Sweet Valley University Thriller Edition: The Roommate

Let’s just call this one Single White Female: SVU. I think the ghostwriter watched that movie and still had it fresh in their mind because I swear entire scenes and quotes from the book, came right from the movie.

Isabelle and Danny are celebrating her birthday, when he gets her alone and pulls out a ring box. Seeing a diamond ring inside, she immediately tells him that she’ll marry him. Oopsie, he’s not proposing. He just wants her to have his family heirloom ring. This is really lame Danny, really lame. He literally gets all romantic with her, gives her a diamond ring and then doesn’t want to marry her.

Isabelle then bonds with Jessica, talking about how she doesn’t have a whole lot of money. Her parents paid for a two-bedroom apartment off-campus and now won’t/can’t help her with any other bills. They go to some beauty school for free haircuts. Jess wimps out, but Izzy goes through it, only to end up with a short hairstyle that she doesn’t exactly love. To cap it all off, she wrecks her car and has to come up with the money to pay the repair bill.

She decides that the best bet is to get a roommate. Since her parents paid the rent, everything her roomie pays is pure profit. A total group of losers comes parading through her door, until in walks Lisa. Lisa is shy and quiet, but she helps her repair her coffee maker and says she’s good with things like that. Isabelle offers her a room on the spot. Yeah, just like in Single White Female.

We also have Jessica dating a new hot piece of ass. Josh just transferred from UCLA and he’s super cute. She’s suddenly worried about losing him to another girl, so she won’t introduce him to any of her friends. She does take him out with Tom and Liz, but gets moderately bored when he expresses an interest in the campus news station because, you know, it’s not about her.

Lisa seems like a fairly okay roommate, except that she’s all hush-hush about her past. Izzy knows people who went to her school, but Lisa doesn’t know them. She also can’t answer simple questions about New York. Isabelle picks up a wood box of hers and Lisa freaks out, yelling at her not to touch it. Isabelle starts talking about her concerns with Lisa, but it’s all lame stuff. She’s concerned because her roommate wanted to keep a nasty basement rat as a pet, she’s too quiet and she doesn’t do anything.

Isabelle decides to take her new roommate shopping, to get her some new clothes. She notices that with the right makeup and clothing, her roommate actually looks *gasp* good. Of course, this symbolizes the end for their friendship.

Danny comes over to the apartment and brings Izzy yet another gift. Maybe he wants to not propose again? Oh no, wait it’s just a kitten. A cute little black and white kitten that Lisa wants to name Rosie. The kicker is that he brings it over, right before they go out on a date. Isabelle asks Lisa to watch the cat for the night. Me, I’d be making Danny take me to a late night pet store to stock up on food and then we’d spend all night playing with my new kitty.

Lisa makes Izzy lunch and deletes a message from Danny, which makes her upset because he blew her off when they made plans. He gets mad too, thinking that she blew him off. They meet up with Jessica and Lisa shows her true colors, by going off on a waitress for not paying attention to her, but they all think it’s acceptable. Then Josh shows up and Jessica turns green. Turns out that they were high schools sweethearts.

I’m already tired of reviewing this book so let’s just get on with it. Lisa keeps lying to everyone, to get them away from Isabelle and no one picks up on it. She tells Danny that Izzy is spending time with Josh, tells Jess that Josh wants Izzy and tells Izzy that people are talking smack behind her back. She even gets her hair cut like Isabelle and sneaks over to Danny’s dorm in the middle of the night. They kiss a little and he thinks that she’s Isabelle.

Jess takes Lisa under her wing, showing her around the sorority and turning to her for help and support. Lisa keeps hiding notes and messages from Danny, so the perfect couple think the other one hates them. Lisa finally tells Danny the mother of all lies, that Isabelle is cheating on him with Josh. Izzy goes to see him and he blows her off. She tries telling him about how weird Lisa is, but he says that she’s a nice girl and Izzy has problems.

Isabelle basically ends up all alone. Lisa finds out from Josh that he made plans to spend a weekend in Malibu with Jess, but can’t go. He wants to drop off a letter for her and she agrees to take it, but then dumps it. She tells him to talk to Isabelle in the café because she’s feeling down. Then she runs to get Jess and drags her to the café. They see the two holding hands and she flips out, vowing to not talk to either of them again. She does go to the Theta house and work with Alison Quinn, to get Isabelle kicked out of the house.

Isabelle goes home and decides to go through Lisa’s secret box. She finds all this information about Helen, who’s actually Lisa and her sister Rosie, who died when they were kids. She hears Lisa come in and runs off, but the other girl realizes she was going through her things. She goes back to Danny, but he still won’t listen to her. She goes to the Theta house and gets turned away by Alison, so she has to sleep on a dorm couch.

Danny meets up with Lisa and *finally* realizes that she’s looking an awful lot like Isabelle. Lisa puts the moves on him pretty hardcore and he pushes her off. He tells her he’s not ready for a relationship and isn’t giving up on Isabelle. Really, kind of seems like you are. Lisa keeps pushing the issue, finally bringing up the night they made out. He acts all shocked that it wasn’t his girlfriend. Seriously, if you can’t even realize that you’re not kissing your girlfriend, then there’s something wrong. When she storms home, she comes across Rosie, who always liked Isabelle better…

Isabelle goes back to the apartment, planning on stealing the box and making someone listen. Instead she finds Rosie, dead outside their apartment. She goes up anyway and of course Lisa clubs her over the head and ties her up. Jessica runs into Josh, who tells her the truth. Of course she believes it when it comes from a guy. He also tells her that he never liked or trusted Lisa and she realizes that something must be off, if a guy she’s known for three days thinks it.

Jessica rushes over to the apartment, but by now Lisa is gone. Isabelle is inside and finds the remote control, turning up the volume as loud as possible. Jess hears it, breaks in and is working on untying her, when Lisa shows up. She locks Jess in a closet, something we’d all like to do, and then gets distracted enough that Isabelle makes a break for it.

Danny starts wandering across campus and sees a woman looking for her niece Helen. When he sees a picture, he realizes Izzy was telling the truth and runs to help her. Isabelle jumps on the elevator, which is broken and takes her down to the basement. Lisa shows up, Danny shows up and she clubs him over the head with a pipe.

The two girls start fighting as the elevator goes back up. Lisa tells her that she basically killed her twin. She knew her sister fell down a mine shaft, but left her there without telling anyone. She gets distracted, thinking her sister is calling her from the elevator shaft. They get out of the elevator, but Lisa goes back and falls down, dying.

Danny and Jessica apologize for being asses and everyone makes up. Danny decides now is the perfect time to propose, but Isabelle kind of laughs it off, thinking that it will happen someday. I think it’s very fitting that she later gets amnesia and forgets all about him!