Jessica's New Look

Sweet Valley Twins #47

by Francine Pascal, Jamie Suzanne

Soaring when cute Aaron Dallas asks her out, Jessica is brought to earth when she learns that she has to wear glasses, and it will take the intervention of her clever sister to get her to ever go out again

Genres: Childrens, Young Adult, Fiction, Middle Grade, Teen

138 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Francine 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.

Reviews

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am rereading the series with my daughter. Enjoyed this book as I did the first time. As a girl who wore glasses in grade school, I felt the same as Jessica.

[Tiffany Spencer]

Jessica’s New Look
Liz and Jess are in the lunch line. Liz is telling Jess she can’t walk home with her because Mr. Bowman asked to see her after school. Jessica says that’s ok because she has an emergency Booster meeting. (They keep dropping their batons). There’s some boys sitting at the Unicorner. Even tho Jessica is crazy about Aaron she doesn’t notice one of the boys is him from a distance. She says well he IS across the room. So, going in you know Jessica is gonna need glasses in this one. The guys at the Unicorn’s table are Bruce, Jake, and Aaron.

After some teasing about why they’re there (Bruce says its because they want to be honorary Unicorns, but actually every other table was full) it grows awkward. The other girls also stop eating. Jessica has a good idea to start talking about basketball (and compliments them-they’re all on the team-), but Lila tries to change the subject to movies. She asks Bruce about a movie and he turns the subject right back to basketball. (Lila embarrassingly calls the Lakers a baseball team.) Jessica shows off a little bit that she knows something about basketball. Bruce asks if her brother taught her that, but she says she does happen to be on the girls basketball team.

Bruce says they should leave but before they do Aaron asks Jessica to a Laker’s game next Saturday. She accepts. Everyone at the table is impressed. Aaron is one of the cutest boys in the 6th grade. Lila tho starts to hate and says she doesn’t see why Aaron asked Jessica and besides it’s not like it’s the first time any of them have been on a date. But Jessica knows why. It’s becomes she’s the ISH and she knows it!

Mr. Bowman tells Elizabeth he got a call from the Sweet Valley Tribune. They’ve started a new feature called the Junior Journalist Column. Each week a student from a local school writes an article for the paper. Each journalist is paid 50.00 for their stories. The Tribune asked him to pick a student to represent SVMS as a Junior Journalist. Someone with newspaper experience. Someone who really loves writing.

The article topic is “Students Who Make A Difference”. It’s due in 2 weeks. Liz and Jessica each tell each other their good news. Jessica and Lila suggest a profile on the Unicorns. After all, Janet did leave her mascara in the bathroom instead of throwing it away for someone less fortunate. Jessica and Lila tell Amy and Liz they can do something good. They both look at each like yeah right. That night, Liz tries to work on her article, but Jessica comes in being dramatic. She says she has a headache and can’t do Mr. Bowman’s assignment and asks Liz how it ends. She says she has a headache and can’t concentrate. Then she has to pick out what she’s going to wear tomorrow because EVERYONE will be watching her. Liz says she must really like Aaron and she says A LOT.

Then she starts to talk about how jealous Lila and Amy were. Liz tells maybe Lila was but Amy couldn’t care less. She warns Jessica not to get too carried away. It’s just a basketball game with a boy and his parents. Jessica tells her she has no idea what it’s like to be popular. The next day Jessica wears her purple skirt and WAY too much perfume. In, class when Mrs. Wyler calls on her she answers the question wrong because she added instead of subtracted. When she looks at the board she sees it’s a MINUS sign. After class she asks Lila and Ellen if they think Aaron will join them at their table and they say they hope not. They couldn’t stand anymore basketball talk. Jessica says their just jealous and they walk off. Jessica tells herself that’s just how it goes when your popular.

When the Unicorns meet at lunch, Janet says that they should think of something that will get them featured in Liz’s article. After brainstorming, they come up with having tv in the lunch room (so they can catch up with their soaps), getting new Booster uniforms, having curling irons in the girl’s bathroom. Belinda says it should benefit the boys too. So, Jessica comes up with the idea to get the library a new encyclopedia set. Aaron walks by their table, speaks, and smiles at Jessica. Mr. Bowman asks Jessica to stay after class.

