What do you think?
Rate this book
Sweet Valley High #107
Jessica's Secret Love
When Jessica Wakefield meets Jeremy Randall on the beach, she can't believe her eyes. He's everything she's always dreamed of and more. It's love at first sight for him, too, and they share an intimate kiss. Then Jeremy says he can't see her again, and Jessica doesn't know what to think. But soon she understands all too well. He's engaged to the Wakefields' houseguest!
197 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 1, 1994
18 people are currently reading
298 people want to read
About the author
Francine Pascal
1,139 books1,846 followersFrancine Paula Pascal was an American author best known for her Sweet Valley series of young adult novels. Sweet Valley High, the backbone of the collection, was made into a television series, which led to several spin-offs, including The Unicorn Club and Sweet Valley University. Although most of these books were published in the 1980s and 1990s, they remained so popular that several titles were re-released decades later.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 14 reviews
November 27, 2024
Marian and I are starting the second part of this year's nostalgia re-readathon this week.
I am tickled at how much I liked this book, especially given how much I loathed the previous mini-arc about werewolves in London. But this was written by a ghostie with an actual sense of humor and more than passing familiarity with canon, which certainly helped things! I probably wasn't meant to find it as humorous as I did, but the meta-fan in me got a real kick out of this.
Book #107 picks up pretty much where #106 left off. The twins and their BFFs, Enid and Lila, are lolling about on a summer afternoon at the Sweet Valley beach. Liz is still traumatized by her experience in London and is deep in self-doubt because she fell in love with a literal crazy person. She's questioning everything about herself and how she forms relationships, and her answer is to go off the deep end into the female-empowerment-sisterhood-woman-hear-me-roar corner of the self-help world. She spends most of this book yapping about the two thick tomes she's reading: Real Women, Bad Men and Primal Woman. Mercifully, Todd is out of town visiting his extended family, so Liz has some room to breathe and think and get in touch with the primal woman within. She and Enid spend this book hosting little parties with their friends, each of whom brings a self-help book and they give each other the quizzes out of them. This is their idea of summer fun, and yes it cracks me up. Not that Liz is getting in touch with her feminist side, necessarily, so much as the way the 90s version of this is lampooned here. She also tries to give Jessica sound advice, but keeps reaching for her damn books to back up her therapy-speak and completely defeating the point of the exercise.
So while Liz and Enid are contemplating their inner selves, Jess and Lila are strolling on the beach and bemoaning their lack of steady boyfriends. Jessica is convinced that because she is single at this point in her life, she will be Forever Alone and will never find a husband or have children. (As a Forever Alone person, I just had to laugh, OMG!!) Jessica gets hit in the head with a frisbee, but takes one look at the guy rushing over to her and decides she can't be mad at such a gorgeous hunk of man. As it turns out, her blond Adonis was supposed to catch the frisbee; his friend, Robby Goodman, was the thrower and is more interested in chatting up Lila than anything else. The two of them go off for a soda, while Jessica and her mysterious stranger share a strong bolt of chemistry and a sizzling kiss. Their encounter lasts all of five minutes, and the guy jets without even telling Jessica his name, but no matter. Jessica is convinced she's met her soulmate - yes, someone she'd even dump Sam for, which she confirms later in the story.
All of her friends are skeptical, and for good reason. Jessica has a habit of falling in love every five minutes, and going through guys like tissue paper. But Jess insists this is it, this dude is The One, and she begs Lila to get any info out of Robby that she can.
Meanwhile, the daughter of one of Alice Wakefield's college friends comes to stay with the Wakefields. Sue Gibbons is an 18-year-old girl from New York who is seemingly lost at sea after the death of her mother. Everyone is excited for her to be getting married and thus having the chance to have a family of her own. Even super-feminist Liz is on board with this plan, and sees absolutely no irony in her position as a primal woman ready to stir up herstory and the giddy planning of a wedding so a fellow woman won't be - gasp! - alone in this world.
No one seems to mind that Sue is only 18, or that her fiancé is 23. They apparently met while working at Project Nature in New York and just sort of...drifted together. (Did I mention Sue was just an intern at the time?) Because of Sue's loss of her mother, Jeremy decided to propose to her, and voila! Here they are. Now Sue is getting ready to plan a big wedding and wants all of the Wakefield ladies to help her. Steven is conveniently at school, so Sue sets up in his bedroom and is thrilled with Alice, Liz, and Jessica offer to assist her. (Because how much wedding planning have *they* done??)
Almost immediately, there is something...off about Sue. For someone working for an environmental agency, she seemingly has no care for any of her 'ideals' when it comes to choosing sustainable sources of food, dress, or even her engagement ring. Everyone brushes this off because "she lost her mom" but I smell a rat. Sue is presenting herself as a poor little rich girl who is only too eager to please everyone, especially her darling fiancé.
