racing hearts #9

roger barrett is like a heaps fast runner. he runs around school and he runs to his cleaning job which NO ONE knows about, because if people like LILA (who roger is totes crushing on) knew that he was a cleaner she would be like - EW!

rog gets conned into running in "the bart" which is like this super prestigious race and the winner gets a scholarship to SVU (sweet valley university) except that he can't go to practice because it's on at the same time as his cleaning job WHICH just happens to be at the office in which mr wakefield works at! WHICH is totally bad luck because JESS just happens to get a job working for her dad after school at the same office and so she totally finds out about that rog cleans toilets! liz totally blackmails jess into not telling anyone because JESS is actually MACKING OUT with a dude from the office across the hallway like every other night and GUESS WHAT? he is only FIFTEEN!!! :-O jess finds out he is fifteen and is like WHAT? get out of here you underage JERK! jess! what!?

so rog gets all famous all over SVH because everyone finds out that even though he wears glasses he is secretly a JOCK on the inside and that makes him COOL as punch. lila decides he is totally worth pursuing now, that is until he tells her he cleans toilets and then she's like GO AWAY! EW! but it turns out OLIVIA has always been in love with rog and then he decides he is in love with her even though she wears weird outfits and kind of looks like a tree hugger.

4 stars. 

all night long #5

WOWZERS! jess sure has gotten herself into some trouble this time! even for jess this is TROUBLE!

jess falls for an older man with a MUSTACHE who drives a red FIREBIRD! his name is scott and he goes to COLLEGE!

all jess's friends are like "he goes to COLLEGE and he has a MUSTACHE, he only wants ONE THING from you jessica!" and jess is like - WHATEVER i am so going to a party with him down by the lake. so she dons her sexiest red string bikini and flounces off.

well guess what jessica wakefield?!! it turns out boys like scott daniels (and, says the moral of the story, ALL BOYS except todd wilkins) ARE only after one thing! scott daniels drinks, smokes pot and HAS SEX! and he wants to do all those things with jessica. she somehow gets out of it in usual jessica style and ends up sleeping on the floor in some shack instead. liz is like frantic because jessica didn't come home all night, but is pretty sure she's just drunk and passed out somewhere, which would be fine except it's a SCHOOL DAY!

so liz and todd start arguing because liz goes to school dressed as jess so jess doesn't get in trouble for skipping because she was still in some shack in the woods trying to work out how to do the walk of shame into school. WOW jessica, doing the walk of shame TO SCHOOL from a COLLEGE PARTY where you were hanging out with a guy who has a MUSTACHE?? sweet valley gold you guys.

and then there is a random surfing competition which has nothing to do with anything, but GOSH it is fun!

five stars.

bruce's story - super star #2

ok so we all know how i feel about bruce patman: he is HOT and he has a black PORSCHE and it's the 1980s! 'nuff said.

so we finally get a chance to hear "bruce's story" and decide for ourselves whether or not he's really the scum everyone thinks he is, well guess what?? he IS! AND he isn't!

roger moved into the p'dawg's mansion when he found out he was really a patman and not whatever he was before (WHO CARES?) and now grandfather patman (aka "alexander", who i will from now on refer to as "alex p" in honour of you know who if you know your 80s tv shows) wants to come over and "meet the new boy". lucky for alex p (grandfather patman) mum and dad patman decide to jet off to japan or somewhere for a month and leave the boys in alex p's old capable hands. alex p has this idea that instead of giving both the boys the business when he passes over that he's going to make them have a FIGHT TO THE DEATH for the company! he gives each kid $2000 and takes away all their own cash and cards (DEATH!) and decides whoever has more money left at the end of a month wins all the money in the WORLD!

SVH craziness ensues. bruce loses most of his during a poker game with dodgy guys and then crashed the porsche - OMG! and had to like pay for repairs. roger put all his money in "robotech" stocks which totally plummeted! but robotech sounded like a SURE THING rog!!

then a girl called tracy atkins cuts her hair. bruce has never noticed her before, but now that her hair is different he decides he's in love with her and starts following her around like a weirdo. not cool bruce. it turns out tracy has a little brother who goes to special school (OMG i work in a special school!!!) and it's about to CLOSE DOWN! but lucky tracy has an idea of how to save the school and recruits all the kids at SVH to help out with "harbour days" which is like a market thing and if you sell heaps of stuff you have to give half to the charity and then you can keep half to yourself.

