Sweet Valley Twins #13: Stretching The Truth
... or, Mary Gets, I Don't Know, Her 3rd or 4th Last Name In a Year.
[My first recap! Hope you like.]
First of all, let me start out with, I have no idea who the guy is on the cover of this book. That's definitely Jessica, with the rosy red cheeks and the purple sweatshirt on, because in Sweet Valley, plain sweatshirts are apparently totally boss partywear. But the dude? No idea. There is no scene in this book in which Jessica is talking to a boy who looks like a woman and pointing with his thumb, "Hey, check out that boat. Why are you wearing that hesitant face?"
You could possibly make the argument that the male[?] in the photo is supposed to be Tim, Mary's new stepdad, but Tim is bearded in the book, and this dude looks to be Jessica's age. But when have the cover illustrators ever been known to bother with petty details like age, facial features, clothing, or illustrating actual scenes from the books? Good point.
On with the recap!
Mary Giaccio/Robinson/soon-to-be-Wallace is one of those rare Sweet Valley characters, a la Mandy Miller, who is friends with both Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield. This usually means you're pretty enough for Jessica/The Unicorns to like you, but you do not have a black heart, so Liz likes you, too. Or, in Mandy's case, you got cancer and the Unicorns let you in out of pity or something, but that's a whole other story. I digress.
Anyway, this book opens with the twins hanging out at Casey's place, discussing the hottest new movie, Dream Chaser, which they just saw. Jessica is mooning all over some actor named Tom Houston, and, I'm sorry, but Sweet Valley book covers have given me this complex that all dudes in Sweet Valley look like women or child molesters, so I just imagine him being creepy. Good old practical Elizabeth, of course, is arguing that the plot was "completely unbelievable," and actually says, "Everything worked out so perfectly. It wasn't like real life at all."
Yeah, Liz. Nothing like your life AT ALL.
Mary and Her Awesomeness Lila Fowler show up [Lila described as looking "as perfectly groomed as a model." *Sigh* I love her] and start talking about the movie as well, but soon move on to talking about what Jessica describes as Mary's new "fairy tale" life with her mom having gotten remarried. Mary immediately starts acting totally weird, and from this point on, this book really turns into an after-school special everytime Mary opens her mouth. Everyone has somehow gotten the idea that Mary's stepfather is rich, and therefore awesome, which, of course, gets Lila all pissy. "My father owns three houses. He also owns a condominium and an apartment building." We know, Lila. You don't have to convince us of your awesomeness.
Mary digs her own grave by letting Jess and Lila weave the tangled web for her, and agreeing with them. "Yeah, he's rich. He's an architect. He's building us a mansion, and oh yeah, he designed a palace for an African king." Mary, Mary, Mary. Mary acts like a total psychopath about her mom because she has abandonment/insecurity issues out the butt, and worries about her grades, because apparently she's been ditching her homework, as well as her friends, to cling to her mom in a majorly creepy way. Something's up with Mary, and of course, Elizabeth is the only one who notices. Jessica does not care because she's too busy planning Mary's new mansion (who's the architect now?) and presumably figuring out how she can benefit from Mary's newfound riches and stuff.
[At the same time, everyone at SVMS is going completely apeshit over, like a two-week jewelry class being offered. These kids are so weird, always. Even His Bastardliness Bruce Patman is taking this class. Just when you think you have someone figured out, he goes and takes a jewelry class. Anyway, Mary, of course, acts crazy, and says she can't take the class because she has to get home immediately after school to go cry on her mommy's shoulder and fake sick and stuff. Nobody can imagine what could be more important than this jewelry class. I can't figure out who's more unreasonable: Mary, or all the kids going nuts for the jewelry class.]
Twins go home to find Steven (Steven!) making a sandwich, of course. Everyone's got a stereotype in Sweet Valley. In a rare moment of continuity, Steven mentions his friend Cathy Connors, who becomes his girlfriend in #57, Big Brother's In Love, which I need to re-cap soon. Alice and Ned are watching a football game in the living room, in top form and totally oblivious to their children. Liz awkwardly brings up her concerns about Mary to her mother, who gets in the old meddling mood and promises to call Mary's mom. "I'm not sure, Elizabeth. But I'm going to try to find out." Who do you think Liz learned it all from?
