Sweet Valley High #49 Playing for Keeps
The best part of this book is how the whole story basically ridicules Elizabeth.
AJ Morgan is an army brat from Atlanta who just moved to Sweet Valley, capturing Jess’s heart (loins) in the process. The problem is that he likes girls that are less whorish then Jessica, and she assumes that that means he would like Liz’s personality better. She decides that to win AJ over she is going to act exactly the way (she thinks) Elizabeth would act.
This is how Jessica imitates Elizabeth’s personality:
She wears a conservative blue tank suit to the beach.
She talks about ocean waves coming from Japan. Or China. She’s not sure.
She makes AJ go to the library with her and, while there, recites Whitman poems out loud.
She wears ponytails.
She wears Bermuda shorts.
She writes AJ a love poem.
She says she’s serious because she thinks about nuclear war a lot.
She makes AJ go bird-watching. She tells him she’s really into
"green-crested pod-eaters."
She tells AJ she’s thinking about joining the Peace Corps because she’s "definitely for peace."
She talks about how big the universe is. It’s big.
AJ is glad Jessica isn’t a whore (HA!), but he also thinks she’s incredibly lame.Then, one boring day when Jessica and AJ are jogging on the beach, AJ rescues a "voluptuous brunette in a red bikini." Her name is Pamela Janson. She is a whore. But a rich, beautiful whore. And that’s a hell of a lot more fun then boring Jessica (Elizabeth). And now Pamela wants AJ. So she invites him over to her enormous beach house, and tries to seduce him with soft jazz, booze and a hot tub. Sounds good to me. It sounds good to AJ too, but then he decides that it might lead to sex and nobody is allowed to have sex in Sweet Valley. So he goes home with a soda.
Meanwhile, Lisette’s is having a fashion contest and the winner will get an entire wardrobe of Nadine originals. That’s good, I guess. Lila Fowler won’t enter because she already has everything in Lisette’s, and all of Nadine’s clothes make Amy Sutton look fat. So they want Jess to enter. But Jessica is supposed to be shy and boring, like Elizabeth! Dilemma! But then Jessica finds out that AJ had a Pepsi at Pamela’s house and she’s pissed off enough to enter the contest. When Jessica, Lila, and Amy go to Lisette’s to sign Jess up for the fashion show they run into Pamela and she and Lila almost have a Dynasty-style showdown in the fitting rooms and it is fabulous. Pamela decides to sign up for the contest too, and now IT IS ON.
On the day of the show Amy and Lila go with Jessica to be her backstage beauticians and wardrobe girls. Everything goes fine until Pamela accidentally snags Jess’s knit dress with her watch so that there’s a huge loop of yarn hanging off the back of her dress. Jessica overcomes fashion challenge #1 by dancing backwards on the catwalk and never turning around. Then Jessica has to wear a (denim) dress that has two zippers going all the way up the sides (how awesomely 80’s)- but Pamela has twisted the teeth of the zippers and now they gap open and will expose Jessica’s smooth Barbie bits to the whole world! Jess overcomes fashion challenge #2 by putting on a wide leather belt so that the gaps look cool, not porn-y. Jessica’s final outfit is a bikini and Pamela tries to sabotage her by…throwing water on her. On a swimsuit? That’s it? Oh Pamela, I expected more from you. Still, Jessica’s had enough and she and Pamela get into a screaming match behind the runway curtain. While Jessica is smacking Pamela down Lila opens the curtain to reveal Jessica soaking wet in a bikini with "drops of water glittering in her hair like diamonds, bouncing a halo of rainbows all around her every time she moved her head."
Magical! Jess wins and Lila rocks. The best part of this book is how awesome Lila and Amy are with Jessica. They actually act like best buds who have each others backs. Oh, and AJ forgives hot, bitchy, glittering Jessica for trying to be like boring Elizabeth.
A Poem by Jessica Wakefield
Time is a grinding wheel of merciless pain
We are trapped in our lives
Until the hour of our deaths
But love breaks our chains and let’s us fly
Into the universe
Where everything is real and alive
Forever
Best Quotes:
-After dinner Elizabeth went up to her room to practice her recorder.
-There was no denying that Pamela was a gorgeous, sexy girl who obviously seemed to like [AJ]. But on the other hand, there was Jessica.
-"Jessica buys all of her clothes [at Lisette’s]," Lila said haughtily. "Isn’t that nice." Pamela voice was frankly disbelieving. "The sales rack is over there."
-Lila turned to Amy and said "I was talking to AJ Morgan the other day. He said he met a girl on the beach with an ego the size of Utah, "she confided loudly. "And a butt to match."
-"Jess, please stop acting that way around AJ." "What way?" Jessica prompted. "You know, spineless, weak, like a complete dullard." Jessica met her twin’s eyes and said," I’m only acting the way you do."
-"Jess, Nadine is here," hissed Lila. "That’s her in the red flight-suit thing."