The one with the silver ski suit.

Super Special: Winter Carnival

Tagline: "A winter wonderland..." My hometown is currently buried under two feet of snow, so I get this. I love the snow! It's so pretty and spangly and clean looking, and I don't have to go to school tomorrow! I am in love with the snow, even though I know it will soon turn black with car exhaust. My only stipulation is that it had better not knock my power out. If that happens, the snow will go from being my beloved friend to my ENEMY. The snow will become my Amy Sutton.

Speaking of Amy Sutton, she's in this book because we're zooming ahead in honor of the snow. I was going to save this super edition until next winter so it would be topical, and chronologically placed, but with all the global warming going on who knows if this will happen again?

Anyway, Amy is back in the SV but she's Jessica's friend now and likes boys and makeup. Todd has moved to Vermont, so Liz is dating Jeffrey French. One of these days I am going to post a head to head: Todd v. Jeffrey, and we can debate the pros and cons of the Elizabeth Wakefield Boyfriend Struggle. Oh, and Jessica is still a total bitch. Now you have all the backstory you need!

Jessica's bitchitude, in this book, takes the form of her stealing Elizabeth's slot on a new teen trivia show in order to meet hot dudes. Elizabeth feels put out because of that, and also because this essay she wrote about being a twin only got an honorable mention. Also, she makes dinner and does the dishes a lot in this book because Jess is out with her hot trivia boyfriend, David.

There's a winter carnival coming up, and Jeffrey plans to spend it doing lots of intense hand-holding with Liz, but Todd is coming home for a sports banquet for the Sweet Valley equivalent of the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program and he wants Liz to be his date, for old times' sake. This causes some strain to Jeff and Liz's relationship, and increases Elizabeth's depression. And then she is driven to the point of suicide by the fact that her mother buys Jessica a silver ski suit to wear at the carnival. Elizabeth realizes, yet again, that she is boring and not a silver ski suit kind of person, and hates it. She has to make do with a navy blue parka.

So things are already bad, and then Jessica goes and fucks everything up even more. Liz is supposed to meet Jeffrey at La Palma canyon so they can discuss their shitty relationship, but Jessica takes the Fiat and Liz is stranded at home. The subtitle of this book should really be, I Can't Wait Until Cell-Phones Are Invented. Because then Liz could just call Jeffrey and tell him she's going to be late. But since she can't, he assumes she doesn't want to be his girlfriend anymore and instead of going and explaining, Elizabeth screams at her sister and then cries a lot.

Jessica, bless her heart, wants to make everything better so she arranges this total cockamamie scheme where forges a note from Liz asking Jeffrey to meet her at the Winter Carnival, so they can hold hands and gaze into each other's eyes, like they planned. But then Jessica doesn't get a chance to tell Elizabeth about the note before they leave, separately, for the carnival at Mont Blanc. Again, a cell, even a Zac Morris style behemoth, could solve all their problems. When Jess arrives at the carnival she runs to Jeffrey and pretends to be Liz, and tells him she's sorry. But Liz sees them and gets the idea that Jessica is into Jeffrey. And again, instead of going and figuring things out, she cries, and gets on the first bus back to Sweet Valley. "I wish I never had a sister," she says, and then she falls asleep.

Cue the Wayne's World sound effects: doodly doo, doodly doo, doodly do0.

The phone rings and Elizabeth wakes up. It's the Sweet Valley police, calling to tell her that Jessica was in an accident on her way back down from Mont Blanc, presumably to catch up with Liz and plead her case. And Jessica is DEAD! The Wakefields are all crying and wailing. "I don't know how any of us is going to survive," Mrs. Wakefield sobs. "We just aren't a family without Jessica!" I wouldn't be able to survive without her, because they are all boring except for Jess, but it's interesting that Mrs. Wakefield hasn't been prepared for this eventuality with all the comas and shipwrecks and kidnappings and various-shady-murder-involved dealings with her daughters prior to this moment. Also surprising? That she remembers she has kids at all, for all the involvement she has with them.

