* Photo credit to The Closet *
Let’s get the pesky moral out of the way: Even if you’re unhappy with how you look, it’s best to just be yourself and work with what you got. But only if you’re a hot, blond, privileged twin. If you’re a Fatty Fattington like Robin Wilson or a gangly, glasses-wearing loserface like Lynne Henry, then change should definitely be embraced.
That hideous hipster standing next to Liz is none other than the infamous J. Wakefield. Yes, she dyes her hair pitch black in this story, and yet nobody has taken into account how horrible that would look with the twins’ coloring. (See? I’m giving away the whole book right now. You don’t even have to read the recap!) Jess is also decked out in flea market jewelry that she considers European. Oh, Jess, you sweet little fool.
Liz is writing in her diary “about her new feelings for [her new boyfriend] Jeffrey French” (“The funny thing is that I feel so much more alive—so much more myself” [gag]) when Jess comes in talking about how fat she is. How unusual! Jess then lapses in to how pissed she is that people keep calling her “Twin Number Two”—so yeah, she’s mad for basically the same reason she was mad about ten books ago.
Sick of her identity crisis and having people think she’s Liz, she gives herself “a slinky, mysterious makeover” with Lila Fowler’s help. They dye her hair with shampoo-in black hair color and outline her eyes in black pencil, and she starts wearing “dull-red lipstick,” a purple jumpsuit, and lizard boots. This all sounds cheap and crappy! She also starts speaking “faintly Britishly,” resolves to eat only carrots and yogurt to lose five pounds (because “gaunt” is so in vogue), and thinks the word “actually” is sooo British. Goodbye to Sandra Dee!
Liz actually bawls when she sees Jess. Betrayed, she writes in her journal, “I can’t believe Jess would do a thing like this to me!” I feel sorry for that diary being filled up with such crap. In fact, Liz sobs the shit out of this story, especially in her diary, which she leaves in The Oracle office and it disappears. My God, that’s so dangerous—someone could read it and die of boredom!
Aside from Liz, everyone is totally awed by Jess’s new look, including Jeffrey French, who makes the mistake of telling Liz that he likes how she and Jess look different. Liz immediately starts jumping to conclusions (“Jeffrey really didn’t care for her at all—he was much more interested in Jessica,” she decides) and picks a bunch of fights in the first official book of their relationship. Now we know the reason why Liz and Todd were always fighting! Mystery solved. Liz starts purposely avoiding Jeffrey, even though he attempts to call her out on her bullshit: “I’m not going to just stand here and let you make a complete fool out of me!”
Then Liz tells Jess that Jeffrey is all into her now, and Jess actually starts pondering the idea of dating him. At first I thought that was a lame thing to do, but then why not? Liz started dating Todd and Nicholas after Jess pined for them first. Then again, Jess wants everyone. Liz is all, “Why didn’t Jeffrey call? Wouldn’t he call to apologize?” I think the ghostwriter deliberately tries to make us hate Liz. Meanwhile, Jess tries to put the moves on Jeffrey, but he’s too “Mope mope I’m nuts about Liz Y IZ SHE MAD @ ME?!” to notice, so she backs off.
DeeDee Gordon thinks Jess should be a model and sends her to her talent scout father Simon Avery, clearly forgetting the time Jess hogged her boyfriend Bill Chase. Jess is up for a modeling gig at a department store—how European! She starts calling herself Jessa Fields and drags Liz to her modeling audition or whatever, but Simon Avery sees Liz and decides that Liz’s look is perfect. Of course!
It turns out Penny Ayala, the editor-in-chief of The Oracle, had Liz’s diary by accident. After she drops it off at the Wakefields’, Jess reads it and realizes how much PAIN Liz is in in regards to her new look. She changes back to her old self after watching old home movies of her and Liz being oh so cute and identical. Liz and Jess make up, Liz and Jeffrey make up, Jess scores the modeling gig, and Liz gets to be in the show as well, and Jessa Fields tumbles into the abyss.
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