What's the matter with misfits?
Love Letters
March 1985
Is Caroline's romance for real?
Make-believe romance...
Caroline Pearce has always been one of the least popular girls at Sweet Valley High. But when she invents a new out-of-town boyfriend, people finally start to pay attention to her. Brown-eyed, six foot Adam and his romantic love letters are the talk of the school.
Caroline has everyone fooled-even clever Jessica Wakefield. But what begins as a bid for love and attention quickly becomes the worst jam of Caroline's life, when her friends insist on meeting the boyfriend she's been bragging about. Can Caroline keep the truth a secret, or will her lies be her downfall?
Love Letters proves that some people should have paid a little more attention to Jan's attention seeking on The Brady Bunch. I know it's the early eighties and all, but shouldn't we have learned by now that making up a boyfriend is a bad, bad, bad idea? Well, no, because if we all learned our lessons, this wouldn't be one of those quintessential stories that a teen series MUST tackle at least once.
Caroline Pearce is the biggest gossip at Sweet Valley High. When you consider that the school also houses Cara Walker and Jessica Wakefield, you've got to admit this takes some talent, and a whole lot of talking. Thing is, Caroline talks so much, and to anyone who will listen, about absolutely anything she hears or thinks she's heard, or maybe even something she sort of saw while out walking the dog that no one really likes her. You can't tell her anything because you know it'll end up on the SVH gossip-grapevine, probably distorted just enough to make things look really bad for you. And if you can't talk to someone about even the most harmless little thing, you don't really have a shot of hanging out with them at all. Hell, even Saint Elizabeth doesn't really like Caroline. So you know Caroline is lonely. Painfully, mind numbingly, lonely. This hasn't really come up before, what with the inability to talk to Caroline, but this is her show, so now we find out.
And it makes sense. With the exception of Tricia Martin, so far everyone else brought up in the series has had someone, anyone, to cling to. Annie had her long list of boys, as did Betsy who also had Trish and Steve, Roger had Olivia, Bill had Dee Dee and I'm bored re-capping, so we're done with that now. If you didn't have a single friend at school, you can relate. Hell, if you just had a few friends, you can relate.
Caroline is tired of being a misfit, always relegated to the outskirts of the SVH-crowd. She decides that enough is enough. She's done with the whole outside looking in crap. So she makes sure that she's got the ears of the demi-gossip-goddesses, and she tells them all about Adam, her amazingly perfectly gorgeous, overly romantic, super secret until now boyfriend.
Oh, boy does she tell them. She reads his letters, passes them around, details every phone conversation, and in general acts like your best friend's little sister who desperately wants to be cool enough to hang out with you guys, if only for an afternoon. Of course, she probably sounds like that because she is like that. Her sister, Anita, seems like your typical perfect older sister. Pretty enough that dating isn't a problem, popular enough to have friends come and go, and just bitchy enough to point out your short comings over breakfast. So it's not like Caroline needs a guy just to impress the in crowd at school. Nope, a boyfriend would shut her older sister up, too.
Thing is, Adam doesn't exist. He's Caroline's dream boy, but she hasn't met him and he certainly doesn't send her poetry laden letters every other day. Now the rest of us know that Caroline is only going to get so far with letters, even really spectacular letters, before Lila and Jessica pressure her into producing this Adam.
This is as good a time as any to point out our B and C stories. Both involve the Wakefield twins, and give them different reasons to help or hurt Caroline when things get down and dirty.
While trying to glom onto either twin, Caroline finds a letter from Alice Wakefield to a design firm in San Francisco, thanking them for their generous job offer and telling them she'll think about it. When Jessica pushes Caroline too far at the beach, Caroline fakes some sympathy for poor Jessica. It must be so hard to concentrate on other people's problems when you're so caught up in the potential move, huh?
Yeah, not your best move, Caro. By pointing out that Jessica's perfect life is possibly about to come crashing down around her, you've moved straight to the top of her shit list.