Elizabeth meets up with her friends, who are trying to make her feel better, and Todd and Jeffrey get in a fight over her. And we know this is a dream sequence, right? That's supposed to teach Elizabeth a lesson about how much she loves her sister. But I love how her subconscious just had to throw that scene, of two men fighting over her, in there.

Then Enid walks in in Jessica's silver ski suit to break up the fight, and Elizabeth wakes up. And Jessica is there, in her room! Not dead! Steven has driven her home. Elizabeth explains her dream to them, and Steven asks what might have caused it, and Jessica responds that the twins have been having "a number of misunderstandings lately, most of which are [Jessica's] fault." A few seconds ago Elizabeth was so glad to see her sister, and now she's like, "Most of them?" all bitchy. How quickly we forget.

The twins go back to the winter carnival, and build snowmen, and go to a dance (of course). Liz and Jeffrey get back together and dance at the Snow Ball to a Droids song called "Snow Girl," with lyrics that go,

You took my heart girl, which was made of ice
One look at you and I'm on fire
So let's just listen to our hearts, girl.
Lift up our hearts even higher.

And Elizabeth promises herself, the very last line in the book, that she'll "never, ever regret having a twin again." Until the next time.

What they wore: Since this book has as a major plot point the dichotomy between Todd and Jeffrey as Elizabeth's boyfriends, I thought I would point out what Jeffrey is wearing in one scene: he is casually preppy in old faded khaki pants and soft pastel sweaters that looked comfortable and sturdy at the same time. In another scene, he is wearing madras shorts with a sweater tied over his shoulder. Jeffrey sounds like J.Crew catalog circa 1989, doesn't he?

Jessica borrows a mulberry sweater from Elizabeth without asking, and Elizabeth retorts that Enid bought her that sweater for Christmas. Who knew Eeny Rollins had such good taste in sweaters? Mulberry, and all the purples, tend to look better on brunettes, I think, but that could just be my own bias showing because I'm a brunette. But wouldn't it be funny if Enid bought Elizabeth that sweater knowing it would wash her out? All "Hee hee hee, there goes your perfect tan, you biatch!" Enid is oppressed.

We also have the Elizabeth Clothing Paradox explained: "Since her own taste was conservative, it amazed Elizabeth that Jessica borrowed so many of her things. But then, Elizabeth thought, Jessica always liked to appear in new clothes." Thank you, ghostwriter. Although that does sounds a little OCD to me, this habit of Jessica's, of wearing things she doesn't like in order to not wear the same outfit twice. Doesn't it?

I love it when the clothes are actual plot points. In this book, it's the silver ski suit that Mrs. Wakefield buys Jess. It is made of Lycra and spangly and the silver material glowed...it would fit Jessica like a glove. Amy Sutton gets a matching one in gold, and Cara Walker tells them that they're going to look like robots, and now I have a picture of C-3PO on skis. Anyway, Elizabeth covets this ski suit, and Mrs. Wakefield tells her that she knew you wouldn't go for something like this. Twist the knife! When Jessica offers to loan it to her sister, Elizabeth sighs and says she's fine with her navy blue down ski suit: You're you, and I'm me, and wherever we go people are going to expect me to be on time and to wear navy-blue and they're not going to expect you to do either.Jessica stared at her sister. She couldn't imagine a fate worse than the one Elizabeth was describing for herself. Dammit, people! There is nothing wrong with navy! It is a nice alternative to black!

The height of the B-plot in this book is that Jessica goes on a date with Trivia David to a sushi restaurant and embarasses herself by eating the wasabi whole. She is very eager to look good on the date and impress David's nineteen year old sister Barbara, because their mother owns Bibi's, at the mall! Here is what Jess wears: tight black stirrup pants and an oversize black men's vest over a bright-pink long-sleeved t-shirt, with black ballet flats. Add a bunch of skinny scarves and some coke bloat to the mix, and Jessica will look just like Lindsay Lohan. Barbara's boyfriend Mitch would totally be a douchebag hipster if he were alive today, because he is wearing, to the double date, an oversize Hawaiian shirt with a jewelled pin, and strangely cut linen pants that made him look emaciated. Welcome to the skinny cut on boys era, folks! Also, Mitch is wearing kelly green glasses. I have twenty five pair of glasses, he tells Jessica. I change them to go with what I'm wearing.

