SVH #114: "V" For Victory, Chapters 1-4
Hi guys! This is my first recap, so take mercy on me! I just discovered this community earlier this week and I've spent lots of hours already reading endless recaps of all my favorite SV books, and some I never read (I just read the recap of the Daniella Fromage/Magenta Galaxy SVH book - can't believe I missed that one!). I hope it's okay that I recap this book, someone requested it in the request thread and I claimed it. The cheerleading miniseries is probably one of my favorite miniseries and this book was the best one. I'm very long winded so I'll do this in at least 2, maybe 3 parts.
Let the recapping begin :)
I got this picture off an EBay auction for this book. It's a pretty boring picture. I guess that's the back of Jessica, although it just as easily could have been Elizabeth or possibly Heather. Whoever it is, is a moron for not having her hair pulled back, so I figure it's Jessica. Past Jess you can see the squad practicing a pyramid, and the sign screams "NATIONAL CHEERLEADERS CHAMPIONSHIP" which seems awkwardly worded to me but whatever.
The A&B plots pretty much intersect halfway through the book so I won't bother splitting them up.
The book opens with the SVH cheerleading squad at the CA State Championships waiting to find out if they won the state title. Amy Sutton, with her slate-gray eyes flashing with excitement, laments that she's going to explode with nervousness.
The state representative of the ACA, Ms. Knox, finally gets up there and announces that Sacremento came in third, and Laguna Beach in second. Jessica is excited and sure they're going to win, but Lila couldn't give a rat's ass. Jessica takes a moment to consider that Lila only joined the squad because she's Jess's best friend, and that she thinks cheerleading is boring and useless.
Finally, Ms. Knox announces that SVH is the number one cheerleading squad in California. The crowd roars as the SVH squad heads up to the podium, and naturally Heather shoves past Jessica so she can get to the podium first. Heather accepts the trophy and Jessica boils in jealousy and anger. Heather first says, "I just want to thank everybody on my squad for all their hard work," pissing Jessica off even more. She bitches to Amy about it but Amy basically tells her to shut up. Heather refers to the squad a couple more times as "her" squad. Jessica starts to move forward to make her own speech when the crowd begins to demand a combo jump from Heather. Heather obliges, and Jessica, still furious, slips away from the crowd, and no one notices that she left.
Jessica goes into a deserted gym to reflect on the recent cheerleading events in her life, and we're treated to a four page recap of the last two books - Heather takes over the squad, Jess quits and forms her own squad, and the two squads merge together to go to state. Meanwhile Jess has started dating Ken Matthews and everything was going great, till Jess finds out Liz had a fling with Ken when Todd was living in Vermont. She uses this info to blackmail Elizabeth into being on her squad. Meanwhile Liz is having conflicting feelings about Ken, so she goes on a date with him pretending to be Jess. Ken kisses her and realizes she's not Jess at the same time Liz decides she doesn't care about Ken after all. However Jess and Todd find out everything and are furious. Jess wonders, "How could Elizabeth have betrayed her like that? How could Ken confuse them?" Gee, I dunno, Jess. Maybe because you're.... identical? It's not exactly the first time people have confused them or the first time one of you has pulled a twin switch.
The POV switches to Liz, who did see Jessica run off the field and is concerned but doesn't follow since Jess is mad at her. The girls celebrate and carry Heather off, and then remember Jessica and, confusing Liz for Jess, grab her and carry her off. Elizabeth is at a loss as for how they confused them because although they look just alike they're completely different people. Liz considers that she HAS been acting more like Jessica lately, with the twin switch on the date with Ken and all. haha. Elizabeth's ride of victory finally ends, and Jessica is back and has seen Elizabeth "pretending" to be Jessica again. She's furious and snaps at Liz, "What's wrong, Liz? It's not enough to steal my boyfriend, but you've got to steal my glory too?" Elizabeth tries to explain but Jess stomps off.
The scene switches to breakfast on Monday morning (the championship was on Saturday) and Elizabeth is having breakfast with her parents. They try to get details out of her about the competition, but Liz isn't saying much. Ned calls it "quite an accomplishment," and Liz says winning a Pulitzer Prize is an accomplishment but cheerleading is stupid. Alice admonishes her and Liz gets teary and apologizes.
Jessica comes in looking striking in a "floral print teal baby doll dress that brought out the sparkle in her blue green eyes and accentuated her honey-blond hair." Jess leaves Elizabeth there, so Liz has to bum a ride from Alice to get to school.