Jessica by this time has learned her mystery man's name, but even she isn't ready when she opens the door to Sue's intended and discovers that he is her mystery man from the beach! Jeremy appears equally stunned, but they both manage to keep their mouths shut and their eyes off each other during their initial meeting/dinner with the Wakefields. Jessica tells Elizabeth that Jeremy is her soulmate, and Liz is appalled. She warns Jess to keep away from him. Jessica shoots back that she knows Jeremy is engaged, and he's obviously made his choice, so she's not going to interfere.
And, for once, she doesn't. At least, she doesn't overtly try to break the two of them up. She calculates to spend alone time with Jeremy, hoping he will come to his senses on his own, but there is no patented Jessica scheme at work here. I actually found this quite refreshing; she's trying to be rather mature about it, for the most part.
That's not to say that there aren't any shenanigans. Jessica has a vain hope that if she can delay Jeremy giving Sue her engagement ring, that he will ultimately dump her. So she contrives to send the two of them to her favorite restaurant for the big occasion, and then scrambles around to find a date herself. She calls Aaron Dallas, AJ Morgan (!!), Winston Egbert, and finally Bruce Patman to beg for a date. I was SHOCKED at the tiny (albeit phone-convo) cameo by AJ, considering his erasure earlier in the book from her list of steady boyfriends. Bruce reminds Jessica that he almost lost his girlfriend, Pamela, after his entanglement with Liz during the first post-#100 mini-arc, when the three of them discovered that Henry Patman and Alice Wakefield were engaged at one time and they were all convinced the two parents were trying to reconcile, which none of them wanted. Jessica tells him to tell Pamela the truth about what's going on, and even agrees to buy Bruce's meal if he will accompany her.
Their date at the restaurant was HILARIOUS. Jessica is trying to keep an eye on Jeremy and Sue, trying to arouse Jeremy's jealousy, while also pretending to be besotted with Bruce. There is some truly excellent sniping during these scenes, with references not only to the recent past, but also a throwback way back to book #3 when Jessica and Bruce first dated, For Real. I absolutely LOVED this scene and thought it was pitch perfect. Jessica succeeds in keeping Jeremy from giving Sue the ring that night, but does not manage to break them up. Sue shows up the next day with her chosen gaudy diamond ring and waves it at everyone, and then has the temerity to request that Liz and Jess be her bridesmaids at her wedding!
Liz can see how upset Jessica is at this, and her idea of cheering her up is to take her to a Primal Woman seminar, where everyone sits around giving themselves ~spiritual names~ and screaming their primitive anger. Again, this scene was laugh-out-loud funny and written perfectly, mostly from Jessica's POV. As someone who doesn't want to be there and doesn't buy the guano on display, she can't believe what she's seeing - or hearing, as Liz lets out a pretty primal roar of her own!
Jessica keeps moaning about being Forever Alone and wishing Jeremy would pick her; she fails to come up with a Grand Gesture that will work so mopes around in the meanwhile; Sue continues to be oblivious and shallow; Jeremy continues to be a complete creep to everyone, though no one seems to notice. I mean, seriously, what 23-year-old man is not only engaged to a teenager, but actively grooming an even younger one? So gross, ugh. I just wanted to reach through the book at shake Jessica and tell her that he was sooooo not worth the energy she was expending on him.
Jessica makes one last ditch effort to propel Jeremy into confessing his love for her. He shows up when she's at home alone and has his wedding tux with him, so Jessica goes upstairs, puts on Sue's wedding dress, and descends to meet him. They have an obligatory stare in the mirror at each other, and Jeremy finally tells her that yes, he does indeed love her, but that he's not going to abandon Sue in this her hour of need because she is alone in the world and needs him. He doesn't love her, not like he loves Jess, but his poor tortured soul can't stand the idea of hurting someone as nice as Sue. This scene was also hilarious, as well as completely disgusting. Again, here's a grown-ass adult man creeping on multiple teenagers. There's also some stuff that's 'off' about him, but its not as obvious as what's off about Sue. I'm sure that will develop as this lil miniseries moves along.
In the third subplot, Lila is over the moon about Robby, a brilliant art student who also happens to be fabulously wealthy. She's SO HAPPY to finally find someone who is not intimidated by her wealth, who understands exactly what it means to be so rich and thus, so far above everyone around her, socially. Only - dun dun dun - it turns out Robby is actually poor, and merely housesitting for the fabulously wealthy executive that his father serves as an EA for. Lila is devastated. Apparently she now demands that her man be in the same wealth bracket as herself (and Bruce is....right there, OMG). Jessica is the one who tells her that money shouldn't matter (!!!) and true love should reign no matter what. At Sue and Jeremy's engagement party, she pushes Lila and Robby back together.