Around this time, we take a look inside Mary's house. She's acting like a total psychopath, of course, and at this point, I kind of don't blame her, as Tim The New Stepdad sounds like a creepy youth minister; he has a beard and apparently whips out his acoustic guitar every five minutes to play his latest silly song. Also, Mary's mom constantly acts like she's ready to hump his leg, and apparently she and Tim are always cuddled up whispering to each other, which is eww.
No wonder Mary's acting like a Vietnam vet with PTSS. I'd be creeped out in that house, too.
Tim bursts out with the big news that he bought a tugboat, which just seems kind of random to me, but this is appalling to Mary. She's not a Unicorn for nothing; there's a shallow bone in there. ...Having a tugboat was pretty embarrassing. In Sweet Valley almost every other family owned a sailboat or a cabin cruiser. Why did her new stepfather go and buy some leaky old boat? she wonders. Oh, Sweet Valley. Everyone's got a boat.
Mary acts insane some more and loses her shit over the fact that she came home for lunch and her mom wasn't sitting there waiting for her, or better yet, divorced already. She feels left out and thinks that her mom and Tim are always planning things without her, wah wah wah.
The subplot here is that the Unicorns are a) getting pissed that Mary's missing meetings to go cry over her mom, and b) having a party next month, even though they have no money for it. They spent all their money on purple sweatshirts. Resourceful Unicorns. Apparently, they must have this party, no matter what. They found out about an elitist club similar to their own from another school called the Shooting Stars, and they need to upstage them with a bitchin' party. Also, Jessica actually, literally thinks that she is going to write this Tom Houston fellow, the big-time actor/heartthrob from Dream Chaser and get him to come sing at their middle-school party. She actually suggests this, and even more incredibly, the other Unicorns are pretty much totally down with the idea.
Janet's freaking out over the fact that Mary's not at the meeting, her fourth missed meeting in a row, and Lila is, of course, awesome. "Look, Janet, it's not exactly a federal offense to miss a few meetings." [Sidenote: Lila also mentions that Jessica was passing notes with someone named Helen Bradley in math class. Who the eff is this? Does anyone know, or is she one of those people who is mentioned once and never again?] Janet decides that they are having a meeting that afternoon at the Dairi Burger, and if Mary's not there, she's out of the club.
Dun dun dunnnnn.
Jessica tells Elizabeth that they need to find Mary to make sure she comes to the meeting that afternoon, which Elizabeth, Julie, and Sophia actually do, while Jessica and Lila get distracted getting used for manual labor by Bruce and Rick Hunter. Who needs Mary in the Unicorns when you can be manipulated by the hottest boy at school? Seventh graders, no less. Luckily, Liz came through and Mary shows up at the meeting. Mary keeps letting everyone embellish the stepdad story, so when she mentions the new boat, she lets the Unicorns believe it is a yacht. The Unicorns go nuts, obviously.
Tim and Mary's mom conveniently show up at the Dairi Burger. Mary acts psycho, her mom acts oblivious, and Tim acts creepy, of course, winking too much at the Unicorns. The Unicorns, of course, love him, because he is supposedly rich [not true] and handsome [maybe true, but still creepy], and therefore a worthy person. Mary fakes sick to get out of this awkward situation before the Unicorns catch on to the fact that Tim's not rich, an architect, etc etc, so Tim and her mom take her to the doctor, where nothing is found to be wrong with her.
However, Mary overhears the doctor telling her mom and Tim that she seems to be suffering from abandonment issues, and therefore having a hard time accepting Tim because she believes there's not enough room for her in the family with him there. Mary has the realization that maybe she's the one not giving Tim a chance, not the other way around, and that "maybe things were partly her fault." You'd think the insanity would stop there, but we're not even halfway through the book. I guess she forgets all about that realization, and the insanity goes on.
Tim and Mary's mom decide to throw Mary a surprise birthday party, on the tugboat, inviting all her friends, in two weeks to prove to her that they really care about her. This turns out to be the worst thing they could possibly do, because Mary's totally nuts in this book. She's already totally paranoid about Tim and her mom planning things without her and trying to get rid of her, and now everyone she knows at school is also whispering about some party and trying to get rid of her, so she really gets crazy. This is the entire middle of the book: for two weeks, Mary walks up to friends, they stop whispering, and then make excuses not to hang out with her in order to plan for surprise party.
Liz finally sees how upset and irrational this is making Mary and tells her about the party so that she'll stop thinking everyone's out to get her. This makes Mary feel a little better, I guess, but then she realizes that she has to stop the party from happening, because nobody can find out that her "yacht" is just a tugboat. This would, apparently, be the end of her. She comes up with a plan, which includes her faking sick (for like the 10th time in this book) on Friday at school, the day before the party. She goes home early, where she ends up seeing Tim playing a stupid song on his acoustic guitar, again, and her mom drooling over him.
