* Photo credit to The Closet *

MAY 1993

The prom! How exciting. I am entrusting that SVH will do this up right. Don’t read a later recap before moving through this quintessential, fictional rite of Sweet Valley passage.

In with A Night to Remember rushes the new covers, logo, and formatting, and let me just say that I am not looking forward to reading numbers #95 to fin because — and get this — they look too damn long. The original books were the appropriate length: not only did they tell the story they needed to tell, but they were redundant enough as it was. I cringed at the thought of reading this story — at a hefty 345 pages — and I was a Lit major.

Anyway, so the reign of original cover artist James Mathewuse is over, and Francine and the gang got someone new to create this masterpiece. I’ve always been annoyed at how the two Jessica pictures are exactly alike on the inside cover. As usual, Todd looks a billion years old. Jess still has her wonky little bangs — some things never die…unlike some characters I know. Oh, but I’m getting ahead of myself!

Plot A: Jess and Liz come up with the idea of having a Jungle Prom — actually, Liz comes up with it, but whatever. At the said beach party, Jess swims out to a buoy in the dark on a dare, and Liz begs her not to do it but of course she does anyway, and Liz resolves then and there to not give a shit about Jessica anymore. It’s sad it took her more than ninety books to make such a satisfying decision, but better late than nevs. There’s this insane rivalry developing between Big Mesa and SVH, which makes sense, because if I went to Big Mesa, I’d be pissed about losing every Big Game and whatnot. Big Mesa crashes the beach party, makes the partygoers scream and gather in a huddle for protection (…), and covers everything with shaving cream before taking off. Alright. Everyone takes it really personally and blah blah.

Liz is co-chair of the prom committee, as is Jess, even though Jess doesn’t bother to show up for meetings. Both girls start pining away for the coveted Prom Queen title, which will also result in an all-expenses-paid trip to Brazil courtesy of the dance’s sponsor, Environmental Alert. Liz busts her ass to ensure that prom is awesome, while Jess just does some cheerleading back flips and assumes she’s a shoo-in. Jess is back to being a pain in my ass in this story; I’m sick of her just assuming she’ll win everything. Confidence is one thing but really. The twins go head-to-head and wind up hating each other for about 300some pages.

Then comes prom. Liz’s longtime lovah Todd Wilkins wins Prom King, striking fear in Jess’ heart. So she sidles up to a drunk Big Mesa student, nabs some of his liquor, and dumps it into Liz’s drink. Enter Magic Punch — one sip is the equivalent of about fourteen shots. This just backs up my mom’s insistence words of “Never leave your drink unattended!” which is something she’s been drilling in my head since I went to my first fifth-grade dance. Anyway, Liz splits the contents of her cup with Jess’ boyfriend Sam Woodruff, and they get TOTALLY WASTED and dance like a bunch of wackos. Liz drunkenly “wifdraws” from the Prom Queen competition, leaving Jess to win, but Jess isn’t satisfied with her victory; she’s horrified to see how her twin is acting — and with her boyfriend! Big Mesa raids the prom, there’s a big, panicked to-do, and Jess sees Liz and Sam drive off together in the Jeep. Jess and Todd follow them, and see that there’s been a fatal accident. Then Jess cries in agony into the “unforgiving night.” What will happen?!

Plot B: Bruce Patman is seeing rock star daughter Andrea Slade and treats her like shit, but THEN! Bruce bumps into Nicholas Morrow and acts like it’s the most uncomfortable thing in the world to talk to him, even though they’ve hung out before. AND THEN! He goes home and cries over a picture of his long-lost beloved Regina Morrow. What. The shit. I’ve heard that it takes boys longer to get over doomed relationships than girls because they don’t deal with the pain immediately, but this is straight-up retarded. This is the billionth book after her death! We didn’t hear a peep of how tormented he’s been feeling until now; he seemed pretty content to forget Regina and go stick it in Amy Sutton. I’m so hatin’ on this. Anyway, Bruce tries to distract himself by organizing ex-Club Xers to take on Big Mesa, and when Big Mesa raids the prom and it results in a crazy-ass fight (on the football field! I luh it!), Bruce almost gets his head bashed in by a B.M.er with a baseball bat when in steps a beautiful girl… who reminds Bruce of Regina but only hotter. Before Bruce can ponder it anymore, he gets his skull kicked in. What will happen?!