OBVIOUSLY bruce gets in on this money making venture. he only wants to do it to make money and impress a girl though. kind of lame bruce, like hello these are special kids.

bruce and rog get into this thing where they try to destroy each other's ideas. bruce sells an awesome book called "bruce p's guide to dating" or something and sells bucketloads while rog's screen printing business gets washed out (ha!) due to bruce's quick exchange between waterproof and non-waterproof paint late night in the shed.

PHEW! it's not even over yet! let me uber-summarise the rest. so the boys continue to try to make sales at harbour days and tracy starts to think bruce is a jerk and then in the end bruce and rog give all their money to the special kids and the special school is SAVED! (<3 bruce!!!) alex p gets basically shunned by all the rich kids of sweet valley at his own birthday party for trying to turn his grandkids against each other and then everyone cheers and has a soda.

tracy and bruce decide to just be friends or something. 

kidnapped! #13

ok so like take a second to look at the art work here and try to work out what is going to happen... ps i like LOVE the SVH art work, which is by a guy called james mathewuse, check out: http://www.jimmyart.com/ to see all the other cool stuff he's done like the hardy boys and nancy drew and all sorts! what a genius.

so... LIZ GETS KIDNAPPED! OMG! some creepy guy with like mental issues kidnaps LIZ! not even JESS! like she's the one that usually gets into these messes... but liz is off playing good samaritan and working at the hospital as a candy striper on late shift while jess is walking around in her bikini in front of the new rich guy in town - nicholas morrow, that's right, REGINA's brother! remember regina? she's the one who dies later from taking cocaine like once after her therapy for being deaf finally works and she can hear again - FAR OUT!

so like jess is doing that, and liz is waking up tied to a chair and having a psycho like hand feeding her pancakes. sounds not so bad if you ask me, i mean apart from that he's a psycho, but as far as psychos go, he could've been a lot worse. in fact the only bad thing he really does to her is tie her to a chair. like really, when psychos kidnap blonde girls usually they aren't just doing it to tie them to a chair and make them pancakes, but whatever, it's sweet valley high and this is like the WORST thing that can happen in sweet valley! apart from bruce patman turning you down for a date, because that's like WAY WORSE!

anyway, in the end liz gets saved and jess is like - "i can't believe you had to wear that candy striper dress for like THREE days!" and that's really the whole book. i mean, it was good, like a real thriller... well you know, like a thriller for a non-thriller edition of a SVH thriller. gah, what?

not five stars, let's say it's like 4 stars.

double love #1

the first book in the sweet valley series like EVER! omg! it was like so weird to read this one after i've read like 20 others, but WOW it was like SO AMAZING! and i can kind of see now why some of the really annoying horrible things happened in sweet valley confidential even though i still think it was horrible to write those things down on paper. type those things down on paper. whatever!

SO jessica likes todd because he is the star basketball player and she is head cheerleader, makes sense that they should be together hello! todd likes liz because she's not totally mental and self absorbed, but is still blonde and hot and even though she's a writer and she's like smart and stuff, she actually looks like a cheerleader - the PERFECT WOMAN y'all! LIZ likes todd because he's hot pretty much, and because he's like "such a nice guy" or some crap. really, todd is a dork in jock's clothing and i think we'll all agree there are like a billion better looking, richer, more interesting guys in SVH, but liz picks todd, even though she ends up with bruce patman in THE END!

anyway, this whole book is basically about jess making up TOTAL LIES so that she can get todd, like he calls their house and she's like "jessica is out on dates with hot boys" when really, jess is reading a book or cooking dinner even though it's jessica's turn AGAIN that lazy bitch! todd is a dick because he believes all this crap and ends up going to the dance with JESSICA even though he wants to go with liz, well, they like look the same so whatever!

it's only when liz and jess get car-jacked by a MANIAC (a guy that jessica went on a date with once, well she's been on a date with everyone pretty much once) and taken to a BAR! OMG! that todd comes along and saves them by punching out said maniac and then making out with LIZ! even though five pages earlier he was making out with jess... todd makes out with BOTH twins in ONE BOOK? what a skeeze. and what the hell are these girls doing? like if todd makes out with your twin do you still want to DATE him? like what is so great about todd anyway? does he drive a porsche? no. does he live on a mansion on a hill? no. is his name bruce patman? no. todd is so beige it makes me never want to read "todd's story", the whole book which is about todd, even though i promised myself i was going to read them all -  GAG ME!

