SVH:SY #2: Say It to My Face
My first recap, people, so please be gentle! I hope the snark is satisfactory. There is so much to mock. The Elizabeth series and some SVT are next on my list.
Well, I never really got into Senior Year. Mostly coz it was the type of series where you had to read every book to be able to keep up, unlike SVH. Oh, and it was all angst. Over-reacting to shit is like a full-time job with these losers.
Still, I saw this at the library and thought, what the hell. It's SVH for the 21st century! And some girl called Lisa has written on the sheet glued to the first page and says she was "first to write on this sheet. SHAME TO YOU!" She's 12 and thinks she's awesome coz she wrote on a bit of paper first. *slow clap* I was 12 when SVH:SY first came out, and I hope I wasn't this lame.
Character assassination, karma, and bitchy cheerleaders abound. But no pool-pushing. Drat.
The blue eyes on all these people scare me. Jessica's quite pretty though. Will looks like a boy band member.
The book begins with several characters' handwritten notes about what they think love is. How coincidental that they're all writing about the same thing, yet have such different opinions on it! Jessica thinks loves is about letting yourself go (heh, fatty) and letting the other person catch you. Oh, THAT kind of letting yourself go. I was so hoping for the end of the perfect size-six figure. Elizabeth thinks love is about trust. Emo Conner thinks love stinks. Maria doesn't know coz she's never experienced it (at the grand old age of 17? Surely not! Especially in Sweet Valley). Melissa Fox thinks love is forgiveness.
They're wrong. Love is sexy lingerie and a lot of wine. You have much to learn, kids.
A PLOT
Jess is feeling weird coz Melissa and her henchmen are whispering about her in the cafeteria. She tears up thinking about Will and what a meanie he was to her. She walks into class and- oh noes! Written across the blackboard are the words "Jessica Wakefield is a slut."
Gasp! Jessica could never be a slut! She's never dated the whole football team, or flirted with college guys with pornstaches, stolen someone's boyfriend or even fiancé... wait. She never had sex with them, though, right? Sexual favours maybe, but sex? NEVER! So this is just mean.
Jessica can't cope with the facts and runs away to cry. Again. She cries a lot. Lila follows her to check if she's okay, but actually, Lila doesn't exactly care. See, Melissa wants Lila and Amy to hang out with her. Amy agrees immediately, being the vapid, friend ditching bitch that she is, but Lila takes longer to decide. She finally chooses to go with Melissa, coz in all the time she has been friends with Jessica, no one has ever looked at them and chosen Lila. Clearly, she’s never read 1bruce1. Lila, honey, you are made of win! We all think so!
Anyway, Jess cried in the toilets for 40 minutes. Liz tries to make her feel better by telling her she always overreacts to social dramas. Thanks, Captain Obvious. Jess rolls her eyes. Liz doesn't get it. This is REALLY bad. Like, worse than crying attempted rape. Liz reminds her of the Bridgewater game last year when Jess fell down the stairs (WTF?), and was so embarrassed she skipped Lila's party (oh come on, it's not like Lila wouldn't have had another one). But seriously, did this ever happen? Of all the embarrassing stuff that happened to the twins over 200 or so SVH books, did the ghostwriter seriously feel they had to make up something entirely new?! Apparently after awhile no one mentioned the trip again. Makes sense, coz SVH has a habit of forgetting shit that happened 2 books ago.
Jess fights with Lila. I side with Lila. Jessica thinks fondly of Janet Howell, and how upfront she was about her bitchiness, rather than being sneaky.
Jess tries out for the cheerleading squad, but Melissa messes with her tape (lolz @ cassettes- Jess even has a Walkman) and her song doesn’t match her routine. She cries again. However, she still gets in because she’s Jessica Wakefield. Her sub-par performance isn’t enough to fail her when she has blonde hair, blue-green eyes, and a perfect size six figure (which, BTW is never mentioned *holy moly*).
Jess goes to Todd to convince him she's not a slut and tell him to pass the message along to all the other guys. However, Todd believes the rumour. Ha. Final revenge for accusing him of attempted rape, Jess. This is truckloads of slapper karma. Jess realises that she is all alone, no one is standing up for her, and she sucks at life. The tears flow AGAIN. Wuss.
The great irony is that Jess has been easier to date than a calendar, but in this case she is totally innocent and even stopped Will from doing her in the first book. But that's how life is. Completely backwards.