When Jessica tries to food Jeffrey into thinking she's Liz, she's wearing a hot pink sweater and white leather boots. And Jeffrey doesn't even notice. Todd never would have fallen for those shenanigans.

For the snow ball, Elizabeth has bought a whole new outfit that's going to be a surprise, and I thought for a minute that Liz might indugle herself, for once, and buy something slinky and Jessica-y. But at the moment of the big reveal, we find Liz is wearing a silver silk dress, with slightly puffy sleeves ending at the elbow, a round neck, and a soft full skirt. The fabric shimmered like ice. This could be cool, and 80's-riffic, although I am leery of the round neck. I love puffed sleeves, though. Anne of Green Gables has brainwashed me in favor of them, forever. But instead of throwing on a black shrug or adding some tights and big jewelry, Elizabeth accessorizes with a small strand of pearls around her neck and tiny silver and pearl earrings. Oh, Liz. Boring is as boring does, you know. Le sigh.

Welcome to the SV, bitch!

Tagline: "Share the continuing story of the Wakefield twins and their friends--their laughter, heartaches, and dreams." And cocaine overdoses. And brushes with death. And all around-shenanigans! Can't wait!

I love the Sweet Valley High series so much, y'all. You remember when that book came out, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten? Well, everything I need to know I learned from Sweet Valley. If you're shipwrecked? You can use your fourteen-karat bracelet to signal a plane! Also I learned that fat girls can be popular if they just become anorexics and lose a lot of weight. And if someone has a scar, they are probably a murderer. Are you taking notes? You should be writing this down. Because it will all come in handy in your life, trust me.

Before we get started, you need to meet Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, who will be our guides on this important journey, like Beatrice was for Dante. Liz and Jess are sixteen-year-old girls who live in Sweet Valley, California, and they are identical twins! They have "the same shoulder-length, sun-streaked blond hair, the same sparkling blue-green eyes, the same perfect skin. Even the tiny dimple in Elizabeth's left cheek was duplicated in her younger sister's--younger by four minutes. Both girls were five feet six on the button and generously blessed with spectacular, All-American good looks. Both wore exactly the same size clothes, but they refused to dress alike, except for the exquisite identical lavelieres they wore on gold chains around their necks." How will you ever learn to tell them apart, you ask? Don't worry! Elizabeth wants to be a writer, so she is always off doing boring writerly things. She's also very nosy, and wears a wristwatch. Jessica is an evil, boyfriend-stealing ho, and behaves accordingly. There's very little overlap between the two. (If you're trying to judge by the cover, Elizabeth is the prissy-looking one in white; Jessica is the one with the crazy eyes and Donald Trump bangs.)

Do you know how people say there are only seven original plots in the world? Well, in Sweet Valley, there are more like five. This very first book in the series is a variation on the most recurrent one: Elizabeth realizes she is boring and put upon, and rebels in some quiet way, before going back to her old boring habits. In this case she's blue because has a secret crush on Todd Wilkins, but Jessica likes him too, oh no! Elizabeth tries to make a move, but before she can, Jessica does, and she's more interesting and doesn't part her bangs down the middle and Liz has missed her chance. The whole school is talking about how the captain of the basketball team and the co-captain of the cheerleading squad are an item!

