Title: In Love with Mandy

Tagline: Who’s the real belle of the costume ball?

Summary: Here are two names you’d never expect to see paired together: Brandon Jones and Mandy Miller. Brandon is one of the richest guys in Sweet Valley, and I, Mandy Miller—well, let’s just say I’m not exactly finishing-school material. But when I met Brandon at the Halloween costume ball at Lila Fowler’s snooty country club, I fell head over heels. and he did for me too!

Only Brandon didn’t know it was me. I guess my costume made him think I was Lila. So I went along with it. What else could I do? Tell him who I really was? He wouldn’t be caught dead with a girl like me.

Now the ball’s over, but the real masquerade has just begun. Because Brandon thinks he’s in love with Lila… who’s pretending that it was her all along! Will Brandon ever find out it was really me behind the mask?

Mandy Miller

Initial Thoughts

Oh no, a Mandy book. I’ve been disillusioned with her lately, as we all have, which we’ve made pretty clear, and I’m not looking forward to an entire book focused on her. I do like a good masquerade, though! And at least we’re still in third person.

[Dove: *points upwards* Literally same on every point, except Wing forgot to mention how much back-biting and nastiness has been around recently, and we’re kind of over that too.]

[Raven: You two have been more down on Mandy than I. But we all have been down on the subseries as a whole. I’m so over the Unicorn Club, or at least this vapid half-assed parody that’s regressed from the child-care-centric Newnicorns that felt so refreshing back at the start.]

Recap

Lila visits her father, and the elevator in his 25-story office building rises fast enough her ears pop. She’s very proud of this tall building bearing the Fowler name and how fancy it is inside. She’s lonely sometimes because he’s so busy with work, but as long as she has the Unicorn Club, she’s happy.

Since the Unicorn Club fights every single book, and it feels like they’ve nearly split up several times, and they cut out half the new club not too long ago, I suppose she’s miserable a lot of the time.

Lila’s there because she was shopping at Ina’s Trends, the hottest and most expensive boutique, found a lot of things she wants to buy, and it added up to more than her credit limit. Does this credit limit come and go? Is this fallout from all her spending at the hottest health club in town? [Dove: Or that time she maxed out all her credit cards to get her dad’s attention?]

While she waits for her dad, she runs into a super cute guy who is also waiting for his dad, Mr Parsons, who is apparently in the meeting with Mr Fowler.

Cute guy is Mitchell, has shoulder-length brown hair in a ponytail, white knit shirt, baggy, unironed khakis, funky black-and-white golf shoes.

I’m not sure I believe Lila finds this guy hot, but I’m going with it.

They’ve never met because he goes to Lovett, a fancy, expensive boarding school just outside Sweet Valley which hosts the children of politicians, movie stars, and very wealthy people. Mr Fowler wanted Lila to go there, but she’s happy in public school. It’s nice to be the richest girl around. [Dove: Also her never-seen-again-boyfriend went there.] [Raven: I’m presuming that we’ll never see this guy, or the aforementioned Brandon Jones, outside of this single book either.]

Oh, Lila.

Mr Fowler and Mr Parsons come in and things are tense between them. After Mr Parsons and Mitchell leave to play golf, Mr Fowler tells her that he’s stressed because negotiations have been difficult; Fowler Enterprises is acquiring Parsons Manufacturing. It’s not profitable and needs to be merged in order to survive. Mr Parsons isn’t happy about it, though.

Lila decides that she won’t make waves with her father by pursuing the son of someone he dislikes so much.

Mandy gets a part-time job as a kitchen assistant at the country club, and she’s thrilled because it will give her money for Christmas. I’m concerned that the country club is regularly hiring middle schoolers, because lots of kids at both SVH and SVMS work there during the summer. Including, apparently, as lifeguards, because Jessica asks Mandy if that’s her new job. Middle schoolers are too fucking young to be working like this, especially as a lifeguard.