There is a scene at the Oracle office, where Liz is rushing to finish an article and get on to cheerleading practice. Liz crashes into Mr. Collins on the way out of the office, and apologizes, but Mr. Collins says "No harm done." Yeah, I'm sure. Mr. Collins asks her to write an article about the cheerleading victory at State and get it done that afternoon. Liz is less than thrilled and sits down at the computer. 45 minutes later she has only managed to get the bare facts down. She gives up, titles the piece "V for Victory" and begs Penny Ayala to finish it and spice it up a bit because she's late for practice. Of course Penny agrees and Liz rushes off to practice.
Elizabeth laments that she never seems to get anything right these days as she changes into her cheerleading attire. She was unable to finish an article (that Mr. Collins sprung on her at the last possible minute) and now she's over an hour late for practice. When she gets to the gym the girls hadn't started. Jessica insinuates that they haven't started because they were waiting on Liz, but Maria tells her it was because Jess and Heather were fighting over costumes.
Jessica has a list of all the teams participating in nationals, and Heather rips it out of her hands. Turns out Heather's old team in Reno, Nevada are going to be there. Heather snaps at Jessica and Amy, surprising Liz as Heather usually acts so sweet to cover her real motives. Heather is obviously rattled to see that her old team will be there.
The scene switches to Amy and Lila at the Dairi Burger. They bitch about Jessica and Heather being so competitive as they look around and realize the Dairi Burger is very busy. Apparently Jessica, Liz, Todd, and Ken all got there at the same time and play musical tables. Jessica and Liz grab the same booth by mistake and quickly jump up to get another table. Todd and Ken do the same thing. Then Jess and Ken accidentally end up at the same table as do Todd and Liz. Eventually they all end up at separate tables, taking up the last 4 available tables in the restaurant. The scene is actually kind of funny.
Heather shows up too and goes to sit with Jessica, snidely pointing out that the Wakefields, et. al. have taken over the restaurant. Annie, Lila, and Amy sit down with her too. Annie comments on how they are going to be competing against Heather's old squad, and how they must not be any good without Heather anymore. Heather gets uncomfortable and awkward and makes an excuse to leave. Jessica is shocked that Heather missed an opportunity to brag, and comments Heather must have a fever. Haha.
Later that evening Liz decides she is going to explain what happened to Jess and make her listen. Jessica is gracious enough to give her five minutes. Again Liz tells Jess that she just wanted closure on her relationship with Ken and begs Jess to believe her that she wasn't trying to steal her boyfriend, and that she found out she has no feelings for Ken after all. Jess then yells at Liz and says that Liz just wanted to get her back for blackmailing her by stealing her boyfriend.
Liz is shocked that Jessica doesn't believe her. At first she's hurt but then becomes angry. After all, Liz forgave Jess for blackmailing her so Jessica should forgive Liz for this. Liz decides she isn't going to beg for forgiveness anymore. Jessica says she's not speaking to Liz, Liz says that's fine because she's not speaking to her either. Should be easy then, right?
Now it's the next day at cheerleading practice. It is 3 days till Nationals, and Jess says she and Heather have decided on their best cheers and routines. They practice one called Funky Monkey. Jess realizes Heather isn't practicing with them, and Heather announces that she thinks they should learn all new cheers and routines for nationals. Right - in 3 days?? They fight about it and Liz suggests taking a vote, which annoys Jess. They vote and it's a tie, so it's decided that they'll do half old routines, half new ones. Heather shows them a new cheer she came up with called the Mambo Jamba.
Liz runs into Todd after practice and tries again to explain what happened with Ken, but Todd refuses to accept her explanation and apology. He stalks off and Liz is devastated that she's lost the only boy she could ever love. You know, except for all the other ten thousand boys she's fallen in love with in the past 113 books. Elizabeth has cried twice now and we're only on page 40.
Thursday at practice Jess and Heather argue over which routine to do at the grand finale. Then they argue over which costumes to use. Jess wants to use costumes that are like normal cheerleading uniforms but they came with full body unitards. Heather wants to use one that has a tiny Lycra half tops and miniskirts that fell at the hip. I think if anyone but Heather had shown them, Jess would've loved them, but as it is, she hates them. The squad votes in favor of Heather's costumes, and Jessica pissily stalks off.
Ken sees Jessica and runs after her. He catches up to her and Jess looks at him, her eyes a "stony blue." Not the color of the Pacific Ocean?! Man, she must be angry! She snaps at him, "If you're looking for Elizabeth, she's still at practice," and then walks away. BURN!