She thinks its about the quiz on the book she didn’t read. She apologizes and tells him she had a headache but she’ll get an A on the next one. He tells her it’s not about that. He’s noticed she’s been squinting and asks if she gets a lot of headaches. She says yes. Especially when she reads at night. He tells her he thinks she needs to have her eyes examined to see if she needs glasses. She tries to assure him that she doesn’t need them. Only geeks and nerds wear glasses, but he pulls out a pair of reading glasses. He gives her a note to give to her parents. On the way home, Jessica gets angry. How dare he even suggest it? She asks Liz if she can read the license plate of a car across the street and Liz says no. It’s too far. That convinces Jessica she can’t need glasses. Liz’s eye sight is no better and they’re twins.

At home, she hides the letter under her mattress. Liz catches her tho. Jessica tells her about what Mr. Bowman says and Liz says she should at least get her eyes tested (just to be sure) and she should tell her parents about the letter. Jessica says for now just don’t tell them. Jessica and Liz take a bike ride and Liz tells her sister she’s narrowed it down to three groups. There’s the Glee Club whose doing sing-a-longs for people at the old-age home. Then there’s the Chess Club who’s playing chess by mail with kids in foreign countries. Then there’s two kids who are studying for the National Spelling Bee.

While they’re riding Jessica wants to ride over to Myrtle Street. I think we can guess why. As she’s looking for his address (so she can ride past) she notices it’s harder to see the addresses until she’s up on them. She sees a white piece of paper in the street. Only it’s not a piece of paper it’s a cat and she almost hits it. She swears and goes flying off her bike. She’s in Aaron’s yard and before she knows it he comes out.

Aaron apologizes when he finds out it was a cat she swerved not to hit. He says it’s his little sister’s cat and it’s as dumb as a rock. He tries to offer them a drink and puts his hand on Jessicas shoulder but Liz says they have to get home. Aaron sees Jessica the next day and asks how she is. She thanks him for coming to her rescue. Unfortunately, Mr. Bowman wants to know what her parents said about her vision problem. She said it was too late to do anything about it.

When they get home tho, Alice knows. Mr. Bowman has told her. Alice has set up an appointment for Monday. Jessica cries in her room until Liz joins her. She tells her she’s overreacting. She might not even need glasses. Teasingly she suggest she can always try eating carrots. Jessica takes it seriously tho. She also remembers an exercise to do (moving a pencil back and forth in front of her eyes). She tells Liz to go get her as many carrots as she can find. Liz says if it doesn’t work there’s always contacts, but Jessica says by Monday her eyes will be perfect.

The Unicorns have their special meeting. At first, Janet suggest a walk-a-thon. Only they’ll just ORGANIZE it. Then Jessica sugguest a skate-a-thon. Skate land is closed for repairs but Belinda says her father might could talk to the owner. Liz and Amy hear what they’re planning, burst out laughing, and then go up to their rooms. This makes Janet even more determined to ‘teach them a lesson”. Dr. Cruz’s evaluation is that Jessica’s eyes work fine individually but not together. They don’t focus. S o she’ll probably just need glasses for a couple of months.

Liz doesn’t need glasses and Jessica doesn’t think this is fair. Dr. Cruz says Jessica’s lucky they caught it when they did. She takes FOREVER to pick out frames and finally settles on a light purple pair. Their mom takes them to Kendall’s and lets them each pick out something. Jessica sees a dark pruple top and shirt that she and Lila previously fought over. Neither had the money. Lila couldn’t charge it because she needed her dad’s consent and he wasd o ut of town. It’s then she decides she just won’t wear her glasses. She makes Liz promise she won’t tell anyone. She’ll tell them in her own way.

By the time they reach school, Jessica’s taken the glasses off. Liz tells her she needs to wear them all the time, but Jessica tells her she needs to break them in slowly. There’s a girl named Mandy that’s been hanging around Jessica a lot lately. She speaks to her so Liz will get off her case but then she forgets her when Lila comes up and tells her Janet wants her and Jessica to put up posters for the fundraiser. Then she remembers Mandy again. Liz sees Mandy hanging up the posters and she says she doesn’t mind doing a favor for Jessica. Liz thinks even if the Unicorns mean well-which she doubts- they’ll find a way to mess things up like they usually do.

Alice tells the twins (on a school night) that they’re going to see the new movie that came out that the twins have been wanting to see (Love Story 2). Jessica tries to get out of it (by saying she has homework to do) but Liz says they don’t have *that* much homework. The movie starts and wouldn’t you know it. There’s Lila in the aisle calling Jessica’s name and pointing out she has glasses. Jessica pulls her outside and tries to say the glasses are her mother’s but Lila isn’t buying it. So, Jessica tells her they’re hers but she only has to wear them for small amounts of time. She then tells Lila she bought the purple outfit and she’ll give it to her if she doesn’t tell anyone. Lila considers it. Jessica says she’ll give her (her) purple earrings too. Lila says deal.