The engagement party is being thrown by and hosted at the Wakefields', and Jeremy requests to dance with Jessica. As the book closes, they have wandered off into the hedges to steal kisses, even as the Wakefield parents are calling for him to propose a toast to his upcoming wedding.
This was absolutely ridiculous, but the best part of it is that everyone involved seemed aware of at least some of the ridiculousness, even if it wasn't the part that they were actively engaged in. This ghostie really knocked this one out of the park, and I'm actually looking forward to reading the next book!
I am tickled at how much I liked this book, especially given how much I loathed the previous mini-arc about werewolves in London. But this was written by a ghostie with an actual sense of humor and more than passing familiarity with canon, which certainly helped things! I probably wasn't meant to find it as humorous as I did, but the meta-fan in me got a real kick out of this.
Book #107 picks up pretty much where #106 left off. The twins and their BFFs, Enid and Lila, are lolling about on a summer afternoon at the Sweet Valley beach. Liz is still traumatized by her experience in London and is deep in self-doubt because she fell in love with a literal crazy person. She's questioning everything about herself and how she forms relationships, and her answer is to go off the deep end into the female-empowerment-sisterhood-woman-hear-me-roar corner of the self-help world. She spends most of this book yapping about the two thick tomes she's reading: Real Women, Bad Men and Primal Woman. Mercifully, Todd is out of town visiting his extended family, so Liz has some room to breathe and think and get in touch with the primal woman within. She and Enid spend this book hosting little parties with their friends, each of whom brings a self-help book and they give each other the quizzes out of them. This is their idea of summer fun, and yes it cracks me up. Not that Liz is getting in touch with her feminist side, necessarily, so much as the way the 90s version of this is lampooned here. She also tries to give Jessica sound advice, but keeps reaching for her damn books to back up her therapy-speak and completely defeating the point of the exercise.
So while Liz and Enid are contemplating their inner selves, Jess and Lila are strolling on the beach and bemoaning their lack of steady boyfriends. Jessica is convinced that because she is single at this point in her life, she will be Forever Alone and will never find a husband or have children. (As a Forever Alone person, I just had to laugh, OMG!!) Jessica gets hit in the head with a frisbee, but takes one look at the guy rushing over to her and decides she can't be mad at such a gorgeous hunk of man. As it turns out, her blond Adonis was supposed to catch the frisbee; his friend, Robby Goodman, was the thrower and is more interested in chatting up Lila than anything else. The two of them go off for a soda, while Jessica and her mysterious stranger share a strong bolt of chemistry and a sizzling kiss. Their encounter lasts all of five minutes, and the guy jets without even telling Jessica his name, but no matter. Jessica is convinced she's met her soulmate - yes, someone she'd even dump Sam for, which she confirms later in the story.
All of her friends are skeptical, and for good reason. Jessica has a habit of falling in love every five minutes, and going through guys like tissue paper. But Jess insists this is it, this dude is The One, and she begs Lila to get any info out of Robby that she can.
Meanwhile, the daughter of one of Alice Wakefield's college friends comes to stay with the Wakefields. Sue Gibbons is an 18-year-old girl from New York who is seemingly lost at sea after the death of her mother. Everyone is excited for her to be getting married and thus having the chance to have a family of her own. Even super-feminist Liz is on board with this plan, and sees absolutely no irony in her position as a primal woman ready to stir up herstory and the giddy planning of a wedding so a fellow woman won't be - gasp! - alone in this world.
No one seems to mind that Sue is only 18, or that her fiancé is 23. They apparently met while working at Project Nature in New York and just sort of...drifted together. (Did I mention Sue was just an intern at the time?) Because of Sue's loss of her mother, Jeremy decided to propose to her, and voila! Here they are. Now Sue is getting ready to plan a big wedding and wants all of the Wakefield ladies to help her. Steven is conveniently at school, so Sue sets up in his bedroom and is thrilled with Alice, Liz, and Jessica offer to assist her. (Because how much wedding planning have *they* done??)
Almost immediately, there is something...off about Sue. For someone working for an environmental agency, she seemingly has no care for any of her 'ideals' when it comes to choosing sustainable sources of food, dress, or even her engagement ring. Everyone brushes this off because "she lost her mom" but I smell a rat. Sue is presenting herself as a poor little rich girl who is only too eager to please everyone, especially her darling fiancé.