Friday they're having an assembly so the school and Chrome Dome Cooper can send them off in style to Nationals. Mr. Cooper turns the mike over to Ken, who praises the cheerleaders and Jessica specifically, and doesn't mention Heather, which delights Jessica. Ken puts a bunch of red roses down on the podium and says they're from the football team to the cheerleaders. Before Jessica can move, Heather runs up there, gathers up the roses and thanks everyone for their support. Jessica runs up and practically shoves Heather out of the way and yells into the mike about how SVH is so great, blah blah blah. I love this rivalry between Jess and Heather. They're so much alike it's hilarious.
The squad does a performance of their new hip-hop routine, and then Heather finishes it with an unplanned super combination jump - a series of one armed cartwheels followed by a no hand backflip. Jessica then does her own jump, a trojan jump combination ending with a landing in the splits. Amy and Lila bitch about how stupid they are.
After the assembly, the girls head to the bus, which the squad had decorated the night before in psychedelic colors and wild abstract designs. I kind of picture it looking like this. Liz sees Todd there but forces herself not to go talk to him, remembering how he'd rejected her.
After the bus pulls away, Todd and Ken find themselves face to face and Todd Punch is overcome with rage. He shoves Ken away from him and Ken shoves him back. Todd screams for Ken to keep his hands off him and his girlfriend. What girlfriend, Punch? You refused to talk to her. Todd tries to hit Ken in the face but Ken wards off the blow and attempts to punch Todd in the stomach. At this point there's a crowd around them and Bruce Patman yells, "The Wakefield girls aren't worth all this trouble!" Simultaneously Ken and Todd charge at Bruce like "enraged bulls." ROFLMAO!! That brings such a great image to mind. Mr. Collins comes along and breaks up the fight and takes Todd and Ken to Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Cooper lets out some great overdramatic lines and threatens to expel them before letting them off with a week of detention. As they leave, the boys bust out laughing and make fun of how overdramatic reaction to the fight. Suddenly they remember they're mad at each other and stop laughing. Ken apologizes again and now Todd is all forgiving and the whole fight between the two is resolved in a page. They decide that they have to get back together with their girlfriends as now I guess Todd doesn't care anymore that Liz cheated on him again. They realize that they can't do anything with the girls in Yosemite for Nationals, so they decide they're going on a road trip. Because this clearly can't wait until the girls get back Sunday despite the fact that it's already been going on for over a week.
I'll post the next part soon but this is long enough for 4 chapters... and my hands are aching. The really good stuff is coming up in the later chapters. I hope you guys enjoyed!
See part two here.
Let the recapping begin :)
I got this picture off an EBay auction for this book. It's a pretty boring picture. I guess that's the back of Jessica, although it just as easily could have been Elizabeth or possibly Heather. Whoever it is, is a moron for not having her hair pulled back, so I figure it's Jessica. Past Jess you can see the squad practicing a pyramid, and the sign screams "NATIONAL CHEERLEADERS CHAMPIONSHIP" which seems awkwardly worded to me but whatever.
The A&B plots pretty much intersect halfway through the book so I won't bother splitting them up.
The book opens with the SVH cheerleading squad at the CA State Championships waiting to find out if they won the state title. Amy Sutton, with her slate-gray eyes flashing with excitement, laments that she's going to explode with nervousness.
The state representative of the ACA, Ms. Knox, finally gets up there and announces that Sacremento came in third, and Laguna Beach in second. Jessica is excited and sure they're going to win, but Lila couldn't give a rat's ass. Jessica takes a moment to consider that Lila only joined the squad because she's Jess's best friend, and that she thinks cheerleading is boring and useless.
Finally, Ms. Knox announces that SVH is the number one cheerleading squad in California. The crowd roars as the SVH squad heads up to the podium, and naturally Heather shoves past Jessica so she can get to the podium first. Heather accepts the trophy and Jessica boils in jealousy and anger. Heather first says, "I just want to thank everybody on my squad for all their hard work," pissing Jessica off even more. She bitches to Amy about it but Amy basically tells her to shut up. Heather refers to the squad a couple more times as "her" squad. Jessica starts to move forward to make her own speech when the crowd begins to demand a combo jump from Heather. Heather obliges, and Jessica, still furious, slips away from the crowd, and no one notices that she left.