Her first night on the job is that night for a costume ball Halloween party that will probably be a late night and pay her time and a half.

WTF. This would not happen, I can’t suspend my disbelief like this, fucking hell. [Dove: She’s thirteen. Isn’t that too young to work? When I was a kid, the minimum age (beyond paper routes) was fourteen.] [Raven: This whole series thrusts middle school kinds directly into adult plots and situations, which is ridiculous. I guess it’s more palateable with high school aged kids in High, but here it feels weak. I enjoy the stories where the kids are acting like kids rather than, I dunno, working at a bakery or getting hit on by camp councillors.]

Lila is going to attend the costume ball dressed as a unicorn; she ordered a beautiful mask from New York and will wear it with a pair of purple jeans and a purple t-shirt, because purple is the official color of the Unicorn Club, right up until she found a long purple silk dress at Ina’s Trends. It has a high, stand-up collar, stiff with silver beading, a fitted bodice, a long and full skirt with lilac-colored netting underneath. She thinks it is “part medieval princess, part ballet recital.” [Dove: Notice how the book cover is like, “No, I know that’s the club colour and the one thing people know about the Unicorns (even SVH ghosties know that), but we’re going with PINK.”]

The mask does sound lovely, too, made of white and lilac feathers with a silver horn. [Dove: Also sounds like it wouldn’t be fun to wear though.]

Mrs Russman is Mandy’s new boss and rattles off a list of tasks for her, won’t even let her write them down when she asks because she’s overwhelmed. Mrs Russman says if she can’t remember all that, she doesn’t belong working in restaurants.

Dude, this is her first fucking night on the job. The fuck. THE. FUCK.

This is so fucking stupid, and I don’t understand why we’re supposed to believe this fucking plot setup. [Raven: I’m reading a lot of pro revenge and malicious compliance stories about horrible bosses and bad work environments, and I can basically believe all of this.]

Lila tries to hang out with Aaron Dallas at the party, but he’s not as cute to her as he normally is. At first she thinks that he’s cut his hair or something, but then decides she’s the one who changed.

Shortly later, she runs into Mitchell who is dressed as a vampire. She thinks he’s unconvincing because “vampires had heavy-lidded, sinister eyes” I know this doesn’t predate the sexy vampire look. At the very least, The Lost Boys leaned into that pretty hard, wild, dangerous, young, and sexy. [Dove: Wing, is The Lost Boys Gone With the Wind? No. It’s not. Therefore the ghosties have no clue it exists. The only real media they can ever reference is Gone With the Wind. And maybe silent movies if they’re feeling frisky.] [Raven: It’s all very The Lonely Ones, I’m here for it. Basically, I’m picturing Mitchell-Vamp as Grandpa Munster.]

Mitchell asks if she likes golf, and she says she does but she’s not any good at it, which is pretty wonderful considering we just had two books focused on someone changing herself to match whatever a boy and her friends expected from her.

Mitchell invites her out onto the golf course but she sees her father watching them and is torn between going with a cute boy and not betraying her father, who was exhausted and stressed because of Mr Parsons — and because of the large check he wrote her.

Damn, Lila, way to really lean into that spoiled rich girl who can easily be bought.

Lila decides she won’t choose between them and instead talks Mandy into changing clothes with her so that she can go off with Mitchell dressed as a member of the waitstaff instead of her beautiful costume. [Dove: This also pissed me off. No, Lila, Mandy is working. And no, Mandy, you are being paid (unlikely as it is) to work. You don’t get to fuck off for a few hours in a nice frock because your friend told you.]

Mandy immediately gets called over by Mr Fowler and Aaron Dallas and has to keep trying to run away from them. She runs crouched down, knocks her mask over her eyes, and has to navigate the buffet by the smell of the food on it because she knows the order of it. [Raven: Mandy, reduced to a sniffer dog.]

Aaron catches her and she throws herself under the table to crawl to freedom.

Why has this become some sort of farce?

