Sweet Valley High #56: Lost at Sea

I remember reading this book so clearly when I was younger! I even remember it being one of three books my grandma let me pick out from the bookstore when I spent the day with her and I think that it may have been right after the book came out. For some reason I remember being the first one of my friends to own it and read it.

Anyway, a bunch of kids are going on an extra credit field trip for biology, led by Mr. Russo. Jess has decided that she wants Ken Matthew, but only because he’s the best looking, single guy going on the trip. To catch his eye, she wears flip-flops, short-shorts and a strapless shirt. I have no idea why Mr. Russo doesn’t take one look at her and send her home, unless he has a thing for young teenage ass.

She and Ken do a lot of flirting and she figures that she’ll just cozy up to him and make him hers. Instead Russo puts everyone in groups and pairs them with a buddy. Jess ends up with Winston as her buddy, along with Randy Mason and Lois Waller. Winston keeps screwing up their project and just as she’s about to throttle him, it’s time to get back on the boat.

Jess starts flirting with Ken again and he’s about to ask her out when the boat runs into some bad weather and everyone has to escape into life boats. She plans on climbing in a boat with Ken, but Russo demands that they use the buddy system. They get in the boat and Aaron Dallas starts yelling because he and Liz are missing a paddle. Apparently Liz and Enid are also on an extra credit field trip because an A+++ isn’t good enough.

Winston tosses them an extra paddle that he accidentally grabbed and a swell hits the life boat as he’s standing up. The boat capsizes and he and Jess disappear. Jess starts swimming and manages to make it to a deserted island. After a few minutes of moping, she starts strolling around and finds Winston passed out on the beach.

Basically Jess acts like a huge, mega bitch to Winston and I realized this as a 10 year old or however old I was at the time. He goes off and finds fruit and fish, makes a fire and cooks the fish, but she gets pissed at him and blames him for them getting lost. She finally takes some food, but acts like she’s doing him a favor. Then he wants to build a shelter, but she wants to pick flowers…seriously.

Back home everyone is freaking out. Liz thinks it’s shitty of Jess’s friends because they seem to care more about themselves, like Lila gets guilty because she keeps thinking about all the stuff she did to Jess and Amy thinks about how she was almost on the boat. Yet Liz is no worse! She mopes around the house, talking about how she doesn’t know what to do or how to function without her sister.

Liz and Steven form a search party with Nicholas Morrow that takes up like 10-15 pages, but literally doesn’t do anything. They plan the search party, go out and then immediately get called back by the Coast Guard because of a storm. Um, why didn’t the Coast Guard call them back when the first storm hit??

Anyway, Winston decides to make a reflector type thing to attract help and asks Jess to give up her bracelet, but she won’t because it’s *gasp* real gold. They fight some more and he decides to use their one and only knife. Then they go off on a food hunting mission and he leads them up to the top of a cliff where he spots some blueberries. A black bear comes out of nowhere and attacks and Winston drops all the food, which makes him feel bad and take abuse from Jess.

Cut to the Coast Guard spotting them and saving the day. Jessica immediately jumps to the center of attention, talking about how she saved the day, found food, rescued Winston and basically turned into Wonder Woman. Despite the fact that Jessica can’t do shit in the real world, everyone believes her account of what happened and Winston totally goes along with it. Thanks Winston for once again proving that everyone else in the world sucks except for the Wakefield twins.