SVJH #24: Clueless
Is it just me, or does Liz on the cover look like she's thoroughly had it with Blue's harrassment and is about a second away from kicking him in the head? That would have been awesome. Too bad nothing like that actually happens in the book. Without Todd in this series, there's a distinct lack of punching.
Also, I'd like to note that it seems at fourteen, Elizabeth has already started wearing barrettes to match her outfits. And this book was published in 2000. Way to be fashionable, Liz.
The A Plot:
Elizabeth and her crew are having a meeting/brainstorming session for the Zone. They're all trying to come up with new story ideas, but Liz is suffering from writer's block. OH NOES THE HORROR! She can't just come out and admit she doesn't have any new ideas, though, so she stalls by encouraging everyone to goof around until Anna has to leave for drama club, which effectively breaks up the meeting. Elizabeth's shameful secret is safe for another day, and hopefully she can come up with something new before the next meeting, although she's certain she'll be blocked for life. Clearly Liz has never read a book about writing. After the meeting, Blue, the new guy on the Zone staff, catches up with her. Elizabeth thinks he's really cute, and after very little prompting, confesses to him that she hasn't written anything for the next issue and has no new ideas to write about. Blue is very sympathatic, and even helps her come up with a new idea. She can try something totally new, and write about her experience. He then offers to teach her surfing (he, of course, is an expert), and he'll let her use his super special surfboard. Maybe she can even enter the upcoming surfing competition, as an added bonus! This is all sounding vaguely familiar for some strange reason.
Anyway, Liz is all happy to have a new story idea, and to have a supportive friend like Blue. Blue, of course, is all happy to have an excuse to spend extra time with Elizabeth, because he's a male in Sweet Valley and therefore must be madly in love with at least one of the Wakefield twins. When Elizabeth tells Anna all about the story and the surfing lessons, Anna concludes Liz and Blue like each other, but Elizabeth is very firm that it isn't the case. Very firm. Anna is not convinced. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Hee!
Blue and Elizabeth start their lessons. Blue keeps getting distracted from teaching by how cute Liz is. It's all very laid back and they both have a lot of fun. At one point, they get into a tickle fight, which only stops when Jessica comes in and interrupts them. Both Elizabeth and Blue are embarrassed, telling her "it's not what it looks like!" Like Anna, Jessica is not convinced. She immediately starts scheming how to get Elizabeth to admit she likes Blue as more than a friend so they'll start dating. Oddly, there is no ulterior motive in this scheme, she just thinks her sister would be happier that way. I'm confused.
The surfing lesson wraps up, and Blue goes to band rehearsal afterwards (he's started a four-man band called Big Noise with Jessica's boyfriend Daman, Kristen's boyfriend Brian, and Elizabeth's friend Salvador). The guys decide they need to differentiate themselves from all the boy bands out there and start trying to figure out how best to do that. I kind of think they should just work hard and let their music speak for them, but apparently that's not quite what they had in mind. Jessica convinces the guys that a female bass player would be a good way to get noticed, so they decide to hold auditions the following Monday. I was going to ask why Jessica gets to chime in on the band's decisions, since she's not even a member, but then I realized she's a Wakefield and nothing in Sweet Valley can be done without having the approval of at least one twin.
Over the weekend, Elizabeth asks Jessica to take her shopping for a new swimsuit. Something more flattering than her old one, because while you're surfing the important thing is to look good. Jessica smirks, but agrees to take her. As Elizabeth is trying on several billion suits, she briefly wonders which one Blue would like the best. For most people, this would be a good indication that maybe she is feeling a little flirty towards him. Elizabeth, however, is a master of denial and continues to go along her merry little "we're just friends" way. She hurries off to her next surfing lesson with her new suit, and Jessica runs into some random girl from school named Susie. Susie is cute and used to play in a band, so Jessica tells her about the Big Noise auditions, figuring that if someone like Susie is suddenly hanging around Blue a lot, Elizabeth is bound to get jealous and finally realize she likes the guy. Because a brilliant scheme like that could never go horribly, horribly wrong, could it?