She overhears a waiter asking about Mandy because Mrs Russman is looking for her, so now Mandy has to dodge people as Lila and as herself.

A guy dressed as Prince Valiant asks her to dance and she agrees because she’s trying to escape from Mr Fowler on the dance floor.

Lila and Mitchell have fun out swinging golf clubs; Mitchell even pulls that thing where he puts his arms around her to guide her through the motions. She likes him more and more and doesn’t notice how long they’ve been out there until it’s been more than an hour.

They end up talking about their dads, and Mitchell snaps that her father is using slimy business tactics to steal the company out from under the Parsons. Lila is completely offended by this and they split up, annoyed at each other, though she’s also sad enough that she nearly cries.

Meanwhile Mandy and Prince Valiant are having a great time. He’s dressed as Prince Valiant because he was brave and always trying to do good things, and that inspired his dad to do all sorts of charity work.

They flirt over the good and brave things he’s done that night and how much they like being useful and thinking about other people rather than themselves, which okay, sure, it sounds very congratulatory but I am constantly low-level annoyed at Mandy, so I’m unlikely to cut her — or any of the Unicorns — much slack. [Dove: *points at the children’s centre they haven’t mentioned for twelve fucking books* Oh good for you, Mandy. Well done about thinking of others. I’m sure Mrs Willard and the kids are proud of the selfless way you completely fucking abandoned them. (Yes, everyone did, but Mandy’s the one being proud of herself for being awesome right now.)] [Raven: I wish I could stick up for Mandy here, but you’re both totally correct. I miss the kids at the child care centre, which is something I never thought I’d write.]

He spills a drink on the dress, and when Mandy goes looking for a bathroom, Lila grabs her. She looks like she’s been crying, and Mandy is worried about her, but Lila waves it off as allergies and is angry that she’s been waiting an hour outside the ballroom. Which, either Lila is lying and claiming she spent the last hour outside the ballroom and not with Mitchell or they’ve now spent more than two hours dressed like each other and no one caught them out.

Mandy doesn’t feel too bad about abandoning her job even though Mrs Russman made it clear they needed every single person working and her disappearing must have made a lot of extra work for the staff, but how could she feel bad when she met a wonderful boy.

Fuck. You. Mandy. You are supposed to be the one who thinks about other people over herself and not be a spoiled rich girl and I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

AND THEN SHE LIES TO MRS RUSSMAN’S FACE THAT SHE GOT SICK, LAID DOWN IN THE LADIES LOUNGE ON THE SECOND FLOOR, AND FELL ASLEEP, AND MRS RUSSMAN IS GENTLE WITH HER AND SAYS THAT SHE MUST HAVE HAD STAGE FRIGHT AND SHE’S A BRIGHT YOUNG LADY AND SHE’LL CATCH ON.

What the ever loving fuck. WHAT. THE. EVER. LOVING. FUCK. [Dove: *points again* THIS.]

I’m done with this book. She screwed over her coworkers, doesn’t feel bad about it, and literally just talked to a cute boy about how important it is to think about other people over yourself.

Fuck. You. Mandy.

[Raven: I don’t mind this. I mean, it’s not the message I guess, but it’s also not the story. It’s a conceit that gets her into position for the plot. There has to be SOMETHING that gets the players in place, and this stuff is as good a hook as any. Then again, maybe I just don’t care enough to be angry.]

She runs into Prince Valiant again, he doesn’t recognize her, and she feels bad but then tells herself that when they meet again, he’ll laugh about it.

Lila runs into Prince Valiant next as he rushes to say good-bye to the girl in the unicorn costume, and he introduces himself to Mr Fowler as Brandon Jones. He’s the son of one of the wealthiest and most glamorous families in the country, all the men known for being philanthropists, he was Sweet Teen magazine’s Most Eligible Cute Guy three years in a row, and he’s often a guest on teen talk panels. He also goes to Lovett Academy and wonders if he knows Mitchell. [Dove: Three years in a row? How much older than the girls is he? Or have they been putting him on the list since he was ten? And honestly, not sure which one is creepier.] [Raven: Yeah, I didn’t clock that. Ten! Also, if he’s a multi-winner of Most Eligible Cute Guy and a face on TV teen talkshows, then why the fuck hasn’t he popped up before?]