When the twins, led by overly melodramatic Jessica, confront their parents, Alice admits she's been offered the gig and she'd really like it. Ned points out that it's an incredible honor and that with the twins so close to college, it really would be a good thing for them to make more money. Now, call me crazy, but you'd think the cost of living in Frisco would off-set the major pay increase at least a little. Silly me. Anyway, the parental units are ticked when neither twin is thrilled at the thought of their entire lives being uprooted in the midst of their junior year in high school. Jess does make one possibly out of character observation. She points out that while it sucks massively just thinking about moving, what with cheerleading and all, it would KILL Elizabeth to leave Todd. It's never mentioned as a selfish, manipulative comment, and I for one would like to give Jessica the benefit of the doubt. Sure, she had to know it would guilt the 'rents, but it's also... true. And foreshadowing, but we'll make our way back there soon enough.
The twins combine forces to convince their parents that moving would be a bad, bad, baaaaaad idea. From brochures inundating them with every possible bit of information on Sweet Valley, to nostalgic visits to various restaurants, right on through to trashing San Francisco, the twins have pretty much thought of everything.
C story is a continued thread from a few books back. Elizabeth's entering a playwright competition and hers is based on the life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Now, since Adam doesn't exist and it's not likely that Caroline houses the soul of a poet, where has she been getting her letters? Oh, yeah, she's been lifting from Robert Browning. The smart people are snorting and saying, yeah, what are the effing odds of that? Well, it's simple. In life, particularly high school, the one thing that can unravel your pack of lies is infinitely closer than the rear view mirror would indicate.
However, Caroline skates on, oblivious to her impending doom.
Anyway, plots C and B combine to sink Caroline's battleship. After a night that is essentially a Taste of Sweet Valley cuisine, Elizabeth reads her family her play and Jessica realizes that parts of it sound awfully familiar. She's certain she's never read Browning's work before and the only other source of poetry in her diet has been Adam's letters. She puts two and two together and comes up with faux boyfriend.
In a twist, Lila points out that Caroline could still be telling the truth, completely unaware that her boyfriend has been lifting his lines from a dead poet guy. Jessica all but snorts and asks, "What crack are you on, Fowler?" Lila carefully points out that there are obvious, and normal, explanations for each of Jessica's protests. Adam could have terrible handwriting, leading to him typing his letters. Since he's not doing the heavy thinking parts of the letters, his frequency in mailing them is nothing to look twice at.
Caroline knows that she can't keep Lila and Jessica at bay for much longer with just letters, so she says she's going to Cold Springs one weekend to visit Adam. Lila and Jessica coo over this and point out that it leaves the following weekend for Adam's party. Perfect !
Yeah, except for Adam not existing. So Caro "brings back" proof. There's the "Property of Cold Springs Athletic Department" shirt she claims is from Adam, but is really a left over from her cousin Sally's dating disaster with a Cold Springs boy. There's a newspaper picture of 'Adam', though it's from a basketball game and blurry to boot, though that came in a letter. Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that Jessica saw Caroline while she was supposedly out of town.
Thing is, Lila and Jess are both thrown by the proof. Maybe the guy really does exist...
Also thrown is Anita, Caroline's big sister. Caro shares the joy and fakes a phone conversation and she and Anita bond. Which is really annoying later on, given how much of a bitch Anita is the first time she shows up. It takes your little sister inventing a boyfriend for you to give her the time of day? Nice, real nice.
Anyway, to ensure that Caroline can't use the "But Adam is broke..." excuse, Lila buys the elusive Adam a bus ticket. Nice, huh?
Jessica also sets things up so that Liz finally hears one of Adam's letters. Liz is worried that Caro doesn't realize they aren't legit, but Caro confides that's the least of her worries. Liz points out that Caroline might have some friends if she weren't such a busy body, always poking into other people's business. Yes, you may snort with laughter now.
Caroline begs Liz not to read her play, as that will expose Caroline as a fraud. Liz reluctantly agrees, and goes home to bitch Jessica out. Anita then busts Caroline, sort of. Seems Mama Pearce doesn't know a thing about Adam, so Caroline confesses. Anita gives her a much longer, much bitchier version of Elizabeth's speech, and Caroline realizes the error of her ways. GASP! Liz failed and bitchy eating disorder riddled older sister prevails!
