#85 – Soap Star

* Photo credit to The Closet *

This cover bores me! It has me once again wondering why everyone thinks the Wakefield girls are so hot. And that guy—Brandon Hunter, soap star extraordinaire—is supposed to be a heartthrob. NERD! He ain’t fine. And I disapprove of the shape of his hair.

The caption queries, “Will fame ruin Jessica?” as if to suggest Jessica hasn’t already be ruined by some preexisting force.

The soap opera, The Young and the Beautiful (was that really the best they could come up with?), holds an open audition for blonde twins with blue eyes and size-six figures. Sorry, I’m afraid we don’t know anyone like that. Jess begs and begs Liz to try out with her, but Liz thinks it’s sexist and moronic. So Jess whips up a crafty little plan and takes Liz to the audition under the guise that it’s a research discussion group for identical twins. When Liz figures out what the haps are, she blows a gasket in front of the casting director and storms out on Jess, and the girls get hired on the spot because the casting director (who has My Little Pony hair) thinks their “audition” was so innovative. Can you imagine if people were constantly trying to audition in innovative ways? I’m exhausted and annoyed just thinking about it.

Liz refuses to speak to Jess or do the show, so in the meantime Jess goes out with her co-star Brandon Hunter, who is twenty-two but all the “older” guys act like skeezy middle-aged men. He dotes on her and charms her with his life stories, which are rip-offs of famous scenes from classic novels. The paparazzi are snapping their cuddly pictures left and right, making Jess’s boyfriend Sam Woodruff feel like such shit that he actually shows up on Jess’s doorstep dressed like Batman, begging for just a bit of her attention.

Jess finally gets Liz to do the show by putting together a portfolio of Liz’s Oracle articles and sending them along with a query letter to the L.A. Times, which calls Liz and begs her to write about her experiences on the show. (Because course a big paper would jump at the chance to help a Wakefield! It was a foolproof plan!) Liz agrees to it at last (you wouldn’t believe how long she held out for—like half the book!) and the twins start filming their scenes, and they’re naturals, of course, even Liz, who is too good to act. But Brandon Hunter sucks at his craft and acts like a whiny little baby on set, and I can’t believe they don’t just fire him and replace him with someone else who’s equally fine and lame. He’s only twenty-two! Why is the show all about him and kissing his ass?

After overhearing a conversation during which Brandon was bragging about bagging her for publicity, Jess realizes that he’s a creep sandwich and immediately regrets breaking up with Sam, which she did a night or so ago on the beach regarding her swelled ego and the fact that the tabloids are all suggesting that she and Brandon are doin’ it and doin’ it and doin’ it well. So she and Liz concoct this plan to screw up Brandon on the set, which they do, and His Highness reviews the scenes, hates them because he looks stupid, and now they have to film the scene live. Jess senses her opportunity and during the scene—in which Brandon picks her over Liz—she flings a glass of water in his face, calls him a jerk, and confesses she’s always loved Sam. Burn, baby, burn. Then Jess and Sam make up, the twins give up their careers to focus on being high school students, and all is well in Sweet Valley.

Other Notes:

• This book marks the end of the Fiat’s reign and the purch-ass of the twins’ hot little Jeep. The world/series is changing as we know it.
• Why is nothing ever about Lila Fowler anymore? I’m tired of her being Jess’s sidekick!

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