Title: Get Real

Summary:

Elizabeth

I thought switching to a new school was going to be HORRIBLE. How could I have known that I would make incredibly cool friends right away? Or that I would meet a really CUTE guy?

I have to admit it: I LOVE it here

Jessica

Here I was, thinking, a new school means new friends and new BOYS.

Hardly. Everyone at Sweet Valley Jr. High is so unfriendly I had to eat lunch with my DORKY locker partner.

I have to admit it: I HATE it here.

Initial Thoughts:

We asked Regina – our patron – whether she wanted the extra recap to be Kids or Junior High. Junior High was chosen.

We all eyed each other. Nobody spoke.

I did not want to do this. The final books of Twins were an absolute nightmare. They were boring, they added new characters, and worst of all, they were in first person.

So why on earth would I want to read a new series that continued on from that very point, written in first person and adding new characters?

Spoilers: BECAUSE IT’S FUCKING AWESOME, THAT’S WHY!

And that’s why I asked if I could recap this one. I love it. Completely and utterly. Yes, I know I said the same thing about the first Unicorn Club book. And that’s why I have to get in on the ground floor. I have to recap this before it all goes to hell – if it does, that is. You have to see how much I’m enjoying this and what a good start to the new series this is.

[Wing: I did not like the first Unicorn Club nearly as much as Dove and Raven did, and II hate first person narration, so I was happy to give up this recap to Dove. And for the first time ever when switching books with her, I kind of regret it, because this was fucking amazing. Who knew? Possibly Regina, in which case, Regina, you are the absolute best!]

[Raven: I shall not be disclosing my thoughts on the book at this time. Instead, let me say CLOSE-UPS ON FACES and WACKY NINETIES FONT. If we’d Cover Calypso’d this mo’fo, I’d not get past the word ‘conjoined’.]

Recap:

We open with Jessica’s point of view. Lila barges in first thing in the morning on the last day of summer break and throws a magazine at Jessica. Lila wants the outfit on the front cover. Her plan is that they’re both going to wear the same outfit to different schools, and they’ll be the best-dressed girls.

This reminds Jessica that she and Elizabeth are going to Junior High while literally everyone else they know is staying at Sweet Valley Middle School. That seems oddly specific. I can’t help but feel that the teachers went into a huddle and decided that all of their issues stem from the Wakefields. From Jessica’s drama and lies and Elizabeth’s meddling and shoulder-patting. If they just hoofed the twins out, the school will run well. And if the teachers weren’t such clueless berks, I’d agree with them, but since they are, it needs acknowledging that SVMS has a whole bunch of issues, and the Wakefields only make up maybe 30% of them.

Jessica is less than thrilled about this, because Junior High covers grades 7-9, whereas SVMS covers 6-8, so Jessica had been looking forward to being a very big fish in a small pond as an eighth grader, she is now just an average fish in a big pond at Junior High. [Raven: So where do the SVMS kids go after Grade 8? Do they have to do a year of Junior High too? Or do they go to High School for Grade 9 and while the Junior High kids stay in Junior High? So many questions! Also…

] [Dove: That song is on the Mighty Ducks 3 soundtrack.]

Also, the way that they know literally nobody is annoying to me. Go, behold my list of characters. There are hundreds of names in there. I can believe that their besties aren’t there, but what about Anna Barrett, Patty Gilbert, and Ginny-Lu Culpepper? Are you seriously telling me that not one of the eight billion Peters got zoned to Jr High? Also, Caroline Pearce lives literally next door. WHAT THE FUCK WENT ON IN THIS ZONING COMMITTEE?

And then I remembered this zoning was done by the people who thought water would drain from a cave uphill.

I can only imagine the zoning map looks something like this:

[Wing: To be fair, zoning maps often look much, much worse than that because they are manipulated for political and monetary reasons. Still fucking weird that not a single other character seems to go to SVJH.] [Raven: Purple for Junior High. The colour of royalty.]

Anyway, Jessica thinks to herself that while she’s not sure about the outfit (a preppy plaid skirt and sweater-vest combo), she knows that Lila has oodles of style, so if Lila says it’s in, it’s in. And since Jessica is looking forward to meeting loads of guys – older ones, she internally notes smugly – then making a great first impression is a good idea.

She briefly contemplates inviting Elizabeth along, but decides against it as Elizabeth loathes Lila. But more importantly, she’s spiralling hard right now. She’s all doom and gloom and thinks the world will end because all her friends won’t be at the same school, and she was really looking forward to working on the SVMS paper.

Which, by the way, is the exact opposite of how they were feeling in Goodbye Middle School. Elizabeth was super excited that Junior High would offer accelerated learning, and Jessica was screaming in panic that she wouldn’t be considered cool any more and would be utterly friendless, to the point where she invited Winston Egbert and his friends to a campout with the Unicorns. I suppose a summer spent destroying houses for needy people / nearly killing a girl with allergies have… helped?

Jessica suggests they try to find a skirt with purple in it because they’re Unicorns. No other Unicorns will be coming to Junior High with Jessica, because:

Elizabeth wasn’t a Unicorn, although she’d been asked.

And you might think, “hey, Dove, let it go. You know what Sweet Valley is like. They’re launching a hundred and thirty-seven off-shoots at once, they can’t all marry up. This was probably written before The Unicorn Club.” And then you probably followed that up with, “Wait. Dove. Oh. She will not let it go.”

So I checked. This book was published on 1 February 1999 [Raven: I hope Jessica mentions the Millenium Bug in this subseries]. Save the Unicorns was published on 1 January 1994 – which I interpret to mean “literally any date in 1994, almost certainly not 1 January”, because 1 January is the default date you put in when you only know the year. Even if this came out on the last day of 1994, that is still four full years after Save the Unicorns.

And even if I was willing to magnanimously forgive this grievous error and ignore the entire Unicorn Club series, Elizabeth was still a Unicorn. In Best Friends she joined the club and attended one meeting. She did not turn them down, she joined and then left.

So yeah. WRONG. WRONGER. WRONGEST.

Next we cut to Elizabeth. She is deep in the throes of depression.

Even though dinner was miserable, I didn’t want it to end. Because every minute that passed brought me closer to junior high—and closer to my identity as The New Girl with No Friends.

*twitches* Goddamnit, even though I hate Elizabeth, this is relatable. I hate new things. I hate moving jobs or going to unfamiliar places. Just having so many new variables that are completely out of my control is a horrible experience. So while I want to hoof Elizabeth in the face, because she always makes besties super easy and historically has had no problem going up to complete strangers and meddling in their lives, this emotion is actually relatable.

The Wakefield fam has been updated a smidge and I love it. Elizabeth is quiet and anxious, which Alice picks up on, because she’s apparently an actual human being with feelings and stuff, rather than the useless idiot she’s been for the entire Twins run. Ned immediately tries to bolster Elizabeth by saying it’s a great opportunity (for the hundred and thirty-seventh time) – and again, this is great. While it’s not entirely binary, often men hear a problem and try to fix it while women sympathise. This is not a universal rule, but it’s certainly common enough for this to be a very reasonable mum/dad reaction to their worried child.

And then it gets better. Elizabeth casts a pleading look at Steven, and he immediately protects her by asking to borrow the car so he can drive the twins to school. Steven spends this entire book not eating [Raven: I believe he does answer some questions through mouthfuls of mashed potato at one point, but your comment is largely correct], but on the quest to own a car. He has to find a cheap second-hand one – unlike the twins, who will just gifted a Fiat Spider/Jeep (depending which version you read) because twins. But let’s just ignore their overwhelming privilege in High for now.

And I like this. Suddenly Steven’s a real person, and I can completely divorce him from the asshat on a lawnmower that made me loathe him. It’s amazing how single-minded teenagers can be in that period between passing their test and owning their first car; and how eager they are to do pointless errands, just for the luxury of driving a parent’s car; and I’m here for it. He’s a human being.

I like him.

I like Elizabeth.

Even shallow Jessica has had a nice conversation with Lila that shows they’re friends, rather than spiteful rivals.

I like all of them.

Don’t make me regret this.

[Wing: I cannot, cannot, cannot believe how much I liked the Wakefields in this book. Everyone is relatable! They actually feel like they’re fond of each other! There is sibling bonding and teasing in really good ways! GHOSTIE, WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DO I GET YOU TO WRITE ALL THE SWEET VALLEY HIGH BOOKS (DECADES AFTER THEY WERE PUBLISHED)?]

[Raven: Time to staple my monkey to the cockpole, I guess. I too loved this book. Well done to all involved!]

Alice and Ned say they both need their cars tomorrow, and the twins should get used to the bus, which is not exactly unfair. Elizabeth dreads the bus because they have to be on it at 6:45, which is when they used to get up for school for SVMS.

That seems super early. How early does school start now? My bus arrived at 8:00 to be at school for 9:00. It gave absolutely no wiggle room at all, so if we ever hit a smidge of traffic, we’d be super late, and you’d have to run around the school signing the late book, and catching up to wherever the fuck the rest of your class was. Add being a very anxious person to that, feeling like I’m about to be shouted at for being in the wrong place, and the fact that nobody on my bus was in any of my classes, and you have a horrible way to start the day.

The literal worst was when you came in late to eucharist (like mass, but Church of England), because you’d walk in usually when people were walking up to get the body and blood, and you’d have to skew off to an empty seat, and it would look like you were going to take communion, then you’d had second thoughts. All under the steely eye of Jesus. And the headmaster. Who was also the Reverend taking the eucharist. Not to mention all the unsmiling religious teachers who were glaring at you like you’d made a mockery of their entire religious experience, rather than just a normal twelve year old whose bus got stuck in traffic. Urgh.