B PLOT
Book opens with Liz, who has just walked in on Conner naked in a towel after getting out of the shower. Apparently he's her new housemate, coz she's just moved in with some random sophomore named Megan, and Conner's her half brother. Did Megan forget to mention this? Oops! Anyway, Lizzie thinks Naked Conner is sexy. Dear God, some hormones? They argue in a sexually-charged way, and Conner thinks she's weird coz she didn't leave the bathroom right away. Perhaps he doesn't realise that Liz has never seen a naked man. All the guys at SVH were like Ken dolls, with smooth bits instead of fun parts. Sex drives are usually confiscated at the town border.
Anyway, later Liz meets Conner's friends Tia, Andy and Angel. Whenever I hear Angel's name I think of Buffy. Did they just name him this to be modern? All the names here are pretty newfangled. Guess 'Enid' was too outdated. Cool names must mean cool personality, because Liz ditches an Oracle meeting, where she's now the editor, to go hang out with them. Mr Collins is disappointed (yeah, I bet). Megan is too. Megan reminds Liz of herself as a sophomore. Mostly coz Megan has a crush on Mr Collins, and Liz did too. HAHA! I so knew it.
When Maria says she likes Conner, Liz gets muchly jealous. She sees them making out on the couch and has an internal freakout. Liz decides to move out coz she can’t deal with Conner/Maria. She asks Enid if she can move into Enid's house. Enid is doubtful. Who would want to live with Liz? Enid is now a modern-style loser. She had a Xena marathon last night with her friend who has every episode on tape. Xena is awesome, but something about this hints 'lesbian'. Ha ha, no DVD box set. Then they went online and hung out with these really cute guys. Or Enid thinks they were cute *giggle*. Ugh.
Conner comes into Liz’s bedroom that night to apologise and says she makes flannel look sexy. Ew. Liz wants to kiss him, but then notices his "sour breath". She wriggles away in fear. *LAUGHTER!* The breath is due to alcohol though, and is not something that occurs in Conner naturally. Damn. It would have been great to see how Lizzie coped with something like bad breath in a guy. She'd probably cheat on him.
Liz tells Enid that she doesn’t need to move in anymore. She likes the possibility of Conner nookie.
C PLOT (links with B plot)
Maria Slater feels like a geek coz she's staying home to write her Stanford essays. Which she is. Plus she worries that Elizabeth is making new friends and ignoring her. Which she is. Gosh, Maria, you know you're a loser when even Saint Elizabeth of Sweet Valley is bored with you. Maria sees Conner across the hall and he checks her out.
Then, when Maria is out with Liz &co at Riot, feeling like a dweeb, she meets up with Conner and they kiss. Then later, they make out on the couch. Maria then thinks Conner is her boyfriend. Conner is concerned at this high-maintenance. Wait till you get with Liz, Conner! Maria is cruisy! Thankfully, they've kept a grain of consistency with Maria by mentioning her career as a child star. She mentions it to crack onto Conner (*snort*) and she goes to drama class at school.
Stupidest Moments
-Maria thinking how drama class always involves acting exercises where you interpret random words like 'amoeba'. They really do that at SVH? Drama class is way cooler than that.
- Liz's thoughts about her new home. New people. New rules. Like always knock before entering a room. Liz, you should always knock. Basic politeness. It will stand you in good stead for life. Moron.
- Liz’s creative writing. She is made of fail. Her ‘character study’ in her fiction class is named Lea Jessup. Lea is good friends with Mara Sanders. She proceeds to write about how Lea is getting bored with her and Mara’s tired old friendship, because cool new people are around. Perhaps Liz needs to look up “fiction” in the dictionary.
- The sheer existence of Riot. An all ages rave club. It's, like, so scene. Rave is the new disco. Or whatevs. Like, omigod, I'm such a hip ghostwriter, I know all the cool jams, like. Am I awesome yet? Should I make them OD on E? It's be like Heroically Deaf Regina, but hipper. Coke is so yesterday.
- We discover Liz works at the House of Java. Since when does a Wakefield work for a living? Don't people just throw money at them for being 37 different kinds of awesome or something? Ew.
- Conner’s mum is a drunk. Did they have a list of angsty issues to include in these books? Alcoholism, being gay, sex, abuse, neglect, divorce, and thirty-seven different kinds of teen angst. Sigh.