Brandon shows up at Lila’s the next morning while she’s still in her pajamas, she frantically gets ready (dressing in a peach silk skirt and tank top combo with brown leather loafers, which sound like terrible shoes for that outfit), and downstairs he tells her that he knew she’d be pretty but never guessed that she was beautiful, which of course makes her swoon a little.

When they’re face to face, he looks at her a little strangely and she realizes he’s probably noticed that Mandy’s green eyes are now brown. She waves it away as tinted contacts, he remembers that Mandy told him she doesn’t wear glasses, and she then waves that away as her trying different colored contacts for fun. Which is totally something that people did in the 90s! But he seems very skeptical about this.

Brandon’s come to ask her to help him co-chair the Helping Hands fundraiser. Lila doesn’t think that sounds very romantic, but he doesn’t notice because he keeps talking about how grateful he is and determined to give back because he had cancer a few years ago and it changed his life.

Oh my god, of course he did. [Dove: One could read this as “rich people only notice shit when it happens to them.”] [Raven: And here’s the exact moment that Lila should have bailed. Fucking over your friend is one thing, but fucking about with cancer survivors is a whole new ladle of shit.]

Mandy calls Lila to ask who was dressed as Prince Valiant. Lila tells her that he’s Brandon Jones, isn’t that funny, and when Mandy presses on that, Lila says that he’s one of the richest kids in the country and she’s, well, her.

Fuck everything about this book. I hate it.

Mandy calls her a snob, Lila tells her that Brandon was trying to get to know Lila Fowler because he wanted someone like him to co-chair a fundraiser, blah blah blah.

Mandy takes this at face value and decides they shouldn’t tell him the truth. She tries to hide how sad she is and agrees that she’ll tell Lila about everything she talked to Brandon about. [Raven: It pains me to say, but Lila is an absolute witch in this book.]

Everyone thinks that it’s great that Lila is going to co-chair the fundraiser, she doesn’t know what it’s going to be because the executive committee has to decide first, which includes Brandon and Lila, some of his friends from Lovett Academy, and the Unicorn Club. The fuck.

Lila says she’s taking a big chance introducing them to Brandon, they might embarrass her, everyone refuses to do it, which I call bullshit on, and Mandy agrees to help because it’s a good cause. Lila apologizes, and the Unicorns swing back around and agree to help.

This book is pointless.

Brandon and Mitchell are best friends, of course.

The committee bounces ideas back and forth and eventually they all get excited over a golf tournament suggested by Brandon until Lila tries to shoot it down due to the weather, which works at first but then arguments continue to go back and forth.

Mandy shows up very late; she assumed the meeting would be over, but she wanted to ask Lila how it went instead of going straight home to get dried after the rain soaked her. Umm, isn’t that what fucking phones are for? Why is everything so poorly plotted? Why is everything so forced?

They finally come all the way back around to doing a golf tournament, Mandy and Brandon run into each other, Brandon says she seems familiar, they talk about how hard it is to make a decision like this with a whole crowd (which, duh), and when Mandy joins them, she immediately comes up with a Dreams Come True Ball where people dress as what they want to be when they grow up. She doesn’t suggest it herself, though, she has Lila do it to impress Brandon.

Lila is exhausted by all the work that comes with being co-chair of this fundraiser and keeps thinking about how jealous Mitchell has to be when he sees her with Brandon, how sorry he must be about how he acted on the golf course.