The next day, Caroline tells Elizabeth that it was wrong of her to ask Liz to not read her play, and it's okay. She's just going to have to suck it up and admit that she's a big ol' liar. Because of this, Saint Liz and her sidekick Todd resume work on Operation Rescue. Uh...huh.
However, Caroline chickens out the first time she's given a chance to come clean, and continues to chicken out all week. Not that I blame her, but Jesus, you'd think coming clean at school would beat making a total ass of yourself at a party thrown partially in your honor. It's not like having your execution catered would make it any easier to die.
For the party, Anita goes all out on Caroline and the girl is glowing so much that Todd gives her a fantastically backhanded compliment. At the party, Caroline decides to bypass the goodies and head straight for the guillotine. She has Lila kill the music and just as she's about to confess her lie, a handsome, 6'2", wavy brown haired, chocolate brown eyed sweetheart of a guy rushes up, apologizes for being late, and kisses Caroline for all the world to see. It seems Adam has finally arrived.
Operation Rescue involved Todd asking a friend of his to pretend to be Adam to save Caroline the pain of being publicly humiliated. I suspect Todd agreed solely to thwart Jessica's plan for Caroline's downfall, but that's okay. Normally I'd ask what are the odds that you could find this dead ringer for a made-up boytoy, but when you think about it, it shouldn't be all that difficult. Brown-eyed brunettes aren't exactly hard to come by, and Todd knows Jerry from basketball, so odds are good that the 6'2" bit wasn't that hard to fill. But did anyone else notice that Caroline pretty much conjures up Todd Wilkins up when she creates Adam? Looks-wise, I mean. Every time she'd go on and on about his eyes, I'd think of the numerous times over the series Elizabeth would find herself lost in Todd's gaze.
Eventually Caroline realizes that while everyone else thinks she's found someone fantastic, she's just as lonely as before, if not moreso. So she confesses and runs away. I cannot fault her for that either, as I'd have run, too. Jerry follows her, tells her he's proud of her, and they kiss for real. It's very sweet, although Caroline asking if she can come visit so quickly is a little forward and obnoxious.
Overall, Caroline gets a happy ending after all. So do the twins. Seems that Alice and Ned turned the offer down shortly into the "YAY, SV!" blitz, but thought to teach the twins a lesson, so they didn't share the news immediately. Alls well that ends well.
Or as close as the valley's going to let us get, at this point.
*- Not that I have a hat, but since I won't need to eat it anyway, that really doesn't matter.
Trivial Pursuit:
Quoted:
"Caroline has it coming to her anyway. I can't believe she tried to trick us! I'll admit it showed she's got more imagination than I ever gave her credit for, but that's all." Jessica defends her malicious streak. p120
"Yeah. There's something different about you tonight-and it's not just your new dress. You're pretty," he said. Todd trips over his words fantastically. p 138
It's crucial to make your misfit likable in a story like this. Not only do you have to explain why a previously painfully obnoxious character should be pitied and understood, but you also have to make it so that you want them to rise above their past misdeeds, especially if they lack the effortless charm that other characters are graced with. And the thing is, it works, which is kind of surprising. Caroline manages to walk that fine line between previously established busy-body and misunderstood misfit.
On the one hand, you have Caroline spreading her usual gossip all around. There are her stories about Annie and Ricky possibly breaking up because of Ricky allegedly flirting with Maria Santelli, John Pfiefer being kicked off the Oracle for consistently turning his sports copy in late, and then there's the one about Bill Chase getting help with his play from Mr. Jaworski.
On the other hand, it's not like she intentionally tries to screw things up for people. The Annie gossip was meant as something to contribute to a conversation where she felt left out. The Bill thing was an attempt to make small talk that failed madly, and well, John's got worse coming to him in the far future, so really, he got off light.
Anita comes off as impossible to live up to, so you feel for Caroline at home. At school she's the one person just about everyone attempts to hide from, and as the series manages to churn out spin offs like crazy, you realize this has been going on for forever. So yeah, Caroline brought a lot of this on herself, but she didn't mean to. She just happens to be her absolute worst enemy.