She gives them to her at school, but Lila always makes her carry her books and her lunch tray. She also embarrasses her in front of Aaron when he asks if she’s still going to the game and says it’s all she’s talked about for days. She also makes her give up her chocolate cake. When Liz, Amy, and Jessica get to Skate Land they find out when they have no skates. Skate Land is having there’s cleaned and thought the participants would be bringing their own.

The Unicorns say they’ll just “pretend’ they have skates and Liz and Amy laugh their behinds off and say it’ll go down as the worse Unicorn foul! But when they go inside, everything is set up beautifully and there are skates. Liz says she hates to admit it but this is the story she’s going to write for the article. Lila makes Jessica get her chips and a soda. Liz sees it and guesses correctly that Lila is black-mailing her. She tells her this can’t go on forever. Jessica says she’s hoping she’ll at least keep it until after her date. Liz thinks it’s silly she’s being so vain. But she sees Ellen coming and cuts the conversation. Liz wishes her luck. and tells her she has to go check and see how much money was raised. Ellen wants to know why and Jessica tells her sister doesn’t need a reason to wish her luck.

Aaron shows up and asks Jessica to skate. Then her parents show up. She catches up with Aaron and as she does the crowd of skaters hides them from her parents’ view. She skates past her parents then gives the glasses to Aaron, tells him she has to go, and tells him to give the glasses back to Lois. She goes to her backpack and starts to put on her shoes so she can leave, but her father is standing right in front of her and tells her nice try. The next day, Jessica tells Liz she’s never coming out of her room again. She locks herself in her room. They all try to talk to her, but she won’t come out. Not even when her mother says she’ll buy her new shoes for her date, but she says she’s not going. Liz gets her to open the door for her -and the peanut butter and banana sandwich she offers her-.

Liz tries to trick Jessica into suggesting she should go to the game with Aaron or Steven, but Jessica doesn’t seem moved. She then moves on to Plan B. She calls Amy and starts going on and on to her about how jealous she is and how she wishes she were the one going out with Aaron. At first, it looks like Jessica’s listening through the door. Then when she looks she’s sleeping. But Jessica is just faking and she knows Liz won’t go out with Aaron. She thinks about how humiliating it’ll be when she goes to school Monday. She decides to just go to sleep. She wakes up and sees a pair of huge glasses on her face. She tries to leave her room but the glasses won’t even fit through the door. Then she’s surrounded by the Unicorns that are laughing. Aaron calls her a nerd and says he doesn’t go out with nerds.

Again, Liz tries to convince Jessica to come with her to the mall. She says she has a date with Aaron. Jessica tells her have fun at the mall. Liz comes back from the mall wearing a purple sweater and glasses. Jessica says she looks cute. Liz says then she must look incredible. Jessica says she hates to admit it but she was right all along. Jessica tho tells her SHE looks great in glasses and they fit her image, but they don’t fit hers. She says Aaron wants the popular girl. Not the one with glasses. Liz is supposed to cancel Jessica and Aaron’s date but Aaron shows up. Jessica notices Liz is pretending to be her and she has on her glasses. Aaron says she looks great. He says she looks sophisticated. Jessica realizes she’s been dumb and goes downstairs,

Aaron notices she’s wearing different glass but she tells him no, maybe he needs glasses. They have a great time at the game! She realizes there’s nothing wrong with having brains and beauty. After this, the Unicorns read over Liz’s article. Aaron asks Jessica out again. Liz notices Lila wearing Lila’s outfit but Jessica says it all worked out for the best. Lila says can she borrow the glasses. Jessica said they’d just make her look like a nerd. On her they make her look beautiful and smart.

My Thoughts:
YEAH RIGHT! What a mixed message this was. The message was SUPPOSED to be that you don’t have to be a nerd or a geek to wear glasses. That you can be smart, look good, AND wear glasses. But what does it do? In order to protect Jessica’s perfect, blond-haired, blue-eyed image, she only has to wear couples a few months. NOONE, I know who’s gone to the eye doctor has walked away only having to wear glasses a few months. Usually, it’s FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! I have a cousin that they found out his eyes were bad at about 3 or 4 years old and he’s still wearing glasses a few years later. Which proves that even when they catch it “in time” you STILL will have to wear glasses.

