EvilEva reviews...... Sweet Valley High #18: Head Over Heels by Francine Pascal (although technically written by Kate William.)
Circa: 1985.
Dissecting The Cover:
Because you can judge a book by its cover!
*Ugh. These covers are kinda hard to make fun of because there isn't really anything on them. Just stupid teenagers.
*The stupid teenagers on this cover are Regina Morrow and Bruce Patman. Bruce looks like a huge tool. The look on his face seems to be saying "Damn, I look good. If only Regina were a mirror then I could be embracing my own sexy ass self." And his hair has been totally Vidal Sassooned to within an inch of its life.
*What's up with Bruce's arms? They're like a completely different color than his face. It's like, "Tonight the role of Bruce Patman's arms will be played by Taye Diggs."
*Regina's clothing choice isn't actually that bad. Especially considering it's the 80s.
Lets Review:
Guess what, y'all. Regina Morrow, who is sooo good at reading lips it's almost like she's not even deaf at all, and Bruce Patman, who could die in a fiery plane crash and no one in Sweet Valley would even weep, are totes in love! Which is so cray cray cos Regina is sooo unbelievably nice and Bruce is such a doucheface. But it's true. They are sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g! And everyone in school is totally impressed that Regina was able to "fix" Bruce from his douchetastical ways. Everyone except our girl Jessica Wakefield. Seeing Bruce and Regina all together and happy makes Jess wanna vomit on her chunky black heels. So she hatches a plan to tear the happy couple apart with the added bonus of getting Lila to do her 15 page history paper for her! There's NO WAY this plan can go awry!
How does Jess plan on convincing Regina that Bruce is just no good? Well certainly not by explaining to her how Bruce Patman is. But by doing something completely stupid which would never in a million years break a couple up unless one or both of said couple was a complete idiot. Jessica tells Regina that Bruce is running for some kind of lame-o, made-up presidency and that the only reason he was dating her was so that he could become even more popular and get even more votes and win this lame-o, made-up election. Which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. But Regina can't hear, y'all. So I guess it's all in the inflection that makes this idea sound so dumb because Regina totally buys into it and breaks up with Bruce cos he was using her and also because he didn't tell her he was running for president to begin with.
Jessica wins the bet and probably smirks. So Lila is stuck doing Jessica's history paper in addition to her own. But Lila's no dummy, y'all. She does a half-assed job on Jessica's which gets Jess a D, while Lila gets a B. And Jess is so pissed even though when they made this bet at the beginning of the book I was thinking, "someone's bout to get screwed over." Looks like I was right. Hooray for predictable plotlines!
Anyhoosies, back to the love birds. Regina's family found a doctor in Switzerland that can cure deafness. But Regina would have to go to Switzerland NOW and live there for an entire year. At first, Regina flat out refuses because she can't bear to be away from Bruce and his awesome feathered hair. But then they have that lame-o fight about that lame-o, made-up presidency so, having nothing left to live for, Regina heads off to Switzerland. But not before Elizabeth can meddle. Because Bruce wrote a letter explaining that he would never use Regina and he signed up to run for lame-o, made-up president 5 days ago and he's been dating her for weeks and he loves her with every fiber of his being and that's why he had Liz slip the letter in Regina's suitcase instead of just handing it to her because he wants Regina to go to Switzerland and get cured because he loves her so fucking much. And he'd love for her to finally hear how husky his voice is when he whispers sweet nothings in her ear.
Regina finds the letter while she's on the plane and her heart grew three sizes that day. And she can't wait to get back to Sweet Valley with her new ears in one year so that she can be reunited with Bruce Patman: Love Of Her Life. (Yeah, like Bruce and his boner are gonna wait a whole year for you! Keep dreaming, sister!)
Meanwhile and not really pertaining to the Regina/Bruce situation, Elizabeth is busy bossing her friends around as per usual. The school is having a carnival to raise money for handicapped children and of course, Liz is all up in that Kool Aid. So she stresses the fuck out about A CARNIVAL for the entire fucking book! Liz, calm your ass down. You have a game of just throwing a pie at Winston's face. That alone should sell like gang busters! I don't actually know what gang busters are but evidently they sell really well. Anyway, so Liz acts like a complete OCDiva, the carnival is a success and they raise $800 which isn't even that much money considering that every other student that goes to SVH is a millionaire. Way to do it for the kids, Patmans, Morrows, and Fowlers.
At the carnival, the lame-o, made-up president is announced!
And the winner is..... Bruce Patman!