Plot C: Lila, still angsting over her encounter with John Pfeifer (I’m glad the writers didn’t gloss over and forget about that whole sitch, even though she was acting pretty whimsical when she was in SVH’s production of Macbeth), continues to hate life and fear the boys she apathetically goes out with. However, now she’s more actively making snide commentary to whatever Jess is babbling about, so that’s nice. Lila’s been seeing a counselor — Nathan — about her problems but remains frosty to him until Jess points out how cute he is. Well, of course he is — he lives in Sweet Valley, doesn’t he? Lila realizes that Nathan’s always been there for her, and they have a flirty dance at prom, but everything takes a toboggan ride to Hell when Nathan pulls Lila into an empty classroom to protect her from Big Mesa’s raid, and she gets John Pfefier flashbacks and fears he’s going to rape her. So the police show up and arrest Nathan when Lila screeches. At last, a sexual assault claim that is not used vindictively! Francine, you’re progressing. But now what will happen?!

Other Notes:

· Personally, I think A Night to Remember should switch titles with That Fatal Night, considering that this book was a wee bit more fatal than #60 — we have actual fatalities in this. (Well, alleged fatalities at this stage in the game.)
· Living in a landlocked state, it’s hard for me to comprehend why MASSIVE groups of teenagers are allowed to throw HUGE, unsupervised parties on the beach at night, and no adult bats an eye.
· DeeDee Gordon and boyfriend Bill Chase do the twist at the beach party. Is Annette Funicello there too? Honestly, what universe is this?
· It turns out that Big Mesa is made up of psychopaths who have nothing better to do than put shaving cream on every car in the Sweet Valley lot, torment the cheerleaders, and even insult The Oracle in an editorial cartoon in their own paper. (The things in Big Mesa’s paper are downright slander and don’t even pretend to have integrity.) Seriously? Where are the adults? Not one teacher acknowledges all this bullshit.
· When Big Mesa students show up at the prom and want to get in, it’s Todd Wilkins who makes the final say. Again: WHERE ARE ALL THE GROWN UPS? You’d think that at least Mr. Collins would be shoving his nose in this business.
· Todd’s nickname on the court is “Whizzer.” That’s like, what I’d name a dog who peed a lot. Well done, Wilkins.
· The Droids actually do not play at the prom! This really is a sign of the apocalypse.

* Photo credit to The Closet *

I like Jess’ sassy stance. She actually looks pretty on this cover. Bitchy, but pretty. The other girl—Andrea Slade—looks dead behind the eyes. She’ll fit right in the Sweet Valley scene.

Andrea’s just moved to Sweet Valley from New York, and Liz and Enid Rollins have swooped in to become her new best friends. (Ten bucks say we never hear of Enid and Liz being so buddy-buddy with the girl again after this book.) Andrea’s cool, witty, and laidback, but she’s so secretive about her home life. Everyone at school panics because she won’t tell them where she lives or let them pick her up, i.e., everyone at school is retarded, and ask her ridonc questions that no teenagers would ever care about, such as, “So what does your dad do for a living?” What is this, an awkward yuppie dinner party? Here’s the convo:

Olivia [Davidson] looked thoughtfully at Andrea. “Hey I just remembered, my father told me that a new manager started at his firm this week. He didn’t say what his name was, but I just realized that he could be your father. Did he move here to take a new job at Phillips Corporation?”

“Uh, no,” Andrea said. Elizabeth thought she looked a little embarrassed. “He—he’s actually self-employed.”

“You’re kidding. Is he a writer?” Olivia asked eagerly.

“No.” Andrea fidgeted. “He’s just…you know, a regular self-employed businessman.” Everyone looked expectantly at her. “You know. He’s an ordinary investor.”

Now Winston [Egbert] looked interested. “Does he have an office here, or does he work at home?”

Jesus Christ, lay off, douche bags! Why would any sixteen year old decide to make conversation about a parent’s home office?

Anyway, Jess is in love with Jamie Peters, a rock ‘n’ roll star who sings a song called “Doing It All for You.” BWA @ that title. (Sample lyrics: “Whatever you say, whatever you think is true, whatever it is, girl, I’m doing it all for you.” What the hell does any of that even mean?) She, Lila Fowler, and Amy Sutton get together to obsess over him, which is a teenage move that I can totally relate to (my poison was Hanson). They swarm around a rag called Rock and Roll and read about Jamie Peters’ plans to move from the East Coast to California. GEE I WONDER WHERE HE’LL MOVE TO. Ugh, and furthermore, I can’t get over how shitty the writing is in Rock and Roll—it’s pretending to be Rolling Stone but makes Tiger Beat look like investigative journalism. It’s like they’re having twelve year olds writing editorials. Observe the “article”:

Rock and Roll interviewers had a hard time getting to know the real Jamie Peters, the private side of the very public star. We talked for hours about his new album, Pride, and he was happy to answer all our questions about his music—where he’s been, where he’s heading. But when it came time to delve deeper, we could sense his mood change.

We asked him about the first song on his new album, “Little Girl.” Was there a special woman in his life?

We could tell the question disturbed him. [LOL.] Jamie Peters is famous for keeping his personal life under wraps. All we were able to glean from him were the most basic facts. He married his childhood sweetheart, a beautiful singer named Karen Ross, with whom he cut an album the year they were married….All he’d say was that yes, there’s a “special girl” in his life. And all Rock and Roll magazine can say is, whoever she is, she sure is lucky!

If anyone can’t see where this excuse for a plot is going and what Andrea’s secret is, he/she might just be too dumb to read even Sweet Valley High.

Lila sees Jamie Peters hanging around downtown Sweet Valley and stalks him to his mansion, where she brings Jess, Amy, and Cara Walker, and they see him with none other than Andrea Slade! They all think she’s pulling a Penny Lane and shacking up with him—scandal!—so of course this news gets spread all over school, and everyone wants to be Andrea’s friend all of a sudden, and she’s all “Wah! When will people like me for me?”

Andrea meets Nicholas Morrow, a.k.a. He Who Shall Go by Two Names, and they go sailing, and it’s love at first date, as per usual. But Nicholas Morrow is super offended when Andrea won’t let him pick her up at her house, and things get worse when Lila and Jess tell Nicholas Morrow that Andrea is Jamie Peters’ live-in girlfriend. He stands Andrea up for dinner and tells her via a note left with the restaurant’s hostess saying that she’s a fake and a phony, etc. Then Jamie Peters calls up Liz, tells her that he’s Andrea’s pop and Andrea’s gone missing. I like how instead of calling the police, all adults immediately phone The Elizabeth Wakefield Hotline. Still, it’s appropriate, considering she does keep tabs on everyone.

Liz, Enid, and Nicholas Morrow find Andrea at the marina, being all wistful, and they all go back to Andrea’s estate to meet Jamie Peters and have a good laugh. Jamie Peters (another person who must go by two names) promises Andrea that they’ll stay in Sweet Valley foreva and eva now that he’s switching to a movie career, and life is just perfect. It turns out that JP’s jam “Doing It All for You” is about Andrea—okay, when a song about your kid is thought by everyone to be a sexy love jam, it’s time to consider some heavy rewrites.

In a teensy subplot, Lila decides to become a musician! Jess and Amy laugh their asses off about it, but that’s so random that it’s hot. She takes up the marimba (“Want to hear me play the opening notes to ‘Jesu, Son of Man’s Desiring’?”) and decides after about a week of playing that she’s good enough to reveal her talent to Jamie Peters, who thinks she’s so awesomely bad that he uses his connections to get her cast in a movie as a crappy marimba player. A career’s gotta start somewhere.

Other Notes:

• Jamie Peters calls his daughter “babe.” Oh dear. How rock star of him.
• The descriptions of Jamie Peters’ photos are making me guffaw: “On this page, Jamie was in his recording studio in New York, a pair of sunglasses pushed back on his head. A tight white T-shirt was rolled up at the sleeves to reveal well-defined arm muscles. One hand lay confidently on his electric guitar, and he faced the camera with an expression of smoldering defiance.” Smoldering defiance! I can’t go on.
• Tee @ Andrea Slade having such an obvious DILF. Eat it, Ned.
]]> http://dairiburger.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/yea-because-thats-the-most-logical-explanation/ Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:36:35 +0000 ihatewheat http://dairiburger.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/yea-because-thats-the-most-logical-explanation/



[photo from The Closet]

Andrea Slade is the new girl, that’s who. Instead of Liz putting her hand on her shoulder, we have the other option, Jessica looking with such hatred that it may cause the person to try to kill themselves. However, love Andrea’s “bish plz” look.

So Andrea Slade is the new girl, and her appearance causes many an internal monologue.

• Liz: Oooooo!!! A new girl! I must insert myself directly up my ass and help her! New girls are usually a pathetic mess, so it can be a project for me! Plus, I am getting bored of this Enid girl who keeps following me around.
• Nicholas Morrow: Thank god there’s a new girl in the junior class! I’ve dated my way through all the high school girls, and I thought for a minute there I would have to date someone my age.
• Andrea: Oh my god, thank god I moved to Sweet Valley from New York City. I mean, Sweet Valley is so damn perfect people who don’t live here must be jealous!
• Jessica: Ugh, any new girl is bound to take any attention away from me. I’m going to completely ignore her. Besides, anyone Liz likes must be boring.

Conveniently, this is then first book we hear about Jame Peters, the hunky rock star that makes Lila, Amy and Jessica squirm in their panties. Conveniently, hmmm, Andrea is secretive about her father…and conveniently, Jamie Peters mentions that he’s going to move to a small town in Southern California.

If you are not a complete moron, you’ll figure out that Jamie is Andrea’s father. She wants to keep it a secret because people will treat her differently when they know her father is famous. I’ve learned this lesson from watching numerous episodes of Hannah Montana. Not only that, it must be weird and icky to hear people mention all the time that they find your father hot. However, from the way he is described, Jamie Peters appeared in my mind as the douchey singer of Puddle of Mudd.



After spying on Jamie Peters’ backyard, the bitch trifecta (Lila, Jessica, Amy) see Andrea hanging out at the house and jump to the conclusion that Andrea is Jamie’s underage girlfriend. Yea, because that makes the most sense? You’d think that being his gf would make Andrea more popular and the envy of the other girls, but in bizarro Sweet Valley World, this makes her someone worthy of being burned at the stake. Because she is judged for supposedly having sex.

So everyone finds out, and Andrea runs away to sit forlornly at the marina, and then who does Jamie call for help- ELIZABETH! Because he’s heard Andrea talk about her new friend Elizabeth a lot. Barf. Nicholas ans Liz find her, bring her back and they all hang out at Casa Peters and make nicey nice with Jamie.

is Andrea never mentioned again? She is another blond, pretty nice girl, who in my mind is played by the same actress as Heather Sanford. She really should tell people Jamie Peters is her father, because really there’s nothing else about her that screams interesting personality.

Also, a funny secondary storyline, and I mean for real ha ha funny, is that Lila decides she’s going to be a musician and is working with a hippy drippy music teacher who tries to find an instrument that speaks to her, which is the marimba. Lila gets all into it and forces Jessica and Amy into listening to her play all the time, and they give her shit for it. I know it doesn’t seem funny when I write it, but seriously, it’s nice to see some scathing humor make into these books.

And do we ever hear about Jamie Peters again? I am surprised he doesn’t write a song dedicated to Elizabeth and her kind heart. Maybe he can perform at a school dance and give the Droids the night off for once.

]]> http://thedairiburger.com/2008/11/13/yea-because-thats-the-most-logical-explanation/ Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:36:35 +0000 ihatewheat http://thedairiburger.com/2008/11/13/yea-because-thats-the-most-logical-explanation/



[photo from The Closet]

Andrea Slade is the new girl, that’s who. Instead of Liz putting her hand on her shoulder, we have the other option, Jessica looking with such hatred that it may cause the person to try to kill themselves. However, love Andrea’s “bish plz” look.

So Andrea Slade is the new girl, and her appearance causes many an internal monologue.

• Liz: Oooooo!!! A new girl! I must insert myself directly up my ass and help her! New girls are usually a pathetic mess, so it can be a project for me! Plus, I am getting bored of this Enid girl who keeps following me around.
• Nicholas Morrow: Thank god there’s a new girl in the junior class! I’ve dated my way through all the high school girls, and I thought for a minute there I would have to date someone my age.
• Andrea: Oh my god, thank god I moved to Sweet Valley from New York City. I mean, Sweet Valley is so damn perfect people who don’t live here must be jealous!
• Jessica: Ugh, any new girl is bound to take any attention away from me. I’m going to completely ignore her. Besides, anyone Liz likes must be boring.

Conveniently, this is then first book we hear about Jame Peters, the hunky rock star that makes Lila, Amy and Jessica squirm in their panties. Conveniently, hmmm, Andrea is secretive about her father…and conveniently, Jamie Peters mentions that he’s going to move to a small town in Southern California.

If you are not a complete moron, you’ll figure out that Jamie is Andrea’s father. She wants to keep it a secret because people will treat her differently when they know her father is famous. I’ve learned this lesson from watching numerous episodes of Hannah Montana. Not only that, it must be weird and icky to hear people mention all the time that they find your father hot. However, from the way he is described, Jamie Peters appeared in my mind as the douchey singer of Puddle of Mudd.



After spying on Jamie Peters’ backyard, the bitch trifecta (Lila, Jessica, Amy) see Andrea hanging out at the house and jump to the conclusion that Andrea is Jamie’s underage girlfriend. Yea, because that makes the most sense? You’d think that being his gf would make Andrea more popular and the envy of the other girls, but in bizarro Sweet Valley World, this makes her someone worthy of being burned at the stake. Because she is judged for supposedly having sex.

So everyone finds out, and Andrea runs away to sit forlornly at the marina, and then who does Jamie call for help- ELIZABETH! Because he’s heard Andrea talk about her new friend Elizabeth a lot. Barf. Nicholas ans Liz find her, bring her back and they all hang out at Casa Peters and make nicey nice with Jamie.

is Andrea never mentioned again? She is another blond, pretty nice girl, who in my mind is played by the same actress as Heather Sanford. She really should tell people Jamie Peters is her father, because really there’s nothing else about her that screams interesting personality.

Also, a funny secondary storyline, and I mean for real ha ha funny, is that Lila decides she’s going to be a musician and is working with a hippy drippy music teacher who tries to find an instrument that speaks to her, which is the marimba. Lila gets all into it and forces Jessica and Amy into listening to her play all the time, and they give her shit for it. I know it doesn’t seem funny when I write it, but seriously, it’s nice to see some scathing humor make into these books.

And do we ever hear about Jamie Peters again? I am surprised he doesn’t write a song dedicated to Elizabeth and her kind heart. Maybe he can perform at a school dance and give the Droids the night off for once.

]]>