The funny thing about Love Letters is that it's the first time the character makeover introduced doesn't stick. Caroline momentarily tries to be a better person in this book, and then she pretty much lapses back into her gossip-y ways fairly quickly. What little character definition she was given is snatched back and she goes back to being the stereotypical gossip hungry wannabe.
Now I leave you with two things. One, the reissue of the book is impossible to read the back cover without your eyes starting to bleed a little. Black on bright effing blue is a bad combination for reading. Two, did Adam sign his name, or did he type that as well?
Various other banners have been updated. I think Double Love, Dear Sister, and whenever it finishes loading, When Love Dies.
March 1985
Is Caroline's romance for real?
Make-believe romance...
Caroline Pearce has always been one of the least popular girls at Sweet Valley High. But when she invents a new out-of-town boyfriend, people finally start to pay attention to her. Brown-eyed, six foot Adam and his romantic love letters are the talk of the school.
Caroline has everyone fooled-even clever Jessica Wakefield. But what begins as a bid for love and attention quickly becomes the worst jam of Caroline's life, when her friends insist on meeting the boyfriend she's been bragging about. Can Caroline keep the truth a secret, or will her lies be her downfall?
Love Letters proves that some people should have paid a little more attention to Jan's attention seeking on The Brady Bunch. I know it's the early eighties and all, but shouldn't we have learned by now that making up a boyfriend is a bad, bad, bad idea? Well, no, because if we all learned our lessons, this wouldn't be one of those quintessential stories that a teen series MUST tackle at least once.
Caroline Pearce is the biggest gossip at Sweet Valley High. When you consider that the school also houses Cara Walker and Jessica Wakefield, you've got to admit this takes some talent, and a whole lot of talking. Thing is, Caroline talks so much, and to anyone who will listen, about absolutely anything she hears or thinks she's heard, or maybe even something she sort of saw while out walking the dog that no one really likes her. You can't tell her anything because you know it'll end up on the SVH gossip-grapevine, probably distorted just enough to make things look really bad for you. And if you can't talk to someone about even the most harmless little thing, you don't really have a shot of hanging out with them at all. Hell, even Saint Elizabeth doesn't really like Caroline. So you know Caroline is lonely. Painfully, mind numbingly, lonely. This hasn't really come up before, what with the inability to talk to Caroline, but this is her show, so now we find out.
And it makes sense. With the exception of Tricia Martin, so far everyone else brought up in the series has had someone, anyone, to cling to. Annie had her long list of boys, as did Betsy who also had Trish and Steve, Roger had Olivia, Bill had Dee Dee and I'm bored re-capping, so we're done with that now. If you didn't have a single friend at school, you can relate. Hell, if you just had a few friends, you can relate.
Caroline is tired of being a misfit, always relegated to the outskirts of the SVH-crowd. She decides that enough is enough. She's done with the whole outside looking in crap. So she makes sure that she's got the ears of the demi-gossip-goddesses, and she tells them all about Adam, her amazingly perfectly gorgeous, overly romantic, super secret until now boyfriend.
Oh, boy does she tell them. She reads his letters, passes them around, details every phone conversation, and in general acts like your best friend's little sister who desperately wants to be cool enough to hang out with you guys, if only for an afternoon. Of course, she probably sounds like that because she is like that. Her sister, Anita, seems like your typical perfect older sister. Pretty enough that dating isn't a problem, popular enough to have friends come and go, and just bitchy enough to point out your short comings over breakfast. So it's not like Caroline needs a guy just to impress the in crowd at school. Nope, a boyfriend would shut her older sister up, too.
Thing is, Adam doesn't exist. He's Caroline's dream boy, but she hasn't met him and he certainly doesn't send her poetry laden letters every other day. Now the rest of us know that Caroline is only going to get so far with letters, even really spectacular letters, before Lila and Jessica pressure her into producing this Adam.
This is as good a time as any to point out our B and C stories. Both involve the Wakefield twins, and give them different reasons to help or hurt Caroline when things get down and dirty.
