Sweet Valley University #40: Private Jessica

This is another one of those books that I ended up skimming because I didn’t read the one before it so I don’t know how Liz and Tom ended up in New York or how Jess ended up at some random boot camp/bodyguard training camp.

Liz is working on producing her play off-Broadway and is dealing with a bitchy actress who keeps changing lines and doing stuff like walking on crutches and riding a unicycle on stage. Luckily she’s bonded with the hot young actor Vince, who’s working on a play next door, where all the actors go naked.

Tom gets jealous and tries to find a job because he thinks Liz thinks he’s a loser. Apparently Liz wrote a play and it somehow got picked for an actual production in New York, along with two other students. Tom picked up and moved across the country for her, but now she’s getting annoyed because he’s always around. Tom goes on a bunch of interviews and only gets offered one, but turns it down because he doesn’t want to work at a dog magazine.

Look, I’m a writer, I write for a living. We’re not that fucking picky about what we write for. There are professional writers who are lucky to get a job at some crappy investment magazine so he should just suck it up and deal. No one else will hire him and it gets so bad that he tries to work at a comic book store and even the geeks make fun of him.

He finally gets a job working at a sleazy production company, making a tell-all entertainment show, but he lies to Liz because he doesn’t want her to know where he actually works. They film Vince and his cast in the buff and when it broadcasts, she breaks up with him. Then he gets fired because the producer thinks he has too much integrity. Liz goes on one date with Vince and when he tries to kiss her, she realizes that she still loves Tom and runs off.

Jess has to box against her commander, a woman named Pruitt who really hates her. Everyone keeps telling her to back off, but she doesn’t want to look like a wuss when she was one of the few cadets picked for interviews by actual security companies. She finds evidence that some people working for the school have criminal records, but doesn’t know what it means.

During the boxing match, her three roommates put lead weights in her gloves and she wins. She gets called into the head office and the guy in charge tells her that he knows she cheated and he’s expelling her and her roommates for helping. The four girls talk and learn that they were all scholarship students who had to turn over their money to the school.

Jessica decides that she’s going to fly to New York. Liz and Tom make up, but she wants to fly to Miami and check on Jess. They all run into each other at the airport and Liz decides to introduce Jessica to Vince, who just so happens to be there too. Conveniently Liz’s lead actress drops out of her play. What could possibly happen in the next book?