Jessica by this time has learned her mystery man's name, but even she isn't ready when she opens the door to Sue's intended and discovers that he is her mystery man from the beach! Jeremy appears equally stunned, but they both manage to keep their mouths shut and their eyes off each other during their initial meeting/dinner with the Wakefields. Jessica tells Elizabeth that Jeremy is her soulmate, and Liz is appalled. She warns Jess to keep away from him. Jessica shoots back that she knows Jeremy is engaged, and he's obviously made his choice, so she's not going to interfere.
And, for once, she doesn't. At least, she doesn't overtly try to break the two of them up. She calculates to spend alone time with Jeremy, hoping he will come to his senses on his own, but there is no patented Jessica scheme at work here. I actually found this quite refreshing; she's trying to be rather mature about it, for the most part.
That's not to say that there aren't any shenanigans. Jessica has a vain hope that if she can delay Jeremy giving Sue her engagement ring, that he will ultimately dump her. So she contrives to send the two of them to her favorite restaurant for the big occasion, and then scrambles around to find a date herself. She calls Aaron Dallas, AJ Morgan (!!), Winston Egbert, and finally Bruce Patman to beg for a date. I was SHOCKED at the tiny (albeit phone-convo) cameo by AJ, considering his erasure earlier in the book from her list of steady boyfriends. Bruce reminds Jessica that he almost lost his girlfriend, Pamela, after his entanglement with Liz during the first post-#100 mini-arc, when the three of them discovered that Henry Patman and Alice Wakefield were engaged at one time and they were all convinced the two parents were trying to reconcile, which none of them wanted. Jessica tells him to tell Pamela the truth about what's going on, and even agrees to buy Bruce's meal if he will accompany her.
Their date at the restaurant was HILARIOUS. Jessica is trying to keep an eye on Jeremy and Sue, trying to arouse Jeremy's jealousy, while also pretending to be besotted with Bruce. There is some truly excellent sniping during these scenes, with references not only to the recent past, but also a throwback way back to book #3 when Jessica and Bruce first dated, For Real. I absolutely LOVED this scene and thought it was pitch perfect. Jessica succeeds in keeping Jeremy from giving Sue the ring that night, but does not manage to break them up. Sue shows up the next day with her chosen gaudy diamond ring and waves it at everyone, and then has the temerity to request that Liz and Jess be her bridesmaids at her wedding!
Liz can see how upset Jessica is at this, and her idea of cheering her up is to take her to a Primal Woman seminar, where everyone sits around giving themselves ~spiritual names~ and screaming their primitive anger. Again, this scene was laugh-out-loud funny and written perfectly, mostly from Jessica's POV. As someone who doesn't want to be there and doesn't buy the guano on display, she can't believe what she's seeing - or hearing, as Liz lets out a pretty primal roar of her own!
Jessica keeps moaning about being Forever Alone and wishing Jeremy would pick her; she fails to come up with a Grand Gesture that will work so mopes around in the meanwhile; Sue continues to be oblivious and shallow; Jeremy continues to be a complete creep to everyone, though no one seems to notice. I mean, seriously, what 23-year-old man is not only engaged to a teenager, but actively grooming an even younger one? So gross, ugh. I just wanted to reach through the book at shake Jessica and tell her that he was sooooo not worth the energy she was expending on him.
Jessica makes one last ditch effort to propel Jeremy into confessing his love for her. He shows up when she's at home alone and has his wedding tux with him, so Jessica goes upstairs, puts on Sue's wedding dress, and descends to meet him. They have an obligatory stare in the mirror at each other, and Jeremy finally tells her that yes, he does indeed love her, but that he's not going to abandon Sue in this her hour of need because she is alone in the world and needs him. He doesn't love her, not like he loves Jess, but his poor tortured soul can't stand the idea of hurting someone as nice as Sue. This scene was also hilarious, as well as completely disgusting. Again, here's a grown-ass adult man creeping on multiple teenagers. There's also some stuff that's 'off' about him, but its not as obvious as what's off about Sue. I'm sure that will develop as this lil miniseries moves along.
In the third subplot, Lila is over the moon about Robby, a brilliant art student who also happens to be fabulously wealthy. She's SO HAPPY to finally find someone who is not intimidated by her wealth, who understands exactly what it means to be so rich and thus, so far above everyone around her, socially. Only - dun dun dun - it turns out Robby is actually poor, and merely housesitting for the fabulously wealthy executive that his father serves as an EA for. Lila is devastated. Apparently she now demands that her man be in the same wealth bracket as herself (and Bruce is....right there, OMG). Jessica is the one who tells her that money shouldn't matter (!!!) and true love should reign no matter what. At Sue and Jeremy's engagement party, she pushes Lila and Robby back together.