She spends some time writing up wedding announcements, an elopement note to Mr Fowler, a letter to Jessica about how much fun they have in Paris on their honeymoon, a letter to Rachel about how sad and pathetic her life is when Lila has so much and Rachel so little (the fuck? why are they back to being enemies? I hate this series) [Dove: Right? If Rachel’s just there to be a bitch, why bother, we have Kimberly. She could have become richer off-screen, and that would have worked too. Although, really, I’d love a book where people weren’t just bitching at each other because they’re bored.], and to Mitchell that she won’t run away from him even though he’s loved her all his life.

This could have been such a cute thing, Lila imagining the future, though it is in her own Lila way, but I’m so grumpy and I hate everything about this book and these characters.

Mandy agrees to write the invitation and the press release for Lila even though she feels like she’s being suckered into doing Lila’s work. YOU ARE! Did you lose your spine a-fucking-gain?

She even agrees to working on the mailing list.

Mandy, the fuck is wrong with you? [Dove: Mandy can’t talk to you right now, she’s transitioning from oatmeal to beige paint once more.]

Lila is glad that Mandy is so into Brandon and such a self-sacrificing type because now Lila won’t have to do any work. God, I normally like you, Lila, but what the ever loving fuck, I hate everything about this book.

Lila worries what will happen if Brandon learns that Mandy also had cancer because they’re already so alike, but then decides no one will mention it. Her thoughts quickly turn to what she will wear and decides on a pearl gray and peach silk tuxedo, also from Ina’s. That doesn’t sound terrible, actually. [Raven: Although the “what do you want to be when you grow up” question is answered with “someone who wears a grey and peach tux” in this instance.]

Mandy writes about the masked unicorn and prince meeting at a ball and deciding to make dreams come true. Mandy is unhappy that Lila continues to cast herself in the role of the unicorn, but when Lila tells her that she hates deceiving Brandon (a complete lie), Mandy tells her that it’s fine, he has faith in Lila and she needs to live up to it.

Mitchell loves the invitation and the press release, and seems a little sad that Lila was the one who wrote it. Brandon loves it, too, and is shy and tender when he thanks her. She looks around to see if Mitchell is watching them together and is jealous, but finds him happily talking to Mandy.

WE JUST FUCKING DID THIS STORY. IN TWO BOOKS. NOT TO MENTION ALL THE OTHER TIMES.

Lila tries to joke around with Brandon but he doesn’t even catch that she’s making a joke. She decides that she’ll settle for romance, that’s more important. He does start out romantic, talking about how they’re meant to be, they want the same things, but then he talks about how important it is to help other people, and you don’t even have to be rich to do it, you just have to care.

Well that’s as subtle as a brick.

The rest of the Unicorns refuse to do any work on the decorations but show up for the society photo shoot. Mitchell and Mandy end up coming up with the decorations and then the boys are the ones who end up trying to help her make paper flowers, but they are terrible at it. They switch with the girls, the girls don’t do any better, and Mandy ends up having to do them herself even when she only has 30 minutes left before work.

Brandon and Lila audition bands for the party, but Lila keeps getting distracted thinking about Mitchell and Mandy spending so much time together.

Mandy has a good time shadowing Mrs Russman and learning more about the work, including all sorts of details about catering that she later presents to Lila to make her look good for Brandon. [Raven: Aside from the first scene, I actually quite like the Mandy-At-Work scenes.]

Mandy outfit: gas station attendant’s gray-and-navy-striped shirt with gas company’s red-and-black logo on the pocket, tucked into a pair of narrow white jeans with the legs turned up into thick cuffs above the toes of her lace-up boots, and her hair tied back low on her neck with a blue bandana.

Lila refuses to allow her to wear that cute outfit to meet with the rest of the committee because she’s worried about how cute Mandy looks in it and instead lends her an outfit all in beige which makes her blend in to her surroundings and is a terrible color on her. [Dove: Beige, you say?]

I find it hard to believe Lila has clothes that boring.