Mary freaks out and decides that it's not enough to fake sick to miss the next day's party, she should probably run away, and actually thinks that maybe the Altmans (her foster family from back when she was Giaccio and had no mom) will take her back in. Mary's runaway attempt is unsuccessful, as she falls over her bike and practically breaks her arm. She gives up on the running away thing, and when she tries to sneak back into the house, Tim finds her.
Tim suddenly turns awesome, as far as Mary is concerned, because he promises not to tell her mom that she tried to run away, and then he's really nice and concerned and takes her to the hospital to check out the arm. She even gets really excited over one of his stupid songs, which he makes up, impromptu, in the hospital waiting room to cheer her up, and is about "absentminded doctors who wrote prescriptions for all sorts of silly ailments." I think he's actually Jim Henson or something.
Tim and Mary have the corniest moment ever when the doctor refers to him as her father, and when Tim tries to correct him, she says "Shhh! If you don't tell, I won't."
Vomit. She's gone from hating this guy to being obsessed with him in, like, an hour and a half. Mary's got issues.
Next day, the day of the party, Steven eats six slices of french toast, because eating is his stereotype, and Jessica finds out Tom Houston will not be appearing at the party to sing. She is actually surprised. End of storyline. I have no idea why it was there in the first place. Also, Jessica gets dressed to the nines in her purple sweatshirt. Gross.
Mary is creepy and drooling over Tim all morning, and is determined to hold her head high at the party, even though she thinks she will be losing all of her friends when they find out the "yacht" is a tugboat. Turns out, the boat actually looks really nice and festive, and everyone goes nuts for the boat, including Bruce Patman. He is uncharacteristically nice and enthusiastic about the tugboat. I do not like this side of him.
During the party, Tim sings some songs on his dumb acoustic guitar for entertainment, since Tom Houston's not there, I guess, and everyone thinks he's awesome. Ellen Riteman, the little dullard, calls him "dreamy." Mary calls him "Dad," and it is creepy, because Mary is creepy in this book, if you haven't noticed. The book ends abruptly.
[Wow, this recap was long.]
[My first recap! Hope you like.]
First of all, let me start out with, I have no idea who the guy is on the cover of this book. That's definitely Jessica, with the rosy red cheeks and the purple sweatshirt on, because in Sweet Valley, plain sweatshirts are apparently totally boss partywear. But the dude? No idea. There is no scene in this book in which Jessica is talking to a boy who looks like a woman and pointing with his thumb, "Hey, check out that boat. Why are you wearing that hesitant face?"
You could possibly make the argument that the male[?] in the photo is supposed to be Tim, Mary's new stepdad, but Tim is bearded in the book, and this dude looks to be Jessica's age. But when have the cover illustrators ever been known to bother with petty details like age, facial features, clothing, or illustrating actual scenes from the books? Good point.
On with the recap!
Mary Giaccio/Robinson/soon-to-be-Wallace is one of those rare Sweet Valley characters, a la Mandy Miller, who is friends with both Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield. This usually means you're pretty enough for Jessica/The Unicorns to like you, but you do not have a black heart, so Liz likes you, too. Or, in Mandy's case, you got cancer and the Unicorns let you in out of pity or something, but that's a whole other story. I digress.
Anyway, this book opens with the twins hanging out at Casey's place, discussing the hottest new movie, Dream Chaser, which they just saw. Jessica is mooning all over some actor named Tom Houston, and, I'm sorry, but Sweet Valley book covers have given me this complex that all dudes in Sweet Valley look like women or child molesters, so I just imagine him being creepy. Good old practical Elizabeth, of course, is arguing that the plot was "completely unbelievable," and actually says, "Everything worked out so perfectly. It wasn't like real life at all."
Yeah, Liz. Nothing like your life AT ALL.
Mary and Her Awesomeness Lila Fowler show up [Lila described as looking "as perfectly groomed as a model." *Sigh* I love her] and start talking about the movie as well, but soon move on to talking about what Jessica describes as Mary's new "fairy tale" life with her mom having gotten remarried. Mary immediately starts acting totally weird, and from this point on, this book really turns into an after-school special everytime Mary opens her mouth. Everyone has somehow gotten the idea that Mary's stepfather is rich, and therefore awesome, which, of course, gets Lila all pissy. "My father owns three houses. He also owns a condominium and an apartment building." We know, Lila. You don't have to convince us of your awesomeness.