… I think this whole experience is what made me the type of person who arrives 30 minutes early (minimum) to everything, so that I have that buffer if something delays me.

[Wing: Catching a bus at 6:45 is not that unusual. I know people who had to catch the bus before 6 because they lived in such a rural area. School often starts somewhere between 7:50 and 8:30 here, and it seems like the junior high is rather far from the Wakefield’s neighborhood. Which is strange for them to be sorted into it due to district reshuffling, but I like this book enough that I don’t even care about how damn convenient it is that the two of them are really the only ones from their peer group who were caught up in the reshuffle.]

[Raven: My school bus was pickup at 8:20 for arrival at 8:50. My stop was the second on the route, so I always got a good seat. My friends and I always sat on the upper deck at the very front, as the wide window gave off the best views of the road ahead.]

Anyway, much like my idiot self rushing into eucharist, Jessica appears laden down with shopping bags, and Elizabeth excuses herself from dinner to see what Jessica bought. They go upstairs and Jessica goes into the bathroom to make a grand entrance in her new outfit.

Jessica was wearing a white blouse, white kneesocks, and a tan blazer—that much looked normal. But she was also wearing this incredibly bright purple-and-green-plaid skirt that flared a little bit. She looked like—Jessica looked like—It’s kind of a long story, but there’s this very corny restaurant in town called Ye Olde Scottish Taverne, and in the summertime they hire a big fat man to wear a kilt and play the bagpipes. Well, Jessica looked like a younger, skinnier, more colorful version of him.

The Scottish bit is not interesting, but this is the outfit she’ll be wearing tomorrow, so I thought you’d better know exactly how it looks. [Raven: Welcome to the Tilted Kilt…

] [Dove: Usually we’d make a joke that this is where Jessica is going to end up working. Now we know it’s where most of SVJH alum ended up.]

Elizabeth thinks the skirt is awful but the rest of the outfit is fine – we all know Elizabeth loves beige – but Jessica thinks it’s the very thing to wear to make a great first impression. And Elizabeth is reassured when Jessica explains Lila bought the same thing. She knows that Lila has good style, so it’s probably very cool and Elizabeth just doesn’t realise it. I love that. It’s actually nice to see Elizabeth acknowledge that she doesn’t know everything and without any hit of martyrdom or bitchiness about how it’s probably not very important if she doesn’t know it. So far, I like both twins.

Next we meet Anna, a brand new character. She’s on the phone to Salvador, her best friend. He’s moaning because he’s dreading school, and how it’s biting into all that time that could be spent eating popcorn and watching movies together, which Anna thinks is funny, because they haven’t done much of that recently, because his cousin, Mark, visited for a month, and they kind of went into guy-huddle mode and excluded her a bit.

She suggests that they reserve all their Saturday nights for movies and toffee popcorn, and hey, why doesn’t he apply for The Spectator with her? The Spectator is the school paper, and as you can tell from the title, it’s a bit more highbrow than the Sixers. Or, from what I’ve seen so far, Elizabeth’s shitty Eyes and Ears column in The Oracle.

Salvador says that he’s got no interest reading stupid articles about talking dogs. Anna recalls it was a piece written from a dog’s point of view to make people reconsider animal rights. She placates him by saying if he tries out, he can write better articles. He retorts that, “A monkey could write more intelligent articles. They should have gotten a real dog to write that article—it would have been far more intelligent.”

But he says he’ll consider joining. Next she asks what he’s going to wear tomorrow, and he says he should hang up because it’s a “girly conversation”, and Anna notes that he hates “girly stuff”. So she asks to speak to his grandmother, because she has style.

I… don’t like Salvador. He kind of seems like a tool. In the space of about eight paragraphs I have learned: he ditched his best friend for a month when Mark visited, he treats her weird if other guys are there, he runs down her interests and is kind of a brat.

The kindest thing I can say is: at least he’s not riding a lawnmower.

(That sentence, without context, is one of my strangest thus far.)

[Wing: I actually like him. He seems pretty realistic for the age group, sometimes shitty and sometimes decent. Friendships at this age (…and any age, really) can be very awkward, particularly when so many things are changing around you, people visiting, new people in school, every year feels like a huge, different thing, etc.

I love the hell out of Anna, and Salvador’s granny.]

[Raven: I too like Salvador. His jokes are awful, and he’s flawed, but it’s actually nice to have some male POV which isn’t Steven at his absolute worst.]

On the other hand, I like Anna. She seems nice. And you’ve got to respect a girl who says, “Ok, you suck, put your granny on the phone.” But I think she needs a better best friend, because Salvador can, to quote Jessica, “walk west until your hat floats”. Which is a classier version of “get in the fucking sea.”

OMG! IT’S MAKING OUT! WE HAVE ACCIDENTALLY FALLEN THROUGH A BOOK RIFT, AND NOW SWEET VALLEY IS FUNCTIONING AS TEAM GRAPPLEGATE’S MAKING OUT SERIES!

[Wing: I KNEW YOU WOULD REACT THIS WAY. I KNEW IT! THE SECOND I SAW IT, I KNEW THIS WOULD BE AT LEAST A BIG PART OF WHY YOU ENDED UP LIKING THIS BOOK SO MUCH.

I also love this sort of writing style.]

[Raven: While I’ve not read Making Out, I too appreciate this literary conceit. It’s all very Adrian Mole.]

And what I mean by that is we get a very quick rundown of Wednesday morning from 6:15 to 7:15, reporting very quickly but sassily what every character is up to. My personal favourite is this gem:

6.35 A.M. Jessica is in the kitchen, cleaning out her backpack from last year so that she can put her new school supplies in it.

“What is that?” Elizabeth asks, pointing to a greenish square Jessica has placed on the counter.

“It used to be a ham sandwich,” Jessica says. “But now it has its own ecosystem, complete with food chain.”

That exchange would be perfectly at home between Zoey and Nina in Making Out. If someone told me that Grapplegate had returned to ghostwrite for this series, I would not be surprised. Well, I would, since they’ve actually confirmed to me that they didn’t. (Did you catch my humblebrag there?) But all the same, sass, delightful format, I LOVE it. And OMG, MOAR SASSY JESSICA PLEASE. I love her.

Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me if some ghosties from Making Out moved over to Junior High. Making out first came out in 1994, Team Grapplegate did the first eight and then passed it out to ghosties. This book came out in 1999, so the timeline seems possible.

I want to snuggle this book. And although Wing’s not really a hugger, she’s totes getting hugged next time we meet specifically for this book. So “hi, long time no see” hug. Then “thanks for Get Real” hug. She’ll hate it. (I’m only joking. I respect Wing’s boundaries. I’ve been problematic enough this week.) [Wing: I will take both hugs, to be fair, because this book is fucking amazing, and also it’s been too long and I miss you.]

Apparently Elizabeth feels slighted by my praise of Jessica, because the next chapter is from her point of view, and she thinks that Jessica looks like “a lavender leprechaun who’d just escaped from prep school.”

[Wing: She’s not wrong.]

They get on the school bus and Jessica comments with no real chill that “Nobody cool is here anyway.” Then she falls asleep, leaving Elizabeth to read her book. When they arrive, Elizabeth thinks the school looks like a prison. They follow the helpful arrows all over the school and end up in front…

A woman wearing a blue tracksuit with white piping was sitting behind the table. She had a whistle around her neck and a sticky label on the breast of her tracksuit that said, Hi! My Name Is Miss Scarlett. Miss Scarlett was the kind of woman who people would say was “handsome” rather than “beautiful” because of the severe expression on her face. I would have called her “scary.”

… right? That’s how you all read it, right? How did this book predict the only saving grace of Glee?

She barely glanced at us. “Name?”

“Jessica Wakefield,” Jessica said.

The woman began flipping through a stack of papers.

“Elizabeth Wakefield,” I told her, knowing that our forms would be together.

“Sisters?” she said absently.

“No relation,” Jessica said.

Yes. This is what I want from Jessica. Also, you would think that identical twins would have certainly come up with some sass over the years, even if one of them wasn’t naturally funny. This should be their default response, rather than “Oh, being a twin is such a magical soopah speshul bond.” [Raven: Yes, this feels much more realistic. Sarcastic answers to over-asked questions are a staple. Whenever people asked about the long scar on my forearm, I’d always tell people either a) that I got it in a fracas with a bear, or b) that I sustained an injury at work as a combat instructor for the Canadian Mounted Police. The truth, which is that I fell down the stairs at a nightclub while slightly drunk, is much more mundane.]

Sue Scarlett, which is what I’m going to call her from now on, gives them their timetables and Elizabeth asks where their homeroom is. Sue Scarlett responds scathingly that this is Junior High, and they don’t do homeroom here, as if Elizabeth has just asked about naptime. “You think going without homeroom is hard? Try being on a show with Lea Michele for six seasons. That’s hard!” she snaps.

The twins do not share any classes at all and their lockers aren’t even close. Elizabeth feels like crying.

[Wing: I do not understand why Scarlett is obnoxious about homeroom. Some high schools have fucking homeroom. I should have taken this as the sign it was: Scarlett is horrible and can fuck off into the sea.

Elizabeth’s emotions are so fucking realistic and understandable here. I can’t believe how much the ghostie makes me feel for the twins, and for Anna as a brand new character. Real emotions! Believable writing! What in the world happened here?!]

The bell rings and they take off in different directions. Elizabeth has to go to her locker before class, where she meets her locker partner. Apparently that’s a thing. It was cheaper for the school to make everyone double-up with lockers than replace them, so now everyone is sharing with someone. I’m sure that will in no way end up with some girl’s tampons and sanitary pads being flung down the hall by a boisterous random boy she was paired with. Or some someone’s smelly gym kit being hoofed into outer space by their locker partner who wants everything not to smell of feet.