Brandon and Lila go to be interviewed by the Around and About reporter for SVAL-TV (oh my god) [Dove: If you say SVAL-TV like a word, it sounds like the name of a dog owned by someone who uses the term “yummy mummy” unironically to describe herself.] and Lila is thrilled by all the attention; Mandy and Mitchel step in as temporary co-chairs.

Mandy watches the interview on tv, and when the reporter, Sheila, asks how Lila and Brandon met, Lila struggles until Brandon steps in with the story. He says that the first time he saw her, he knew he was looking at someone special.

Mandy decides she’s going to talk to Lila the next day because she can’t handle watching them together anymore.

Lila struggles to talk to Brandon when they’re on their own, overhears her dad fighting with Mr Parsons, and wonders why she feels so miserable if she’s supposed to be the happiest girl in the world.

Mandy resigns from the committee, claiming that she is too busy between her job and her schoolwork. Lila offers to pay whatever she’s making at the club, but Mandy shoots her down, including when Lila offers first double, then triple, then triple plus the beige pants suit. [Raven: I’m all for Mandy having pride here, but damn… MAndy should have taken a little advantage here. Get that green!]

Lila tries to convince herself that it’s not too bad, most of the work has to be done, and Mitchell is still around to help, though she also worries that he knows Mandy was the one doing everything.

Mandy learns from a pastry chef next, and I am really confused as to what the fuck her actual job is at this country club because it sounds a lot more like an internship. [Dove: I remember being young and working in the food service industry. It was a lot of washing up, throwing stuff away, and collecting stuff to wash up. No-one ever taught me to make poncey pastry.] [Raven: Yeah, I don’t think I’d read a series of books that were accurate depictions of pre-teen menial labour. Chapter Eight: Mandy scrapes congealed baked-bean juice from the inner rim of eighty rammekins, using nothing but her fingernails, for one-third of minumum wage, with hilarious results.]

Mandy hears Brandon on a radio interview talking about never giving up no matter how hard things get, thinks about how she felt personally attacked by cancer, and decides that she’ll work on the committee again no matter what because it’s the right thing to do.

Mandy rocks up and finds that Brandon has made a bunch of paper flowers, though not nearly enough. He and Mandy chat about art, poetry, good causes, and what she learned about desserts while they make the rest of the flowers.

Brandon invites her out for ice cream with him and Mitchell and she demurs with all sorts of excuses, trying to protect him from who she is, or so she tells herself, but finally she rushes back and tells him and Mitchell the truth about her part-time job and how she and Brandon met in the kitchen at the Halloween ball when she tried to clean the spill with a roll.

She thinks Brandon looks furious and runs away.

Jessica tries to cheer her up and tells her that Mitchell is interested in her and tells her that she can’t skip the ball because she has a duty as a member of the committee. Jessica does admit that she herself is a shirker but Mandy isn’t, she does the right thing, and that’s why they all count on her.

JESSICA, FUCK OFF.

Mandy, grow a backbone.

[Raven: There’s also a weird bit with Ellen, who basically says “you don’t want to trust someone like ME with these tasks, do you?” … Poor girl is being conditioned to believe the group’s constant denigration of her character.]

Book, end soon because I hate you.

Mandy finds the perfect outfit for the party, a beautiful black smock with a painter’s palate appliqued on the pocket. She can wear it with slim black pants and an oversize velvet beret that she can make from some black velvet she has, and she probably has enough to make a matching evening purse.

It is far too much for her, more than she’ll make in one paycheck, but she decides to buy it anyway so she can show Brandon she’s not just a lowly kitchen assistant and tell him that she was the unicorn. [Dove: How does she afford it if she hasn’t earned that money yet? It’s not just Wing, the book uses future tense regarding her wages too.]

Brandon and Lila are on their way to another interview, and Brandon asks her if she thinks he’s a snob. He’s been thinking about it ever since someone said something to him, but he won’t tell her any details about that.