Then because AARON thought it was ok, all of a sudden it was ok. I just rolled my eyes at that. If it was so important to Jessica not to have to wear glasses then why didn’t she ever consider contacts? But then I tried contacts at her age and honestly I just never got use to them. They’ve probably gotten a lot better but I was 12 when I first had to wear glasses and I tried contacts. I could get them in with no problem, but it was the taking them out I never could quite manage. I always had to have a little plastic plunger that popped them out. If I ever lost it I was in trouble!

Honestly tho, I can’t talk about Jessica too much because I’m not the biggest fan of glasses. I probably need prescription glasses right now and have been making due with reading glasses. I have the same problem as Jessica. Not being able to see things from a distance. The down side of this is you can miss out on a lot of details. But if this was today, Jessica would hate glasses even more because at least back then there was a choice that you could have the regular kind. Now it just seems like they always want to stick you with bifocals and if you’ve ever tried bifocals they are NOT for everybody. You have to -if you can- try to adjust and hold your head a certain way to see out of them. It’s just REALLY bad! Jessica didn’t want to wear glasses for vanity reasons. Mine is more for laziness reasons that I just want an EASY pair of glasses that don’t require me to do a lot of work to have to adjust to them.

Rating: 5

[kylajaclyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jessica is the worst. I don’t think I’ve said that enough. But my main problem with this book isn’t even that ... instead, it’s that Jess has to wear glasses only for “a couple of months,” because THAT’S the way eyesight works. I may not have any vision left myself after reading this book, as my eyes have rolled so far to the back of my head I am having trouble fishing them out again.

I had to start wearing glasses around Jessica’s age, but I quickly transitioned to contacts, which she easily could have done and saved her “image.” But unlike Jessica, I didn’t have magic glasses or contacts that corrected my vision within three months. What an invention that would be though. Elon Musk should get on that.

[a · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of course, it's all too convenient that Jessica only needs to wear glasses for a few months; glasses - meaning imperfect sight, at the very least - would hardly match the later perfect size six. Otherwise, this book perfectly illustrates the six steps all glasses-wearers inevitably go through: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance and finally appreciation.

[Miriam Mc court · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the very first Sweet Valley book I ever read. I thought it was very funny to read as an adult and I can't get over the idea of a 12 year old child being allowed out on a date even though the date was being supervised. Jessica has to wear glasses as a temp measure until she gets her sight sorted. She is terrified that she will be made fun of as she is a popular girl at school and she is in the coolest club too called The Unicorns.
She fears she will be excluded from the club and that her first date with Aaron will be ruined because of the glasses. What if he doesn't like her?
Elizabeth tries her best to help her and to make her see that she is beautiful with and without glasses. The advice Elizabeth gives it really nice and beyond her years.

[Lisa Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

First series I read some of as a girl, before Fear Street

[Marian]

This is one of those books I remember getting as a kid and I remember why. Guess who had to get classes around the time this book came out and guess who wasn't totally thrilled about it? So yeah, my mom and my aunt took me to the bookstore when we were in DC visiting my aunt, and she bought me this to kind of... make things better? I dunno. Glasses and I have long since become friends and it took way less time than it did for Jessica and her glasses.

Points are awarded for the glasses being brought up in subsequent books until she ~magically~ no longer needs them.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love how it was vain Jessica who had to get glasses instead of nerdy Liz who wouldn't have minded - and then of course they're never mentioned again after this book anyway because how could Jessica be pretty AND popular AND the one with glasses?!

[Alexia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I likes this book! I used to Love Sweet Valley Kids when I was a little younger and so I decided to read this series of the twins when they are in 6th grade like me. It didn't take me very long to read so it was a fun quick book!

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Excuse me for not being sympathetic to Jess' plight. "Shannon 1991." I think that by the time I whizzed through all the Sweet Valley Kids books, Mom said it was OK for me to read Sweet Valley Twins, as long as we talked about any questionable stuff. Totally fair.

[Justine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is one of my favorites in the series! I really liked it.

[Melenia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loved these books as a child

[Sheila Read · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jessica are always looking for to be different from Elizabeth

[Samantha Glasser · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book because I began wearing glasses in 2nd grade. I loved Jessica so knowing that she had to wear them too made me feel less nerdy for it.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sure wish my eye problems went away after only wearing glasses for one month! Oh, Sweet Valley....

[Hannah Inocentes]

It's soooo cool!! Love it!