The surfing lessons continue to be full of rosy laughter, until Elizabeth is overtaken by a giant wave! Oh noes! Teh drama! But not really, because she's already fine on the next page. But she wasn't scared, because she knew Blue was watching over her. Elizabeth clearly spent too much time with Todd the year before; she's caught his stupidity. Now all she needs is to start punching people, and the transition will be complete.
Elizabeth is getting ready for another surfing lesson. After all, she has a competition to prepare for; it's not like she's just spending all this time with Blue cuz she wants to or anything. Jessica "accidently" lets it drop that Big Noise is auditioning for female bass players, which upsets Elizabeth. I'm actually not sure if it bothers her more that they're looking for a female band member or that Blue didn't tell her about the upcoming auditions. Either way, Jessica is satisfied, since it obviously means she was right about Liz's feelings for Blue. She figures now it's only a matter of time before Elizabeth and Blue start going out.
This is, however, a Sweet Valley book, and so Jessica's scheme can't fall out the way she planned it. That wouldn't be following the SV formula at all, and then Francine would be forced to have an Yzma fit, and then where would we be? So to keep Francine happy, Elizabeth is extremely irritable at her next surfing lesson. Blue can't figure out what's going on or why she's snapping at him over everything, but he suspects it might be the upcoming competition. Good thing he's jumping to conclusions instead of asking her about it, or we wouldn't have the requisite Big Misunderstanding every other book has.
Elizabeth's next surfing lesson is supposed to be on Monday. So far, I think she's had a lesson every day since they agreed to do them. Do neither of these kids have anything better to do? Well, it seems on Monday, Blue does. Damon reminds him that they're supposed to be doing the bass player auditions after school. At first, Blue says he can't go because of the surfing lesson, but Damon convinces him they all four need to be involved in picking out their new member. I have to admit, this sounds reasonable. I hate being forced to agree with characters who live in Sweet Valley. Blue reluctantly concedes, and figures Elizabeth won't mind too much if he has to miss one lesson, especially if he gets his buddy Rick to fill in for him. All afternoon, the four guys from the band sit at Blue's house and wait for girls to show up for the auditions. Aaaand they wait. Nobody shows up, not even the Susie chick Jessica talked to earlier. Blue, of course, is irritated he missed the surfing lesson with Elizabeth when nobody even showed up.
Hilariously, the other guys blame Blue for the audition turnout; he was the one who made the poster, and he spelled the band name wrong. So of course that's the reason no girls wanted to try out. Yeah. It couldn't be because you guys are lame enough to figure adding a chick will make up for any lack of talent or anything, could it?
Blue meets up with Elizabeth at school the next day, apologetic about missing their lesson the previous day. She's apparently learned to play ice queen from her sister, and Blue awkwardly tries to make conversation while she virtually ignores him. Then she tells him it might be better if Rick takes over the lessons right up until the competition. But she still wants to borrow Blue's special surfboard. And because Blue is apparently a desperate loser, he lets her. That's right ladies and gentlemen, Elizabeth Wakefield just walked all over someone. Paramedics are standing by if anyone should lose consciousness.
The lessons with Rick don't go very smoothly, however. Rick is as uptight as Liz herself, a big change from Blue's laid-back approach. In fact, Rick's teaching methods freak Elizabeth out even more than she already was, and she thinks maybe she made a mistake in switching teachers. So she goes to find Blue (who lives at the beach, literally), but when she finds him, he's talking to Susie. And Susie's pretty! And they're smiling at each other! Oh noes! Elizabeth is upset and takes off without talking to Blue. But she's not jealous or anything. Because she totally doesn't like Blue as anything but a friend. I take back what I said about Elizabeth taking over punching duty from Todd. I need someone to punch Liz out for me. She's just getting more dense as the book goes on, and she wasn't all that bright to begin with.
Of course, in reality Susie was meeting up with Blue to explain why she missed the audition (dentist appointment, if anyone actually cares), and she wants to schedule another time. Blah blah blah. Oh, and as it turns out, she usually plays guitar and not bass, so her rescheduled audition doesn't go so well, and the guys decide they don't need a girl member after all. So it was all pointless and contrived anyway. But at least they didn't have to make up a new club, right?