The interviewer asks about their relationship, and Lila admits they don’t really date, nor do they hang, they don’t really do much right now besides work on the ball. Brandon turns the talk there, which is where it should be, really, and Lila realizes that they don’t really have a relationship. For now she’ll enjoy being the envy of every girl in the country, and maybe once all the work is done, he’ll be more interested in the relationship part.

Mandy is assigned to work at the night of the ball and she can’t get out of it because two other people have already asked for that night off. Mandy decides she can’t let down her coworkers who work so hard and shouldn’t have to pick up her slack. I suppose that’s at least some character growth. [Raven: Attagirl, Mandy.]

Mitchell sends her flowers later that day with a note asking her to go to the ball with him. He calls shortly after they arrive (how convenient). She tells him she has to work, and then ends up crying in her room because she feels sorry for herself.

Brandon sends Mitchell over to Lila’s with some band promo material, Lila stands up to her dad over Mitchell, Mitchell is impressed that she stood up to him, and when he’s gone, Mr Fowler asks why she thinks he’s bitter enemies with Mr Parsons. He says they’ve known each other since the fourth grade, they were roommates in college, and shouting at each other is the fun part. I can agree with that with some people. [Raven: I DISAGREE! *waits patiently for a fun argument*]

Mandy bonds with her coworkers and tries not to think about the ball. Lila and Brandon continue to be awkward together and Lila wonders how he and Mandy managed to get on so well together at the first ball.

Everyone on the committee is shocked that Mandy isn’t there, and some of them think she wasn’t feeling it the last few meetings; Lila thinks she’s skipping because Lila’s been taking credit for everything. Mitchell is the one who tells them that Mandy’s working.

Brandon is deeply annoyed that no one told him Mandy was working, not even Mandy herself.

Lila figures out that Mandy must not have told him because LIla made him sound like a snob. She says that Mandy must have thought he wouldn’t understand, and he’s angry about this, asks where she got the idea that he was a snob, and that means Lila must think he’s a snob and that’s what Mandy learned.

Lila admits that she wasn’t the one in the unicorn costume at the first ball, it was Mandy, and Mandy wrote all the things he liked, did all the hard work, etc., and is also a cancer survivor.

Brandon thanks her for telling him the truth, tells her and Mitchell to be in charge of things for a bit, puts off his speech, and takes off.

Mitchell tells Lila how much he likes her bravery, and wanted to apologize to her after their fight but by then she was with Brandon and he didn’t want to mess that up.

Brandon shows up at the country club to tell Mandy how happy he is that she was the one in the unicorn costume because he’s been feeling guilty that he’s supposed to be in love with Lila and all he can think about is her. She admits that she was worried about being nobody important, and he tells her that she’s the most important girl in the world.

He helps her clean up fast so he can take her to the ball, brings her up on stage with him to give his speech, talks about his cancer, surprising Mandy, thanks everyone by name, then kisses her.

Mandy thinks it a dream come true.

Final Thoughts

Fuck this book. Fuck it. It’s boring, a repetition of the story we’ve already seen, the girls have reverted to the bullshit of earlier in this series, the actual details make no fucking sense at all, and I hate everything.

[Dove: Ever since we embarked on bitchiness and selfishness as the main storylines, I’ve really missed the old Twins format. This needed a B-plot. I am so bored of reading the same scenes happening from two different points of view for an entire book. I’m sorry if I endlessly sound pissed off, but I really hate this series because it started out so strongly, and now I’m just bored and desperate for it to end.]

[Raven: I’ll be a one-chilli-mild Devil’s Advocate here. I thought this was okay, ish. I still have time for Mandy-centric tales, and this one didn’t disappoint in that regard. I quite liked the Lovett Academy gang, and I thought the sideline-icorns had fun in shirking their collective duties. But in the end, I hated Lila from start to finish, and I’m sick of meeting “New” and “Exciting” new characters this late in the fucking game. Plus, I’ll bet you a pack of Eccles Cakes that we never see any of these bellends again.

Also, the book ended far too abruptly, just like this comm-]