The engagement party is being thrown by and hosted at the Wakefields', and Jeremy requests to dance with Jessica. As the book closes, they have wandered off into the hedges to steal kisses, even as the Wakefield parents are calling for him to propose a toast to his upcoming wedding.
This was absolutely ridiculous, but the best part of it is that everyone involved seemed aware of at least some of the ridiculousness, even if it wasn't the part that they were actively engaged in. This ghostie really knocked this one out of the park, and I'm actually looking forward to reading the next book!
December 2, 2024
For our extended re-read this year, the lovely Eurohackie and I are tackling one of the SVH minis prior to the great falloff towards the end of the series that I haven't already re-read a ton. In fact, my memories of this arc are pretty hazy beyond a few things.
1) My friends and I traded these back and forth in full "WTF!!!" force.
2) The biggest reason for that "!!!" reaction, but that's a spoiler for a later book so we'll leave that for now.
Beyond those two things, I remembered the basics (Alice's college friend died not too long ago, her young daughter is on the verge of getting married and asks for help planning the wedding, and Jessica falls madly in love with daughter's beloved. Chaos ensues) but that's about it.
Yeah, this one is delightfully written if you like your SVH in on the joke and tons of references to previous books/events. I'd honestly forgotten that the books ever really brought the full scope of Luke's crazy up again, since usually the more supernaturally themed arcs are self contained, or at best we'll reference the less cuckoo bananas portions (Jessica's fling with Robert) but leave out things like "Liz fell in love with a dude who thought he was an actual factual werewolf!"
Nope. We dive RIGHT in to the aftermath of how that messes with Liz and her view of herself, guys, and even the world. On the one hand, I'm surprised at how realistic this is, because yeah, I'd imagine falling for someone and realizing their grasp of reality is that far gone would mess someone up, no matter how normally well adjusted they are. On the other hand, I can forgive a lot, Luke, but realizing YOU set off my least favorite Liz personality that will follow her for a good chunk of the series going forward? BURN IN HELL, LUKE.
Seriously, I cannot overstate how much I loathe self-help!Liz. She's still Liz here, and it's done pretty well for the most part, so I didn't hate it beyond the memories of what's to come, but oh, those memories caused full body cringe.
I'd also forgotten Lila gets a love interest! One who isn't a total horse's ass! But his twist is obvious to anyone paying attention (so... not Lila) and her reaction is just pure Lila. Lila, honey, baby, if you're trying to only date boys/men with as much money as you, your options locally are uh, Bruce and Nicholas. Jessica pointing out that in general this will knock out a good chunk of the eligible boys in America made me giggle-snort because SVU!Lila winds up marrying an Italian Count. I'm not sure why I'm not raging as hard on Robby being age inappropriate for Lila as I am for Jeremy/Jessica, but I do realize I'm a hypocrite about it. Sorry?
Jessica, however, is the real star of the show, and she's pretty much in full Jessica glory. Her insta!love with Jeremy is absolutely fucking ridiculous and everyone around her knows it, but Jessica's just... swooning over a guy whose name she doesn't even know for a good chunk of the first part of the book. She spends the rest of the book telling anyone who will listen that she loves him, this guy she still hasn't had a REAL conversation with beyond her pouting that he won't dump his fiancée for her, and loves him to the degree that she would've thrown Sam over for this bastard. I do love how both Lila and Liz react to this, as I like to imagine they were less "wow, she really must love this cheating POS" and were more "oh, wow, she's absolutely off her rocker" and Jessica can't tell the difference.
But I also love how her initial plan is to basically just... not react to him. She doesn't blow his cover when he turns up at the Wakefield's door and out him as the guy she's been swooning over for a week, she doesn't exactly chase after him. Instead she tortures him by pretending to date Bruce (an act that's almost as much torture for Jessica as it is for Jeremy), finding ways to be alone with him without really doing. This being Jessica, we can't have her be too passive, so after Here Me Roar Liz draws and keeps some boundaries, Jessica decides she needs to be more proactive. Then she throws Sue's wedding dress literally under a moving truck, tries said dress on (Sue must be TINY) and fucks up the zipper/seam, and flat out kisses Jeremy again. There's a moment where she believes she's overstepped (ya think?) and that he's not really interested (he's 23, he shouldn't be interested, Jess!) and she's absolutely mortified and ready to just walk away from it all. Which I appreciated. Naturally this isn't the case and of course he's really in love with Jessica (again, almost NO real conversations here) because you can't have a mini series with just one book.
I liked Sue for the most part, though obviously she's Not What She Seems, and wished mightily that Alice had at least mentioned to her own girls that getting married at 18, shortly after a great loss might be understandable but isn't necessarily a good life choice. But no, Alice is all for this marriage because Sue's just trying to build her own family now. Alice. Honey. She's EIGHTEEN. She does get points for not jumping in on the teasing Jessica about everything even after Jessica all but declares war, but the Sue/Jeremy timeline is a crock of shit not even SVH can really distract enough from.
