Sweet Valley University #9: Sorority Scandal

The two big storylines in this book deal with Jess and Liz. The Thetas agree to let Jessica pledge again, but only if she steals a book from Professor Marin. It turns out that Liz is actually working with Marin, but doesn’t get that he’s a total pervert. He keeps making comments about her looks, giving her lingering glances and touching her, but she thinks he’s just friendly.

Jessica goes to steal the book, but is intercepted by the campus police force. They got an anonymous tip and were waiting in the office for her. She’s arrested and the Thetas push her away. They agree to keep what happened a secret, but tell her to stay away while they deal with it. Alison Quinn takes over once again and basically tells everyone what to do and the president goes along with it. Alison says that Jessica can’t be seen with anyone from the sorority.

Liz goes to Marin and asks him to drop the charges against Jessica, but he refuses. He then makes some inappropriate comments and touches Liz’s hair and cheek. Gasp, the horrors! Doesn’t he know those parts are reserved for her husband and only her husband? She runs back to the dorm and cries over the whole thing because she feels “dirty” and “stupid”.

I am so hating this story right now. Liz basically acts like Professor Marin dry humped her over the desk, when all he did was touch her cheek and the back of her head. Granted he was coming onto her, but it’s not like he did it in a bad way. There’s a lot worse he could have done.

Anyway, she tells Jessica what happened and then keeps changing the subject because she doesn’t want Tom to know what happened. Liz gets Jessica a lawyer because Jess won’t do it for herself. She keeps saying that the Theta house will help her, even when they make it clear that they won’t do squat and after she learns that someone from the house is passing around stories about what happened.

Jessica decides that the best thing to do is blackmail Professor Marin. There are 800 other things she could do, but this is the only one she considers and the only one that comes to mind. She dresses up like Liz and puts a tape recorder in her backpack. She asks the professor if he thinks students and teachers can date and basically gets him on tape asking her out and coming onto her.

Then he kind of chases her around the office and she confesses that she taped the whole thing. He demands the tape and tries to grab her, but she runs outside where she conveniently runs into her chemistry professor. She tells Marin that unless he drops the charges, she’ll play the tape over the loud speaker.

So she goes back to the dorm room, where Liz has just finished telling Tom what happened with the professor. Jess tells them not to worry because the charges were dropped. Liz pushes the subject and then realizes that Jess is wearing her clothes. She suddenly realizes that her twin put herself on the line and that Marin “did something” to her. It’s really lame because they actually act like her kind of date raped her or something.

Anyway, Jess doesn’t want Tom to hear the tape because the professor thought he was talking to Liz, but Liz lets him hear it. They hear the most tame part of the conversation, things like him saying that Liz is a good looking girl and Tom wants to rip his head off. They decide to make a copy of the tape and keep both of the tapes in separate places, hidden away. Tom is convinced that Marin will comes after them, but I can safely say that this storyline is officially over.

Oh and Liz finds out that Jessica was setup by someone in the Theta house. She goes to campus security and pretends that she’s doing a story on the effectiveness of the department and some moron hands over the records. It turns out that Alison did it, no surprise there, but Jessica has no proof so there’s nothing the sorority can do. They do agree to let her pledge again and she acts all excited, but really, is pledging that big of a deal? It’s not like they gave her a place in the sorority or let her skip all the lame stuff.

There’s also a story about Winston and Denise. Denise makes him go rollerblading even though he doesn’t want to and he ends up running into a tree and breaking his arm. All the girls in their dorm feel bad for him and start comforting him, which pisses her off. She sees one of the girls kissing him on the cheek and pitches a Jessica-style tantrum. They make up and she tells him that she just has to deal with other women finding him attractive. Uh, ok?