[Wing: I’ve seen schools where people had to share a locker, but what the ever fuck is this school district doing, adding more students to the school when they are already overcrowded this much? SVMS may have also been overcrowded but holy fuck, this seems much worse. (I shared a locker in junior high, for that matter, but we got to choose our locker partners. My friend J and I shared and at one point a school of goldfish crackers died a horrible death. Our poor, sweet, inanimate pets.)]

Her locker partner is Brian Rainey and he has two requests: 1) don’t put up a makeup mirror because his friends exude toxic masculinity; and 2) can he stick his used chewing gum on the door for science class? Elizabeth says yes to both, even though the second is gross, because he seems nice. [Wing: The second is disgusting and I would bleach the ever loving fuck out of that locker daily. Then again, she does live with a sister who left a sandwich in her backpack over an entire summer.] [Raven: I once left a tomato in my lunchbox at school, and stashed it behind a filing cabinet in the library for three years. When I opened it, it was brown liquid. and it fucking STANK.] [Dove: I also have a horrible tale of a lunchbox left in a locker for too long. Of course, it contained food made by my mother, so it was pretty awful to start with.]

She asks him to explain their schedules, and he explains that there are only three classes per day plus gym and the classes are 90 minutes. Then Salvador comes up and he is either flirty or super friendly.

Next we meet Jessica’s locker partner. He’s called Ronald Rheece, and I’m fairly certain he was written with the intention of being on the spectrum without stating it. By that I simply mean he’s written as forthright, friendly, and takes her verbal responses literally rather than reading her hesitancy and body language, and – from my point of view – utterly charming.

Jessica does not share my reaction. She’s thrown when he introduces himself and shakes hands with her. Then he reels off his name, favourite subjects and hobbies. He’s eleven months younger than the youngest eighth grader because he skipped second grade.

“I belong to the chess club and the debate team,” Ronald continued. “And we won’t have many classes together because I take a special bus over to the high school for advanced calculus in the mornings.”

“Well, good for you,” I said (heartily relieved about the fact that we wouldn’t have a lot of classes together). I meant to sound sarcastic, but I guess he didn’t get it because he just looked really proud. “Can I unpack my books now?” I asked.

I think this both illustrates what I mean about him just reading what she says, rather than her tone, and also that we’re not really supposed to think that Jessica’s assessment is correct. She’s not thinking what a pathetic waste of space he is – like she does in High with Robin or Winston – she actually seems a bit thrown that he isn’t impressed with her prettiness or hurt by her sarcasm.

[Wing: I think Ronald has the potential to be a fun character, and he works as an excellent foil for Jessica, who is used to people reacting to her strongly, good or bad, and she has extreme emotions herself. She would not know how to deal with him.]

They go their separate ways and it hits Jessica that not only doesn’t she have friends, but she doesn’t even know anyone. She sees Sally Bank, who is allegedly a SVMS alum (I personally guarantee that if she was, she was never once mentioned), and hurries to sit next to her, only to be told that Sally is saving the seat for Deena (allegedly worked on the Sixers with Elizabeth. I call bullshit). Jessica wonders if she was just slighted in response to the time she told Sally her new haircut made her look like a pineapple. [Wing: How very dare anyone hold a grudge against her, Jessica thinks, and I both love her for it and am delighted that there are actual consequences to thinks she’s (allegedly, since we’ve seen none of this) done.]

She picks a seat all by herself, and wishes she was friends with the pretty girl in front of her. During registration, we learn the pretty girl is called Lacey Frells. [Raven: Lacey Frells! All I can hear is wee spinster effusing over a new outfit, with a lyrical Scottish brogue… “Och, ah do love mah pretty new bloose, it has loads o’ lacey frells.”]

The teacher says that they should ignore the bell because it will ring every 50 minutes, but class isn’t over – wait, the whole school does 90 minute blocks, but the bell rings every 50 minutes? That’s not even mathematically sound. That means, for example, the bell rings at 1pm after lunch. Then 1:50. Then 2:40. But if the classes are 90 minutes long, the class should end at 2:30.

Oh. Junior High is being run by thickos on par with SVMS. FFS.

[Wing: I think what is actually happening here is that the block schedule is new (and though Elizabeth’s locker partner made me think it’s at least a year old, the teacher here makes me think this is the first year for it) and the bell system hasn’t been reprogrammed with the new schedule. I don’t know how complicated that would have been in the 90s. I would have expected it to be completed over the summer, but then I would expect construction to be completed, too, and the local high school didn’t really start the bulk of the construction until a few weeks before school started this fall. I’m sure having a new building built right outside their classrooms isn’t distracting for students at all. Perfectly normal learning environment.] [Dove: OK, that makes sense. Kinda. Although our school changed lessons from being 30 minutes to 45 one year, and we never had any bell ringing problems. I guess… affluent area? Although, to be fair, Sweet Valley’s about the same level of wealth.]

Anyway, the moral of the story is: if the bell rings, ignore it. Jessica, naturally isn’t listening. And when the bell rings, she’s the only one to leave, which is called out by the teacher. She tries to think of something witty to style it out, but she has nothing, and her only option is to slink back to her desk feeling like an idiot.

Over with Elizabeth, she’s picks a desk behind Anna and Salvador. Anna is described as being Asian, which has made me think, is it a rule in Sweet Valley that if you’re Asian and female, you must be called Anna? We have Anna Reynolds in Twins, Anna Wang in Junior High, and Anna Wu in High. Name an Asian not called Anna, I dare you! [Raven: #TooManyAnnas] [Dove: My bad. Anna Wu is in Chuck. I was mixing her up with Jade Wu from High. Although Anna Wu is welcome to join Sweet Valley and start a cult of Annas.]

Elizabeth eyeballs Salvador, and decides he makes her nethers twitch. Todd who? No, seriously, she isn’t quite in crush, but she hasn’t mentioned him at all. [Raven: I guess she’s just back from Houses for Humanity and her holiday romance, yes? Todd’s been off the scene for a while. Oh, and also SHE’S NOT FUCKING MET HIM YET.]

She listens to Salvador and Anna talk about a girl called Charlie, who is the editor of the Spectator, which is the best school newspaper in the country. Huh. Guess it never entered all those competitions where Elizabeth won in sixth grade then? [Wing: They wouldn’t have been competing against the Sixers, though. SVJH starts at seventh grade.] Naturally Elizabeth wants to join and she thinks Charlie is really cool.

Charlie then takes the floor and invites people to try out, but only those who are serious about journalism. Not you, Elizabeth. If Charlie read your future Eyes and Ears column, she’d probably vomit her spleen out of her eyes.

Anna and Salvador ask for application forms. And after a lengthy pause, so does Elizabeth.

Next up is gym class with Jessica and Sue Scarlett. It’s swimming, and Sue Scarlett is passing out swimsuits. They get two, which will be billed to their parents. [Raven: Is this a thing?!]

Jessica spots Lacey, who is sitting with Kristin Seltzer, who is described thusly:

I’ve only been at junior high for half a day, and I already knew who Kristin Seltzer was because every single person she passes says hi to her. She’s chubby, with an absolutely beautiful face and dazzling smile. Her hair is an unbelievable cloud of dark blond curls.

Do you see that? Do you see it? That is Jessica “the fat shamer” Wakefield acknowledging that someone is chubby, but also pouring praise on that chubby girl’s smile and hair.

I have no words. Mostly because I’m sure I’ll use them when I recap Power Play next week. But let’s just sit and enjoy this moment. This girl is carrying extra weight, but she still has value. In fact, as far as the rest of SVJH is concerned, she has far more value than the weird blond girl wearing a purple kilt.

[Wing: I love Kristin already and cannot believe how much better this book is about a fat(ish) character than every single other Sweet Valley series we’ve recapped.] [Raven: Also approved. Let’s hope she does something cool down the line.]

Kristin is friendly, but Lacey seems irritated by Jessica’s presence. Jessica mentions Lila and it turns out that Kristin knows her. She hopes this is her in to having friends and people to talk to – and it feels like by now, she’s not even lobbying for “prettiest and most popular girl in the school”, and would be delighted with having just one bestie to sit with. But then Sue Scarlett singles her out for talking in class, calling attention to her ugly skirt.

Sue Scarlett then gives a very lengthy lecture on athlete’s foot and verrucas, before they’re finally allowed to escape for lunch. Lacey and Kristin don’t invite her to join them and she has too much pride to feebly trail after them. Looking around she sees no familiar faces (except for Sally and Deena, and fuck those pineapple bitches). For a moment, she’s genuinely worried she might even start crying.

The only person she knows is Ronald Rheece. In a toss-up between eating alone and eating with a nerd, she picks him.

After a period of silence, he says that he really likes her skirt.

Over with Elizabeth, she’s now in Sue Scarlett’s hellish gym class. She passes out their uniforms. On a first read, as the type of physical education is not specified, I thought this was also swimming, so when the next bit occurred, I found it even more bizarre. I guess, just pretend this one is… um, running or something?

[Wing: Different quarters/semesters have different activities, looks like. Swimming itself is often one entire unit because it involves more mess (and sometimes travel, depending on where the pool is located) than other activities. Elizabeth’s is probably more gen phys ed, so running, volleyball, things like that.

I fucking hate, hate, hate Scarlett already, and it just gets worse. I also hate the entire idea of school-provided swimsuits and gym uniforms. What the fuck, and also, I guess there are no parents who won’t be able to afford the sudden bill for them (and for four of them! Two swimsuits, two uniforms per gym class student!), and what about people who don’t fit a standard size? Anna isn’t introduced as fat and yet the one on her is embarrassingly exposing.]

