#76 - Miss Teen Sweet Valley

* Photo credit to The Closet *

So here we have Jess, clutching a hand mirror and wearing a dress that appears to resemble a ballet tutu I used to prance around the house in when I was five. Liz looks especially condescending and annoying, hovering around Jess like a disapproving harpie. Shut up, Liz! I can’t believe the recap hasn’t yet begun and I’m already saying that.

Jessica is in despair—her brother Steven’s college friend Frazer McConnell is so foxy but he doesn’t seem to know she’s alive. What’s a girl to do? Why, join the Miss Teen Sweet Valley pageant, of course! Jess is wooed by the promised “wonderful prizes” and the oodles of fame she’s sure to acquire. Yes, she’s positive she has the contest all wrapped up: “It was hard to keep her intention of entering, and winning, to herself… If the other candidates knew Jessica was entering, they were bound to get discouraged and withdraw. In that case, either the pageant would be canceled or Jessica would win simply because she was the only person in the contest.” Oh, give me a break. “One look at [Jess] and the judges would know she was born to be Miss Teen Sweet Valley.” My God, the ego on this one.

However, Liz decides to protest the pageant because she thinks it’s sexist and wrong to judge people on how they look. I don’t know why Liz is so up in arms—isn’t she like, one of the hottest people in the world? Shut up, Liz. She’s even got her little lackey Todd Wilkins to help her make picket signs, like Todd actually gives a crap. She’s all, “If I have anything to say about it, there won’t be a beauty pageant in Sweet Valley. Not this year, not next year, not ever.” Because she’s king and tyrant of Planet Earth, y’all. She also starts in with her “I have certain principles to uphold both as a woman and a journalist” bee ess. PFFF. Amy Sutton, one of the contestants, for once says something I agree with: “Have you ever heard the saying, ‘Live and let live’? Nobody’s forcing you to attend the pageant. I just don’t understand why you’d want to spoil it for everybody else.” But Liz just smiles and continues to bother people at the mall with her “Let’s Hate on Beauty Pageants” petition. Gah.

Jess takes up modern dance classes in secret to help her with the talent portion of the contest, but her dance teacher Mr. Krezenski says she dances like a “drunken moose” and is overall a cranky mean bastard to her! But we learn that it’s only because Jess is so good, he just wants her to strive to do her best and not be lazy. I hate when people validate the twins. Speaking of the terrible two, the war between the girls continues to escalate, and Liz’s trite Oracle article “Why Beauty Pageants Should Be Outlawed” gets published in The Sweet Valley News. Then the twins get to go on the news to debate their POVs—this shows how famous this feud is! This also shows what a slow news day in Sweet Valley looks like.

Liz begins to cave, however, when she takes into account how much the pageant means to Jess, especially after Enid Rollins gives it to her straight: “Let’s face it, Liz: We’re not talking greenhouse effect here, or the destruction of Brazilian rain forests.” Word. Her vigor about her protest starts to ebb until she’s actually sitting in the audience at the pageant. Then! Jess falls during her dance routine and flees, vowing never to return to finish that pageant. Liz then steps backstage, shimmies into her sister’s bathing suit and heels, and struts around the stage half dressed on her sister’s behalf. What love she has for her twin! The girls make up, and then Jess comes back, finishes the pageant…and wins! I bet you didn’t see that coming.

However, the win is bittersweet, because it turns out those “wonderful prizes” equal “a haircut at the new styling salon at the mall, a month’s free bowling at Al’s Alley, a set of encyclopedias, a twenty-five-dollar gift certificate from Things for Girls, ten free movie rentals at Quick-dash, and a cash prize of one hundred dollars.” Ouch, considering Jess expected to be driving off in a brand new car with bags embroidered with giant dollar signs piled up in the backseat. However, Frazer McConnell (with his “blinding, white-fire smile”) does end up asking Jess out, even though he’s shown zero interest in her up until this point. More validation!

This book contains a reader of the month winner! Check out this gem:

I sigh with happiness, close my novel, and put it in my bookcase… I have just finished a Sweet Valley High book.

Already this is so over the top! She must’ve picked up writing tips from that aforementioned SVH book.

You must think me a terrible bookworm…. I don’t really look like a bookworm…I have blue eyes and light brown, curly hair.

I love how having blue eyes and light brown, curly hair = not a bookworm. Just like hair like the sun coupled with Pacific blue eyes and a perfect size-six figure = soulless.

In conclusion: