Previously: Suzanne visits from New York and accuses Mr. Creepy Collins of rape. Meanwhile, in New York, Jessica is actually almost raped. It was a very rape-y time in book 11.
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Lorraine: Probably my favorite book dedication of all time comes at the beginning of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”
My dear Lucy,
I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be
your affectionate Godfather,
We’re not here to discuss the merits of the Narnia series, but I can tell you that I would read that dedication every time I read that book (a lot) and I would always be a little jealous because Lucy had a book dedicated to her, and I didn’t.
What would you think, then, if someone dedicated a Sweet Valley book to you? I’m not sure why I noticed the “To Amy,” printed on the first page of this book, but it made me laugh. “Hey hon, I dedicated the book I ghost wrote to you. It’s called When Love Dies. You’re welcome.”
We open book 12 with Jessica flouncing around and being very insensitive towards her brother Steve. When she finally notices that he’s sitting there emo’ing into a cup of cold coffee, she asks what’s wrong with him. He shoo’s her away and Jessica says that she hopes he isn’t moaning over his girlfriend Tricia. Jess does not like Tricia because she comes from the trashiest family in Sweet Valley.
Because Jess knows a ton about keeping it klassy.
Steven finally yells at Jess to leave him alone and stalks off with tears in his eyes. Nothing like a good man-cry to get our cry count rolling.
Cry Count
Steven – 1
Elizabeth comes into the kitchen a few minutes later. We get a mention of just how different but the same Jess and Liz are. Jess is wearing her hair loose and Liz has it in a “practical ponytail.” I’d love to know what the heck that means. I mean, I suppose a ponytail all the way at the front of your head, kind of like a unicorn horn, would be really impractical.
Also, Liz is wearing some sort of grandma skirt and Jess is wearing jeans so tight, we’re told they’d bring traffic to a screeching halt.
Jessica asks Liz if she’s noticed Steven’s moping, and of course Liz has because it’s basically her job to notice everything. Jessica says that clearly she was right about Tricia being a ho-fa-sho, and I wonder how she’s able to speak such things when her ho-y jeans are on so tight.
Liz says Tricia is a nice girl and it isn’t her fault that Francine Pascal made her father the one town drunk and her sister the one town sex enthusiast. Jess doesn’t agree. She claims Tricia can’t be all nice if she’s been standing up Steve and giving him the cold shoulder.
The Ghost Writing Collective makes a big deal about telling us that Steve is driving to the poor side of Sweet Valley. Just in case we didn’t realize what the poor side was, exactly, they tell us that discarded cans and broken glass decorate the lawns here. Poor people hate recycling.
Steven goes in to Tricia’s house and she’s packing up a suitcase. She tells him that she’s going away for the weekend but won’t give him any details. Steven asks her if she’s seeing someone else, and if that’s why she’s been pulling away. Tricia doesn’t say anything so Steven assumes he’s right. He says again that he loved and trusted her and can’t believe she’s a cheatery cheater who cheats. He cries some more and leaves.
When Steven is gone, Tricia breaks down and does some crying of her own. She does love Steven and she isn’t cheating on him! The truth is… the truth is that…. she has leukemia.
SAY WUH? A cancer storyline, for real? FOR REAL GWC? Yes. For totally real.
Tricia figures it’s better to break Steven’s heart this way, than to break his heart when she dies. She says this duplicity is her final gift to him. I hope this gift comes with a receipt because it pretty much sucks.
Cry Count
Steven – 2
Tricia – 1
Cara Walker, town gossip and Jess’ best friend wants to know all about the break-up because she has the hots for Steve. I mean, Cara doesn’t admit it, but Jess says it’s obvious by the way she’s all, “where’s Steve? How’s Steve? Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve. Steve.”
Cara wants to know if Steve’s noticed how into him she is, and Jess says that he wouldn’t notice a brick wall if he walked into one. Oh, boyfriend, just read a few CT books, and a brick wall will become your face’s best friend.
Cara wants to know if this means she has to hit Steven over the head to get him to notice her. That’s a very raper-y thing to say. If I were Steve’s sister, I’d be all, “stay away, crazy.” Jess, though, thinks this is all awesome and promises to set the two up.
Other gossip items from Cara include a new family moving into the biggest mansion in Sweet Valley, the Morrows, and TV personality Jeremy Frank having a broken leg and being admitted to the hospital.
That’s all it takes to get Jessica on another dumb scheme. She decides she wants to volunteer a
s a candy striper so she has chance to get close to Jeremy, who is the handsomest man of all time. The first time I wrote “candy striper” I actually typed “stripper.” Which is awesome, so I’m now going to call Jessica the candy stripper.
Jess gets Liz in on her plan, leaving out the part about Jeremy, and only saying that it’s important to give back to the community. I foresee Jessica Wakefield’s future and the only thing she’ll ever give to the community is chlamydia.
The twins start their candy stripper shifts the next day and Jess gets stuck in the maternity ward, throwing out dirty diapers and lying to mothers about their unfortunate looking babies. Liz is the one who actually meets and chats with Jeremy Frank. She even signs his cast, because he says Liz might be a famous journalist one day.
Jess thinks this is her cue to go stalk the guy too. She tells him that she’s going to be a famous TV star, and for his part, Jeremy mostly contains his LOL’s. Jess asks if she can sign his cast like Liz did, and he says yes. Except that when she goes to sign it, she actually trips, falls on top of his broken leg and has to run out to call a nurse.
Jess is mortified for about 2.5 seconds before deciding this just means she has to pester the man even harder to get him to put her on TV.