[Raven: The school-provided swimwear is hideous. I totally get the need to mandate the style, as it means that there’s no designer snobbery with the rich kids wearing Prada and the poor kids in a binbag, but that’s what uniforms are for. Approved designs, on a list, that is handed out to parents to obtain themselves, thus they can be fitted correctly and appropriately. And lower income families can get vouchers or somesuch to cover (the majority of) the cost. At least, that how it worked for my family, back in the day. In the UK now, the rich kids probably get to wear swimsuits fashioned from the flayed skin of the malnourished and forgotten paupers. Fucking Tories out.] [Dove: I had to nick mine from the swapshop or wear lost property. When I lost the taste for that, I just started forging excuse notes. On the plus side, our PE kits were so fucking foul even Kamie Crawford (from Catfish) couldn’t make them sexy, so that kind of snobbery didn’t exist.]

The uniforms are either skin-tight or gigantic. Elizabeth’s is huge, Anna’s is teeny. They haven’t spoken yet, but they’ve progressed to smiling at each other, since they’re next to each other in the alphabet.

They enter class and Sue Scarlett immediately and loudly asks Anna where her sports bra is. This causes all the boys to giggle, grin, elbow each other, and, naturally, eyeball Anna’s chest intently. A+ teaching Sue Scarlett.

[Wing: Mother fucking Scarlett, I will fucking burn you to the fucking ground. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you are worse than all the bad teaching we saw from all the SVMS teachers put together. You fucking abusive asshole.]

Elizabeth is utterly mortified on Anna’s behalf and can’t even imagine how bad it feels to be Anna right now.

Anna, demonstrating she’s had Sue Scarlett’s class before, says that she dropped it in a puddle in the locker room, and Sue Scarlett always says never to wear wet underwear. This pleases Sue Scarlett intensely.

Elizabeth blurts that she has a backup in her locker that she can lend Anna.

Sue Scarlett seems intent on explaining Anna’s boobs in great detail to the class when Salvador declares loudly that his toes itch. This causes a complete lockdown. She demands everyone take off their shoes and socks and present their feet for infection. In the chaos, Elizabeth and Anna slip off to the locker room.

Once away from Sue Scarlett, Anna says that she guesses Elizabeth knows that she never dropped her bra, she doesn’t have one. Elizabeth says that’s cool, because obviously she doesn’t have a spare. But why don’t they cut class and go and buy one now?

I mean, wow. Good for you, Elizabeth. I like this Elizabeth. This is an Elizabeth that uses her meddling powers for good. This is not reflected glory, this is genuine empathy and trying to help. Get down with your nice self, kiddo.

[Wing: I love this. Friendship. It’s real. And it’s more than we’ve seen in SVH between Jessica and Elizabeth. Why doesn’t SVJH go on for 100+ books and SVH fuck off into the sea?]

They’re on the way to the mall by the time they swap names. We swap into Anna’s head and she likes Elizabeth for getting her out of that mortifying situation back there. She’s been considering buying a bra for herself for a while. She’d like to go with her mom, but after Tim things have been hard. She doesn’t want to waste the good days on shopping for a bra, and the bad days are just…

Note: I’m not being a shoddy recapper here. That’s all we get. The lead in to a backstory. And that’s fine, especially since we’re in Anna’s head, and she doesn’t need to give herself backstory on her own life.

Once inside the shop, the saleswoman tries to intimidate them. Nice. Elizabeth and Anna do their best to show that they aren’t intimidated. Elizabeth mentions that she only has $10 on her, and Anna is touched that Elizabeth would contribute to buying her a bra. It’s ok though, she’s got her mom’s credit card.

The saleswoman, who apparently works with bras all day every day, seems convinced that these kids are tricksy young scamps who’ve come in to giggle at bras. And not, even though all evidence points to it, a pair of kids trying to get the nerve up to buy a bra. She confronts them and Elizabeth says that they want to try on some bras – and her voice trembles a little, which is a cute detail. The saleswoman grabs one off a shelf and tells them this one is popular and will probably fit.

Let me just reiterate, this woman works in a bra shop. [Raven: “Excuse me, is this a bra shop?“]

She should have asked for a size and offered to measure Anna. I say this as a woman who only started actually measuring a couple of year ago. I’ve been wearing the wrong size for literal decades. I told my friends, and they started laughing at me. Because over the past few months, they had independently done the same thing and also discovered they were way out on their sizes.

I guess my takeaway from this is that literally every adult in Sweet Valley is in the wrong job, and they take it out on the kids. And from that I extrapolate that it’s because they’re being given these roles against their will. The Wakefields exude a low-level mind control that forces the plot they want to happen, which results in adults being plucked from the real world and shoved into roles – teachers, librarians, nosy neighbours, sales assistants, etc – that they never wanted. Hence all the loathing. Thoughts? [Raven: Good theory. Maybe Old Man Casey of Casey’s Place, and the young adult that took over from him, are the only exception? And maybe the new teacher in Keeping Secrets who was actually quite good?]

At this point, Salvador arrives and irritates the saleswoman, and it’s supposed to be funny, and I’m not feeling it. I do think he did throw himself on the sword to protect Anna’s dignity earlier, but now he’s just being annoying, and I’d rather either Elizabeth or Anna sassed her while making their purchase.

Anyway, the girls find him hilarious – I guess you had to be there to see the joke “What’s a zebra? … The largest size!” land properly. Because I’m just headtilting and thinking, that doesn’t work. It’s not funny. Nor did I find it amusing when he said he wanted to buy a bra for his grandmother, and the saleswoman was the same size, so what size was she?

[Wing: I mean, it’s not funny but it does actually work as a joke. If an A bra is very small, and a B bra is slightly larger, logic would dictate that a Z bra is the largest size. Is that true? I don’t think so, but I also don’t wear above a C bra at best and usually a B.] [Raven: Doesn’t help that the English pronunciation of Zebra is actually Zeh-bra (like Meh-bra). Joke falls flat in this case.] [Dove: Yeah, Raven just had to do the accent for me to understand. I thought he was like A is for ant-eater, Z is for zebra, it’s a cup joke. Without the accent (“zee bra”), it takes too much puzzling out. Jokes are meant to be funny, and not need two paragraphs to explain.]

Sorry, I was just enjoying the girl friendship before a dude had to ruin it run in and “save” them… from successfully completing their purchase without him? *shrugs* Thanks for that, Salvador.

If you’re wondering how he found them, he followed them.

The three of them go for pizza, and here we step away from Twins. They are not going to Guido’s or the Dairi Burger. They’re going to Vito’s Pizza and Elizabeth doesn’t assume she’s invited, and awkwardly says she’ll see them tomorrow. They insist she joins them, and they’ll make sure she gets on the right bus to get home.

I guess from this there are two malls in Sweet Valley and one is closer to SVMS and the other is closer to Junior High, so we’re used to the one near SVMS, and this one is unfamiliar. I mean, two malls in one town is a stretch for this Brit to comprehend, but maybe Wing will just roll her eyes at my Britishness and point out that the US is a big place and they can have two malls if they want. THEY CAN HAVE A MALL FOR EVERY HOUSE IF THEY WANTED!

I mean, probably not the latter, but maybe the former.

[Wing: I grew up in a town that to this day has zero malls, so… We used to go to two different cities to go to the mall. One had a single mall. The other currently has 11, per a list I just checked, though only 4-5 are what I would picture as the stereotypical 80s/90s US media mall. As usual, Sweet Valley varies in size depending on what the story needs, so I can see it being both large enough for multiple malls and small enough for no malls depending on the book.]

Talk turns to Charlie, the editor of the Spectator. They like to list the bad things about her. Apparently sometimes she refers to herself in third person. Elizabeth feels a bit bad about making fun of her, then hesitantly suggests that maybe her glasses aren’t prescription, they’re just regular glass and it’s an affectation. This solidifies her as their new best friend.

[Wing: Charlie sounds pretentious as hell but also I love her.]

We cut to dinner at the Wakefield Compound where Jessica is being deliberately dramatic. She interrupts to point out that nobody’s asked about her day. When her dad asks, she says that she doesn’t want to talk about it. Then says that it was horrible. This is charming. I don’t mind Jessica being a drama queen, but I like it when she’s self-aware. And Ned actually parents. He tells her off when she complains how nerdy her locker partner is. Twice. Ned. The most ineffectual and least present parent in the series just weighed in, very validly, on his daughter’s snobbery.

The phone rings and it’s Lila. She asks how Jessica’s first day was, and when Jessica hesitates, she jumps in to say that hers was great. Their new homeroom teacher gives them doughnuts every day as long as nobody gets detention – which Jessica says is bribery, but nobody really cares, because doughnuts. The cafeteria now has a salad bar (although it’s gross because people use their hands, not the tongs), and she gets to sit next to Ellen Ritemen. The bestest girl in the series. [Raven: Ellen!]

That last sentence was my reaction, but Jessica is suitably jealous, even without thinking Ellen is the bestest girl. She asks what everyone thought of her plaid skirted outfit. Oh, Lila didn’t wear that. She’s going to return it. The plaid was a bit garish.

She doesn’t seem to get that she’s betrayed Jessica here. Jessica thought they were wearing the same outfit because they were besties, and then Lila didn’t go through with it, and even comments that it’s babyish to wear the same outfit – didn’t she and Elizabeth grow out of that in sixth grade? Ouch.

Lila softens the blow by asking if Jessica wants to come over tomorrow or something.

It wasn’t until later that I realized Lila had said, “You should have been there.” Which, when you think about it, was not quite the same as saying, “I missed you.”