Elizabeth's surfing lessons with Rick continue to go downhill. Eventually, she gets frustrated enough to quit, both the lessons and the competition. Surfing is supposed to be fun, not work! I can't figure out why she thought entering a competition with so little preparation time wasn't going to be a lot of hard work, but whatever.
Blue shows up at the competition to cheer Elizabeth on. He feels guilty about letting her down (what?) so he doesn't let her know ahead of time he's going. But when he gets there, he can't find her! Thinking something must be wrong, he finds a payphone and calls her at home. She picks up, and her voice sounds odd, so he goes over to talk to her. Of course they all work out their misunderstandings, and Elizabeth realizes Jessica must have gotten Susie involved to make her jealous. Oh, that Jessica! What won't she do? They have a good laugh over the whole thing, and finally, it all clicks for Elizabeth. Maybe she does like Blue as more than a friend.
Seriously. Somebody smack that girl for me.
The B Plot:
Apparently they're running a school Olympics, and Jessica is really looking forward to it. Her friend Kristen is part of the group putting things together, and the whole school is divided into teams, competing against each other in different events. Jessica has been looking forward to the school Olympics for awhile, until Kristen lets it spill that Jessica and Lacey will be on the same team, and Jessica flips. She can't be on the same team as Lacey! DO NOT WANT! So she spends quite awhile trying to figure out how to fix the teams so Lacey is somewhere else. Finally, she remembers her locker partner, Ronald, who is a huge computer geek. She convinces him to hack into the school computers to change the teams around. I'm still not clear as to why he agrees to do this, since Jessica treats him like crap, but I guess she's pretty and blonde and that's good enough. So Jessica is psyched about the Olympics once again. Finally, the day comes when the teachers officially announce the teams; and Lacey and Jessica are on the same team still! Jessica is outraged and slightly confused. She was there when Ronald did the hacking. How did the teams not get changed? Turns out Ronald decided it would be a character building experience for Jessica to have to deal with Lacey, although he did switch himself onto their team so he could play peacemaker.
So... Ronald stuck his nose into someone else's business and did some serious meddling, Elizabeth treated someone like trash and just expected them to deal, and Jessica... well, she was still Jessica. This book was really weird.
Also, I'd like to note that it seems at fourteen, Elizabeth has already started wearing barrettes to match her outfits. And this book was published in 2000. Way to be fashionable, Liz.
The A Plot:
Elizabeth and her crew are having a meeting/brainstorming session for the Zone. They're all trying to come up with new story ideas, but Liz is suffering from writer's block. OH NOES THE HORROR! She can't just come out and admit she doesn't have any new ideas, though, so she stalls by encouraging everyone to goof around until Anna has to leave for drama club, which effectively breaks up the meeting. Elizabeth's shameful secret is safe for another day, and hopefully she can come up with something new before the next meeting, although she's certain she'll be blocked for life. Clearly Liz has never read a book about writing. After the meeting, Blue, the new guy on the Zone staff, catches up with her. Elizabeth thinks he's really cute, and after very little prompting, confesses to him that she hasn't written anything for the next issue and has no new ideas to write about. Blue is very sympathatic, and even helps her come up with a new idea. She can try something totally new, and write about her experience. He then offers to teach her surfing (he, of course, is an expert), and he'll let her use his super special surfboard. Maybe she can even enter the upcoming surfing competition, as an added bonus! This is all sounding vaguely familiar for some strange reason.
Anyway, Liz is all happy to have a new story idea, and to have a supportive friend like Blue. Blue, of course, is all happy to have an excuse to spend extra time with Elizabeth, because he's a male in Sweet Valley and therefore must be madly in love with at least one of the Wakefield twins. When Elizabeth tells Anna all about the story and the surfing lessons, Anna concludes Liz and Blue like each other, but Elizabeth is very firm that it isn't the case. Very firm. Anna is not convinced. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Hee!
