Choose Your Own (mis)Adventure: Elizabeth Betrayed

Courtesy of The Closet

What is so horrid that has Olivia Davidson clutching her pearls? And why is Olivia wearing pearls? She must have read somewhere that Sylvia Plath stuffed pearls down her throat to kill herself, and it makes her feel more arty or something. And Penny Ayala, wearing a blue and purple ensemble? Those colors are crazy! Leave the mental patient look to Claudia Kishi. I digress, let’s get to it. I don’t even need to tell you what the “correct” answers are.

You are a member of the school paper, and the editor-in-chief is called away to a conference for a week. Do you:
(A) Not worry too much, you have an advisor to help you and no biggie if it gets published a day late. This isn’t USA Today, you know.
(B) Freak out, martyr yourself to the cause to getting the next issue out on the exact deadline, abandon all your friends to work on it, and worry that if the student body doesn’t read the expose on the new lunch items or the PTA agenda, the world will implode in on itself.

You are Olivia. You have a new boyfriend, Rod Sullivan, even though he seems to have no distinguishing personality traits from any other boring vanilla guy at SVH. He talks incessantly about what an amazing writer Elizabeth Wakefield is and how amazing she is, while ignoring your accomplishments founding Sweet Valley’s best (and only) literary magazine. Do you:
(A) Tell him to put it back in his pants, and then dump him. He clearly does not respect you.
(B) Put up with it. It is Liz Wakefield, after all. She can’t help that she is so amazing. Besides, she seems to be your only friend anyway.

You are Liz. Your supposed friend’s new boyfriend keeps showing up everywhere you are and constantly tells you you are amazing and smart and wants to talk about how you are amazing writer. Do you:
(A) Think to talk about it with your friend. She deserves to know what is going on. Also, tell Rod you are uncomfortable because Olivia is your good friend.
(B) Bask in the praise and admiration. After all, you can’t help that people love you! It’s not your fault! It’s the curse of being a Wakefield!

You’re Liz, and you’ve spent a lot of time struggling over being the interim editor, and talking how hard you are working as the interim editor, that you don’t have the time to complete the English assignment for Mr. Collins. Rod happens to be buy and offers to share his notes on the research paper that is due. You use them gratefully. Mr. Collins notices that your essay is similar to a famous art critic and suspends you from the Oracle for plagiarize. You:

(A) take responsibility and realize that you were trying to find an easy way out
(B) are in shock and awe! You are Elizabweth Wakefield! You are an innocent victim! This is all Rod’s fault for offering to help her! Plus, it is also Olivia Davidson’s fault! For not telling Ron not to do it!

You are Olivia, and you feel horrible about the whole situation. Do you:
(A) Stand by your friend (since she seems to be your only one)
(B) Believe your boyfriend because…he is so amazing? And charismatic? Meanwhile, it takes some berating from Jessica Wakefield to finally realize that Rod is dishonest asshole with a hard on for Liz’s writing. Goddamn, where would you be without these Wakefield twins? Well, most likely crushed under a refrigerator.

Well, there is a theme of TRUTH and HONESTY in this book. Lila gets her hair done and gets it dyed purple, and Jessica refuses to tell her that it looks terrible because she thinks it will hurt Lila’s feelings. Meanwhile, they are at the mall, and everyone stares and laughs at Lila, and Lila is mad that Jessica let her leave the house like that. This, my friends, is further proof that these ghostwriters are from some small cave in Antarctica, because since WHEN is purple hair at the mall UNACCEPTABLE? Wasn’t Manic Panic, like, specifically invented to be sold at malls? Yeesh. So Jessica vows to tell the truth to people, at all times, which results in Jessica raising the socipathic notch up to a thousand. her friends hate it, and decide to giver a taste of her own medicine, which is awesome but only lasts about two pages because they realize that, okay, maybe a little lying is ok. Nothing like a little moral relativism to pass the time between football games and Winston’s hot-dog eating contests.

In an even more ludacris C-plot, Mr. Wakefield develops a fetish for meercats. Yes, you read that right.

Preppy jock douchebags have feeings too!

Whoever mentioned that a non-SVH book would be a good palate-cleanser between SVH books is totally right. I’ve been home sick for the past few days and yesterday I read 3 SVHs in a row, and it does have an affect on one’s psyche. So excuse me if I express more rage that snark on this one.

So much hate, so little time. I am not even sure where to start. Should it be on Liz’s all knowing meddling? Her bitchy attitude towards Heather Sanford? The way that everything wraps up so neatly? The COVER? Yea, ok, let’s start there.