That’s actually quite insightful for Jessica. I like this more emotional Jessica. She has actual people feelings rather than dramatic murderer feelings.

[Wing: She’s making my heart hurt. Elizabeth too. And Anna. There are so many real, believable, heart-wrenching emotions in this book! GHOSTIES! I LOVE YOU!]

Next we have a Salvador point of view. He lives with his grandmother because his parents are in the military and like to move around a lot. He calls his grandmother “the Doña”, which is from a western. She asks what the best bit of school was, and he says it was Elizabeth Wakefield.

I’ve gotta be honest, I really don’t particularly care for Salvador, and I’m not sure the ghostie does either, because while everyone else got several pages for their chapter, he got a few paragraphs.

Next we get an excerpt from Elizabeth’s application to the Spectator. In short she wants to do more interviews with “average” people because they’re “extraordinary” too [Raven: She sounds a bit pretentious, but I agree with her sentiment. The world needs more stories about binmen!]. She has Sixers experience and is reliable. And she was late 10 days last year because apparently if you run a hair drier and the dishwasher at the same time, it blows the fuses. I know this is supposed to be funny, but seriously, Wakefield parents, get a sparky in to fix it. You’re a partner in a law firm, Ned. You can afford an electrician. It’s cheaper than buying a new house when it burns to the ground. Did you learn nothing from the Sutton tragedy?

The next day, Jessica encounters Ronald at her locker, who informs her that they can’t have lunch together today because he has chess club tryouts. Her first reaction is to be surprised that Ronald needs to bother trying out because he’s so clever. Her second is to point out that they didn’t have lunch together, because that would require conversation. He points out they talked about his radio. In fact, he recites how the conversation began. I love Ronald. I have always been captivated by people who are so happy in themselves that they give zero fucks for prettiness, popularity or power. Melissa McCormick was one. Utterly unflappable in the face of Lila’s fabulous. Ronald seems to be the same with Jessica.

And it works. Ronald has completely derailed Jessica, and instead of shouting that she’s too cool to have lunch with him, she just snaps thank you for the warning, which he takes at face value. I think this friendship will be very good for Jessica. On the one hand, yes, she can get away with saying nasty things that he might not immediately pick up on. But on the other hand, that completely throws her. By day two alone, we have a Jessica who bites back a scathing comment. Not because she’s a great person just yet, but because she sees it’s futile. But this could actually be a good thing for her.

Not gonna lie, I may grow to ship them, depending on how this unfolds. I really hope it’s one of those stealth friendships, where he just sort of joins the edges of her life, and she grows to really depend on him, and then one day he’s not there, and she realises how valuable he is to her, and she has this sudden dopey realisation, that she has the biggest crush of her life on a skinny hyper nerd who reminds her of a puppy*, and that’s the greatest thing ever, because he’s the greatest thing ever.

* that’s how she described him the first time she met him

(And if that’s not how this goes, books will be hurled against walls, because why are they always showing me unexpected, yet perfect, boys for her, and then sending her back to Aaron Dallas?)

By gym class, Jessica hasn’t managed to have a conversation with anyone. She lines up in class and Sue Scarlett gives them a lecture. Nobody who is currently menstruating is allowed to swim, so speak up now if you are.

Jessica nearly dies of embarrassment. Then she worries that because she’s blushing, people will assume she’s on her period, which causes her to blush more. She checks the other girls, and they’re all regarding the ground intently. Jessica vows that she will always lie to Sue Scarlett or fake illness to avoid having to admit in front of a class full of her peers that right now she is menstruating.

And then she is suddenly filled with rage about it. Why on earth is she saying and doing this? Jessica is aware that it’s perfectly safe and sanitary to swim while on your period.

I suppose having a twin that’s fucking obsessed with menstruation is handy after all.

I might sound like Raven here, but I’m really hoping that the reason Sue Scarlett is such an awful teacher is to show kids that it’s ok to disagree with a teacher. I really hope this leads to a resolve where she is toppled and, presumably, has to move to Ohio under an assumed name to become a cheerleading coach with an improbably large budget.

[Wing: I fucking hope so because I fucking want to burn her to the fucking ground. She is being fucking abusive to these kids, particularly the girls, and in a book that is otherwise wonderful with real, if complicated and difficult, emotions, she comes across as a one-note villain. Fuck out of here, Scarlett.]

Back to this story though, once Sue Scarlett has finished making every kid hate their life, Jessica takes a seat next to Lacey and Kristin. She mentions that she spoke to Lila. Kristin politely asks how Lila is, while Lacey seems to have no clue who Jessica or Lila are. Jessica tries to pull off a joke about how Lila’s pool is better than this and the swimming caps aren’t so hideous. Lacey scathingly asks what kind of loser expects people to wear swimming caps in their own private pool.

I feel you. On my first day of secondary school, I approached three other people also called Dove (it’s a common name) who seemed to be fast friends. I opened with, “Hey, you won’t forget my name!” and the coolest Dove just gave me a withering look and said, “Why’s that?” and I kind of just died inside and slouched off in defeat.

(I think that’s possibly the only time that Dove and I ever exchanged words in the whole time I was at school. Jessica is more tenacious than me.)

Naturally, they don’t invite her to be their new bestie.

As icing on the cake:

Later, during my swimming assessment, Miss Scarlett said in this really loud voice, “Nice brrreaststroke, Jessica!” and trilled the r just like that.

And this catches on. Throughout the whole school. [Raven: This is very believable, and funny, and it gives me proper Greg Davis Nicknames vibes.] [Dove: Baghdad is the best nickname ever.]

I have never actually wanted to hug Jessica before. I have once with Elizabeth – when she was forced to crawl through an unknown cave system with no light – but never Jessica. But I do now.

An excerpt from Salvador’s application to the spectator. It’s irritating and contains nothing of value or plot-relevance. Let’s move on.

Over with… um, I can’t really call them Team Boring now, can I? I like Anna. Hell, I like Elizabeth. It’s just Salvador I’m not keen on yet. Ok, well, they’re all nervous about their Spectator applications. A bunch of boys go past and say “Nice brrreaststroke!” to Elizabeth.

Anna asks what it means. He’s a guy, he should know what the other guys are saying. He says Elizabeth probably doesn’t want to know. And he’s sure in her case it would be a compliment.

Anna does not take that well and says she’s had enough chest remarks after yesterday. The other two look surprised and Salvador tries to speak but she says she’s sorry.

She feels very out of sorts and can’t help but remember the time she’d gone to meet Salvador and he gave a wolf-whistle. She felt oddly flattered because she was wearing a new skirt and he never usually noticed. But actually he was drooling over some other girl. Who was wearing the same exact skirt as her.

I feel that. I remember being fifteen and having my crush phone me to endlessly drone on about how he’d met an amazing girl with green eyes. And it was soopah speshul because he’d never met anyone with green eyes before. He’d known me for four years. I have green eyes.

I get Anna’s irritation/disquiet/longing to lash out/shame about that/whirlwind.

Can we just get a round of applause for these books having more relatable problems than “I want to be in a movie but some other actor twins tried to cut my hair off”?

Also, it’s not so much that Salvador is her crush, more that he’s her constant, and she’s obviously got some drama at home because she tries to never mention it and when she does… (that was me demonstrating that she uses ellipsis when she has to think about it).

They meet Jessica by the bus for the first time, and Anna decides that Jessica is actually a bit prettier than her sister.

[Wing: “I decided that Jessica was actually prettier than Elizabeth, but maybe that’s because her eyes were so bright and her cheeks were flushed.” Anna, embrace the burgeoning crush. You can be my new favorite Sweet Valley queer-coded girl.]

At this point, another group of boys compliment Jessica on her breastroke, and she yells at them. Elizabeth asks what it’s all about and Jessica snaps she doesn’t want to talk about it.

After the twins get on the bus, Anna asks Salvador which twin he thinks is prettier. She doesn’t expect a response because this is a “girly” conversation. So she’s surprised when he replies immediately that it’s Elizabeth. “By far.”

She starts feeling unhappy again, so changes the subject and asks what movie he wants to watch this Saturday. He says no chick-flicks, something violent instead. Anna thinks to herself she might ask Elizabeth to join them in the future, but not this weekend. Not yet.

She suddenly worries that Salvador and Elizabeth will make the paper and not her, and they’ll have no time for her, and her only friend will be Ronald Rheece – step back, Anna, he’s not for you. He’s Jessica’s beau. Then she shakes it off and tells herself that Elizabeth and Salvador will be her friends no matter what. [Raven: As they’ve not appeared in SVH as yet, I can only assume that Jessica has actually killed them.]

At home with the twins, Jessica is just about to leave for Lila’s when the phone rings. It’s Lila to say that it’s Booster tryouts today, so Lila won’t be home. Oh, so the Boosters are back, are they? They lay completely dormant for a year, but now they’re back.

Jessica is nearly ready to cry, but somehow manages to sound casual as she says, oh well, I guess we’ll do it some other time. Someone in the background asks who Lila is talking to, and when Lila says her name, Jessica has a nasty feeling that everyone will say “Jessica who?” Instead it’s Ellen. She says to say hi for her.

I feel like this ghostie misses Ellen as much as I do, because for someone who’s not in the book, she’s mentioned several times. Definitely more than any other Unicorn.

Lila says she’s having a sleepover on Friday. Jessica should meet her outside the Regency at seven pm, because they’re seeing Cool Dudes first.

Before I mock the frankly stupid title, I think I should give this book the benefit of the doubt. I’m going to say this movie is about a zombie apocalypse set in California during a freak blizzard. They are cool both because of the ambient temperature, and the fact that their bodies are dead, and they’re dudes because… well, in this day and age, dude is almost a genderless term, and California is where the surfer dude trend began. So yeah, that’s what I think this movie is about.