Because I'm me, it's time to nitpick.
Liz chiding Jessica about suggesting Paris as a honeymoon option and suggesting that the happy couple would "probably want to go somewhere where they can do a little fieldwork as well. A couple as committed to their cause as they are wouldn't want to waste time slogging around Paris when they could be educating people in Costa Rica." Oh, Liz, where to even start here?
Liz in general explaining away Jeremy's behavior. If she weren't on her self help kick, I'd say she really does believe that he'd just temporarily forgotten himself when in the orbit of the more outgoing Wakefield twin and obviously he couldn't help but kiss Jessica, but Liz's whole deal right now is trying to weed out toxic dudes and Jeremy's a walking neon sign of warning flags that Liz would normally be catching (so long as she wasn't interested in him herself). Instead she defends him multiple times, even as she does point out that he's too old for Jessica while ignoring that the same logic should also really apply to Sue as well.
But my biggest, pettiest, stupidest issue with this book is this. Are you ready? You're not ready. When Jess is trying to figure out what to wear for her not!date with Bruce, she of course goes through Liz's closet with the usual caveat of "normally Jessica thinks Liz's clothes are too frumpy" or something but we all know that Jessica borrows Liz's clothes all the time and naturally this is no exception. She decides on the dress Elizabeth wore to Enid's sweet-sixteen party. It sounds really pretty, described as a strapless sheath:
The dress was of a deep aquamarine silk, and was long and slim and fitted, an elastic back holding the smooth bodice in place.
Perfect, lovely, bolero jacket included. Only one itty bitty note, really.
You know what the fuck happened the night of Enid's sweet-sixteen party? Jess blew Liz off for a guy, so Liz hopped on the back of Todd's motorcycle and then the two were in a horrific accident that put Liz in a coma! I SERIOUSLY DOUBT the dress survived the accident and even if it did, and even if Alice's miracle working dry cleaner could make it as good as new again, I just don't see anyone wanting to preserve that particular outfit and I sure as shit don't see Jessica wanting to wear it!
Oh, ghosty. You were doing so well and then you not only dropped the ball, you picked it back up and sent it to hell. The fact that no one caught or cared about this is kind of breaking my brain since Liz's coma/the motorcycle ban is something that does come up when even lesser ghosties put in references to past books/events, so it's not like it's been forgotten. :P
1) My friends and I traded these back and forth in full "WTF!!!" force.
2) The biggest reason for that "!!!" reaction, but that's a spoiler for a later book so we'll leave that for now.
Beyond those two things, I remembered the basics (Alice's college friend died not too long ago, her young daughter is on the verge of getting married and asks for help planning the wedding, and Jessica falls madly in love with daughter's beloved. Chaos ensues) but that's about it.
Yeah, this one is delightfully written if you like your SVH in on the joke and tons of references to previous books/events. I'd honestly forgotten that the books ever really brought the full scope of Luke's crazy up again, since usually the more supernaturally themed arcs are self contained, or at best we'll reference the less cuckoo bananas portions (Jessica's fling with Robert) but leave out things like "Liz fell in love with a dude who thought he was an actual factual werewolf!"
Nope. We dive RIGHT in to the aftermath of how that messes with Liz and her view of herself, guys, and even the world. On the one hand, I'm surprised at how realistic this is, because yeah, I'd imagine falling for someone and realizing their grasp of reality is that far gone would mess someone up, no matter how normally well adjusted they are. On the other hand, I can forgive a lot, Luke, but realizing YOU set off my least favorite Liz personality that will follow her for a good chunk of the series going forward? BURN IN HELL, LUKE.
Seriously, I cannot overstate how much I loathe self-help!Liz. She's still Liz here, and it's done pretty well for the most part, so I didn't hate it beyond the memories of what's to come, but oh, those memories caused full body cringe.
I'd also forgotten Lila gets a love interest! One who isn't a total horse's ass! But his twist is obvious to anyone paying attention (so... not Lila) and her reaction is just pure Lila. Lila, honey, baby, if you're trying to only date boys/men with as much money as you, your options locally are uh, Bruce and Nicholas. Jessica pointing out that in general this will knock out a good chunk of the eligible boys in America made me giggle-snort because SVU!Lila winds up marrying an Italian Count. I'm not sure why I'm not raging as hard on Robby being age inappropriate for Lila as I am for Jeremy/Jessica, but I do realize I'm a hypocrite about it. Sorry?
