Super Thriller: “R” for Revenge

* Photo credit to The Closet *

Oh, did this book bring on the lolz. I didn’t realize what exactly I was in for until I read the prologue, and how Jessica and the rest of the cheerleaders—Heather Malone, Annie Whitman, Jade Wu, Patty Gilbert, Maria Santelli, Amy Sutton and even Lila Fowler (who’s just standing in for Sara Eastbourne, who I really thought I’d never hear anything of again)—are tied up in a basement filling up with water while fucking “Freebird” blasts upstairs. (“The song really rocked, in an old-fashioned sort of way.”) I’m already dying on page two.

So how’d the SVH pep squad get in such a predicament? Well, I’ll tell you. Life at Sweet Valley High was normal enough: Principal Chrome Dome recruits Liz to be a research assistant for Diane, a reporter at Scoop magazine who is doing a where-are-they-now? story on “The Girls of Seventy-six,” a.k.a. the cheerleaders at Sweet Valley High then. Meanwhile, there’s a new school rule stating that each student activity must have a faculty adviser, and the cheerleaders are all whining because that will surely cramp their style and no one’s cool enough to oversee them. But fortunately for the girls, they get to pick their own adviser (Seriously, why do the faculty even bother—the students obviously run the school), and Liz manages to convince the girls to choose Nancy Swanson, the meek, weirdo librarian with the nervous tic who goes to all the football games, because Liz feels sorry for her (“[Liz] realized what Ms. Swanson reminded her of. She was like one of those insecure teenagers who was always trying too hard to fit in and who never succeeded precisely because she tried too hard… Asking her to help with the cheerleading squad is one of the nicest things anyone could do for her.”). Jesus, I would rather have gonorrhea than Elizabeth Wakefield’s pity.

The cheerleaders love Nancy—she flatters their moves, lets them do their own thing, and volunteers some of her own ideas for the squad, which are met with enthusiasm. She even buys them retro cheerleading outfits like those from the ’70s! Actually, everything that Nancy does is from a few decades earlier. Her work attire, for example: “a pair of close-fitting, low-rise pants in a herringbone pattern under a shiny polyester blouse and a fringed vest.” I love the seventies, but really—I’m dying some more. But no one knows of Nancy’s after-school extracurricular activities, which include sitting in a beanbag chair while listening to a Joan Baez record and plotting to kill the cheerleaders. Okay, call the coroner because I’ve officially died.

You see, Nancy has issues. It turns out that she was one of the long-lost and primarily forgotten Girls of Seventy-six—she was shunned and bullied off the team by the raging bitches on her team, including Diane from Scoop—for having a facial tic. REALLY. One of the cheerbitches even stole her boyfriend, George, to get Nancy to give up cheering and somehow George wound up dead in a car accident. Insert “???” here.

Then the cheerleaders of today start disappearing one by one, and honestly? No one gives a damn, and by “no one” I don’t just mean me. No one at Sweet Valley High even notices they’re missing. Jess actually gets pissed about the disappearances because she thinks there’s a secret slumber party she hasn’t been invited to. Seriously. Anyway, Nancy Swanson eventually collects them all and ties them up in her basement, which she slowly lets flood, hoping to drown them slowly to the sounds of the Doobie Brothers and Stealers Wheel while calling them all by the names of the ’76 cheerleaders. Dr. Evil should hire her to be a minion, with plans like this.

The girls work their hands free and huddle at the top of the basement steps to avoid the fact that the basement resembles a swimming pool more and more every moment. Meanwhile, Liz realizes that Nancy Swanson was the ex-communicated cheerleader based on…absolutely nothing. But she’s right anyway! So she goes to Nancy’s house, demanding answers, but gets stuffed in the basement with the others. But Liz comes up with a great plan…oh, God, I can barely even say it but…they’re going to cheer their way out. The cheerleaders fuck with Nancy’s already broken brain by shouting spirit cheers about mid-seventies football players and screaming that George is in the basement with them, saying that he loves her. I have experienced reincarnation only to die again at this scene.

Nancy opens the basement door thanks to their lies and promptly gets arrested, while the twins gets on the cover of Scoop magazine, and this little paperbound batch of insanity comes to an end.

Other Notes:

• There’s a useless bit of Diane’s hot young photographer, Brad, constantly hitting on Liz—while dating Jess and Heather. Bastard!
• Todd Wilkins gets jealous because Liz is a workaholic and has no time for him, so they get into a fight. This is something new, indeed. Maria Slater—thank God for her—actually tells Liz she’s being a whiner: “ Sometimes you go overboard on your forays into the professional world of publishing… Todd’s overreacting this time, but his heart’s in the right place.” And I do love how Todd initially refuses to make up with Liz when she calls: “So all you have to do is pick up the phone, and you expect me to be sitting here, waiting until you’re ready to remember that you have a boyfriend!… I see that you’re ready to make up, so it’s time! What about me? What if I’m not ready?” I’m sure she never thought of that one, Todd. But then he forgives and apologizes to her., and she actually utters, “Let’s never ever have another fight,” to which he replies, “You took the words right out of my mouth.” This book keeps on killin’ me softly, man.
• At long last, we get another “I’d rather date outside my species” reference: “I’d rather date a live crocodile, covered with army ants!” That one was creative.
• As to be expected, Ned and Alice didn’t even know their kids were missing.

—

Please leave a comment and share this content with your friends on social media—
this helps ensure the continuation of the content you love!