But Jessica isn't a one-man kind of woman, and before you know it, she's allowed bad-boy Rick Andover (who is a dropout, OMG) to take her to Kelly's roadhouse for a beer. I love the early books in this series, because they are all for ages twelve and up, and all contain mention of booze, drugs, and sex. Rick acts like a total creep to Jessica, and she ends up getting busted by a cop, who drives her home, and mistakenly calls her Elizabeth as he drops her off. Caroline Pearce, the school gossip, hears this and the next day at school everybody thinks it was Elizabeth who was out drinking with Rick. Elizabeth is upset by this, not because her teachers and her friends and her parents might hear and get mad at her, but because now Todd might think she's a floozy. Which he does. Jessica tries to clear up the mixup but Todd thinks she's trying to take the blame for her wayward sister, and asks her to the upcoming school dance, and makes out with her, just as Liz comes out and sees. She has a meltdown: "Liz Wakefield is supposed to be good, sweet, kind, generous...do you know what that adds up to? Boring, boring, boring!" And...I can't argue with her, there. Neither can her mother, who just tells Liz that she "understands." Good work, Mom.

B and C plot time! The twins' older brother Steven Wakefield is behaving oddly and Jessica knows he's in love, but she's appalled when she finds out that his new girlfriend is Betsy Martin, who "has been doing drugs for years" and "sleeps around." The twins are crushed. It will "ruin" the Wakefields, Jessica wails, to be associated with a family like the Martins. Which is a bit rich coming from an underage girl who was at Kelly's with Rick Andover less than 24 hours before. I'm just saying, it's not such a huge leap. And then the twins realize that their father, an attorney, has been working late and talking a lot about his colleague, Marianna West, lately. This could just mean he's, you know, busy, but the twins jump to the conclusion that he must be having an affair.

Time for the dance! Jess is going with Todd, and Elizabeth is going with Winston Egbert, whose name should tell you all you need to know about him. Jessica notices, at the dance, that Todd can't take his eyes off of Elizabeth, and she's pissed, so when she gets home, she tells Elizabeth that it's over with Todd, because he tried to molest her, which is a pretty serious accusation, and could ruin Todd's life. Elizabeth is duly appalled. When Todd calls to try to say he likes her, she shuts him down because she thinks he's a perv.

It turns out that Steven wasn't actually dating Betsy Martin--he was dating Betsy's sister, Tricia. Dating because apparently rampant snobbery runs in families. He was kind of critical of Tricia's family and she called him out on it and dumped him. Steven is upset, but his parents and his sisters counsel him to go and tell Tricia that he loves her. He drives over to her "saggy-roofed ranch house,"--that's how you know the Martins are really bad, because they don't have enough money to keep their house up nice, like GOD--and Tricia takes him back, but if it were me? I'd still be pissed he was a dick about my family.

There's some bullshit rigmarole with a court case involving the school football field--Lila Fowler's rich dad wants to build a factory on it--but it's really just contrivance so that Liz and Jess can go downtown and see their father at trial with Marianna West. They are chagrined--CHAGRINED--to see Ned "being so attentive [to Marianna], leaning over with his head next to hers, whispering heaven knows what into her ear!" LIKE THINGS ABOUT THE CASE? Have these girls never seen a courtroom drama? Do they think that he is propositioning her, there, in the courtroom? After they win the court case, Mr. Wakefield invites Marianna home for dinner, and reveals that the reason he's been working late is because he was trying to help her get a promotion. And I wasn't before, but now I'm suspicious, because that sounds like the lamest, most half-assed excuse ever. If my husband said something like that to me, I'd start smashing his shit with his golf clubs, Elin-Woods style, but the twins--and their mother--just toast Marianna on her new job!

The next day, Liz and Jess are driving home from school, and nasty Rick Andover is chasing their Fiat in a stolen car. They stop at a light and he totally carjacks them, and drives them to Kelly's. Todd Wilkins sees them go by and catches sight of Elizabeth's terrified face, and it's Todd to the rescue! He saves them, and Elizabeth and Todd have a moment, and Elizabeth confesses that she's liked Todd all along, and Todd confesses that he didn't try to rape Jessica. The tone in their conversation is all laughy like, "That Jessica and her antics!" but if I were Todd I'd be really, really angry and probably not willing to get involved with the sister of a girl who tried to get me sent to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for twenty-five and change. Todd and Liz just laugh it off, and decide that Jessica needs to be put in her place. Again, if it were me, I'd try to push her into therapy, but they decide on something else.