Jeffrey looks pretty bangeable there, albeit looking about 32 and like a Ken doll. The other preppy douche is Aaron Dallas, someone we always hear about but don’t really know about. Well, now we get to get inside his head. Oh, and the best for last– Liz, Liz Liz.  Nevermind the matching pink barrettes. We’ll leave those alone. But those elastic-waist chinos with the shirt tucked in. Well, that just writes itself. Her outfit is identical to the one I wore on the first day of second grade. That my mother bought me at Sears.

Aaron’s parents are getting divorced which makes him so MAD inside! He’s so MAD! Why is everyone making him so MAD! Meanwhile, he’s losing his temper and beating everyone up on the soccer field.

And now, the reasons that Liz is a fucking beast in this book.

1. She knows Aaron is Jeffrey’s bff, yet shit talks about him to Jeffrey and tries to tell Jeffrey that he needs to be mad at Aaron and doesn’t support him when he tries to defend Aaron. I think Jeffrey secretly hates Liz, because he gets annoyed with her but with silent annoyance. I love it.

2. Elizabeth acts all annoyed and holier-than-thou with Aaron’s new girlfriend Heather Sanford and gets all put out when Heather tries to befriend her. Because all Heather cares about “are silly things like clothes.” Uh, Liz, because you don’t know ANYONE like that. At a party, Elizabeth makes fun of Heather and does an impression of her speaking babytalk to Aaron. Oh like you NEVER said stupid shit to Todd. HATE.LIZ.SO.MUCH.

3. Liz is covering a soccer game for the Oracle (John Pfeiffer is too busy date raping to write it, I guess) and in the game Aaron hits another player, which will get him kicked off the team if anyone finds out. Because Liz HAS A DUTY AS A REPORTER, she reports it so the school finds out. Jeffrey gets pissed at her, she uses the whole “journalists have an obligation to be objective!” excuse. Jeffrey needs to dump her ass. And she makes Jeffrey defend her to Aaron! HATE HATE HATE!

So anyway, there’s this big intervention moment with Aaron, and they convince him to see the school guidance counselor. After a 10 minute session, all is solved and Aaron is skipping around the school apologizing to everyone he has ever wronged. Crisis solved! Liz and Jeffrey kiss! World peace happens!

So here’s the part that made it all fine for me. Liz and her boring friends are sitting in the stands at the game, and they all ask Liz to do her impression of Heather doing her babytalk. Liz feels a little bad, but the rest of the group does it, and Heather overhears and comes over and does her own impression of Liz. “What did E.W. say that made A.D. so mad?…And they say J.F. avenged his ladylove with stern words. A bout of ferocious fisticuffs followed.” Ok, it could have been more clever, but Heather was totally calling Liz out as a self-absorbed writer snob. So, Heather Sanford kicks ass. Also, she’s totally into clothes because she loves fashion design and sews all her won clothes, and gives Aaron tough love about dealing with his shit. And Liz realizes this too late, and instead of Heather telling her to fuck off, they become friends. Because no one can resist being friends with a Wakefield.

Meanwhile, Jessica tries to sell Tofu-Glo products, but they suck and she forgets to refrigerate them and she cries over her foiled business plan. Elizabeth voice overs, if Jessica did try to sell health and beauty products, she had to be successful because she was so healthy and beautiful, a walking advertisement. VOMIT! And because no Wakefield can ever fail, Ned finds out through his lawyer networking that the company lost a lawsuit, so Jessica would get all her money back. A little failing couldn’t hurt these twins.

[Enid, watching the soccer game with Liz:] “Jeffrey really looks great, Liz. I don’t know how you always manage to get the cutest guy around, but you do.” “Oh you poor thing,” Elizabeth said, teasing her. Remember, you had your chance.” GAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!

[Jessica has a party to sell the Tofu-Glo to her friends]. Lois Waller, a shy, overweight girl, raised her hand timidly. “Is the dietary supplement part of a diet plan?” Oh, of course the chubby girl is afraid of a diet plan, because it would get in the way of stuffing candy bars in her mouth all day. Fuck you, ghost writers.

[Liz, making Aaron and Jeffrey’s problems all about her, goes to Mr. Collins for advice.] He chuckled. “Liz, why are we having this conversation?” his eyes twinkled again, and Elizabeth grinned. “Maybe I need a little positive reinforcement from an authority figure. “Oh please! Never call me that!” Mr. Collins, I’m gonna go ahead and stop you there, and say that you probably should call youself that more often than you do.

I may as well continue by Liz-fueld rage with today’s poll.