Jessica, however, is the real star of the show, and she's pretty much in full Jessica glory. Her insta!love with Jeremy is absolutely fucking ridiculous and everyone around her knows it, but Jessica's just... swooning over a guy whose name she doesn't even know for a good chunk of the first part of the book. She spends the rest of the book telling anyone who will listen that she loves him, this guy she still hasn't had a REAL conversation with beyond her pouting that he won't dump his fiancée for her, and loves him to the degree that she would've thrown Sam over for this bastard. I do love how both Lila and Liz react to this, as I like to imagine they were less "wow, she really must love this cheating POS" and were more "oh, wow, she's absolutely off her rocker" and Jessica can't tell the difference.
But I also love how her initial plan is to basically just... not react to him. She doesn't blow his cover when he turns up at the Wakefield's door and out him as the guy she's been swooning over for a week, she doesn't exactly chase after him. Instead she tortures him by pretending to date Bruce (an act that's almost as much torture for Jessica as it is for Jeremy), finding ways to be alone with him without really doing. This being Jessica, we can't have her be too passive, so after Here Me Roar Liz draws and keeps some boundaries, Jessica decides she needs to be more proactive. Then she throws Sue's wedding dress literally under a moving truck, tries said dress on (Sue must be TINY) and fucks up the zipper/seam, and flat out kisses Jeremy again. There's a moment where she believes she's overstepped (ya think?) and that he's not really interested (he's 23, he shouldn't be interested, Jess!) and she's absolutely mortified and ready to just walk away from it all. Which I appreciated. Naturally this isn't the case and of course he's really in love with Jessica (again, almost NO real conversations here) because you can't have a mini series with just one book.
I liked Sue for the most part, though obviously she's Not What She Seems, and wished mightily that Alice had at least mentioned to her own girls that getting married at 18, shortly after a great loss might be understandable but isn't necessarily a good life choice. But no, Alice is all for this marriage because Sue's just trying to build her own family now. Alice. Honey. She's EIGHTEEN. She does get points for not jumping in on the teasing Jessica about everything even after Jessica all but declares war, but the Sue/Jeremy timeline is a crock of shit not even SVH can really distract enough from.
Because I'm me, it's time to nitpick.
Liz chiding Jessica about suggesting Paris as a honeymoon option and suggesting that the happy couple would "probably want to go somewhere where they can do a little fieldwork as well. A couple as committed to their cause as they are wouldn't want to waste time slogging around Paris when they could be educating people in Costa Rica." Oh, Liz, where to even start here?
Liz in general explaining away Jeremy's behavior. If she weren't on her self help kick, I'd say she really does believe that he'd just temporarily forgotten himself when in the orbit of the more outgoing Wakefield twin and obviously he couldn't help but kiss Jessica, but Liz's whole deal right now is trying to weed out toxic dudes and Jeremy's a walking neon sign of warning flags that Liz would normally be catching (so long as she wasn't interested in him herself). Instead she defends him multiple times, even as she does point out that he's too old for Jessica while ignoring that the same logic should also really apply to Sue as well.
But my biggest, pettiest, stupidest issue with this book is this. Are you ready? You're not ready. When Jess is trying to figure out what to wear for her not!date with Bruce, she of course goes through Liz's closet with the usual caveat of "normally Jessica thinks Liz's clothes are too frumpy" or something but we all know that Jessica borrows Liz's clothes all the time and naturally this is no exception. She decides on the dress Elizabeth wore to Enid's sweet-sixteen party. It sounds really pretty, described as a strapless sheath:
The dress was of a deep aquamarine silk, and was long and slim and fitted, an elastic back holding the smooth bodice in place.
Perfect, lovely, bolero jacket included. Only one itty bitty note, really.
You know what the fuck happened the night of Enid's sweet-sixteen party? Jess blew Liz off for a guy, so Liz hopped on the back of Todd's motorcycle and then the two were in a horrific accident that put Liz in a coma! I SERIOUSLY DOUBT the dress survived the accident and even if it did, and even if Alice's miracle working dry cleaner could make it as good as new again, I just don't see anyone wanting to preserve that particular outfit and I sure as shit don't see Jessica wanting to wear it!