- Tia: “I really like Elizabeth. She seems so… not fake.” No snarky comment needed here. Tia will learn.
Well, I never really got into Senior Year. Mostly coz it was the type of series where you had to read every book to be able to keep up, unlike SVH. Oh, and it was all angst. Over-reacting to shit is like a full-time job with these losers.
Still, I saw this at the library and thought, what the hell. It's SVH for the 21st century! And some girl called Lisa has written on the sheet glued to the first page and says she was "first to write on this sheet. SHAME TO YOU!" She's 12 and thinks she's awesome coz she wrote on a bit of paper first. *slow clap* I was 12 when SVH:SY first came out, and I hope I wasn't this lame.
Character assassination, karma, and bitchy cheerleaders abound. But no pool-pushing. Drat.
The blue eyes on all these people scare me. Jessica's quite pretty though. Will looks like a boy band member.
The book begins with several characters' handwritten notes about what they think love is. How coincidental that they're all writing about the same thing, yet have such different opinions on it! Jessica thinks loves is about letting yourself go (heh, fatty) and letting the other person catch you. Oh, THAT kind of letting yourself go. I was so hoping for the end of the perfect size-six figure. Elizabeth thinks love is about trust. Emo Conner thinks love stinks. Maria doesn't know coz she's never experienced it (at the grand old age of 17? Surely not! Especially in Sweet Valley). Melissa Fox thinks love is forgiveness.
They're wrong. Love is sexy lingerie and a lot of wine. You have much to learn, kids.
A PLOT
Jess is feeling weird coz Melissa and her henchmen are whispering about her in the cafeteria. She tears up thinking about Will and what a meanie he was to her. She walks into class and- oh noes! Written across the blackboard are the words "Jessica Wakefield is a slut."
Gasp! Jessica could never be a slut! She's never dated the whole football team, or flirted with college guys with pornstaches, stolen someone's boyfriend or even fiancé... wait. She never had sex with them, though, right? Sexual favours maybe, but sex? NEVER! So this is just mean.
Jessica can't cope with the facts and runs away to cry. Again. She cries a lot. Lila follows her to check if she's okay, but actually, Lila doesn't exactly care. See, Melissa wants Lila and Amy to hang out with her. Amy agrees immediately, being the vapid, friend ditching bitch that she is, but Lila takes longer to decide. She finally chooses to go with Melissa, coz in all the time she has been friends with Jessica, no one has ever looked at them and chosen Lila. Clearly, she’s never read 1bruce1. Lila, honey, you are made of win! We all think so!
Anyway, Jess cried in the toilets for 40 minutes. Liz tries to make her feel better by telling her she always overreacts to social dramas. Thanks, Captain Obvious. Jess rolls her eyes. Liz doesn't get it. This is REALLY bad. Like, worse than crying attempted rape. Liz reminds her of the Bridgewater game last year when Jess fell down the stairs (WTF?), and was so embarrassed she skipped Lila's party (oh come on, it's not like Lila wouldn't have had another one). But seriously, did this ever happen? Of all the embarrassing stuff that happened to the twins over 200 or so SVH books, did the ghostwriter seriously feel they had to make up something entirely new?! Apparently after awhile no one mentioned the trip again. Makes sense, coz SVH has a habit of forgetting shit that happened 2 books ago.
Jess fights with Lila. I side with Lila. Jessica thinks fondly of Janet Howell, and how upfront she was about her bitchiness, rather than being sneaky.
Jess tries out for the cheerleading squad, but Melissa messes with her tape (lolz @ cassettes- Jess even has a Walkman) and her song doesn’t match her routine. She cries again. However, she still gets in because she’s Jessica Wakefield. Her sub-par performance isn’t enough to fail her when she has blonde hair, blue-green eyes, and a perfect size six figure (which, BTW is never mentioned *holy moly*).
Jess goes to Todd to convince him she's not a slut and tell him to pass the message along to all the other guys. However, Todd believes the rumour. Ha. Final revenge for accusing him of attempted rape, Jess. This is truckloads of slapper karma. Jess realises that she is all alone, no one is standing up for her, and she sucks at life. The tears flow AGAIN. Wuss.
The great irony is that Jess has been easier to date than a calendar, but in this case she is totally innocent and even stopped Will from doing her in the first book. But that's how life is. Completely backwards.
