Sweet Valley High: Secrets Chapter 4
Elizabeth, Todd, Enid, and Ronnie are at the movies for a double date (the book points out that “the two couples often double-dated”, even though Elizabeth and Todd have only been dating since the end of the last book and who knows how long ago that was). Todd has observed that something is up:
“What is it with Ronnie and Enid?” Todd asked. “Are they having some kind of a fight?”
Uh oh! Looks like Jessica’s incredibly convoluted plot to get Bruce to fall in love with her by breaking up a completely unrelated couple somehow is underway! How bad is it?
“Did you notice he didn’t hold her hand during the movie? […] Seemed kind of funny”
Oh shit!
Todd and Elizabeth keep things in perspective:
“It’s crazy,” Todd said, shaking his head. “If you love someone, you should trust him. Or her. Seems pretty dumb to get all worked up over nothing when you could be having a good time.”
“Like us, you mean?” Elizabeth leaned close and brushed the side of his neck with her lips.
Again, this is the couple that has only been dating since the end of the last book, after Todd stopped dating Elizabeth’s twin sister Jessica. Also, they’re 16.
Elizabeth goes to the bathroom to see if Enid’s ok, but finds her crying about how Ronnie’s “been acting like a different person all night” and already worrying about the worst possible outcomes:
“You really should talk to him, Enid. It might be something he’s afraid to tell you.”
“Yeah, like he wants to break up, only he’s afraid I won’t give him back his frat pin.”
To be fair, I’m making fun of these characters quite a bit, and primarily for being fairly dated. But even with that, Elizabeth has a healthier perspective on relationships than the characters in basically of the books we’ve read for this blog that have been published this decade:
“To Ronnie, loving someone means absolute faithfulness,” Enid said. “If he suspected for one second that I’d been writing to George, it would be the end. He’d never forgive me.”
Anyone that inflexible didn’t deserve someone as nice as Enid, Elizabeth thought.
After the date, Ronnie makes a detour while driving Enid home…
Ronnie found a place up on Miller’s Point, a favorite Sweet Valley parking spot that overlooked the town. Already there were four or five other cars parked, and judging from the steaminess of their windows, they’d been there awhile.
Ronnie didn’t waste any time.
But, uh, if Ronnie’s trying to end things with Enid… ugh, fuck it. I have a SpongeBob gif for this too.
Ok. Back to discussing character motivation. We’re in the middle of a scene where Ronnie is simultaneously trying to break up with Enid and make out with her more aggressively than usual. Both things.
Enid felt as if her heart were suspended in midair. “What about the dance?”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it. You see, I might have to work for my dad that night. He’s going out of town, and he really needs someone to look after the store.”
Ronnie’s father […] could have called upon any one of half a dozen people to replace him. Ronnie hadn’t even bothered to come up with a halfway decent excuse for dumping her. […] Enid felt herself begin to weaken as Ronnie’s arms tightened around her again, his lips moving against hers with a hard, unrelenting pressure.
Which is apparently a pretty appropriate time to suddenly discuss the latest rumors about a student-teacher affair.
“I can’t believe you haven’t heard. It’s all over school. They’re having an affair.” […]
“Ms. Dalton wouldn’t do a thing like that!”
“How do you know?” Ronnie challenged. “People do crummy things all the time.”
“I just can’t believe she would—”
“Be interested in Ken?” he supplied, sneering. “I would. A lot of people are two-faced, especially when it comes to love.”
If you think that Ronnie’s mental gymnastics are absurd, just keep in mind that his convoluted paranoia is somehow part of Jessica’s convoluted plan to get a boy to like her. Jessica has pieced together a Rube Goldberg machine of sociopathic manipulation. Or just figured out fairly early how predictable teenage male paranoia is. One or the other.
Speaking of the latter, Ronnie’s “I can’t go to the dance with you but I want to make out with you” behavior suddenly gets less contradictory and more, say, representative of predictable male fragility.
He pulled her against him. […] Finally Enid managed to wrench free of his grasp. […]
“What’s the matter?” Ronnie growled. “I don’t rate up there with old Georgie-boy? You’re not going to give me any of the same stuff you’re giving him?”
Enid gasps, asking how he knows about George, but Ronnie sidesteps it with a “what difference does it make?” and the fight begins in earnest! And in “what time period even is this”-ness.
“You’ve been lying to me all along. Acting like Miss Goody Two-Shoes when the truth is you were hot and heavy with George and who knows who else.”
Incidentally, the prose continues to be excellent.
It was as if he’d turned from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde.
Enid puts her foot down, realizing that she doesn’t need Ronnie’s paranoid, unreasonable, alpha male bullshit in her life. Much like when this happened in Fifty Shades Crossfire any Maddox brothers novel no book we’ve read before.
Finally he’d gone too far. Giving a cry of anger, Enid yanked her wrists from his grasp. “OK, if that’s what you want to think! It’s obvious you don’t even care what my side is!”
It might seem like a win-win situation, even if Enid is technically “sad” about losing the boy she “loves”. But Enid realizes there’s a pretty serious implication here.
One thought scuttered through her mind like a rat in a maze, doubling the blow of betrayal she felt: The letters. Liz must have told him about the letters.
Tune in next week to see how Enid fighting with Elizabeth somehow also factors into Jessica’s plan to go to the dance with Bruce. And how people remembering that Elizabeth has a manipulative sociopath twin sister never does.
“And how people remembering that Elizabeth has a manipulative sociopath twin sister never does.”
Yeah seriously. Why doesn’t anyone remember that?
Didn’t book two pick up immediately after book one? And why has Ronnie seen the letter, but no one else? I’m also trying to figure out what Elizabeth has done in her lifetime to have absolutely no one trust her. Everyone just automatically assumes she’s done something horrible all the time, not even bothering to maybe ask her about it (or if they do, they never believe her).
The timeline on these books is insane. I swear in the next couple of books they will talk about a spring dance or something, then suddenly in the following book it’s October.
I have this Sweet Valley High board game from 1988 (despite the fact that I was born in 1991), and this book is really fucking with my perception of it. In the game, you can play as Elizabeth, Jessica, Enid, or Lila, and each character has a scorecard with different items on it (I’d post a picture of them, but I’m not sure it’s possible to post a picture in a comment?), and you have to go all over the board, picking up little item cards from different classrooms, and the goal is to basically collect everything you need for your big date, including a little card with your man on it. Aaaaand a card with a teacher on it. I have NO IDEA why you’re supposed to be bringing your teacher on your date with you, especially since Sweet Valley teachers apparently have torrid affairs with their students?
Anyway, if you think Enid’s got wicked drama in this book, you should know that in the board game, she’s going to a “Surfing Beach Party” with Winston Egbert and Ms. Dalton. Which literally sounds like a smutty fanfic someone would write about this series.
This sounds amazing! Aw man. We would totally have to do a bad board games based on books feature if we still lived in the same country
Wow, seems a bit sad that books from 1980s 1990s are more accurate about portraying abusive relationships and how they look like versus books of today that seem to either romanticize or gloss over the abusiveness part. Wonder why? From your recaps of Pamela, even Samuel Richardson wanted for readers to recognize these types of relationships
I love the use of Spongebob gifs. The “make out reef” one killed me!
I loved Sweet Valley High when I was 10-12, and I reaaaaaaaally hope you guys go until at least book 6. Things get pretty fucking ridiculous.
We haven’t gotten bored of it yet! Currently our plans are to keep it on the backburner as a palate cleanser whenever we finish something long and grueling like Grey. I’m looking forward to book 6 now!
Is 6 the motorcycle accident?? That book was HILARIOUS!!