Back at home, Jess is trying to get Steven to go to a party at Cara’s house. Steven says no about a million times, but then Jess says that Cara has hot gossip about Tricia skipping school recently. Steve is intrigued so he agrees to go to the party.
The only small detail is that Cara isn’t actually having a party. Jess just made that up because lying is like breathing for her. Cara is all, “WTF,” and Jess tells her it’ll be fine. They’ll invite some of their friends over and put out some chips.
At the “party” Steven is not really having a good time. But, then Cara tells him that someone saw Tricia at the drug store hanging all over another guy. This pisses Steven off, so he decides to angry dance with Cara and then he angry kisses her and then they go out for angry pizza. None of this is fun for him.
That Monday at school, Jess and Cara make sure to make a big deal about Steven going to the party, right in front of Tricia. Liz gets three snaps in z formation, though, when she tells Cara that Steven is probably secretive about his dates with Cara because he has something to be ashamed of. Mmmhmm. Go ahead girl.
Tricia cries. She wants Steve but the cancer is a bitch who keeps them apart.
Cry Count
Steven -2
Tricia – 2
Liz feels really bad for Tricia and Steve because they are both miserable. She asks Todd if she should butt in, and they agree that she probably shouldn’t, but is going to anyways.
At their next candy stripper shift, Jess goes back to “make an impression” on Jeremy Frank. She fills up a pitcher of water in case he’s thirsty and when she walks in, a nurse is giving him a sponge bath. He’s completely naked. The penis startles her so much that she spills the cold water all over his midsection. Jeremy is not happy. Jess runs away.
Jess tells Liz what happened, meaning that Liz is going to butt into this matter as well. She decides to get Jeremy’s help scaring Jessica off.
I should also mention that there is an orderly named Carl at the hospital that creepy stares at Liz all the time. It makes Liz uncomfortable, but she decides that “looks never killed anyone,” and wonders what he could possible do to her. This makes me really, really excited for the possibility of some violence being directed toward Liz in the near future.
Jeremy and Liz start enacting their plan by having Jeremy give some roses to Jess and ask if she has a boyfriend. Jess begs Liz not to tell their parents seeing as how they would probably disagree with statutory rape.
Liz has to scurry off to attend a new patient and shock and awe, it’s Tricia Martin. Liz asks what’s wrong with her and Tricia admits to the leukemia. And she cries. Liz asks how bad it is and Tricia says she isn’t going to get better. Liz cries. I kind of feel like a bitch for keeping a cry count when the cancer is involved…
Cry Count
Steven – 2
Tricia – 3
Liz – 1
Tricia explains that she figures that when Steven finds out that she’s dead in a few months, it won’t even matter that much because he’ll be over her. Liz is all, “this is the stupidest shit of life,” but Tricia is all, “no, for reals. This will work.” So Tricia makes Liz promise that she won’t tell Steve. Liz promises.
Soon that promise starts to eat Liz up inside. She can’t even do her homework, you guys! She yells at someone at school! She cries! Okay, so that one isn’t surprising, but, still. She does cry. We get a brief visit from zzzzEnid, who tells Liz that some secrets aren’t meant to be kept, and that Liz should talk to someone she trusts.
Cry Count
Steven – 2
Tricia – 3
Liz – 2
Oh, hey Mr. Creepy Collins! Whatcha doin’ there? Oh. You’re the person Liz trusts? Welp.
Liz tells Creepy Collins the whole story and she cries. Collins tells Liz that sometimes we make bad promises and those are totally okay to break. Liz feels better.
Cry Count
Steven – 2
Tricia – 3
Liz -3
Jeremy finishes carrying out the “scare the crap out of Jessica” plan by asking her to marry him. This sufficiently freaks her out and she runs away from his room shrieking.
The more she thinks about it, though, the more she realizes that being engaged to a celebrity might do wonderful things for her, so she goes back to the hospital to accept Jeremy’s proposal. Jeremy just laughs in her face. Honest to goodness, bust out, shaking shoulders laughter and it makes me happy inside.
Jeremy confesses to the prank and to wanting to scare her off, but says that he’ll make it up to Jess. Oh, not awesome, because the last thing in the world you want, dear fictional character, is to owe Jessica Wakefield a favor.
Steve goes to a party with Cara for like five minute before he says that he could never love her because he’s still in love with Tricia. When he returns home, Liz is on hand to cry-tell the story of how Tricia is dying. Steve cry-listens. Then they cry together.
Cry Count
Steven -3
Tricia – 3
Liz – 4
Steven goes to see Tricia and even though she tries to keep him out of her house, Steve is all, “I know,” and that’s all it takes to get the two of the cry-hugging. They say that they love each other a million times and Steve says he’ll love her even when she’s dead!Tricia. This makes her feel better. See, Steve’s love makes her feel strong enough to face death itself. I guess it helps that she doesn’t really have a say in the matter.
Is that evil?
So, yeah, kissing, crying, loving, etc.
Cry Count
Steven – 4
Tricia – 4
Liz – 4
Liz is leaving the hospital to go get ready for Regina Morrow’s welcome me into your neighborhood party. On the way out, though, Carl the orderly bashes Liz over the head, chloroforms her and puts her into a van. Exciting times! Oh, she cries before she faints.
Cry Count
Steven – 4
Tricia – 4
Liz -5
The book ends with a little note that readers would have to wait an extra month for the next book, but that it would be worth it! Even then, they knew how excited their readers would be about Liz getting kidnapped. That’s cool.
Next time on Sweet Valley High: Elizabeth is kidnapped because of course she is in #13 – Kidnapped.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
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