B PLOT
Book opens with Liz, who has just walked in on Conner naked in a towel after getting out of the shower. Apparently he's her new housemate, coz she's just moved in with some random sophomore named Megan, and Conner's her half brother. Did Megan forget to mention this? Oops! Anyway, Lizzie thinks Naked Conner is sexy. Dear God, some hormones? They argue in a sexually-charged way, and Conner thinks she's weird coz she didn't leave the bathroom right away. Perhaps he doesn't realise that Liz has never seen a naked man. All the guys at SVH were like Ken dolls, with smooth bits instead of fun parts. Sex drives are usually confiscated at the town border.
Anyway, later Liz meets Conner's friends Tia, Andy and Angel. Whenever I hear Angel's name I think of Buffy. Did they just name him this to be modern? All the names here are pretty newfangled. Guess 'Enid' was too outdated. Cool names must mean cool personality, because Liz ditches an Oracle meeting, where she's now the editor, to go hang out with them. Mr Collins is disappointed (yeah, I bet). Megan is too. Megan reminds Liz of herself as a sophomore. Mostly coz Megan has a crush on Mr Collins, and Liz did too. HAHA! I so knew it.
When Maria says she likes Conner, Liz gets muchly jealous. She sees them making out on the couch and has an internal freakout. Liz decides to move out coz she can’t deal with Conner/Maria. She asks Enid if she can move into Enid's house. Enid is doubtful. Who would want to live with Liz? Enid is now a modern-style loser. She had a Xena marathon last night with her friend who has every episode on tape. Xena is awesome, but something about this hints 'lesbian'. Ha ha, no DVD box set. Then they went online and hung out with these really cute guys. Or Enid thinks they were cute *giggle*. Ugh.
Conner comes into Liz’s bedroom that night to apologise and says she makes flannel look sexy. Ew. Liz wants to kiss him, but then notices his "sour breath". She wriggles away in fear. *LAUGHTER!* The breath is due to alcohol though, and is not something that occurs in Conner naturally. Damn. It would have been great to see how Lizzie coped with something like bad breath in a guy. She'd probably cheat on him.
Liz tells Enid that she doesn’t need to move in anymore. She likes the possibility of Conner nookie.
C PLOT (links with B plot)
Maria Slater feels like a geek coz she's staying home to write her Stanford essays. Which she is. Plus she worries that Elizabeth is making new friends and ignoring her. Which she is. Gosh, Maria, you know you're a loser when even Saint Elizabeth of Sweet Valley is bored with you. Maria sees Conner across the hall and he checks her out.
Then, when Maria is out with Liz &co at Riot, feeling like a dweeb, she meets up with Conner and they kiss. Then later, they make out on the couch. Maria then thinks Conner is her boyfriend. Conner is concerned at this high-maintenance. Wait till you get with Liz, Conner! Maria is cruisy! Thankfully, they've kept a grain of consistency with Maria by mentioning her career as a child star. She mentions it to crack onto Conner (*snort*) and she goes to drama class at school.
Stupidest Moments
-Maria thinking how drama class always involves acting exercises where you interpret random words like 'amoeba'. They really do that at SVH? Drama class is way cooler than that.
- Liz's thoughts about her new home. New people. New rules. Like always knock before entering a room. Liz, you should always knock. Basic politeness. It will stand you in good stead for life. Moron.
- Liz’s creative writing. She is made of fail. Her ‘character study’ in her fiction class is named Lea Jessup. Lea is good friends with Mara Sanders. She proceeds to write about how Lea is getting bored with her and Mara’s tired old friendship, because cool new people are around. Perhaps Liz needs to look up “fiction” in the dictionary.
- The sheer existence of Riot. An all ages rave club. It's, like, so scene. Rave is the new disco. Or whatevs. Like, omigod, I'm such a hip ghostwriter, I know all the cool jams, like. Am I awesome yet? Should I make them OD on E? It's be like Heroically Deaf Regina, but hipper. Coke is so yesterday.
- We discover Liz works at the House of Java. Since when does a Wakefield work for a living? Don't people just throw money at them for being 37 different kinds of awesome or something? Ew.
- Conner’s mum is a drunk. Did they have a list of angsty issues to include in these books? Alcoholism, being gay, sex, abuse, neglect, divorce, and thirty-seven different kinds of teen angst. Sigh.
- Tia: “I really like Elizabeth. She seems so… not fake.” No snarky comment needed here. Tia will learn.