anyway, this was great. five stars.

alone in the crowd #28

sweet valley high GOLD! lynne henry has brown hair and wears glasses so no one wants to be friends with her. she's basically the biggest no one at sweet valley because everyone else is blonde or if they are brunette they are at least rich to make up for it.

but lynne henry has a secret talent - she's a singer/songwriter who is capable of moving an audience to tears with her heartfelt songs about being a loser. so lynne falls in love with one of the guys who plays in the droids (svh's most awesome rock band) - guy chesney, and even though she is a glasses wearing loser he actually TALKS TO HER! OMG!

lynne enters a competition in which she has to write a song that the droids will basically steal because they can't be bothered writing their own songs... so she submits a song anonymously because god how awful would it be if someone thought she was more than just a dork! WHAT?

her song gets chosen as like the best song ever written, and guy chesney falls in love with the voice on the tape and goes in search of the mystery songwriter, and it turns out to be lynne! OMG! WHO decides to ask her mom for a makeover, because basically if you don't wear cool clothes, swap glasses for contacts, put on some make up and do something with your hair you will ALWAYS be a loser and never have guy chesney fall in love with you. guy chesney finds out that it was lynne who sang on the tape after liz stalks her at work. guy falls in love with her just after her make over so that's convenient, because really, guy chesney isn't going to want to be seen with someone in glasses and baggy t-shirts.

while all this is happening jessica is being a pain in everyone's ass as usual and plans this benefit for the cheerleaders because they need new skirts. she has this nutso idea to get a rocking chair in the gym and make all the cheerleaders take turns rocking on it for like 24 hours and call it - rock around the clock - and have the droids play like 50s music. it sounds weird, but actually it turns out really cool.

liz doesn't do much, but whatever, she's boring anyway.

5 stars. 

dear sister #7

"can jessica face life without elizabeth?" the line on the front reads. WOAH sweet valley metaphor to the MAX!

liz is in a coma, apparently that is what this book is supposed to be about according to everything that is written in the blurb - "horrible motorcycle accident", "lies in a coma", "without elizabeth, can life go on?" well it does indeed go on, liz is actually out of the coma by page 11.

but that is where this book truly begins! so liz comes out of the coma unscathed apart from one tiny thing - she has turned into JESSICA! liz starts acting like a total bitch, flirting with boys, stealing boyfriends, shopping for bikinis when she is meant to be helping make dip for the pool party - omg you are going to love this - jess makes a dip out of FRENCH ONION SOUP MIX! retro-gasm! while liz is out being generally irresponsible and slutty, jess is at home crying about it because SHE'S the one who's supposed to be generally irresponsible and slutty! LIFE IS NOT FAIR!

ok so the best bit is when all the kids from SVH go to lila's pick up party. omg this is so awesome, you have to go single, like even if you are dating someone, and lila prides herself on how many couples break up after one of her pick up parties - WHAT? ok, so liz goes single because she kicked todd to the curb right after she came out of the coma, such something jessica would do, except jessica marries him in the end GAH! DAMN YOU SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL! right so they are at lila's and guess who starts flirting with liz thinking that she is jess? only BRUCE PATMAN hottest guy on the planet! he gets pretty hot when he realises she is LIZ and not JESS because liz is like the only girl in the world who's been able to resist his charms, oh yeah and they end up together in the end of sweet valley confidential (ruinous) because bruce turns good and jess steals todd from liz. [HEAD EXPLODES].

ugh so where am i? yes ok we're at the party, liz is dancing with bruce and guess what? he gives her ALCOHOL! omg! she takes a swig from his flask behind a tree, and guess what? it's enough to make her pretty much paralytic. he touches her boob and then tries to take her to his HOUSE to do god knows what to her! :-O anyway, todd comes and saves her just moments before she passes out, there's a gal that can't hold her liquor.

next time liz 'aint so lucky, or she is. she goes willingly to bruce's house on the hill because his parents are out of town... while she is waiting in the "master bedroom" for him to bring the wine up she stands up for some reason and GUESS WHAT? she trips over, banging her head on the floor, and would you believe it, she has no memory of anything that has happened since she went into the coma and she is back to her normal boring sensible responsible self and runs straight back into todd's arms.

well, so that's sorted then.