While trying to glom onto either twin, Caroline finds a letter from Alice Wakefield to a design firm in San Francisco, thanking them for their generous job offer and telling them she'll think about it. When Jessica pushes Caroline too far at the beach, Caroline fakes some sympathy for poor Jessica. It must be so hard to concentrate on other people's problems when you're so caught up in the potential move, huh?
Yeah, not your best move, Caro. By pointing out that Jessica's perfect life is possibly about to come crashing down around her, you've moved straight to the top of her shit list.
When the twins, led by overly melodramatic Jessica, confront their parents, Alice admits she's been offered the gig and she'd really like it. Ned points out that it's an incredible honor and that with the twins so close to college, it really would be a good thing for them to make more money. Now, call me crazy, but you'd think the cost of living in Frisco would off-set the major pay increase at least a little. Silly me. Anyway, the parental units are ticked when neither twin is thrilled at the thought of their entire lives being uprooted in the midst of their junior year in high school. Jess does make one possibly out of character observation. She points out that while it sucks massively just thinking about moving, what with cheerleading and all, it would KILL Elizabeth to leave Todd. It's never mentioned as a selfish, manipulative comment, and I for one would like to give Jessica the benefit of the doubt. Sure, she had to know it would guilt the 'rents, but it's also... true. And foreshadowing, but we'll make our way back there soon enough.
The twins combine forces to convince their parents that moving would be a bad, bad, baaaaaad idea. From brochures inundating them with every possible bit of information on Sweet Valley, to nostalgic visits to various restaurants, right on through to trashing San Francisco, the twins have pretty much thought of everything.
C story is a continued thread from a few books back. Elizabeth's entering a playwright competition and hers is based on the life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Now, since Adam doesn't exist and it's not likely that Caroline houses the soul of a poet, where has she been getting her letters? Oh, yeah, she's been lifting from Robert Browning. The smart people are snorting and saying, yeah, what are the effing odds of that? Well, it's simple. In life, particularly high school, the one thing that can unravel your pack of lies is infinitely closer than the rear view mirror would indicate.
However, Caroline skates on, oblivious to her impending doom.
Anyway, plots C and B combine to sink Caroline's battleship. After a night that is essentially a Taste of Sweet Valley cuisine, Elizabeth reads her family her play and Jessica realizes that parts of it sound awfully familiar. She's certain she's never read Browning's work before and the only other source of poetry in her diet has been Adam's letters. She puts two and two together and comes up with faux boyfriend.
In a twist, Lila points out that Caroline could still be telling the truth, completely unaware that her boyfriend has been lifting his lines from a dead poet guy. Jessica all but snorts and asks, "What crack are you on, Fowler?" Lila carefully points out that there are obvious, and normal, explanations for each of Jessica's protests. Adam could have terrible handwriting, leading to him typing his letters. Since he's not doing the heavy thinking parts of the letters, his frequency in mailing them is nothing to look twice at.
Caroline knows that she can't keep Lila and Jessica at bay for much longer with just letters, so she says she's going to Cold Springs one weekend to visit Adam. Lila and Jessica coo over this and point out that it leaves the following weekend for Adam's party. Perfect !
Yeah, except for Adam not existing. So Caro "brings back" proof. There's the "Property of Cold Springs Athletic Department" shirt she claims is from Adam, but is really a left over from her cousin Sally's dating disaster with a Cold Springs boy. There's a newspaper picture of 'Adam', though it's from a basketball game and blurry to boot, though that came in a letter. Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that Jessica saw Caroline while she was supposedly out of town.
Thing is, Lila and Jess are both thrown by the proof. Maybe the guy really does exist...
Also thrown is Anita, Caroline's big sister. Caro shares the joy and fakes a phone conversation and she and Anita bond. Which is really annoying later on, given how much of a bitch Anita is the first time she shows up. It takes your little sister inventing a boyfriend for you to give her the time of day? Nice, real nice.
Anyway, to ensure that Caroline can't use the "But Adam is broke..." excuse, Lila buys the elusive Adam a bus ticket. Nice, huh?
