Let's talk about Sweet Valley High #1: Double Love .
The Plot
Sweet Valley High basketball team captain Todd Wilkins is dreamy as all fuck and the mega-good-looking Wakefield twins, Jessica and Elizabeth, will do just about anything to get their grabby little hands on him. Well, Jessica will, because she doesn't give two fucks about anyone or anything except herself, but Elizabeth — the Hamlet of this particular piece — is too busy dealing with her own fucking persecution complex and trying to solve her problems by crying to do a damn thing about this conflict of interest that is, like, ruining her life.
That's the main plot of Sweet Valley High #1: Double Love, but along the way, we get a high-speed car chase, a bloody, drunken brawl, and a courtroom drama — so this shit ain't just romantical, by a long shot.
Anyway, these are some things that kind of stood out to me in this one:
1) Jessica's first mega-bitch moment happens in the opening pages.
Todd Wilkins (probably the cutest guy in the school) calls to speak to Elizabeth and Jessica acts like she's not home. Then the following exchange occurs:
Elizabeth: Who was that?
Jessica: Oh, just Todd Wilkins. He called to wish me good luck with Beta Pi* today! Wasn't that sweet of him?
This is just a hint of the sociopathic behavior we can come to expect from Ms. J. Wakefield as she lies, cries, and manipulates her way through her sordid, miserable existence. The most worrying revelation, hinted at here, and borne out in the subsequent pages, is not so much that Jessica will never be worthy of a class act like Todd Wilkins, but that she knows it and she doesn't fucking care. She is interested in Todd for one reason and one reason only: to prevent her sister from having a modicum of happiness in her life. The single-mindedness with which she pursues this goal is frankly terrifying.
*Apparently they are rushing for a sorority in high school? Is this a California thing? Or just some shit that Francine Pascal made up because she literally does not give a fuck?
