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#111 – A Deadly Christmas

111. A Deadly Christmas

* Photo credit to The Closet *

My, what a cozy fire…made only more beautiful as it creeps toward a Wakefield twin. Why is Jessica wearing such a horrible outfit? And why do her legs look like they’re levitating?

111. A Deadly Christmas

So the back cover inquires, “Is Jeremy the man of Jessica’s dreams—or her nightmares?” Based on the fact that Jess is about to be burnt to a crisp on the front cover and this book isn’t called Happy Lollipop Christmas, I’m gonna have to go with her nightmares.

Jess knows that the Sue Gibbons’ kidnapper is her beloved fiance Jeremy Randall based on the douchey ring he was wearing on his pinky in the video, but she shakes off that fact because, well, she’s delusional. There really is no other reason, and this is only the start to all the “WTF” moments in this book. Anyway, Jeremy finally waltzes in the door around midnight after he realizes that the ransom money the Wakefields gave him is fake and he can’t escape to some Club Med just yet. He must wait a week until the inheritance is deposited into Sue’s bank account, and he plans to take it using a little computer magic or something.

Meanwhile, Jeremy’s got some time to kill, which he plans to devote to obtaining the Holy Grail—a.k.a. nailing a Wakefield for real real. The stones on this guy! He’s all, “I just don’t know if I can wait until our wedding night to show you how much I love you.” (It’s even sicker when you remember Jess is sixteen and he’s seven years older, and right after their date, he goes off to grope Sue in a hammock.) And Jessica truly, truly anticipates giving up her V-card to this clown. She even rushes out to buy sexy lingerie for the event and wants Whitney Houston to be her background sex music! I’m dying here thinking of Jess doing it (in romantic slow motion!) to “I Will Always Love You.” Actually, I’m impressed (and greatly relieved) that the book doesn’t get too preachy about sex education: Jess is more excited about sex than scared of it and doesn’t stress about buying condoms, and the real moral is “Have sex if you must—just don’t screw criminals!” (Instead, we should screw all-American high school quarterbacks, such as Ken Matthews, who recently broke up with Terri Adams and is now following Jess around like a puppy, giving her roses, and making her blush.)

Oh, geez, I can’t even go on—the whole storyline is so unnecessarily convoluted. Anyway, Sue gets jealous that Jeremy is so convincing when he pretends he’s in love with Jess, and when she finds out he plans on hittin’ that too, she goes to Jess and confesses the whole sordid story and Jess spends a few days crying about it. She and Liz try to go to the authorities but of course no one believes them—stupid adults! Don’t they know that Sweet Valley teenagers are always right?

And even after all this, Sue continues to see Jeremy—but then she finds his one-way plane ticket and a newspaper clipping that he just happens to carry around with him of him marrying an heiress. She switches her allegiance to the twins, and the three of them use The Oracle’s INFOMAX to learn that Jeremy is a “career criminal” (which makes all his faux pas in the previous book even more embarrassingly amateurish) whose name isn’t Jeremy at all. It turns out he’s been operating under at least two other aliases and smooth-talked a couple chicks out of their fortunes and vanished. As if that wasn’t ridonculous enough, one of the chicks didn’t even press charges against him (she was too embarrassed to go to the cops!), actually never bothered to divorce him, and now has no money! Get it together, girl!

The twins get the useless private detective from the previous story involved for no real reason that I can see and whip up this plan that involves Jessica telling Jeremy that she still loves Jeremy even though she knows all about him. She begs him to take her with him when he makes his escape and he reluctantly agrees. For some reason, they go to the Nature Cabin, where it’s conveniently snowing like whoa in southern California, and Liz, Sue, the detective, and poor Todd Wilkins (who somehow got roped into this) trail them but get into some car trouble (thanks to that darn snow!). Jeremy plans to screw Jess and then kill her, but when he sees her attempting to call the police, they get into a scuffle and she falls unconscious just as the house suddenly catches on fire. When the other four get there, Sue helps Liz save Jess from the burning building, proving that she does have a soul after all. The police catch Jeremy, and Sue gets all her inheritance and the Wakefields’ forgiveness! Happy day!

In a random sub-plot just to give Lila Fowler something to do, Lila realizes that her artist boyfriend Robby is a lazy scrub who has a gallery opening in a week but hasn’t painted anything for it. Bum! So Lila decides to create ten paintings herself (“I’m going to try an abstract style”) and pass them off as Robby’s just so he won’t throw away his promising art career thanks to his own laziness. Her art turns out fugly, of course, but her impetus behind them is rather charming, as is the way she tries to market “Robby’s” art to the skeptical, horrified gallery owner (“The use of color is arresting, don’t you think? And the composition—quite revolutionary, wouldn’t you say?”). Then Robby shows up at the last second—after all the visitors have already arrived! What a indolent SOB! Who does he think he is?—and hangs up his stuff, which is obviously brilliant, and forgives Lila for trying to take matters into her competent, well-meaning but un-artistic hands. It’s Lila who should forgive you, dude, for living in your parents’ basement! When you’re dating the richest girl in town, you need to step up to the plate.

Other Notes:

  • Why is Jeremy investing so much time and effort into Sue? She’s only getting a half million dollars! Surely there are other, dumber, richer girls out there.
  • Did obtaining the fortune really have to span five whole books? If Sue’s mom hated Jeremy and wanted to ensure that Sue and Jeremy were broken up for two months before Sue received her inheritance, why didn’t Sue just stay in New York, “break up” with Jeremy for the two months, and then run away together? Why stage a wedding? Why stage a kidnapping? Why try to kill Jessica Wakefield? Well, I have a bunch of reasons for the last one, but still. Jeremy is like fucking Dr. Evil, man. And I obviously would make a terrible career criminal because I just find the whole thing so time consuming.

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