Jessica goes into a deserted gym to reflect on the recent cheerleading events in her life, and we're treated to a four page recap of the last two books - Heather takes over the squad, Jess quits and forms her own squad, and the two squads merge together to go to state. Meanwhile Jess has started dating Ken Matthews and everything was going great, till Jess finds out Liz had a fling with Ken when Todd was living in Vermont. She uses this info to blackmail Elizabeth into being on her squad. Meanwhile Liz is having conflicting feelings about Ken, so she goes on a date with him pretending to be Jess. Ken kisses her and realizes she's not Jess at the same time Liz decides she doesn't care about Ken after all. However Jess and Todd find out everything and are furious. Jess wonders, "How could Elizabeth have betrayed her like that? How could Ken confuse them?" Gee, I dunno, Jess. Maybe because you're.... identical? It's not exactly the first time people have confused them or the first time one of you has pulled a twin switch.
The POV switches to Liz, who did see Jessica run off the field and is concerned but doesn't follow since Jess is mad at her. The girls celebrate and carry Heather off, and then remember Jessica and, confusing Liz for Jess, grab her and carry her off. Elizabeth is at a loss as for how they confused them because although they look just alike they're completely different people. Liz considers that she HAS been acting more like Jessica lately, with the twin switch on the date with Ken and all. haha. Elizabeth's ride of victory finally ends, and Jessica is back and has seen Elizabeth "pretending" to be Jessica again. She's furious and snaps at Liz, "What's wrong, Liz? It's not enough to steal my boyfriend, but you've got to steal my glory too?" Elizabeth tries to explain but Jess stomps off.
The scene switches to breakfast on Monday morning (the championship was on Saturday) and Elizabeth is having breakfast with her parents. They try to get details out of her about the competition, but Liz isn't saying much. Ned calls it "quite an accomplishment," and Liz says winning a Pulitzer Prize is an accomplishment but cheerleading is stupid. Alice admonishes her and Liz gets teary and apologizes.
Jessica comes in looking striking in a "floral print teal baby doll dress that brought out the sparkle in her blue green eyes and accentuated her honey-blond hair." Jess leaves Elizabeth there, so Liz has to bum a ride from Alice to get to school.
There is a scene at the Oracle office, where Liz is rushing to finish an article and get on to cheerleading practice. Liz crashes into Mr. Collins on the way out of the office, and apologizes, but Mr. Collins says "No harm done." Yeah, I'm sure. Mr. Collins asks her to write an article about the cheerleading victory at State and get it done that afternoon. Liz is less than thrilled and sits down at the computer. 45 minutes later she has only managed to get the bare facts down. She gives up, titles the piece "V for Victory" and begs Penny Ayala to finish it and spice it up a bit because she's late for practice. Of course Penny agrees and Liz rushes off to practice.
Elizabeth laments that she never seems to get anything right these days as she changes into her cheerleading attire. She was unable to finish an article (that Mr. Collins sprung on her at the last possible minute) and now she's over an hour late for practice. When she gets to the gym the girls hadn't started. Jessica insinuates that they haven't started because they were waiting on Liz, but Maria tells her it was because Jess and Heather were fighting over costumes.
Jessica has a list of all the teams participating in nationals, and Heather rips it out of her hands. Turns out Heather's old team in Reno, Nevada are going to be there. Heather snaps at Jessica and Amy, surprising Liz as Heather usually acts so sweet to cover her real motives. Heather is obviously rattled to see that her old team will be there.
The scene switches to Amy and Lila at the Dairi Burger. They bitch about Jessica and Heather being so competitive as they look around and realize the Dairi Burger is very busy. Apparently Jessica, Liz, Todd, and Ken all got there at the same time and play musical tables. Jessica and Liz grab the same booth by mistake and quickly jump up to get another table. Todd and Ken do the same thing. Then Jess and Ken accidentally end up at the same table as do Todd and Liz. Eventually they all end up at separate tables, taking up the last 4 available tables in the restaurant. The scene is actually kind of funny.
Heather shows up too and goes to sit with Jessica, snidely pointing out that the Wakefields, et. al. have taken over the restaurant. Annie, Lila, and Amy sit down with her too. Annie comments on how they are going to be competing against Heather's old squad, and how they must not be any good without Heather anymore. Heather gets uncomfortable and awkward and makes an excuse to leave. Jessica is shocked that Heather missed an opportunity to brag, and comments Heather must have a fever. Haha.
Later that evening Liz decides she is going to explain what happened to Jess and make her listen. Jessica is gracious enough to give her five minutes. Again Liz tells Jess that she just wanted closure on her relationship with Ken and begs Jess to believe her that she wasn't trying to steal her boyfriend, and that she found out she has no feelings for Ken after all. Jess then yells at Liz and says that Liz just wanted to get her back for blackmailing her by stealing her boyfriend.