Oh, ghosty. You were doing so well and then you not only dropped the ball, you picked it back up and sent it to hell. The fact that no one caught or cared about this is kind of breaking my brain since Liz's coma/the motorcycle ban is something that does come up when even lesser ghosties put in references to past books/events, so it's not like it's been forgotten. :P
October 16, 2017
When I read this as a 14 year old, it didn’t really occur to me how wildly inappropriate Jeremy and Jessica’s relationship was. He’s not just an engaged man; he’s 23 and she’s 16. While this is Sweet Valley High, a basically sex free world, that relationship is borderline illegal but no one mentions that fact.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 28, 2023
Good series
April 27, 2020
So remember in Deadly Christmas when Jessica laments she’s “too young for all of this”? It all begins right here. And after all this craziness with Jeremy we still have Jessica “completely and totally in love” with vampire Jonathan, jock Ken, and doomed Christian Gorman in the coming books. JFC. You’ve seen my review of Deadly Christmas, so you know how it all goes down. Jess is “in love” with Jeremy, who is engaged to Sue. But because we can’t have Jess be the bad guy (she 100% is), it comes out later that Jeremy is scamming Sue for her inheritance and they’re both scamming Jessica. And to think, it all began so innocently, with Jessica merely going out of her way to break up a wedding based on one interaction with a hot guy for one minute (unlike Jessica, I’m not exaggerating).
Quotes:
“For the second time in her life, Jessica felt her heart break.”
(You know this is at least the 50th time).
Sue: I like the fact that he’s older than me - he’s twenty-three.
(Just your friendly reminder that Jeremy is 23 and Jessica is only 16 - which is called pedophilia, btw).
“The only man she would ever love was engaged to another woman.”
(And yet at the first mention of - GASP! - sex, Jessica realizes she is wayyyy too young for Jeremy and all this drama).
Jeremy to Jessica: This might only be an infatuation for you.
(Wow, Jer, you don’t say).
Quotes:
“For the second time in her life, Jessica felt her heart break.”
(You know this is at least the 50th time).
Sue: I like the fact that he’s older than me - he’s twenty-three.
(Just your friendly reminder that Jeremy is 23 and Jessica is only 16 - which is called pedophilia, btw).
“The only man she would ever love was engaged to another woman.”
(And yet at the first mention of - GASP! - sex, Jessica realizes she is wayyyy too young for Jeremy and all this drama).
Jeremy to Jessica: This might only be an infatuation for you.
(Wow, Jer, you don’t say).
February 27, 2019
Ok so this is where Jessica Wakefield goes into bunny boiler mode over Jeremy who is her soul mate and she also hasn't loved anyone since Sam (I guess James and Lord Robert don't count then) and who she finds out is engaged to her housemate Sue!! As for Liz, I just wanted to snatch her Real Women Bad Men book off her and burn it or something. Boy, she's condescending sometimes. All that aside, this is a campy, unintentionally hilarious read!!
July 15, 2022
Finished this quite awhile ago, was so lame, I never reviewed it, apparently. It was slightly better than the one that came after it, but that's not saying much. Jessica continues to be a terrible human. At least this one had some Lila drama. Am on 109 now, and cannot wait for this trilogy to end.
June 11, 2025
3.5 stars
May 28, 2022
Imagine if you filled a Dumpster with hot water to make a jacuzzi; that visual is the equivalent of Sweet Valley High, #107. This serial novel is hot, juicy garbage and (don't tell anyone!) I loved every page of it.
Fiction is meant to entertain and oh, does this book deliver! And though the plot is ridiculous and the genre low-brow, the writing is surprisingly compelling.
This is my first Sweet Valley High book--I don't know how this book even came into my posession--but (I hate myself a little here) I want to read more! Now I need to hunt down part two to Jessica's Secret Love to find out how this ends. Grrr... Cliffhangers...
Anyway, #JusticeForSam. Idk who he is, but Jess really did him dirty.
POPSUGAR 2022 Reading Challenge: A book about a secret
ATY 2022 Reading challenge: Two books with the same word in the title (1/2) "secret"
Fiction is meant to entertain and oh, does this book deliver! And though the plot is ridiculous and the genre low-brow, the writing is surprisingly compelling.
This is my first Sweet Valley High book--I don't know how this book even came into my posession--but (I hate myself a little here) I want to read more! Now I need to hunt down part two to Jessica's Secret Love to find out how this ends. Grrr... Cliffhangers...
Anyway, #JusticeForSam. Idk who he is, but Jess really did him dirty.
POPSUGAR 2022 Reading Challenge: A book about a secret
ATY 2022 Reading challenge: Two books with the same word in the title (1/2) "secret"
June 12, 2016
Jessica Wakefield has found the love of her life at the beach only to discover he is engaged to their houseguest Sue Gibbons. What will Jessica do to stop this wedding and claim the groom for her own? Lila also finds love on the beach but is Robby all he says he is? Meanwhile Elizabeth is trying to get control of her life and figure out why she has been making the decisions she has. I always love reading Sweet Valley High books because the Wakefield twins always have adventure that provide a nice escape for the weekend.
August 5, 2009
I loved this set, because of the huge plot twist at the end.
June 21, 2013
I remember the cover just not the story.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 14 reviews