Blue and Elizabeth start their lessons. Blue keeps getting distracted from teaching by how cute Liz is. It's all very laid back and they both have a lot of fun. At one point, they get into a tickle fight, which only stops when Jessica comes in and interrupts them. Both Elizabeth and Blue are embarrassed, telling her "it's not what it looks like!" Like Anna, Jessica is not convinced. She immediately starts scheming how to get Elizabeth to admit she likes Blue as more than a friend so they'll start dating. Oddly, there is no ulterior motive in this scheme, she just thinks her sister would be happier that way. I'm confused.
The surfing lesson wraps up, and Blue goes to band rehearsal afterwards (he's started a four-man band called Big Noise with Jessica's boyfriend Daman, Kristen's boyfriend Brian, and Elizabeth's friend Salvador). The guys decide they need to differentiate themselves from all the boy bands out there and start trying to figure out how best to do that. I kind of think they should just work hard and let their music speak for them, but apparently that's not quite what they had in mind. Jessica convinces the guys that a female bass player would be a good way to get noticed, so they decide to hold auditions the following Monday. I was going to ask why Jessica gets to chime in on the band's decisions, since she's not even a member, but then I realized she's a Wakefield and nothing in Sweet Valley can be done without having the approval of at least one twin.
Over the weekend, Elizabeth asks Jessica to take her shopping for a new swimsuit. Something more flattering than her old one, because while you're surfing the important thing is to look good. Jessica smirks, but agrees to take her. As Elizabeth is trying on several billion suits, she briefly wonders which one Blue would like the best. For most people, this would be a good indication that maybe she is feeling a little flirty towards him. Elizabeth, however, is a master of denial and continues to go along her merry little "we're just friends" way. She hurries off to her next surfing lesson with her new suit, and Jessica runs into some random girl from school named Susie. Susie is cute and used to play in a band, so Jessica tells her about the Big Noise auditions, figuring that if someone like Susie is suddenly hanging around Blue a lot, Elizabeth is bound to get jealous and finally realize she likes the guy. Because a brilliant scheme like that could never go horribly, horribly wrong, could it?
The surfing lessons continue to be full of rosy laughter, until Elizabeth is overtaken by a giant wave! Oh noes! Teh drama! But not really, because she's already fine on the next page. But she wasn't scared, because she knew Blue was watching over her. Elizabeth clearly spent too much time with Todd the year before; she's caught his stupidity. Now all she needs is to start punching people, and the transition will be complete.
Elizabeth is getting ready for another surfing lesson. After all, she has a competition to prepare for; it's not like she's just spending all this time with Blue cuz she wants to or anything. Jessica "accidently" lets it drop that Big Noise is auditioning for female bass players, which upsets Elizabeth. I'm actually not sure if it bothers her more that they're looking for a female band member or that Blue didn't tell her about the upcoming auditions. Either way, Jessica is satisfied, since it obviously means she was right about Liz's feelings for Blue. She figures now it's only a matter of time before Elizabeth and Blue start going out.
This is, however, a Sweet Valley book, and so Jessica's scheme can't fall out the way she planned it. That wouldn't be following the SV formula at all, and then Francine would be forced to have an Yzma fit, and then where would we be? So to keep Francine happy, Elizabeth is extremely irritable at her next surfing lesson. Blue can't figure out what's going on or why she's snapping at him over everything, but he suspects it might be the upcoming competition. Good thing he's jumping to conclusions instead of asking her about it, or we wouldn't have the requisite Big Misunderstanding every other book has.
Elizabeth's next surfing lesson is supposed to be on Monday. So far, I think she's had a lesson every day since they agreed to do them. Do neither of these kids have anything better to do? Well, it seems on Monday, Blue does. Damon reminds him that they're supposed to be doing the bass player auditions after school. At first, Blue says he can't go because of the surfing lesson, but Damon convinces him they all four need to be involved in picking out their new member. I have to admit, this sounds reasonable. I hate being forced to agree with characters who live in Sweet Valley. Blue reluctantly concedes, and figures Elizabeth won't mind too much if he has to miss one lesson, especially if he gets his buddy Rick to fill in for him. All afternoon, the four guys from the band sit at Blue's house and wait for girls to show up for the auditions. Aaaand they wait. Nobody shows up, not even the Susie chick Jessica talked to earlier. Blue, of course, is irritated he missed the surfing lesson with Elizabeth when nobody even showed up.
