* Photo credit to The Closet *
Here we have Olivia Davidson, who is way more attractive in real life than the book covers would allow you to believe. Perhaps it’s because her wild mane isn’t being tamed by a freaking forty-five rpm.
Olivia and her boyfriend, Harry, are splitsville and she’s feeling super lonely because, as per usual, she feels like a weirdo at Sweet Valley High because she is artsy, wears dresses from shops “that specialized in merchandise handmade by women in underdeveloped countries,” and has a personality, unlike her more popular classmates. So she goes online to Virtual Hangout, where people don’t know her but at last understand her! On there, she—Freeverse—meets a sensitive soul by the handle of Quarter, and they take virtual walks along the beach and she teaches him how to write poetry.
Little does she know, Quarter is none other than Ken Matthews, who has finally gotten over Jess and now wants a girl with more substance. (“He [only] could gossip with Jessica or make out with her.” Haha, Jess.) He finds what he’s looking for in Freeverse, and after sharing a passionate cyberkiss, they agree to meet at Izzy’s Incredible Ice Cream Shop. Quarter and Freeverse both show up but are disappointed: the only other people there are just Olivia and Ken. When they confront each other online, they realize just who they are and are all, “Eep!” Olivia feels all betrayed that her sensitive-souled crush is just a dumb jock from her school, and Ken is dismayed to be stereotyped as brainless and that Freeverse turned out to be a girl he’d known forever. Scoff, scoff and such.
While this romance is blossoming, there’s this bizarre turf war breaking out between the jocks (backed by “the snobs and the student-politicos”) and burnouts (backed by the “artists, punkers, hippies, and brains”). It began at a school dance over what type of music was playing, which I don’t blame them for: The burnouts though the jocks were fucking lame for wanting to dance to “California Girls” and “Heard it Through the Grapevine.” Do these people realize that they are not going to school in an Annette Funicello movie? The jocks actually play air guitar to “Barbara Ann.” They obviously do not have an ounce of cool in their whole bodies.
Speaking of cool, this book brings back a bunch of freaks and geeks who we long thought were banished to the Nobody Archives of SVH, such as the cantankerous Jan Brown; Keith Wagner (“the closest thing Sweet Valley High had to an East Village poet and musician”); moody clove-smoker Justin Belson; and Nicky Shepard (didn’t he run away to San Francisco? They obviously had to import him just so there’d be more “burnouts”). The groups trade nasty stunts back and forth, but no one hates the burnouts more than the unfortunately named football star Tad “Blubber” Johnson, whom Nicky and the gang set out to humiliate by broadcasting his failing test scores all over school. Blubber retaliates by putting Justin’s arm in a sling and pummeling Nicky to a bloody pulp in front of hundreds of spectators at a football team. He gets suspended from school and the team indefinitely, and then nearly ODs on his mom’s prescription pills! That’s so Annie Whitman of him.
Everyone at school is subdued by Blubber’s attempted suicide, but Liz and Olivia know it’s just a temporary truce. They whip up a “Walk in Each Other’s Shoes” dance that requires everyone to walk in someone’s else’s borrowed shoes/attire, which is actually pretty entertaining. Bruce Patman comes dressed like Booger from “Revenge of the Nerds” or something. Jess is dressed all sexy in Dana Larson’s punky bra-over-shirt outfit while Liz dons Lila Fowler’s duds. Justin Belson wears a tuxedo, Jan Brown and Winston Egbert dress like cheerleaders (you’re such a class clown, Win!), and even Blubber shows up “dressed like a burnout.” Olivia turns up in Claire Middleton’s football uniform and Ken is wearing Keith’s “Guatemalan pants and Mardi Gras beads,” and he’s all, “OLIVIA!” and she’s all, “Tell me about it, stud” and it’s electrifyin’. They trade apologies (Olivia realized that she was being all judgey), have a slow dance, and then turn their virtual kiss into a reality. And that’s how this peculiar twosome came to be!
What about those Wakefields? God forbid we have a story that doesn’t mention them. Well, this may surprise you, but Liz and Todd Wilkins have a fight. I know, they never do that. This time it’s because Todd is on the jocks’ side and Liz supports the hippies and the like. But in case you were worried about the fate of their relationship, they make up. Jess spouts a bunch of bratty things about the burnouts and strings along two football players, Danny Porter and Bryce Fisherman, until her ex-love Keith Wagner trades in his Birkenstocks and shows up at the dance dressed like he’s bound for the Ivy Leagues, so she’s all over him and he eats it right up like an idiot. It’s like a wise man (who did an unwise thing in a public bathroom) once said: “Sometimes the clothes do not make the man.” But apparently, sometimes they do.
Other Notes:
- So what would’ve happened if one of the burnouts were to have attempted suicide? Would anyone have even cared? Ten bucks says the jocks would’ve said, “Good riddance!”
- Ken is an open-minded sweetheart online, but Freeverse says some annoying “profound” things that make me want to barf, e.g., when Ken says how much he likes seagulls (don’t ask), she’s like, “You ever wonder where they fly to?” Huh? Is that supposed to be an epiphany? Then Ken asks Freeverse what she wants to do, and she says, “Paint scenes I’ve only imagined. Feel skirts of exotic silks swishing against my legs. Savor the taste of unpronounceable foods from distant places.” ::HURL::
- I actually did not want to Liz to fall down a flight of stairs in this book.
- To no one’s surprise, the faculty barely can control the actions of the student body. (Although Mr. Collins does make it to the second dance wearing Todd’s basketball getup – GAH.)
- This book made it undeniably clear to me how rarely SVH favors the jockstraps. That was sort of annoying. Obviously, I’m on the weird kids’ side, but when they broke out the fliers reading “Make Peace, Not Football” and the anti-jock sit-in… shudder.
- Freeverse and Quarter have some steamy chats!:FV: “My fingers are entwined in the blond curls at the nape of your neck. Your arms feel safe and warm around me.”
Q: “Gently I press my lips against yours.”
FV: “Your lips are like raspberries, as light as a whisper at first.”
Q: “And then you kiss me back, Freeverse, long and hard. And nothing has ever rocked me the way your kiss does… And your body feels soft and warm, and fits perfectly against mine.”Mmm-hmm, I’ll bet it does, Matthews.
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