Jessica also sets things up so that Liz finally hears one of Adam's letters. Liz is worried that Caro doesn't realize they aren't legit, but Caro confides that's the least of her worries. Liz points out that Caroline might have some friends if she weren't such a busy body, always poking into other people's business. Yes, you may snort with laughter now.
Caroline begs Liz not to read her play, as that will expose Caroline as a fraud. Liz reluctantly agrees, and goes home to bitch Jessica out. Anita then busts Caroline, sort of. Seems Mama Pearce doesn't know a thing about Adam, so Caroline confesses. Anita gives her a much longer, much bitchier version of Elizabeth's speech, and Caroline realizes the error of her ways. GASP! Liz failed and bitchy eating disorder riddled older sister prevails!
The next day, Caroline tells Elizabeth that it was wrong of her to ask Liz to not read her play, and it's okay. She's just going to have to suck it up and admit that she's a big ol' liar. Because of this, Saint Liz and her sidekick Todd resume work on Operation Rescue. Uh...huh.
However, Caroline chickens out the first time she's given a chance to come clean, and continues to chicken out all week. Not that I blame her, but Jesus, you'd think coming clean at school would beat making a total ass of yourself at a party thrown partially in your honor. It's not like having your execution catered would make it any easier to die.
For the party, Anita goes all out on Caroline and the girl is glowing so much that Todd gives her a fantastically backhanded compliment. At the party, Caroline decides to bypass the goodies and head straight for the guillotine. She has Lila kill the music and just as she's about to confess her lie, a handsome, 6'2", wavy brown haired, chocolate brown eyed sweetheart of a guy rushes up, apologizes for being late, and kisses Caroline for all the world to see. It seems Adam has finally arrived.
Operation Rescue involved Todd asking a friend of his to pretend to be Adam to save Caroline the pain of being publicly humiliated. I suspect Todd agreed solely to thwart Jessica's plan for Caroline's downfall, but that's okay. Normally I'd ask what are the odds that you could find this dead ringer for a made-up boytoy, but when you think about it, it shouldn't be all that difficult. Brown-eyed brunettes aren't exactly hard to come by, and Todd knows Jerry from basketball, so odds are good that the 6'2" bit wasn't that hard to fill. But did anyone else notice that Caroline pretty much conjures up Todd Wilkins up when she creates Adam? Looks-wise, I mean. Every time she'd go on and on about his eyes, I'd think of the numerous times over the series Elizabeth would find herself lost in Todd's gaze.
Eventually Caroline realizes that while everyone else thinks she's found someone fantastic, she's just as lonely as before, if not moreso. So she confesses and runs away. I cannot fault her for that either, as I'd have run, too. Jerry follows her, tells her he's proud of her, and they kiss for real. It's very sweet, although Caroline asking if she can come visit so quickly is a little forward and obnoxious.
Overall, Caroline gets a happy ending after all. So do the twins. Seems that Alice and Ned turned the offer down shortly into the "YAY, SV!" blitz, but thought to teach the twins a lesson, so they didn't share the news immediately. Alls well that ends well.
Or as close as the valley's going to let us get, at this point.
*- Not that I have a hat, but since I won't need to eat it anyway, that really doesn't matter.
Trivial Pursuit:
- Adam is 6'2", dark brown hair, warm laughing brown eyes. He lives in Cold Springs, plays baseball, and is naturally well liked. He was also on the basketball team last year. His mother is an English teacher and perfectly fine with her son's mystery girlfriend spending the weekend at their house.
- Cold Springs is about two hours away from Sweet Valley.
- Anita is Caroline's older sister. She's model thin and constantly makes Caroline feel fat because she doesn't exist on ice water and melon like Anita does. If Anita doesn't have food "issues", I'll eat my hat.*
- Anita suffers under the delusion that the twins are the nicest girls in the junior class.
- According to Caroline, Annie and Ricky's issues are as follows:Ricky promised Annie a ride in his father's white Seville Cadillac, but when he showed up for the date, it was just in his beat up old Chevy. When Annie went to the bathroom to clean herself up after an unfortunate incident involving cocktail sauce, she returned to find Ricky flirting with Maria Santelli.
