I totally paused!

If you didn’t know it already, Jessica Wakefield is fucking INsane. The basic plot of this book is she wants to be queen of whatever dance they are having, and decides that Elizabeth’s best friend Enid Rollins is her biggest competition for the title. As a side note, why are none of Jessica’s friends also running for queen? She’s a member of the high school sorority and a cheerleader, you’d think all her friends would be up for queen.

Anyway, Jessica is convinced that Enid will win because her jealous boyfriend Ronnie is in charge of the committee, so she anonymously gives Ronnie a copy of a letter Enid received from her friend George. Ronnie gets pissed and thinks Enid is cheating on him or whatev, so they break up and Enid thinks it was Liz because she was the only other person who knew. So basically, Jessica breaks up this relationship all to be the queen of the dance…because she thinks Bruce Patman is going to be king and she desperately wants to get in his pants.

All works out well in the end – Liz gets back at Jess for being a shit by having everyone vote at the dance for Winston Egbert to be king. Who votes for the king and queen at the dance itself, btw? We always voted well in advance of our dances when I was in high school.

Enid also decides she doesn’t like Ronnie cuz he’s a big fat jerk and she starts dating George instead. Also, she has this sordid past that she didn’t want anyone to know about but of course Jessica tells.

Oh, a side plot is that Ms. Dalton is secretly dating Ken Matthews because she’s tutoring him. Because that would really fly at all. I can only imagine what would happen if a rumor like that went around a modern high school.

So at one point, Liz and Todd are on a double date with Enid and Ronnie, and Todd says to Liz “If you love someone, you should trust him. Or her…” This is great advice considering what they go through in the future, what with cheating on each other and all that.

One of my other favorite things is Jessica totally saying Enid just wants to blame Liz for her boyfriend problems and that she’s just using Elizabeth. Because Jessica is soooooooo innocent on this front. If ever anyone used Elizabeth Wakefield, it’s her little sister.

Pretty much we learned nothing new in this one. But it’s good to be reminded of how Jessica is craaaaaazy, right? I swear she feels no guilt for a damn thing. But this was filled with drama and all that craziness, so that almost made it worth the read.

My copy must be a later one, cuz it says “…continuing story…” There was no continuing at the time the book was written!

Before I actually got to high school, all I knew of it I got from Sweet Valley High. I couldn’t really tell you when I started reading these books, but I do know that what I wanted in my youth very much came from what I read about Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield. I really really wanted an older brother, yearned for one. And I likewise heavily desired a twin sister. It sounded like so much fun!

The plot of this book is basically that Liz likes Todd Wilkins, a LOT! She has fantasies about him kissing her on the forehead. The forehead! He would embrace her and make all her troubles go away. But Jessica has other plans – she totally wants Todd cuz he’s cute and is the captain of the basketball team. Since she is co-captain of the cheerleading squad, they should absolutely be together.

Somehow I had in my head that Jess developed into her manipulative, crazy, scheming bitch of a self. No idea where I got that from, because she’s just horrible from the start. She lies to Liz, lies to Todd, gets herself into trouble with Rick Andover (which, btw, isn’t he a tennis player who likes Nora Mercandy in the Twins series?), and lets everyone think it was Elizabeth who got picked up by the police for being with Rick. Cuz, you know, Jess couldn’t let her reputation get damaged by scandal! Liz’s reputation can handle it way better.

I was also surprised that there wasn’t much of Lila Fowler in this book, she has like one line cuz her family is fighting with the Patman’s about what to do with the football field. Maybe the ghostwriter wanted the opportunity to show that Jessica is terrible on her own, she doesn’t need Lila’s influence!

In the end, Liz and Todd find out how Jess had been lying to them like crazy and they get together. Also, Liz gets Jess thrown in the pool because they change outfits and everyone thinks they are each other. Damn that scheming Liz, getting poor Jessica thrown in the pool! I love how people can’t tell them apart – they are identical on the outside but that’s where the similarities end, after all.

And as a side note, I wonder what size the twins would be if the series were written today. It’s kind of sad that back in the 80’s when this series started, they were a size six and that was totally idolized – jump to today where they would probably be considered plus size. Insanity!