get to the Wakefields’ newly rebuilt (and hopefully more earthquake-proof) Spanish-style split level home, and Jessica is waiting to help sneak Elizabeth inside. Elizabeth plants a big smoocheroo on Conner and then gets busted by her parents.
Ned smells alcohol on Elizabeth’s breath and asks if she has been drinking. ElizaFIBS lies and Ned asks, “Then why do you smell like a distillery?” (Oh, why couldn’t he have substituted the word distillery with Kelly’s Bar?)
ElizaFIBS backpedals and lies that she only had “one little drink” hours ago. Ned flips the f**k out and yells, “One little drink! On a night when you were grounded. What the hell is going on here, Liz?”
Okay, so I have two problems here. First, is Ned implying that it’s okay for his kids to drink when they’re NOT grounded? Second, since when do Wakefields swear?
Ned threatens to ground her for the rest of the school year and suddenly ElizaFIBS becomes ElizaFITS. She throws a conniption and runs up to her room.
The next morning, a very hung over Elizabeth suffers through a hallway full of kids making fun of her dance moves. It seems she put on quite the show at last night’s party. (I really hope it was an Elaine Benes style dance complete with the thumbs.)
Conner is turned on by Elizabeth’s minor acts of rebellion from the night before and plants a smooch on her in the hallway. Her self-destructive plan to obtain a boyfriend worked! I hope all of you pathetic, boyfriend-less blemishes on society are taking notes.
It turns out that Elizabeth isn’t the only twin who understands the importance of snagging a boyfriend. Jessica is actually dating Will Simmons, the obnoxious twit of a football player who helped spread horrible rumors about her earlier in the school year.
They meet for lunch and Will asks her out on a date for that night. Will gets his pampers in a twist when Jessica refuses to break her plans to go shopping with Tia. Jessica absolutely refuses to bail on Tia, so there may be hope for her yet.
Suddenly, Jessica spots Will’s evil ex-girlfriend Melissa and her minions watching their exchange. Jessica makes an excuse to Will so that she can leave quickly before there’s a confrontation. Will is more concerned that his evil ex witnessed Jessica refusing to be a doormat. Where’s a pool push when we need one?
After that, there’s a boring scene where the guidance counselor breaks Andy’s little heart. (Think of Andy as Winston 2.0, as in he’s a slightly funnier and more likeable version of the original.) Anyway, the guidance counselor informs Andy that his choice colleges probably won’t accept him due to his mediocre grades and lack of extracurricular activities.
After school, Elizabeth can’t focus on her responsibilities as editor-in-chief of the Oracle, because she keeps mooning over Conner. His little sister doesn’t help matters when she informs Elizabeth that Conner’s been acting uncharacteristically goofy, smiley, and enthusiastic. Elizabeth just knows it’s because of her (and the a a a a a a alcohol.)
Elizabeth goes home and finally comes clean with Ned. He lectures her about thinking before acting. The final punishment is still up in the air. The suspense is literally boring me to tears.
Meanwhile, Jessica is at work at the House of Java and is having a hard time facing her co-worker Jeremy. She dumped Jeremy for that shithole Will. Things become more awkward when Will calls on the phone during Jessica’s shift and Jeremy answers.
The next day at school, Jessica convinces Elizabeth and Conner to go on a double date with her and Will. Conner is less than enthused, but agrees to go to be with Elizabeth. Jessica tells Will about the double date after school and he gets his pampers in a twist yet again. He whines a lot, but finally gives in to Jessica.
Jessica goes home and talks her parents into letting Elizabeth out of jail for the night. Instead, Ned and Alice basically let Elizabeth off the hook completely.
Ned stipulates, “You’ve got one month. In that month you have three conditions: You’ve got to pull up your grades, spend more time working on the Oracle, and get a job. If you agree to those conditions and show us some effort right away…then you’re officially ungrounded, and you can even go out on this double date with Jessica tonight.”
So, how exactly is Elizabeth supposed to show effort that she’s working on her academics, the newspaper, and finding a job in a matter of hours? I think that our beloved Sweet Valley may be infiltrating this alternate Sweet Valley-verse…
Before we go on the double date, we have to suffer through Andy’s depression over college admissions. He looks through a giant book of colleges and realizes that it will be a struggle to even get into the local community colleges. He doesn’t have the grades or SAT scores to qualify. Andy decides it’s time to start buckling down so that he can get into a good college. Unfortunately for him, he’s already halfway through his senior year. I also don’t understand how he wouldn’t be able to get into community college. Community colleges don’t necessarily require high grades or test scores…
And now on to the double date from Ned Wakefield’s hell! Will repeatedly tries to get Jessica to bail on Elizabeth and Conner in the middle of the date. After repeatedly refusing, Jessica finally responds, “You can push all you want, but you’re not going to talk me into this. I’m not Melissa!” Will storms out, stranding Jessica at the restaurant. Conner and Elizabeth end up driving Jessica home.
Will gets home in a foul mood and finds that Melissa dropped off a box of his things while he was out. Will gets all upset thinking that this means that Melissa is over him.
Jessica doormats a bit when she calls to apologize the next morning. Will acts a bit miffed but agrees to go out with her that night.
Will finds a sweater in the box of crap that Melissa dropped off the night before. He falls to pieces because the sweater never belonged to him and was a gift that he once bought her. He drives over to her house to give it back and finds her sunbathing in a bikini on the front lawn. Tacky, n’est-ce pas? Will gets whatever the Sweet Valley version of a boner is while Melissa pretends to barely acknowledge him.
Later that evening, Will and Jessica go out to dinner. Jessica becomes angry when Will orders her meal and tells her which colleges to go to. They get into a big fight and Will screams, “God! Chill out, Melissa!” Jessica ends the date and demands that Will take her home.
Elizabeth spends the day sucking up to her parents and they agree to let her go to a party in Big Mesa with Conner. In a strange turn of events, they insist on formally meeting Conner before allowing the kids to go the party. So much for our familiar Sweet Valley, it was fun while it lasted…
Jessica goes with Elizabeth and Conner to the party and ends up running into Jeremy. Will shows up at the party and gets angry when he sees her with Jeremy. Will demands that she leave the party with him, but Jessica refuses. Jeremy stands up for her and Will gets ready to punch Jeremy. Jessica stops the potential fight.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Conner sneak upstairs into a bedroom to make out. The door to the bedroom opens and Tia walks in with a guy she just met. Conner is shocked to realize that Tia is cheating on her boyfriend who is away at college.
After Will storms out of the party, he goes crawling back to Melissa. Will basically admits to himself that Melissa is unstable but that he’s going back to her because it’s familiar and comfortable. Healthy!
Thankfully this torturous book is finally over!