* Photo credit to The Closet *
Okay, the twins look downright fucking insane. Liz is staring at that FRANCE brochure like she popped an LSD tab a half hour ago while Jess clings to her own lapels and cackles manically up at the sky. Tragically, this “super edition” gets nowhere near to being about what the cover image suggests to me. In fact, this can probably go down in my personal history as the most boring SVH book I’ve ever read.
Because Ms. Dalton has the sweet exchange hookups, the terrible two board a plane to go to Cannes for their ten-day spring break vacation, which is something I didn’t have until I went to college, but SVH already has sororities so why not a university-esque schedule? There is no less than twenty pages of them just being on the plane. That pretty much sets the stage for the rest of this thrill of a book. The twins get to France, where they’re staying with a single mom and her son, a total douchebag / total fox named Rene, who can’t stop bitching about how Liz and Jess suck for being American. Rene, man, just give the girls a chance. You’ll find better reasons why they suck.
Liz pries and pries into Rene’s private life (obviously making herself at home) and learns that Rene hates Americans because his dad is American and ditched the fam. But his father still writes every month and attempts to make contact. Rene just throws the envelope in the trash, and Liz actually fishes it out of the wastebasket. Isn’t that a felony, tampering with the mail and rifling through other people’s trash? (I’ll find any reason to hate her.) Liz also discovers that Rene won’t go to the beach because his friend died there. Will this boy’s series of tragedies ever end? To make matters worse, he’s got Liz on his back, and she has the gall to insist, “I know you think I’m like that, the kind of person to meddle in other people’s business, but that’s not true.” I just “BWA!’d” out loud. What in the turquoise fuck, girl.
The girls make some friends: Jess meets Marc, this guy who is in love with her but you know that she’ll never hit that because he’s short with frizzy hair. Instead, she ditches him and steals away Liz’s new friend, Jean-Claude, because he’s so-oh-oh-oh fine, but in order to snag him, she lets him kiss her all the while he thinks she’s Elizabeth. (Meanwhile, Liz winds up going to an art show with Marc and he hooks up with some artist’s daughter named Veronique, who’s French and likely a billion times more interesting than Jessica so don’t feel too sorry for him.)
Jess and Jean-Claude go out on a sailboat when a storm hits and are on the precipice of death, forcing Rene to quit being a forlorn prick and help Liz save them. And the second Jess comes to, she begs Liz (with her mind!) to keep up the charade of Liz being Jess and Jess being Liz in front of Jean-Claude, and Liz actually goes along with it, because there was a “light in Jessica’s eyes as she looked up at Jean-Claude [that] was new and rare…. There was no mistaking the look on her sister’s face. Jessica was in love.” Eleventy katrillion dollars that we never hear this guy’s name again. Then Liz and Rene have a heart-to-heart chat and agree to be friends and she forces him to read his father’s mail. Blah blah this sucks.
Back home in Sweet Valley, you won’t believe the stupidity that’s going down. Rene’s sister Ferney is staying with the Wakefields, and wouldn’t you know it?: She looks exactly like Tricia Martin. I cannot believe we’re still talking about this dead bitch; Regina Morrow died of an overdose and was pretty much forgotten the next day. Actually, what I really can’t believe is that we’re being fed the same asinine storyline twice. (Psych, yes, I can.)
Steven’s all up Ferney’s ass and in love with her (despite that he has NO idea what she’s saying to him because she only speaks French) while his girlfriend Cara Walker, rightfully devastated in response, is pretty much off slitting her wrists in a bathtub somewhere. Then Steven has a friend who speaks French visit, and learns just what Ferney is talking about, and it turns out she’s a shallow moron just like Jessica. So Steven gets all contrite and immediately runs to Cara and begs her to take him back, and she does. Wow. Somebody please check Steven into counseling, and Cara: Dump. His. Ass! Girl, you shouldn’t even have to go through this once.
Other Notes:
- Enid Rollins is forced to stay in Sweet Valley during the vacation. Enid really doesn’t get to have any fun, does she?
- The French vocab, history, and lifestyle lessons in this book are enough to make your butt cringe.
- I love when people call Liz out on her shit. Jess is sick of Liz bitching at her for not wanting to date Marc because she’s not hot for his body, so Jess reminds her, “When have you ever dated somebody who was really funny looking?” and Liz can’t even worm her way out of it. Remember how she wanted to dump Todd for getting a crappy haircut? Mmm hmm.
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