* Photo credit to The Closet *
Cara Walker’s face is weird. At first glance, she looks pretty, but then if you keep looking, she looks annoying, as if she’s making some horrible, irritating sound like, “ennnnnhhhhh.” Steven Wakefield has about as much emotion on his face as a log.
So can Cara make Steven forget Tricia Martin? I’m gonna say no. In fact, it’s sort of sad how a corpse will be Cara’s main competition not once, not twice, but three fucking times. I’m sure I’m missing a few.
The book opens with “Steven! What’s wrong?” What the hell is always wrong with Steven? He’s still moping about his dead girlfriend, Tricia Martin, partly in thanks to Tricia’s sister Betsy, who likes to make Steven feel like shit for liking Cara and then convinces him to come over to her house and look at Tricia’s baby pictures and talk about how she was a robin in a third-grade play. But as far as Betsy is concerned, “Tricia can live on, but only as long as we remember her.” And so Steven continues to mourn. He goes to a high school dance (at which the Droids play!) without a date and no other college guys are there, so he’s pretty much a freak. Cara approaches him and he treats her like a dog turd, which only sets the trend for future books.
Liz thinks that Steven’s taking this woe-is-me act a little far, but she doesn’t share Jess’s belief that Cara would be perfect for Steven: “Cara has pulled too many nasty stunts and told too many secrets for me to think she’d be a match for Steve.” Like what, exactly? That’s such bull shit, and Jess calls her on it: “Everyone thinks you’re so kind and generous, Liz. But you refuse to give Cara the benefit of the doubt. You were ready to forgive Betsy Martin anything but just because Cara’s made a few little mistakes, she’s not good enough for you.” WORD. Of course Liz sidesteps the whole very true accusation. Then Jess, surprisingly the voice of reason in this story, reminds Steven, “Remember Cara’s got one advantage over Tricia. She’s alive.” Burn!
Steven admits to himself that “he had tried to hold firmly onto [Tricia’s] memory, but with each passing day, she became more difficult to cling to.” Don’t worry, dude; the feeling you’re experiencing won’t last. So he asks Cara on a picnic (yet she’s the one who’s stuck bringing all the food — he’s such a douche), and then he takes her out for her birthday and totally effs her over: They wind up at a restaurant he and Tricia used to go to (which shouldn’t be a surprise, since the people in Sweet Valley go to the same places all the time) and when he hears a song that he and Tricia used to dance to, he flees the restaurant, abandoning Cara on the dance floor, and she has to pay for a cab to come and pick her up. I want to punch Steven in the face.
So then Liz takes it upon herself to drive over to the Martins’ disgusting little house on the bad side of town and give Betsy Martin a lecture on how she’s ruining her brother’s life. Betsy sees the light (thanks to Liz!) and draws up portraits of Steven and Cara and arranges a meeting between the two of them so that Mr. Collins’ son Teddy can — for reasons unknown — give the pictures to them, along with Betsy’s blessing for them to date. Then Cara and Steven make out, with Steven feeling like “Tricia were smiling down on them.” Gross.
Meanwhile, Liz is pining for Todd Wilkins, who, as you might recall, recently moved to Vermont to get high, wear Birkenstocks, and eat Ben & Jerry’s. (Or so I imagine.) I thought at the end of the last book, they were over and done with this, but the way this book is phrased, their relationship is still very up in the air. Whatevs. But then she starts seeing this dude who looks exactly like Todd. This is getting ridiculous. How many people in the world look exactly like someone else, and they all wind up living in the same town? Sweet Valley is like the Twilight Zone and the Hellmouth all rolled into one. It turns out that this cat’s name is Michael Sellers, and he’s on Big Mesa’s volleyball team. Liz is all sorts of optimistic about their union, but it turns out he’s an arrogant bastard…who litters! And that’s the end of him.
And as for Jess, she gets wind that Winston Egbert has a famous movie director uncle coming to visit, so she makes every effort to rub all up on him. She eagerly volunteers to work on an English project with Winston, and is always hanging around him to the point where people start thinking that she has the hots for him. (I wish.) Jess goes over to Winston’s house and corners his uncle, who talks vaguely about his job, which suggests that this isn’t going to go well. He offers to show her “the concept” when she expresses interest, and that concept is a report called “Strategies for Waste Disposal in Los Angeles County.” Oh, snap! It turns out that the famous uncle couldn’t make it that week, so the Egbert household had to settle for the unfamous one. How sitcom!
Other Notes:
- Emily Mayer’s step-mom is named Karen, and the new baby sister is also named Karen. For one, that is wildly unoriginal, even for Sweet Valley High, and second, the new baby sister is suddenly named Karrie just one book later.What the hell? Why is it so hard to be consistent? This is ridiculous. Francine should’ve hired fact checkers or something.
- “[Liz] leaned over to kiss [Steven], once more wishing she could do more.” Kiss where? Do more what? This family scares me.
- Liz is arrogant enough to go up to Cara to say that she didn’t think the girl was right for her brother before, but now approves, and Cara acts so freaking overjoyed about it. The fuckin’ stones on this Wakefield girl, I tell you.
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