* Photo credit to The Closet *
The tagline on the inside: “Everyone thinks Elizabeth Wakefield is Miss Perfect… Only her diary knows the truth!” I guess I don’t count.
The phone rings just as Liz and Todd are getting hot and heavy all over Todd’s desk (scandalous!). While Todd chats up best bud Ken Matthews, Liz actually reads Todd’s mail from some ho in Vermont named Michelle who’s calling him “cute-buns.” Out comes the Hyde in Liz’s thinly veiled Jekyll. Todd’s like, “I can’t believe you read my mail. I’d never pry into your private life that way!” to which Liz chokes back a sob and says, “Well, you wouldn’t find anything like this if you did.” But then she later reads her diary and realizes that she’s a liar.
(Actually before that, she goes out to the Beach Disco (page 7), sees ex Jeffrey French jogging on the sand (page 8), who immediately professes he’s never stopped loving her (page 9) and they totally make out (page 10). That’s quite the whirlwind of events.)
During Liz’s recap, we’re forced to deal with the SVH 20s again, which were the worst of the bunch in my opinion. The book includes the following (although the back of the book claims to recap 20 to 30—why is it so hard to count?):
23 – Say Goodbye
24 – Memories
25 – Nowhere To Run
26 – Hostage!
27 – Lovestruck
28 – Alone In The Crowd
29 – Bitter Rivals
30 – Jealous Lies
31 – Taking Sides
While absolutely nothing happens in this book, the upside was that this meant I wasn’t filled with Liz Hate for an evening. The following are the only highlights I gleaned from this super special (although ironically, to find any is actually a lowlight):
- Todd moves to Vermont and Liz whines, “I know Todd’s lonely, too, but it can’t be as bad for him.” Except for the fact he’s been uprooted from his entire life and you’ll be replacing him in about eight books anyway so walk it off, Wakefield.
- Liz and Nicholas Morrow make out after the movies and it’s way passionate, but afterward Liz wonders, “Am I just trying to fill that big empty space inside me any way I can?” GUFFAW.
- They break out the tired boy-climbs-trellis-to-girl’s-room-during-the-night trick [1] [2]—it’s obviously Todd’s best move. Before going back to Vermont, Todd does just that to “kiss [her] good night one more time.” Of course Liz is in a skimpy nightie and laughingly says, “If you think for one second that just because we may not see each other for months and months we should—” and Todd cuts her off. What, what? I wanted to know what she was going to say! Why’d you cut her off, Wilkins?? ‘Samatter witchu?!
- I have a love/hate relationship with the way Liz “talks” to her diary: “OK, Diary, I realize I’m totally depressing you.” I’m sure you would be—if it weren’t just a book of blank pages! Then again, I’d be depressed to be Liz’s diary too.
- After Ken “borrows” Liz’s abysmal story “The New Kid,” they strike up a friendship that leads to a more-than-friendship as they hang out and chat about Todd. Now that I think about it, it’s sort of funny (in an effed-up way, naturally) that Liz is constantly running to Ken for assurance that Todd is still single in Vermont and loves only her, and then tumbles around in a lip lock on the beach with Todd’s best friend. I’d go into detail, but it’s really not that interesting. I did have to laugh at her writing, “My gaze kept straying to another tall, blond, athletic guy, initials K.M…. DON’T DO THIS, LIZ!!!”
Liz finishes reading her diary at “the first light of dawn,” and who should be outside her window but dumb ol’ Todd, apologizing to her and swearing Michelle was just a friend, and Liz thinks, “I’d given a piece of my heart to other boys—to Ken, to Jeffrey. But Todd was the only one I’d ever care for with all my heart.” Gag.
Other Notes:
- Liz describes Todd: “What makes Todd special is his personality: he’s sweet, funny, warm, generous… Well, I’m a writer, I could list about a thousand adjectives that describe him.” That doesn’t make you a writer—that makes you a thesaurus.
- They need to not drag Jeffrey French back in the picture during these secret diaries. It makes him look a sad, pathetic idiot.
- Now to end this shebang with a Liz poem:
Rainy Sunday.
Foggy Monday.
Closely creeping fears,
Can’t take much more of this.
Drive east, drive fast,
Until at last
Desert rainbows dry my tears
Like a kiss.
I’m experiencing projectile spewing of epic Problem Child 2 proportions.
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