* Photo credit to The Closet *
The twins look wildly unattractive here. Why are dudes always so hot for these gals? They’re sixteen and look like they’re balding.
Superfox Jeffrey French has just moved to Sweet Valley from Oregon and instantly begins setting girls’ loins aflame, primarily the loins of Enid Rollins and Lila Fowler, who both have their sights set on nothing else but hittin’ that. The front cover and title makes it seem that the twins are in the midst of a war that would rival that of the North and South, but really, Liz just supports Enid and Jess supports Lila, as one would suspect. Ho hum.
Liz makes it her life’s mission to hook up Jeffrey and Enid as an attempt to mask the fact that she likes Jeffrey and he’s totally into her. (Someone wants a Wakefield twin instead of Enid—who would’ve thought?) Even though Liz keeps trying to talk Enid up to Jeffrey, he keeps asking her out and undressing her with his gaze. Oh dear! He blows off a Liz-orchestrated date with Enid when he thinks Liz will be elsewhere, and Liz is sort of happy about it, and then feels guilty: “What kind of best friend, she wondered, would promise to fix her friend up with a fabulous new guy—and then steal him for herself?” Your kind, obvs.
Then Enid gets a humiliating, butt-cringing idea: SVH is having a student auction/food drive during which the students auction off wacky things in exchange for cans of food, and Enid asks Liz to ask Jeffrey to auction off himself so she can buy him with seventy-five cans of green beans and such. I. Am So. Embarrassed. Enid, of course, wins the date with him, and Liz is ready “to burst into tears” at the thought. But on Enid’s date with Jeffrey, a very convenient thing happens: she realizes she’s just not that into him. Still, Liz keeps trying to push Enid and Jeffrey together to snuff out her own guilt (“You just have to try harder!”), and Enid begs her to stop “torturing” her, but Liz will have none of it. She tries to talk to Jeffrey on Enid’s behalf, but he tells her he can take care of his love life on his own. I like how Jeffrey was always straight up with Liz from the get-go, although over time when dating her, he became significantly more wussy. Oops, I just gave away the story’s resolution: Liz and Jeffrey confess their love for each other and wind up going out after Liz gets the okay from Enid as well as a “You’re such a good friend, Liz.” Huh? Ugh, whatever.
The secondary “plot” is the twins’ cousin Jenny has come to visit for two weeks, and the twins treat her like she’s a leper because she’s overweight and—gasp!—only fifteen. Such a child! Naturally, Jenny worships the twins, primarily Jessica, who is both mortified and annoyed that Jenny—“an absolute mess”—is clinging to her and inviting herself on her dates with hottie Eddie Winters—who actually likes Jenny way more than Jessica. In fact, he tells Jenny that he still can’t tell Jess and Liz apart and he plans to visit Jenny when she goes back to Texas. Har har, bitch. Of course, every time Jess complains about Jenny to Liz, Liz warns, “You’d better be nice to her,” but there are zero instances in this book of Liz hanging out with Jenny or actually listening to what her cousin is saying in a non-“absent” fashion. Losers, the whole of them.
Other Notes:
- Jeffrey can be so creepy (e.g., he says to Liz, “I’d love to go for a swim with you. I bet you’re wonderful in the water.” Who says that? What does “being wonderful in the water” even mean?).
- Here an example of Jess’ cousinly thoughts:She couldn’t believe Jenny was eating an enormous banana split less than an hour after eating the huge dinner Mrs. Wakefield had prepared. No wonder her figure was such a mess! What happened to her resolve to diet?…Jenny was much worse than she had remembered….With her thick glasses and silly smile, Jenny was truly pitiable….She had no idea she was the biggest nerd in the world.All that on one page! And it only gets worse (e.g., “Even the dark-colored dress Jenny was wearing did little to disguise the fact that she was chubby. If only the girl would stick to three meals a day!”)
- Other auctioned-off treats: A cassette recorded by The Droids; an I.O.U. for a homemade dinner “cooked by none other than Mr. Collins” (dear God); “the red pencil Mr. Jaworski, the history teacher, used to mark exams” (I want to slap the dumbass who purch-assed this); and a picture of Bruce Patman in a bathing suit (I want ten!).
- The Droids have a song called “I Feel It for You” and that’s just making me laugh. What is “it”—a stirring in los pantalones at the thought of a chick being wonderful in the water?
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