[Wing: I assume it’s playing with ridiculous titles like “Home Fries” and “Some Girl” and “Billboard Dad” (all from 1998) but with a plot more like, oh, Can’t Hardly Wait. Yes, I’m giving the ghostie a lot of credit, but this ghostie might very well deserve it.] [Raven: Also getting California / Encino Man vibes.]

Anyway, Jessica is pleased with this plan. She likes it when Lila just assumes she’ll be there, because they’re great friends and it’s right to assume that your bestie will be at your sleepover.

Still, she’s now at a loose end and asks Elizabeth if she wants to watch TV together. Elizabeth says no, what about homework. Jessica has already done hers. In the toilets over lunch. Alone.

She realises that without a social life, you can be super productive. She and Ronald have that in common.

The next morning on the bus, Jessica asks Elizabeth if she ever wishes they were at SVMS. Elizabeth says she misses Todd and Maria – oh, so she does remember her friends’ names! She hasn’t called them once though – but she likes SVJH. [Wing: But not her alleged BFF Amy.] [Dove: Amy’s been in Connecticut for like two years now.]

Jessica says that she thinks it’s unfair that your address can change your life – then she breaks off, all bright-eyed. Elizabeth asks if something’s up, and Jessica points out that her friends are waiting then dashes off.

Elizabeth meets up with Anna and Salvador, and all three are knots of anxiety over whether they made the Spectator cut. I’m sure it will shock you to find out that all three did, along with two other people we don’t know (Ivy and Damon). Charlie congratulates all of them and welcomes them to the team. Elizabeth notices that Charlie doesn’t acknowledge all the people who didn’t make the cut [Raven: Pfft, fuck them weak-ass losers].

Over with Jessica in gym, she’s not even bothered by being asked to do her laps, which sets the boys giggling. She’s had a great idea. If her address is what sends her to Junior High, then she can change it. She’s not even going outlandish with this idea. She’s not going to fill the house with cockroaches and trip the fuses and convince the Wakefield parents to move house. (Not gonna lie, I wouldn’t have minded if that was Plan A until she thought better of it.) She’s just going to use Lila’s address. She’s sure Lila and her father won’t mind.

Jessica heads to the girls’ bathrooms for lunch with her homework, because this is her life now. Kid, just go and sit with Ronald. She finds Lacey in there smoking. Wait. Smoking? Yes, smoking. Lacey looks a bit worried when Jessica sees her, but Jessica just makes a joke that Sue Scarlett would freak if she caught her.

She tries to start a conversation with Lacey, but it doesn’t really take. Jessica babbles about how she loves cheerleading and Lacey gathers her stuff ready to leave. Jessica asks why she’s not a cheerleader and Lacey flat-out tells her it’s lame and leaves.

Jessica ends up crying and praying the address thing will work.

Over with Anna, she has a cup of tea with the Doña while Salvador gets changed. The Doña asks how things are at home, and Anna thinks she must know how bad things are. She just keeps saying the word fine in various ways until it’s over.

Then Salvador appears in a new shirt, and hurries them out to the Spectator meeting. She thinks he’s super excited about it. Then she realises that he’s not even listening to her.

Thanks, I hate him.

OK, I don’t hate him. This is not Rachel Grant levels at all. He’s just my least favourite character so far. And that’s not a biting insult that it would be in any other Sweet Valley series. The characters are great. And his presence gets us to relate to Anna’s feelings about this. But sometimes he doesn’t add much but “informed funny”. Maybe he’ll do more later.

Over with Jessica, she is alone. Elizabeth is going to the meeting. Steven is going bowling with Joe Howell – more continuity. And Jessica doesn’t even have homework to keep her company.

I personally think she should call Maria Slater and become besties with her. It would confuse everyone. If you can’t dazzle people, baffle them.

Over at the Spectator, Anna is told to work through the phone book, selling ad space to photographers who think the school might use them for school photos. And Salvador and Elizabeth are paired up to work on sending out issues to subscribers. Elizabeth kind of wobbles a bit when she realises his eyes are black. Anna stares at them a lot.

We have another time breakdown from 7:46pm to 9:25pm.

Short version: Jessica and Ned fight to the death over who picks what to watch on TV. I believe Jessica wins, but it’s unclear. Elizabeth gets a lift home from Steve and is horrified by how fast he drives. Salvador is invited to join the Doña’s fencing team, nearly does for the lolz, but decides against it. [Wing: Have I mentioned that I love the Doña? Because I do. I want to be here when I grow up.] Anna gets home and finds that her parents have gone to bed. There is a tape in the player, it’s Tim’s band, the one with just his vocals.

She plays a second of it, long enough to hear her brother sounding oddly young and hopeful, as though he doesn’t know what the future holds. Which, of course, he didn’t.

I want to know what happened! But as I said before, it’s fine that she doesn’t give backstory. These are her thoughts, she doesn’t need to explain her thoughts to herself. But yes, I’m hooked. I need to know what happened.

[Wing: The dead brother story this is leading to is going to break my heart, I can already tell.] [Raven: Yeah, this was great work. In fact, all the peripherals and sideshow plots feel very well rounded and actualised. It’s as if some – *gasp* – actual thought has gone into building this riff on an established world.]

The next day we’re in Salvador’s head. The Doña has tickets to see Splendora at the Manchester Club tonight (which is Saturday for those keeping an eye on the plot), does he want them? He could take Anna.

Over with Elizabeth, she gets a call from Salvador asking if she wants to see Splendora with him tonight. She checks with her parents, who properly parent and ask questions like is she going to a bar, will there be alcohol, drugs, gangs, flick knives or anything else they should worry about – and when Steven scathingly points out that it’s a teen hangout and Elizabeth could never get into a bar, they calm down a bit and agree to drop her off when they go to the movies.

After she’s hung up, Elizabeth realises she didn’t check that Anna would be coming with them. She calls Anna but only gets the answer machine. Next she checks with Jessica what just happened. Jessica thinks it’s a date. And then, because she’s in a good mood, she breaks out her dark green velvet jacket.

Side note: the twins being actual friends, instead of one monster and one spinless blob of beige paint? YES PLEASE.

Jessica then breaks out the rules for the jacket and they are delightfully intense. The first rule is that you must always carry a plastic bag, so that if it starts raining you must take off the jacket and store it safely in the bag. There are other rules relating to what food you order, whether people smoke around you, or if it’s a bit rowdy – all end the same. SAVE THE JACKET. I love this Jessica.

[Wing: Fuck, I love this version of the twins and their friendship. Also: Elizabeth thinks the jacket makes her eyes look green. I know their eyes are, what, the green-blue of the sea, but this really shocked me, I’m so used to thinking of their eyes as mostly blue.] [Raven: I’ve a storied history of enjoying the books in which any of the characters act like real friends, and this book delivers in megaspades in this regard. Pretty much every character has motive to act how they do, and there are so many cool little things that stem from positions of friendship, respect and love. Loving it.]

The phone rings and Alice picks up. She hangs up a few moments later, reporting to the twins that it was a crank call. Someone said “Great brrreaststroke!” and hung up. Jessica laughs like a drain.

Next we have Anna’s Spectator application – by the way, each one of these only shows a couple of questions, and the numbers are pretty high, so we can infer that Charlie is a bit insufferable in her hiring process for a school newspaper. [Wing: So pretentious. So adored by me.]

Anna rages against the logical/tech-savvy Asian stereotype by pointing to her dad trying to set up a PC. Her weakness is pizza. The last two I’ll just quote.

34. Define “peer pressure.”

Peer pressure is when people force other people to do things they shouldn’t by threatening to stop being friends with them. Peer pressure can do horrible things. For example, it can force an eighteen-year-old boy to lie to his parents and say he’s at the library when he’s really not, when he’s really off meeting some people he thinks are cool and losing his life in the process.

35. Define “justice.”

Justice would mean a world where there is no peer pressure.

So far on Tim we now know: he was her brother, he died at eighteen, due to getting in with a bad crowd who encouraged him to do something dangerous.

Over with Jessica, she’s just been dropped off by Steven outside the Regency. It’s 7pm and there’s no sign of the Unicorns. However, a random girl named Naomi Simms who Jessica apparently knows from SVMS (why the new character? Why not Brooke Dennis or someone like that), which gives her a boost. She’s missed people even saying hi to her.

She checks inside. Nothing. She waits long enough for it to get awkward, then calls Lila’s house. Her housekeeper doesn’t know where she is. She calls home, no answer. It’s now 7:30pm.

Her parents come up to her and ask what’s going on. She updates them and they say they’ll wait with her until the movie starts, then call home and Steven can pick her up if the Unicorns aren’t here by then. Alice says that 30 minutes late isn’t really late for Lila. And while we’ve never seen any evidence of this, I’m willing to believe that this Alice has the faintest clue who her daughter’s friends are and how they approach timekeeping.

At this point one of Ned’s “boring lawyer” friends comes up. It’s Ronald Rheece’s parents, complete with Ronald in tow.

I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, Ronald said, “Jessica’s my locker partner!” the same way someone would say, “Jessica’s my best friend!” which he (thankfully) didn’t say.

“Oh, goodness, this is Jessica?” Mrs. Rheece said, bustling forward to shake my hand. “Ronald talks about you all the time.”

How frightening, I thought. “It’s nice to meet you,” I said formally.

Utterly delightful. I’m so ready for this to be endgame. If I’m wrong, don’t tell me. If I’m right don’t tell me.

Also:

I noticed Ronald was staring at me and sort of glowing with happiness. “What movie are you going to see?” he asked.