Mary digs her own grave by letting Jess and Lila weave the tangled web for her, and agreeing with them. "Yeah, he's rich. He's an architect. He's building us a mansion, and oh yeah, he designed a palace for an African king." Mary, Mary, Mary. Mary acts like a total psychopath about her mom because she has abandonment/insecurity issues out the butt, and worries about her grades, because apparently she's been ditching her homework, as well as her friends, to cling to her mom in a majorly creepy way. Something's up with Mary, and of course, Elizabeth is the only one who notices. Jessica does not care because she's too busy planning Mary's new mansion (who's the architect now?) and presumably figuring out how she can benefit from Mary's newfound riches and stuff.
[At the same time, everyone at SVMS is going completely apeshit over, like a two-week jewelry class being offered. These kids are so weird, always. Even His Bastardliness Bruce Patman is taking this class. Just when you think you have someone figured out, he goes and takes a jewelry class. Anyway, Mary, of course, acts crazy, and says she can't take the class because she has to get home immediately after school to go cry on her mommy's shoulder and fake sick and stuff. Nobody can imagine what could be more important than this jewelry class. I can't figure out who's more unreasonable: Mary, or all the kids going nuts for the jewelry class.]
Twins go home to find Steven (Steven!) making a sandwich, of course. Everyone's got a stereotype in Sweet Valley. In a rare moment of continuity, Steven mentions his friend Cathy Connors, who becomes his girlfriend in #57, Big Brother's In Love, which I need to re-cap soon. Alice and Ned are watching a football game in the living room, in top form and totally oblivious to their children. Liz awkwardly brings up her concerns about Mary to her mother, who gets in the old meddling mood and promises to call Mary's mom. "I'm not sure, Elizabeth. But I'm going to try to find out." Who do you think Liz learned it all from?
Around this time, we take a look inside Mary's house. She's acting like a total psychopath, of course, and at this point, I kind of don't blame her, as Tim The New Stepdad sounds like a creepy youth minister; he has a beard and apparently whips out his acoustic guitar every five minutes to play his latest silly song. Also, Mary's mom constantly acts like she's ready to hump his leg, and apparently she and Tim are always cuddled up whispering to each other, which is eww.
No wonder Mary's acting like a Vietnam vet with PTSS. I'd be creeped out in that house, too.
Tim bursts out with the big news that he bought a tugboat, which just seems kind of random to me, but this is appalling to Mary. She's not a Unicorn for nothing; there's a shallow bone in there. ...Having a tugboat was pretty embarrassing. In Sweet Valley almost every other family owned a sailboat or a cabin cruiser. Why did her new stepfather go and buy some leaky old boat? she wonders. Oh, Sweet Valley. Everyone's got a boat.
Mary acts insane some more and loses her shit over the fact that she came home for lunch and her mom wasn't sitting there waiting for her, or better yet, divorced already. She feels left out and thinks that her mom and Tim are always planning things without her, wah wah wah.
The subplot here is that the Unicorns are a) getting pissed that Mary's missing meetings to go cry over her mom, and b) having a party next month, even though they have no money for it. They spent all their money on purple sweatshirts. Resourceful Unicorns. Apparently, they must have this party, no matter what. They found out about an elitist club similar to their own from another school called the Shooting Stars, and they need to upstage them with a bitchin' party. Also, Jessica actually, literally thinks that she is going to write this Tom Houston fellow, the big-time actor/heartthrob from Dream Chaser and get him to come sing at their middle-school party. She actually suggests this, and even more incredibly, the other Unicorns are pretty much totally down with the idea.
Janet's freaking out over the fact that Mary's not at the meeting, her fourth missed meeting in a row, and Lila is, of course, awesome. "Look, Janet, it's not exactly a federal offense to miss a few meetings." [Sidenote: Lila also mentions that Jessica was passing notes with someone named Helen Bradley in math class. Who the eff is this? Does anyone know, or is she one of those people who is mentioned once and never again?] Janet decides that they are having a meeting that afternoon at the Dairi Burger, and if Mary's not there, she's out of the club.
Dun dun dunnnnn.