Because Liz felt so bad about being such a bitch about the whole "Bruce might actually love Regina" thing and she found out that he did indeed love her when he asked Liz to deliver the letter, so Liz got all her friends to pity vote for Bruce. Even though their other friend, Ken, actually wanted to be the lame-o, made-up president and had run unopposed for weeks before Brucey Come Lately decided to throw his name in the mix 5 days before the students are to vote, completely ruining EVERYTHING for poor Ken.
Elizabeth is such a bitch! And so is Bruce!
Say Whaaat!?!:
And the most ridiculous line in the entire book goes to...
It's a three-way tie between Lila, Elizabeth and Bruce.
We'll go with Lila's snarky ass comment about how Regina dresses first:
"Just look at her," Lila seethed, pushing food away in disgust. "She looks ridiculous in that purple dress. You'd think she was color blind, not deaf, the way she dresses."Would we expect anything less from Lila? I think not.
Here's a little inappropriateness, courtesy of Liz describing her fave teacher, local dreamboat, Mr. Collins:
Everyone thought Mr. Collins looked like Robert Redford- strawberry blond hair, blue eyes. And he was still young enough to engage the interest of many of his students.Oh I just bet he does. Is there an SVH book in which Liz and Mr. Collins totally fuck? No. Lets face it, if one of the twins ended up having relations with a teacher, it'd totally be Jessica. Slut!
And I saved the best for last! Please enjoy Bruce describing the dumbest reason to run for president:
"The reason I didn't mention that I was running was that I was going to surprise her if I won. It was just something I wanted to do at the last minute. Because I was so happy to live in Sweet Valley after I met Regina," he added softly. "I wanted to give something back to the town."That is the biggest pile of horse shit I've run into in a long time. I feel like I should send Bruce Patman a fruit basket of some sort for that one. Maybe those where they make the fruit look like flowers!
Circa: 1989.
Dissecting The Cover:
*Olivia has Gene Simmons hair!
*She's also rocking some fairly hideous earrings. They look like capital G's. *gasp* For Gene, perhaps? ;)
*The tagline reads:
Has Olivia met the man of her dreams?No. She's just stupid. And crazy.
Lets Review:
Olivia really wants a boyfriend. Oh what luck! Sweet Valley High has decided to do a two week long workshop and one of the courses is taught by a hottie mctottie artist named Stuart Bachman. And Olivia is instantly in loooooove! After only one day. Stuart is all Olivia thinks about, talks about, dreams about. Yeah. Olivia is now That Girl. You know the one. That Girl that talks about That Guy so obsessively that it makes you wanna rip off your ears and shove 'em down her throat so she can't talk and you can't hear anymore.
Anyhoo, so Olivia is complete crazycakes. She looks up Stuart's address and drives by his house. She calls his phone whilst they're both at school just to hear his voice on his answering machine. And she thinks that after knowing her for like, a week and some change, that he totally found out when her birthday was and is gonna get her an expensive picture frame as a gift.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Enid obsess over Olivia's obsessively obsessing over Stuart.
Anyhoodles, Olivia eventually finds out that she ain't all that, Stuart only loved her painting not her and he had a girlfriend this whole time whose birthday is the same day as Olivia's and he gave her the expensive picture frame and I feel really jipped cos I was expecting some sexytimes inappropriateness and all I got was a butt ugly jumpsuit, a complete nitwit, and an idiotic subplot of how Jessica "built" a lie detector to humiliate Lila in front of all their friends (don't even ask.)
Eventually though, Olivia realizes that some dude her own age named Rod or Rob or something Rod or Robish has had a crush on her for forevs (or at least since the middle of this book) and so she figures he'll do cos she just REALLY wants a boyfriend, y'all.
Say Whaaat!?!:
And the most ridiculous line in the entire book goes to...
I've got two for you this time.
The first is Enid's response to Elizabeth after she basically calls Enid a liar:
"Olivia more or less admitted to me that she has a crush on Stuart. You should have seen how flustered and upset she was!" Elizabeth sighed. "And I've been insisting that you were making it all up!"Iwas really hoping that that was Enid being snide and smart ass-y but sadly enough, I think she's actually being genuine. Ick.
"Well, that's because you're the world's greatest friend, Elizabeth."
The second comes from Liz. This is her reaction to Enid telling her that she thinks Stuart might be leading Olivia on:
Elizabeth's eyes widened. "No way," she protested. "Stuart is nice to Olivia the same way he's nice to everyone. Olivia has a gigantic crush on him, that's for sure. But I don't think for one single second that he feels anything back for her."Not for one single second? Gee, tell us how you really feel, Elizabeth. You're such a fucking bitch!
Bonus Shizz!:
Sweet Valley High is now a board game! Woo-hoo! You can race through the halls of SVH, meet the most popular guys and go on 4 super dream dates! *squeals with delight*
Now lets rock, paper, scissors this bitch to find out who gets to be Jessica!
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