Jessica is suddenly hit by a horrific thought. What if someone cool walks by and thinks she came to the movies with her parents? Even worse, what if they think she came with her parents and Ronald and his parents?! It makes her feel like crying. And while I usually take her to task for things like this, I do remember being mortified to be seen out with parents. OMG, what if people know that I, a twelve year old, have parents? Jeez. How embarrassing. It never once occurred to me that I never judged any other kid my age for being out with their parents.

That said, Jessica, be kind. Your stock couldn’t plummet any lower right now. Ronald is not your problem.

In fact, at the ancient age of 42, I now know that you could actually put your arm through his, hold your head high, walk into a movie and make everyone wish they were you if you just style it out with confidence.

I know this because on my first day at work at my last job, I forced myself to breezily introduce myself to a bunch of girls who were smoking, and when an awkward silence fell, I found myself babbling about how Spider-Man has a hyphen, while Batman and Superman do not. I walked away from that conversation thinking I was a fucking idiot. They walked away from the conversation thinking I was some kind of superhero lore genius who had deigned to pick them as her chosen congregation. Or something. Head cool girl told me all this while tipsy. She thought I was really cool after all that nonsense, even though she knew nothing about superheroes – she even googled it a bit in case I talked to her again. Equally tipsy, I confided I knew fuck all too. I was just parroting what my husband and his friends had said the night before. Then we talked about Twilight for 20 minutes and she cried because Bella’s wedding dress was so pretty. So take from that what you will. I think the moral of the story is, talk nonsense confidently, and even cool girls get nerdy over something [Raven: Passionate people are the best, whatever their passions may be. As long as they’re not passionate about, say, racism os some shit.]

Jessica ushers the parents and the Rheeces away and seconds later, Lacey Frells [Raven: “Och, mah pretty bloose!”] shows up and asks what she’s doing. Jessica says that she’s waiting for Lila, who’s in the bathroom. Lacey frowns at Lila’s name and says “The infamous Lila.” Which I always took to mean she thinks Lila is the equivalent of, “Oh, my boyfriend goes to school in Canada, you wouldn’t know him.” But Raven thinks otherwise.

[Wing: What does Raven think? I’ve been thinking it’s clear there’s some bad blood between Lila and them, but now I’m curious.] [Raven: Sounds like you think the same as me, Wing. It came across that Lacey always shut Jessica down whenever Jess mentioned Lila’s name. I’m convinced there is some history there, in which Lila does not come across particularly well. I guess we’ll see as the subseries progresses, and I like that we’ll get this slow release too.] [Dove: For literally the first time while reading a Sweet Valley, I was too busy rooting for all the characters and feeling their feelings to give much thought to the big picture. Which is a compliment. If I was bored, I’d have made an elaborate flow chart to show all my hypotheses over how Lacey and Lila’s lives could have intersected and what their specific beef was.]

Lacey and her boyfriend move on, and there’s still no sign of Lila.

Over with Salvador, he’s waiting for Elizabeth and thinks she looks really pretty when she shows up. She asks where Anna is, and Salvador feels awkward as he explains she’s not coming, he only had two tickets. Elizabeth says she hopes Anna’s feelings won’t be hurt. Salvador then adds that she doesn’t even like Splendora, reasoning that Anna will understand. It was a crush. Girls are into that kind of thing.

Talk then turns to school and it’s all very nice and easy.

Over with Jessica, she’s waited another ten minutes, and she’s getting pissed off. She’s called home several times and can’t get through, so she calls the operator and asks for an emergency breakthrough.

She’s nearly crying when she gets through, and you can tell that Steven is shook to his core. He assumes she’s in the hospital, and nearly explodes when she says that she just needs picking up. Again, excellent sibling writing. It’s not creepy, it’s not informed-funny-but-really-just-annoying. It’s just normal. Anyway, the phone was busy because he was talking to Lila. She and the Unicorns are at Cinemax, so it must be crossed wires, but anyway, Cool Dudes is sold out, so go straight to Lila’s.

Well, that’s that sorted then. Except Jessica knows that she said the Regency, and how did it take Lila an hour to figure out her best friend was missing? Ouch.

Steven grudgingly agrees to pick her up. Lacey reappears and asks where the infamous Lila is. Still smarting, Jessica replies that she’s in the bathroom. Then has a moment of panic as she realises it sounds like her friend has the stomach flu. At this moment, Steven appears and honks. Jessica kind of thinks “fuck it!” and hops in without explaining. Lacey says goodbye, and her tone has changed significantly now.

We have a poem written by Anna which she attached to her Spectator application. I’ll copy/paste, because I’d only use more words to convey a rather straightforward message.

Textures

Brother is a gentle word,
Like a voice that’s singing softly
In the room next door to mine—
Like the hand that bandaged up
My knee when I was nine.

Good-bye is a brutal word,
Like the crunch of metal crashing
Or the sound of breaking glass
Or the quiet scream of silence—
The kind that lasts.

[Wing: This is not necessarily a good poem, but it is a fucking emotional poem, and my heart breaks for Anna and her parents. Fuck.] [Raven: I think this is a perfectly serviceable poem. Not too pretentious, nicely emotional, and a nod to a rhyme scheme in lines 3 and 5. I mean, it’s no “There once was a man from Nantucket,” but what the hell is?]

Over with Anna, she’s called Salvador several times now but only gets the machine. Her mom says he’s probably on his way over, and she might as well go to the video store before he gets here, and Salvador can let himself in.

Anna’s happy for the distraction, because not being able to get hold of Salvador is reminding her of the night they waited up for Tim and he never came home. She goes to the store and choses something sci-fi that Salvador would love. She bumps into Brian Rainey and notes he’s one of the popular kids who’s really nice too. He mentions Elizabeth, and she’s pleased that Brian likes her new friend, because she’s very much been enjoying having a female friend too.

[Wing: Anna, my heart.]

She buys herself Gatorade and buys Coke for Salvador. On her way home she takes a different route which takes her past the Manchester Club. Where she sees Salvador and Elizabeth.

Salvador wasn’t coming over to my house. Those words echoed in my mind. He wasn’t coming over to my house. He wasn’t even thinking about coming over. All day, while I had been looking forward to seeing him, and making toffee popcorn for him, and buying him a Coke, and picking out a video, and worrying about him, he had been… with Elizabeth?

Salvador liked Elizabeth? As a girlfriend? Tears swam in front of my eyes.

Salvador liked Elizabeth better than me?

When was he going to tell me? screamed a voice in my brain. Was he just going to let me sit at home all night, freaking out when I couldn’t get in touch with him? Doesn’t he know—doesn’t he—get it—

I like that this is way more nuanced than “that’s my boy! I like him! I WANT HIM!” There may be some crush in there, but really it’s the worry that she’s losing her best friend, the thoughtless way she was stood up, and the fact that it triggered tragic memories of her brother. When you weigh all that up, it’s utterly irrelevant whether she may or may not want to snog him in the future when she sorts out all of her feelings.

[Wing: How are the emotions and actions and characterizations in Junior High so much more nuanced than almost any other Sweet Valley book we’ve read? HOW? I have so many feelings!]

Anna explodes in a fit of rage and douses them with her bottle of Gatorade. [Raven: This happened so abruptly in the book. I did a proper LOL.]

We skip over to Elizabeth’s head for the Gatorade to land. Her first thought is that it’s raining and it’s time to enact the Jacket Protocols! Then she sees Anna glaring hatefully at the pair of them. Elizabeth is so charmingly clueless and pro-girl friendship in this that she cannot fathom why Anna did this.

Anna runs off, and a nice girl in the queue gives Elizabeth a pack of tissues to try and clean up. They realised they’re going to have to call it a night because they’re both soaked. Elizabeth wonders why that just happened, and boy is she not happy when the truth comes out. In fact, she keeps pushing until she has the full truth: Salvador had plans with Anna tonight and didn’t even let her know he wasn’t coming, and now Anna is furious with them. Well, Elizabeth is furious with Salvador and she’s going to call Steven for a ride home right now.

Isn’t that nice? Can you imagine that going down in High. Jessica would just be like “screw that jealous girl” and snuggle harder into the boy; and Elizabeth would faintly feel awkward, and then congratulate herself on her high levels of empathy and vow to sort things out tomorrow, after the date.

Steven is not happy to be called by his other sister also wanting a ride, but changes his tune when Elizabeth’s voice quivers and says he’s on his way now.

[Wing: THE FUCKING WAKEFIELD SIBLINGS ARE SO FUCKING GOOD AS SIBLINGS. HOW?! GHOSTIE, I LOVE YOU.]

While Elizabeth waits, she does her best to ignore her feelings, because up until that happened, she’d been having a nice time, and had quite liked it when he had touched her hair. But she’s not about to hurt anyone’s feelings for anything or anyone.

Over with Jessica, she’s expecting a Unicorn sleepover, and instead there are three strangers who Jessica is quick to dub “the Double E’s” because their names are Ashlee, Maree and Courtnee. They’ve just transferred to SVMS and made the Booster squad. Jessica takes Lila to a side and asks where Ellen, Rachel and Mandy are. Rachel’s had her wisdom teeth out, and she didn’t bother to invite the other two because she was sure Jessica would rather meet her new friends.

Jessica’s internal response is “Look, Lila, I’ve met enough new people this week to last me a lifetime!”

The entire evening is awful for Jessica. Lila and her new friends are moved to hysterics over a “hilarious” story that’s only really worth a polite smile, and when Jessica tries to share her own stories, they’re polite but not interested, and turn the conversation back to their own shared experiences. [Raven: Weirdly, I expected that they came from Junior High in the re-zoning, and I assumed that they would know of Lacey Frells and we’d get some goss that way. But no.]