Jessica tells Elizabeth that they need to find Mary to make sure she comes to the meeting that afternoon, which Elizabeth, Julie, and Sophia actually do, while Jessica and Lila get distracted getting used for manual labor by Bruce and Rick Hunter. Who needs Mary in the Unicorns when you can be manipulated by the hottest boy at school? Seventh graders, no less. Luckily, Liz came through and Mary shows up at the meeting. Mary keeps letting everyone embellish the stepdad story, so when she mentions the new boat, she lets the Unicorns believe it is a yacht. The Unicorns go nuts, obviously.
Tim and Mary's mom conveniently show up at the Dairi Burger. Mary acts psycho, her mom acts oblivious, and Tim acts creepy, of course, winking too much at the Unicorns. The Unicorns, of course, love him, because he is supposedly rich [not true] and handsome [maybe true, but still creepy], and therefore a worthy person. Mary fakes sick to get out of this awkward situation before the Unicorns catch on to the fact that Tim's not rich, an architect, etc etc, so Tim and her mom take her to the doctor, where nothing is found to be wrong with her.
However, Mary overhears the doctor telling her mom and Tim that she seems to be suffering from abandonment issues, and therefore having a hard time accepting Tim because she believes there's not enough room for her in the family with him there. Mary has the realization that maybe she's the one not giving Tim a chance, not the other way around, and that "maybe things were partly her fault." You'd think the insanity would stop there, but we're not even halfway through the book. I guess she forgets all about that realization, and the insanity goes on.
Tim and Mary's mom decide to throw Mary a surprise birthday party, on the tugboat, inviting all her friends, in two weeks to prove to her that they really care about her. This turns out to be the worst thing they could possibly do, because Mary's totally nuts in this book. She's already totally paranoid about Tim and her mom planning things without her and trying to get rid of her, and now everyone she knows at school is also whispering about some party and trying to get rid of her, so she really gets crazy. This is the entire middle of the book: for two weeks, Mary walks up to friends, they stop whispering, and then make excuses not to hang out with her in order to plan for surprise party.
Liz finally sees how upset and irrational this is making Mary and tells her about the party so that she'll stop thinking everyone's out to get her. This makes Mary feel a little better, I guess, but then she realizes that she has to stop the party from happening, because nobody can find out that her "yacht" is just a tugboat. This would, apparently, be the end of her. She comes up with a plan, which includes her faking sick (for like the 10th time in this book) on Friday at school, the day before the party. She goes home early, where she ends up seeing Tim playing a stupid song on his acoustic guitar, again, and her mom drooling over him.
Mary freaks out and decides that it's not enough to fake sick to miss the next day's party, she should probably run away, and actually thinks that maybe the Altmans (her foster family from back when she was Giaccio and had no mom) will take her back in. Mary's runaway attempt is unsuccessful, as she falls over her bike and practically breaks her arm. She gives up on the running away thing, and when she tries to sneak back into the house, Tim finds her.
Tim suddenly turns awesome, as far as Mary is concerned, because he promises not to tell her mom that she tried to run away, and then he's really nice and concerned and takes her to the hospital to check out the arm. She even gets really excited over one of his stupid songs, which he makes up, impromptu, in the hospital waiting room to cheer her up, and is about "absentminded doctors who wrote prescriptions for all sorts of silly ailments." I think he's actually Jim Henson or something.
Tim and Mary have the corniest moment ever when the doctor refers to him as her father, and when Tim tries to correct him, she says "Shhh! If you don't tell, I won't."
Vomit. She's gone from hating this guy to being obsessed with him in, like, an hour and a half. Mary's got issues.
Next day, the day of the party, Steven eats six slices of french toast, because eating is his stereotype, and Jessica finds out Tom Houston will not be appearing at the party to sing. She is actually surprised. End of storyline. I have no idea why it was there in the first place. Also, Jessica gets dressed to the nines in her purple sweatshirt. Gross.
Mary is creepy and drooling over Tim all morning, and is determined to hold her head high at the party, even though she thinks she will be losing all of her friends when they find out the "yacht" is a tugboat. Turns out, the boat actually looks really nice and festive, and everyone goes nuts for the boat, including Bruce Patman. He is uncharacteristically nice and enthusiastic about the tugboat. I do not like this side of him.
During the party, Tim sings some songs on his dumb acoustic guitar for entertainment, since Tom Houston's not there, I guess, and everyone thinks he's awesome. Ellen Riteman, the little dullard, calls him "dreamy." Mary calls him "Dad," and it is creepy, because Mary is creepy in this book, if you haven't noticed. The book ends abruptly.
[Wow, this recap was long.]