- Elizabeth makes most of the jokes about Jessica's room.
- John Paine, is the director of the Hurley Group, one of the biggest firms in California. He's offered Alice a job, and even when she declines, he says he'll keep a spot for her anytime she changes her mind.
- Elizabeth based her play on "Sonnets from the Portuguese."
- Mr. Wakefield's receptionist is Mrs. Kelly.
- Jessica runs into Dennis [remember him from book nine?] while visiting her father.
- Caroline keeps Adam's stationary in her 3rd desk drawer. Said stationary is light blue, in case you wondered.
- Caroline has been lifting Adam's letters from Robert Browning: Letters, volumes one through three.
- Miss Priss Caroline finds t-shirts too low cut. Um, mid-80's shirts, no less.
- Bruce helps Regina out with a math problem, then asks her out, and she still manages to call all the shots.
- Liz buys her mother a lovely Amaryllis arrangement from Petal Pushers.
- The 'Taste of Sweet Valley' dinner includes a salad with a special Dijon mustard dressing from Season's Gourmet Shop, Veal Parmesan from Vitos, and a lemon chiffon pie from Caster's.
- The Wakefields used to eat takeout from Vito's at least once a week.
- Caroline is the only member of PBA to have perfect attendance at the meetings. Something tells me Liz and Enid have the worst in recent memory.
- Tiberino's is owned by Sal Ciardi, and it's where Ned proposed to Alice, and their go-to restaurant's for anniversaries.
- Ned is allergic to Chinese food.
- Las Palmas Canyon is twenty miles from SV.
- Elizabeth's play is called "One Woman's Romance."
- Fowler Crest is apparently now Spanish Style. Who knew?
- Jerry Fisher is a friend of Todd's, and he pretends to be Adam, but seems to genuinely like Caroline.
Quoted:
"Caroline has it coming to her anyway. I can't believe she tried to trick us! I'll admit it showed she's got more imagination than I ever gave her credit for, but that's all." Jessica defends her malicious streak. p120
"Yeah. There's something different about you tonight-and it's not just your new dress. You're pretty," he said. Todd trips over his words fantastically. p 138
It's crucial to make your misfit likable in a story like this. Not only do you have to explain why a previously painfully obnoxious character should be pitied and understood, but you also have to make it so that you want them to rise above their past misdeeds, especially if they lack the effortless charm that other characters are graced with. And the thing is, it works, which is kind of surprising. Caroline manages to walk that fine line between previously established busy-body and misunderstood misfit.
On the one hand, you have Caroline spreading her usual gossip all around. There are her stories about Annie and Ricky possibly breaking up because of Ricky allegedly flirting with Maria Santelli, John Pfiefer being kicked off the Oracle for consistently turning his sports copy in late, and then there's the one about Bill Chase getting help with his play from Mr. Jaworski.
On the other hand, it's not like she intentionally tries to screw things up for people. The Annie gossip was meant as something to contribute to a conversation where she felt left out. The Bill thing was an attempt to make small talk that failed madly, and well, John's got worse coming to him in the far future, so really, he got off light.
Anita comes off as impossible to live up to, so you feel for Caroline at home. At school she's the one person just about everyone attempts to hide from, and as the series manages to churn out spin offs like crazy, you realize this has been going on for forever. So yeah, Caroline brought a lot of this on herself, but she didn't mean to. She just happens to be her absolute worst enemy.
The funny thing about Love Letters is that it's the first time the character makeover introduced doesn't stick. Caroline momentarily tries to be a better person in this book, and then she pretty much lapses back into her gossip-y ways fairly quickly. What little character definition she was given is snatched back and she goes back to being the stereotypical gossip hungry wannabe.
Now I leave you with two things. One, the reissue of the book is impossible to read the back cover without your eyes starting to bleed a little. Black on bright effing blue is a bad combination for reading. Two, did Adam sign his name, or did he type that as well?
Various other banners have been updated. I think Double Love, Dear Sister, and whenever it finishes loading, When Love Dies.