Liz is shocked that Jessica doesn't believe her. At first she's hurt but then becomes angry. After all, Liz forgave Jess for blackmailing her so Jessica should forgive Liz for this. Liz decides she isn't going to beg for forgiveness anymore. Jessica says she's not speaking to Liz, Liz says that's fine because she's not speaking to her either. Should be easy then, right?
Now it's the next day at cheerleading practice. It is 3 days till Nationals, and Jess says she and Heather have decided on their best cheers and routines. They practice one called Funky Monkey. Jess realizes Heather isn't practicing with them, and Heather announces that she thinks they should learn all new cheers and routines for nationals. Right - in 3 days?? They fight about it and Liz suggests taking a vote, which annoys Jess. They vote and it's a tie, so it's decided that they'll do half old routines, half new ones. Heather shows them a new cheer she came up with called the Mambo Jamba.
Liz runs into Todd after practice and tries again to explain what happened with Ken, but Todd refuses to accept her explanation and apology. He stalks off and Liz is devastated that she's lost the only boy she could ever love. You know, except for all the other ten thousand boys she's fallen in love with in the past 113 books. Elizabeth has cried twice now and we're only on page 40.
Thursday at practice Jess and Heather argue over which routine to do at the grand finale. Then they argue over which costumes to use. Jess wants to use costumes that are like normal cheerleading uniforms but they came with full body unitards. Heather wants to use one that has a tiny Lycra half tops and miniskirts that fell at the hip. I think if anyone but Heather had shown them, Jess would've loved them, but as it is, she hates them. The squad votes in favor of Heather's costumes, and Jessica pissily stalks off.
Ken sees Jessica and runs after her. He catches up to her and Jess looks at him, her eyes a "stony blue." Not the color of the Pacific Ocean?! Man, she must be angry! She snaps at him, "If you're looking for Elizabeth, she's still at practice," and then walks away. BURN!
Friday they're having an assembly so the school and Chrome Dome Cooper can send them off in style to Nationals. Mr. Cooper turns the mike over to Ken, who praises the cheerleaders and Jessica specifically, and doesn't mention Heather, which delights Jessica. Ken puts a bunch of red roses down on the podium and says they're from the football team to the cheerleaders. Before Jessica can move, Heather runs up there, gathers up the roses and thanks everyone for their support. Jessica runs up and practically shoves Heather out of the way and yells into the mike about how SVH is so great, blah blah blah. I love this rivalry between Jess and Heather. They're so much alike it's hilarious.
The squad does a performance of their new hip-hop routine, and then Heather finishes it with an unplanned super combination jump - a series of one armed cartwheels followed by a no hand backflip. Jessica then does her own jump, a trojan jump combination ending with a landing in the splits. Amy and Lila bitch about how stupid they are.
After the assembly, the girls head to the bus, which the squad had decorated the night before in psychedelic colors and wild abstract designs. I kind of picture it looking like this. Liz sees Todd there but forces herself not to go talk to him, remembering how he'd rejected her.
After the bus pulls away, Todd and Ken find themselves face to face and Todd Punch is overcome with rage. He shoves Ken away from him and Ken shoves him back. Todd screams for Ken to keep his hands off him and his girlfriend. What girlfriend, Punch? You refused to talk to her. Todd tries to hit Ken in the face but Ken wards off the blow and attempts to punch Todd in the stomach. At this point there's a crowd around them and Bruce Patman yells, "The Wakefield girls aren't worth all this trouble!" Simultaneously Ken and Todd charge at Bruce like "enraged bulls." ROFLMAO!! That brings such a great image to mind. Mr. Collins comes along and breaks up the fight and takes Todd and Ken to Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Cooper lets out some great overdramatic lines and threatens to expel them before letting them off with a week of detention. As they leave, the boys bust out laughing and make fun of how overdramatic reaction to the fight. Suddenly they remember they're mad at each other and stop laughing. Ken apologizes again and now Todd is all forgiving and the whole fight between the two is resolved in a page. They decide that they have to get back together with their girlfriends as now I guess Todd doesn't care anymore that Liz cheated on him again. They realize that they can't do anything with the girls in Yosemite for Nationals, so they decide they're going on a road trip. Because this clearly can't wait until the girls get back Sunday despite the fact that it's already been going on for over a week.
I'll post the next part soon but this is long enough for 4 chapters... and my hands are aching. The really good stuff is coming up in the later chapters. I hope you guys enjoyed!
See part two here.