* Photo credit to The Closet *
Pop Culture Junk Mail once referred to this as the ultimate SVH title: Jessica Quits the Squad. Now that sounds serious! I can’t imagine the person who picked this up in B. Dalton with a horrified gasp and shrieked, “Oh God, no!”
I don’t know whether it’s because I picked this book up after a several-week, SVH drought spent reading classification and cataloging textbooks or if this book is especially stupid, but I think I was cracking up with laughter on every other page. Just look at the cover, at the cheerbitch—Heather Malone—stuffing her pom-poms in Jessica’s shocked face! You just know this has to be good!
We open with Jessica taking all the credit for the SVH cheerleaders’ performance at The Big Game and being so glad that co-captain, Robin Wilson, isn’t an attention whore like her and gives her ego free reign. I sense foreshadowing! Everyone is literally toasting to Jess’s greatness at the Dairi Burger when in walks a rail-thin blonde in skin-tight jeans—the aforementioned Heather, who is the new student at SVH, and so gorgeous that a hush actually falls over the room, which naturally enrages Jess, because everything needs to be about her, dontcha know.
Heather beguiles everyone with her charm, talent, and beauty, and try as she might, Jess can’t avoid her—the girl took her last cheerleading squad to state championships with her hip-hop-inspired moves, so not only do the cheerleaders enlist her for the squad, they also appoint her co-captain when Robin Wilson moves away to never be heard from or mentioned again. Heather hooks the girls up with sweet new cheerleader uniforms, changes practice time, puts everyone on a diet plan that’s the fast track toward an eating disorder, and boots Sandra Bacon and Maria Santelli off the squad for sucking—all without consulting Jessica. When Heather and the girls bust out a new secret cheer during a football game that Jess has never even heard of, Jess flings her pom-poms and—well, you read the title—and shrieks, “You’re a fake and phony and I wish I’d never laid eyes on you!” Okay, that part is a myth, but there’s definitely pom-pom flinging.
Fortunately for Jess, she can lean on the strong shoulder of Ken “All American” Matthews, quarterback with a soul. After Jess ponders wistfully to herself, “Will I ever have another boyfriend?” (which had me LOLing for real real), Ken makes a pass—and I don’t mean on the football field—and they wind up making out in front of everyone. Then he “timidly but sweetly” asks her to sit with him at lunch and takes her out on beach picnic dates, during which he says, “If I don’t kiss you right now, I’m going to have to run into the water and drown myself” (::DIES::). So Jess is back in the game with a giddy steering wheel slap, like JGL in 10 Things I Hate About You.
Putting a damper on things, as usual, is Liz, who’s being a raging douche, also as usual. I’d almost forgotten how much I hated her but this book has kindly reminded me. As it turns out, pre-Jeffrey French and after her boyfriend, Todd Wilkins, was living in Vermont, Liz had a fling with Ken and they never told anyone, not even the ghostwriters, who failed to mention even a glint of this torrid love affair until now. (Her secret diary doesn’t count; no one read that.) Naturally, her sister’s romance with Ken has Liz pondering, “Maybe I still have feelings for Ken.” I wonder!
So what does Liz do about it? Lots of obnoxious stuff! First of all, she feels she can’t talk to any of her friends about this, so she turns to teen-chat-room-lurker Mr. Collins, who basically states that she’s jealous, and Liz thinks, “Exactly!… It was amazing to her that Mr. Collins was always able to understand a situation without her having to explain it. He was wiser than almost anyone Elizabeth knew.” That statement has too much snarkable material in it for me to even go there; it’s too easy.
I now must list all the other things Liz does and says to trivialize Jess and Ken’s budding love!:
- Liz claims, “One little kiss doesn’t constitute a relationship… Kissing can be deceiving… Just because two people like to kiss each other doesn’t mean they should be together in a relationship.” I just don’t have the time to cite all the instances when Liz Frenched someone new and called it love.
- Todd is smooching her and saying all sorts of sweet nothings, while she thinks, “I’m kissing Todd and thinking of Ken! I’m a terrible person!” That just made me laugh.
- She harps on Jess’s sexy nightie-esque date garb and tries to get her to wear oversize sweaters. Then she tells her sister she looks fat, which is the ultimate Sweet Valley put-down!
- Liz butts in on Jess and Ken’s slow dance when she sees they’re about to kiss, and then, when she gets her dance, she runs away crying.
- She scoffs, “I just don’t see how you and Ken could ever work as a couple.”
- She starts hating Todd because he’s being so nice and loving to her. When he tells her she looks nice, she thinks darkly, “He’s easy to please,” and is “somehow annoyed by the fact.” Girl, the only reason you get ANY in Sweet Valley is because all the dudes are easy to please.
- Liz is excited that Jess stays home from school sick so she can make awkward conversation with Ken. “It was awful to wish for her sister’s ill health, but she just couldn’t help it.” When will all the awesome quotes end!
- She suggests Jess invite ex-cheerleader Maria Santelli on her date with Ken.
- Then comes her big blow-up!: “That’s enough, Jessica! What makes you think I want to hear every little detail of your stupid date?… You’re just so selfish, Jessica Wakefield. You think the whole world revolves around you, and that I have nothing else to do or think about than listen to every word Ken said to you. For all you know, Ken might be seeing somebody else….”Hey, Liz? Shut up.
Anyway, Jess doesn’t understand why Liz is being such a crumb until she finds a strip of pics taken of Liz and Ken smooching in a photo booth. Then she reads Liz’s diary and cries. Damn, world! Hasn’t Jess had enough for one day?
Other Notes:
- In an effort to keep Heather off the team, Jess puts her through a series of tests “that demonstrate her strength of character,” which include coming to school dressed like a grungy bastard, singing “Amazing Grace” or whatever she does before homeroom (with a voice of a songbird, and she even busts out her acoustic guitar from out of nowhere) and—horror of horrors!—sitting with the chess team at lunch for two whole days! Which brings me to the next bullet point…
- Everyone totally hates on the chess team in this book. Liz, when writing her “Personal Profiles” column, whines, “This has got to be the most boring column I’ve ever written… The profile of a new chess team member is not my idea of juicy.”
- I do like how the other cheerleaders call Jess out on her diva shit. When Jess gripes, “I feel really strongly about [not having Heather on the team], and I think if somebody has such a passionate feeling about something, everyone else has to go along with it,” to which Robin replies, “That’s ridiculous… That’s like saying that if you want something and we don’t, we all have to do what you say,” and Amy Sutton butts in, “Why don’t you just admit that you’re jealous of Heather?” Har har.
- At Robin’s going-away party, Jess treats Heather to an impromptu pool push! Classic!
- Apparently, Liz and Todd have a “shared interest in books and writers”—but I thought she occasionally shuns him because he doesn’t like the same shit she does.
- Lila Fowler tells Annie Whitman that a certain lipstick makes her look like Joan Crawford. I want to meet a high school student who knows who Joan Crawford even is.
- Jess’s new cheer: “We gotta fight—fight—with all our might. We gotta dance—dance—and take a chance. We gotta win—win—and do a spin.” I just can’t go on.
—
Please leave a comment and share this content with your friends on social media—
this helps ensure the continuation of the content you love!