Which is this: you see, Liz has been writing the Eyes and Ears gossip column for the SVH newspaper, The Oracle, and it's been a secret, but it's all going to be revealed at a pool party in a few days time. Liz decides that she will pull a twin switch, and loans Jessica some clothes, so that people will think Jess is Liz and throw Jess into the pool! Which will certainly teach her an important lesson about falsely accusing people of sexual assault. All's well that ends well!

What they wore: I just pressed my best jeans today and my blue button down shirt that you've been dying to borrow, Elizabeth tells Jessica, and LOL, she irons her jeans, but also here we are confronted for the first time with the Sweet Valley High Paradox, which is that if Elizabeth is so boring, and you can tell she's boring from the clothes she wears, why would Jessica want to borrow them all the time? And that is a particularly dull Elizabeth outfit. At the beginning of the series, Francine Pascal hadn't so much set in stone that Elizabeth's uniform consists solely of Bermuda shorts and polo shirts and barettes, but there's still no explanation as to why Liz would own a "tuxedo shirt...and the pants...and the little bow tie" to go along with it. Because that is a snazzy outfit, and besides one or two of Olivia Davidson's craziest ensembles, probably the best outfit that occurs in this series, ever.

Jessica, on the other hand, is full of fashion fail in this book. For her date with Rick Andover at Kelly's, she took the trouble to curl her hair and put on her sexiest red blouse. So far, so good. As a natural curly-haired person, I will never understand why anybody with straight hair would want to inflict that on themselves, but the red shirt was a good choice. But then Jess borrowed her sister's (there we go again!) brand-new black sandal heels to go with her black silk jersey skirt. I am a big fan of silk jersey, because it can be dressed up, or down, but do you know what it is never appropriate for? Underage binge-drinking at a sleazy roadhouse. Nice, Jess. You're going to look like a hooker for sure.

For the dance, Elizabeth's dress actually sounds kind of pretty: the white strapless dress was perfect with her tanned skin and blond hair. Jessica's dress is blue and slinky, with a handkerchief hemline, spaghetti straps, and a neckline so low Todd will be panting! Now I like blue. As a brown-eyed brunette, probably not as much as the next person. And I like low necklines, because I am a big-boobed girl, myself, and I believe in smoking if you got 'em. A handkerchief hemline I am willing to give a pass on, because it's 1984, here, but spaghetti straps? They're gross. They're so skinny and...there. Like string over your shoulders. And it's hard to wear a regular bra with them, but that could just be me, because of the boobs, and now you all know far too much about my chest area so I'll stop talking about it. But do you know who wears spaghetti straps? That girl from your high school who was in Crossroads and was "modest" and wore a promise ring, and was a "virgin" because she didn't sleep with guys, but she did absolutely everything else. People are afraid to go strapless because they think it's trashy, but it can be tasteful, and it's better than spaghetti straps! I promise!!

My point? I just want to point out that it is rare when I covet anything belonging to Elizabeth over Jessica. And I also want to point out that Steven Wakefield comes in while Jess is describing the plunging neckline that will "make Todd pant" and instead of saying "Jesus God, gross me out," he says, "As a man, I feel sorry for the intended victim." Which is really creepy, and not the last time Steven makes a vaguely sexual comment like that to his sisters.

Ugh. I need to get this awful taste out of my mouth. OK. That wicked homewrecker Marianna West is "looking positively radiant in an ice-blue suit." I cannot condone an ice-blue suit because I am a law student, and I know that suits come in black and gray and navy and THAT IS ALL, but I am positively shocked that the ghostwriter refrained from having Ms. West show up in court with ripped fishnets, red high heels, and a cigarette in a long ivory holder, that she smokes while stroking her Dalmation-pelt fur coat and cackling, "I'll have you, Ned Wakefield! WHERE ARE THOSE PUPPIES?" I'm just saying, points for restraint.