* Photo credit to The Closet *
Liz’s face reminds me of Michelle Pfieffer circa Grease 2 when she’s pouting at the luau because her mystery motorcyclist just died. (That movie has no purpose of existing other than for me to reference.) WTF is wrong with those “children” Jess is posing with? They’re so wrong-looking in so many different ways.
Liz and Jess are off to Montana for a month! Unfortunately, this book takes us there with them, so there’s no reprieve. The twins are going to be junior counselors at a performing arts camp called Camp Echo Mountain. (Why Montana? Are there really no performing arts camps in California?) They pack their “majestic” hiking boots and go there with Lila Fowler, Winston Egbert, and Aaron Dallas. Liz is super excited that her long-lost friend / former child actor Maria Slater will be there—what’re the chances that all these Sweet Valleyians would wind up at the same camp in Montana? I apologize, this series has murdered my ability to suspend my disbelief.
Speaking of suspending disbelief, how about this one?: Jess is giving up guys for the summer! Sick of her boyfriends dying, she’s all about having a boy-free summer. She throws herself into her camp job, which is teaching a bunch of seven- and eight-year-olds who all want to be just like her dancing. It’s actually sort of admirable. Lila, however, has no such plans: she and her artist boyfriend Robby Goodman have gone to Splitsville, and now she wants another artist boyfriend. Who she winds up pining for is rugged outdoorsman Bo, whom she tries to impress by being rugged herself, i.e. building a fire out of sticks and making tree bark tea. But it turns out that Bo is not only a wuss who’s afraid of the dark, but he’s rolling in money—tons of money—and he’s Beauregard Creighton the III! They’re obviously destined for each other.
Just when I thought I couldn’t hate Liz more, along comes this fucking book. Before she leaves for camp, she chides her boyfriend Todd Wilkins for being jealous of faceless guys: “I’m so in love with Todd, I can’t even imagine being unfaithful.” Then she immediately falls in love with college guy / acting instructor Joey Mason (“the most gorgeous guy she’d ever seen”), like, as soon as she steps foot in Montana and catches him doing his “rage exercises.” Does anyone actually like Todd and Liz as a couple? You really do feel sorry for Todd—Liz is constantly insisting that she’s not the type of person to cheat but she does it all the time. Give me a break, already. Give poor damn Todd a break!
But I’m totally reveling in the downright miserable time she’s having at camp. As Lila even thought, “It was truly fun to see the usually perfect Elizabeth Wakefield going down in flames.” Oh, hell to the YAAAASSSS. Liz’s group of kids don’t respect her at all and call her “Dizzie Lizzie,” “Diz” for short, and her superior, the sailing instructor, thinks she’s a total idiot. But even worse, Maria Slater has come to camp along with her wenchy friend Nicole Banes, who downright hates Liz. She’s really mean, you guys! She takes over the sole desk in the room even though Liz already staked her claim on it, she says that she’s going to write the camp play even though Liz wanted to, and she wants Joey for herself, even though Liz wants to juggle two boys! Oh, cruel world!
Things really get nasty for Liz when she works and slaves and shirks all other duties (and sleep) to write the crappy camp play about the crappy camp legend, but then Nicole steals it from her and passes it off as her own work. Of course everyone thinks it’s so freaking wonderful, thus inadvertently validating Liz’s talent. Nicole is so unabashedly okay with it, too; she’s like, “Oh, I meant to tell you—thanks for the play!” I don’t know whether to laugh or cringe.
Just when we think all hope is lost for Liz and prepare to take great delight in it, one of the camp brats videotapes Liz and Nicole fighting about the play, during which Nicole blatantly admits that she took it. Jess then shows the tape to the entire camp, and Liz’s “good name” is cleared and of course Maria pledges allegiance to Liz and makes excuses of why she was friends with Nicole. It’s rather shitty. Then! While Liz is trying to remind herself of why she loves Todd, even though “her relationship with him seemed so far away, practically in another lifetime” (it was one fucking week!), along comes Joey, who apologizes for being “caught in the web of Nicole’s lies” and promptly Frenches Liz, who then says that she and Todd aren’t serious. I HATE HER, YOU GUYS!
But back to Jess: Her no-boys rules flies out the window (sigh) when one of her charges peroxides her hair to become more like Jess (another sigh), and Jess has to meet the hunky older brother Paul (with a “breathtakingly perfect face”) to explain. But Paul is, oddly enough, a douche! He’s all about hatin’ on “dumb blondes” which, as you know, sends Jess into a fury. But later Jess finds out that Paul’s been asking his little sis all about her, so she rides into town in the camp director’s truck to his family’s diner, where he’s again douchey to her. But he makes out with her later when she gets a flat tire. The boy’s obviously bi-polar.
Other Notes:
- Lila prays for Bo to notice her: “Why won’t he come talk to me? Can’t he see that I want to talk to him? And that I’m gorgeous?” I enjoy her.
- Jess’s sometime co-instructor Derek is supa fine…and looks just like her ex, Ken Matthews! For the love of God! Why does everyone always look like someone else?
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