Jessica realises that she needs to get Lila on her own to ask about using her address, and she thinks she’ll just close her eyes for a moment while they’re talking about Booster tryouts.

She wakes up the next morning when Mr Fowler is knocking on the door to rouse them for breakfast.

“Well, girls,” Mr. Fowler said, surveying the sleepy faces. “How late did the talk-a-thon go last night?”

Everyone groaned in answer, including me.

“On second thought, I don’t want to know,” he said. “Just hearing Lila and Jessica talk on the phone can give me a sore throat.” Then he looked at me. “How’s the new school going, Jessica?”

I swallowed a mouthful of scrambled eggs. “It’s okay.”

Well, that’s heartbreaking. This same thing happened to me. My best friend and I went to separate secondary schools, but the difference was that her mum was delighted to get rid of me, and gleefully would tell me that Friend had a new best friend now. On reflection, that was better, because I could work with the narrative that we would still be besties if her mum didn’t hate me so much. But really, we wouldn’t. She did have a new best friend now. It meant that I didn’t resent old Friend. I just resented her mother, so when we became friends again years later, I had no time for her stuck-up mother, and didn’t really hold it against Friend personally that she’d moved on. (Not that I should have, these things happen, but as a child/teen, I had no coping mechanisms at all.)

Jessica takes a shower and blow dries her hair and Maree compliments her hair. And Jessica realises the compliment’s not real, Maree just feels sorry for her.

Ordinarily she would hang around after everyone else went home so she and Lila could gossip even more, but Ashlee seems to be settling into that role now.

Jessica awkwardly thanks Lila for inviting her over – which they never usually do because they’ve always had sleepovers – and Lila gives a vague “I’ll call you” style response which they both know is a lie. [Raven: So sad. Poor Jessica.]

Jessica is delighted to be picked up and even more happy to see Elizabeth, who is genuinely happy to have her around.

Ooh, you know what, I love that the twins are demonstrably friends.

In the car, Elizabeth has to break it to Jessica that the jacket didn’t have a nice time last night. The good news is that she and Alice carefully cleaned it with club soda and it will be fine once it dries. Jessica then asks for an explanation, and once she’s up to date, she suggests just calling Anna to explain. Elizabeth has tried that multiple times. Jessica says she’s better off without them then. And for once, this isn’t Jessica’s snobbery about Elizabeth’s boring friends, this is someone who’s got no friends and is hurting. Yes, misery loves company, obviously, but it’s a nice change that she’s not a ruthless cow, and it’s also a nice change that Elizabeth actually likes her friends, rather than them just being tag-along accessories to make up the numbers.

When they get home, Jessica notices that Elizabeth has Gatorade in her hair, and it’s turning green, and offers to wash it out with club soda for her. Elizabeth asks about the sleepover and realises from Jessica’s unenthused answer that it wasn’t great, and feels sad for both of them. But then Alice sticks her head in the bathroom, and Elizabeth counts her blessings for her nice family.

And for once I don’t want to hoof her into the sun for skipping through the tulips and gushing about how perfect Sweet Valley is. Her family is nice. Alice is sober, caring and present; Ned is less visible, but involved enough to get into a silly argument with Jessica over the remote control and lecture Jessica about her snobbery; and Steven is a really good big brother – all boring and obsessed with cars, but drops everything in a heartbeat if his sisters are in distress. And the twins are just lovely. They are different people – not two sides of the same egotistical nightmares – they’re both nice, they both have feelings.

Why didn’t we have these Wakefields all along? How is this the least popular Sweet Valley off-shoot? It’s got the best versions of the Wakefields!

[Wing: We could have had it all.] [Raven: Rolling in the deep.]

Over with Anna, it’s Sunday evening and she’s still angry. She’s been dodging Salvador and Elizabeth’s calls.

The answering machine was blinking, but I had already heard the messages on it. Salvador and Elizabeth had both left multiple messages. Their messages made me so angry—especially Elizabeth’s. Salvador at least had the good grace to sound sheepish. Uh, Anna, his message said, I hope you’re not mad or anything…

But Elizabeth just sounds all sugary and concerned. Oh, Anna, please, call me so I can explain.

I feel like that may be a dig at Twins/High Elizabeth, who really isn’t much for emotions. Also, it’s much easier to blame the unfavourite more when you’re pissed off at your friends.

Anna rages that Elizabeth sounds like she won’t sleep until things get resolved, but she should have thought about that before going on a date with Anna’s best friend. And Anna feels like a fool because she’d been saying nice things about Elizabeth to Brian Rainey before she caught them.

And she’s pissed off at Salvador too, because he looked “enchanted” by Elizabeth. He didn’t even think about their plans that had been set in stone.

The doorbell rings and she asks who is it before opening the door. Pizza delivery. But it’s Salvador with a pizza and an apology. She’s very prickly at first and calls him on it when he tries to justify his actions. Eventually she accepts the apology and they decide to watch a movie together.

She forces herself to ask if he and Elizabeth are dating now, and feels bad that she’s so relieved to hear Elizabeth isn’t even speaking to Salvador right now. She decides to invite Elizabeth over.

Over with Jessica, she was supposed to go to Happy Burger with the fam (screw the Dairi Burger, I guess), but Steven’s out looking at more cars and Elizabeth got invited over to Anna’s. So she’s just having dinner at a burger joint with her parents like a loser. They have a jukebox and Ned gives her some money and asks for “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles. Yes. An actual band.

She goes over to select the song (hoping it’s on a delay so people won’t think that she picked that song), and Lacey Frells shows up again. I’m starting to think that Lacey is obsessed with Jessica. If I wasn’t so invested in Ronessica, I might go for a little Lacsica. [Wing: I’m here for it. Antagonistic flirting and make-outs. Of course, I’m also here for Anna and Jessica, or at least Anna’s first crush on a girl is the pretty, pretty Jessica. Also: what the fuck, smoosh names. Why, Dove. Why.] Lacey asks for Jailhouse Rock by Elvis (another real song!!), which Jessica thinks is no cooler, but does it anyway. [Raven: “Och, play Jailhoose Rock, ah’ll dance like ah dervish in mah bloose wi’ lacey frells!”]

Lacey says she understands about last night, and on my first reading, I really did think that Lacey had some kind of weird obsession with Jess and that she thinks Lila is imaginary, and… I don’t know, she’s cool with it. They can be secret friends or something?

But no. I’m very wrong. Lacey is under the impression that Jessica is dating and older boy, and that’s why her lies were rubbish and she was trying to get shot of her parents. Having an older boyfriend that drives is totally cool.

First of all, she’s been there and done that when she was twelve. Second of all, this ghostie knows what she’s doing. She must know that in Twins and High that Steven/Jessica have all sorts of inappropriate undertones (I remember one time he zips up her dress, and another time they’re having a conversation while she’s wrapped in a towel fresh from the shower), and is gleefully making fun of it.

And Jessica is do damned ready to do anything to have a friend, she’s like, “Yeah, it’s pretty cool.” [Raven: I sense this will bite her on the arse somewhere down the line.]

Over with Elizabeth, she, Anna and Salvador get everything squared away. Elizabeth sets her boundaries, no dating, just friends.

But she can’t help but feel his arm against hers and idly wonder what it might be like to sit on a couch in a darkened room with her and Salvador alone.

Dot. Dot. Dot.

And that’s the end.

Just like Making Out, nothing is fully resolved, and you suddenly realise that after reading book 1, you must now read the entire series to get the full picture of what goes on. You genius bastards.

Final Thoughts:

This is the best Sweet Valley series so far. Yes, I’m on book 1 and the Unicorn Club taught me that book 1 does not represent a full series, but if this quality keeps up, this is going to be head and shoulders above the rest. Literally no question or quibbles.

I have gushed for 12k words over how much I loved this. The characters are normal human beings with relatable emotions, the problems are incredibly mundane – because how many people age twelve can actually relate to “I lied on an application form and now I must pretend my entire family is French, and my friend from school is our French maid”? It’s great. I love this.

I can’t wait to read more. This is absolutely the natural progression to Twins. In fact, I don’t even need to work on my reboot any more, because this has nailed it.

The downside is the absence of beloved characters like Ellen and it looks like we won’t see Lila again after this book. Not so fussed about Elizabeth’s friends, because they were always just yes-men to her “SOMETHING MUST BE DONE” crusades, so Salvador and Anna are a delightful replacement.

The only thing I don’t love is Salvador, and to be honest, I think it’s great to show a thoughtless tactless boy being called out on being thoughtless and tactless and learning from it. And I know he’s my least favourite, but that’s not the insult it would be in any other series. For all I know, next book he’ll be my favourite. And that actually might happen if the quality continues at this level.

A fucking A+ book. All the Stupendouses in the world.

[Wing: This is so fucking amazing. A M A Z I N G. It had believable emotions! Actions! Characterizations! Real friendships and sibling bonding! Decent parenting! Fantastic characters! I don’t know what to do with this. I can’t believe this, this is what we could have had all this time. Ghostie, whoever you are, I love you.]

[Raven: Excellent, excellent, excellent stuff. Loved every minute of it. Even Salvador.

My biggest takeaway is the focus on world-building. All the characters, from Salvador’s grannie up to Elizabeth / Jessica, feel well fleshed, nuanced and believable. They have demonstrable motivation for their actions, and there’s so little wasted space. Every line does something to expand on someone’s narrative. It was a joy to read. There’s a subtle shift in structure, which has moved away from the strict A-Plot / B-Plot arc and sitcom-style soft reset in the final chapter. This book is more than happy to lay the tiniest of hints and leave ends loose and writhing, as that’s what keeps the readers coming back. I hope they can keep up this great start, and I’m eager to read the next.]