Hilariously, the other guys blame Blue for the audition turnout; he was the one who made the poster, and he spelled the band name wrong. So of course that's the reason no girls wanted to try out. Yeah. It couldn't be because you guys are lame enough to figure adding a chick will make up for any lack of talent or anything, could it?
Blue meets up with Elizabeth at school the next day, apologetic about missing their lesson the previous day. She's apparently learned to play ice queen from her sister, and Blue awkwardly tries to make conversation while she virtually ignores him. Then she tells him it might be better if Rick takes over the lessons right up until the competition. But she still wants to borrow Blue's special surfboard. And because Blue is apparently a desperate loser, he lets her. That's right ladies and gentlemen, Elizabeth Wakefield just walked all over someone. Paramedics are standing by if anyone should lose consciousness.
The lessons with Rick don't go very smoothly, however. Rick is as uptight as Liz herself, a big change from Blue's laid-back approach. In fact, Rick's teaching methods freak Elizabeth out even more than she already was, and she thinks maybe she made a mistake in switching teachers. So she goes to find Blue (who lives at the beach, literally), but when she finds him, he's talking to Susie. And Susie's pretty! And they're smiling at each other! Oh noes! Elizabeth is upset and takes off without talking to Blue. But she's not jealous or anything. Because she totally doesn't like Blue as anything but a friend. I take back what I said about Elizabeth taking over punching duty from Todd. I need someone to punch Liz out for me. She's just getting more dense as the book goes on, and she wasn't all that bright to begin with.
Of course, in reality Susie was meeting up with Blue to explain why she missed the audition (dentist appointment, if anyone actually cares), and she wants to schedule another time. Blah blah blah. Oh, and as it turns out, she usually plays guitar and not bass, so her rescheduled audition doesn't go so well, and the guys decide they don't need a girl member after all. So it was all pointless and contrived anyway. But at least they didn't have to make up a new club, right?
Elizabeth's surfing lessons with Rick continue to go downhill. Eventually, she gets frustrated enough to quit, both the lessons and the competition. Surfing is supposed to be fun, not work! I can't figure out why she thought entering a competition with so little preparation time wasn't going to be a lot of hard work, but whatever.
Blue shows up at the competition to cheer Elizabeth on. He feels guilty about letting her down (what?) so he doesn't let her know ahead of time he's going. But when he gets there, he can't find her! Thinking something must be wrong, he finds a payphone and calls her at home. She picks up, and her voice sounds odd, so he goes over to talk to her. Of course they all work out their misunderstandings, and Elizabeth realizes Jessica must have gotten Susie involved to make her jealous. Oh, that Jessica! What won't she do? They have a good laugh over the whole thing, and finally, it all clicks for Elizabeth. Maybe she does like Blue as more than a friend.
Seriously. Somebody smack that girl for me.
The B Plot:
Apparently they're running a school Olympics, and Jessica is really looking forward to it. Her friend Kristen is part of the group putting things together, and the whole school is divided into teams, competing against each other in different events. Jessica has been looking forward to the school Olympics for awhile, until Kristen lets it spill that Jessica and Lacey will be on the same team, and Jessica flips. She can't be on the same team as Lacey! DO NOT WANT! So she spends quite awhile trying to figure out how to fix the teams so Lacey is somewhere else. Finally, she remembers her locker partner, Ronald, who is a huge computer geek. She convinces him to hack into the school computers to change the teams around. I'm still not clear as to why he agrees to do this, since Jessica treats him like crap, but I guess she's pretty and blonde and that's good enough. So Jessica is psyched about the Olympics once again. Finally, the day comes when the teachers officially announce the teams; and Lacey and Jessica are on the same team still! Jessica is outraged and slightly confused. She was there when Ronald did the hacking. How did the teams not get changed? Turns out Ronald decided it would be a character building experience for Jessica to have to deal with Lacey, although he did switch himself onto their team so he could play peacemaker.
So... Ronald stuck his nose into someone else's business and did some serious meddling, Elizabeth treated someone like trash and just expected them to deal, and Jessica... well, she was still Jessica. This book was really weird.