Young Adult Revisited

Reed is the president of the Victoria McCoy fan club on the Salem University campus. McCoy is the writer in residence and a hugely successful writer of horror novels, many of which were turned into movies. At least they tell us this, but I have my doubts since the club only has a few other members: Debrah, Jude and Lilith. Her boyfriend Link keeps coming to meetings, primarily to keep an eye on her and barely reads anything. He tells her that McCoy needs a new assistant since hers went missing and Reed decides to go for it. She stops by the writer’s house and after one meeting, gets the job, which makes all her friends jealous. Jude demands that she pass along some of his writings because he assumes that he’ll be the next huge horror author. Debrah gets pissed, but rarely says anything. And Lilith is insanely pissed, but views it as her chance to put the moves on Link. Working for the writer is a lot harder than she expected. She has a black bird that looks like a crow, which keeps utt...

This is a book about Enid, but of course it has to focus on Liz. Liz is all sad and kinda depressed because Todd is away for the Christmas break. This being Sweet Valley, you know that she’s either going to cheat on him or seriously contemplate cheating on him, which is true. Enid is feeling lonely because she just broke up with Hugh and this makes no sense. She and Hugh break up (again apparently) right before Murder in Paradise, which was years later. That’s part of why she feels so shitty and almost gives into the plastic surgery thing. There’s even a whole thing about how he ditched her for a curvy and cute younger girl. Enid’s crush on Jeffery is back, but she doesn’t really tell anyone. She takes Liz to the Dairi Burger where a bunch of kids are meeting for the first day of break. Liz and Jeffery run into each other by the front door and get caught under the mistletoe, so they have to kiss. Liz gets all flustered and starts thinking about all their “good” times. Jess comes in and...

Reva Dalby is back yet again and I can’t believe that Stine wasted three books on such an unlikable character. In this one, Reva is back from her first semester of college and bringing along her roommate Grace. It’s hard to believe that Reva actually lived with someone and didn’t demand a single. She thinks that Grace will be fun and when she isn’t, Reva starts looking for excuses to get rid of her. Pam can’t afford college so she’s working in Shadyside with her friend Willow. The two girls took some crafting classes and dreamed up business making hand painted scarves. She calls Reva and asks for her to take a look at them and see if she can’t get them in the stores. Reva agrees, but then skips out when they’re on their way to the house. A guy shows up at the house that night and it turns out that it’s Daniel, a guy she dated a few times at school. He’s in town staying with a friend and is going to work at the store. She pretends that she doesn’t know him and laughs as the security gua...

I actually tried to read this book like three times and kept putting it down because it was so hard to weed through. Basically a bunch of new pledges move into the sorority house at Salem University and that really doesn’t make sense. How the heck do they have room for all those girls? If they only pledge 5-10 girls each year, which is a conservative estimate, that’s still 20-40 girls living in the same house and that seems like a whole lot to me. Anyway, you don’t really need to know that many girls because only a couple are mentioned. There’s Maxie, our main gal and Tinker, another new pledge, Cath, the new pledge who appeared in the first Nightmare Hall book and Erica and Candie, two older girls. When the book first opens, Erica is freaking out because someone stole her jewelry box and everyone tries to find it. Then a messenger shows up at the door and the package he brings, has her jewelry box in it. Then the ring Candie’s boyfriend gave her disappears and the same company deliver...

Bruce Patman opens the book, telling his cousin Roger about their grandfather. Roger has never met him before, but the old man is planning a six-week long trip to Sweet Valley. He thinks of grandpas as friendly guys and can’t understand why Bruce is so worked up. Roger runs off to tell his new buddy Lisa all about it. Alexander Patman comes to town, full of stories about Roger’s dad Paul and how he was a great man. Yup, so great that he didn’t take care of his son. I get that he did years ago, but he had to know that Roger existed in some form! Alexander doesn’t like the way the Patmans coddle the boys, giving Bruce a Porsche and giving them unlimited spending money. Bruce finds a way to deal with this, by becoming obsessed with Lisa’s friend Tracy. She’s been in his class forever, but he never noticed her until she got a new haircut. He invites her to a birthday party for his grandfather in a roundabout way and manages to hit another car and damage his. At a school assembly the kids l...

Demi and her best friend/roommate Shannon are discussing the new personal ads in the school newspaper, when she decides to try it for herself. All you do is setup an ad, guys call to leave a message for you and you decide whether to call them back. She’s a writer for the paper and her editor Kevin thinks it’s a great idea. She sets up her ad right before meeting his cute friend Brant. The ad itself is fairly lame and it kind of makes her sound like a slut. She basically tells guys to call her for a night they’ll never forget. I’m a little surprised she only gets four calls! College guys should be all over that. The first date is a guy named Lance, who takes her to a French movie. This is where it becomes clear that Diane Hoh knows nothing about French. Lance uses maybe a dozen French expressions and they’re all stuff you can pick up from Sesame Street and crap like that. The movie has subtitles, but he insists on translating for her anyway, even stuff like “oh” and “Jacques”. Then he l...

I remembered this book so clearly, but I was sure that it was a regular book in the series. At one point I even went through the book list, just looking for a title that might fit it. Anyway, Lila Fowler’s dad George is getting tired of her spending. Despite the fact that he gives her everything she wants, she goes shopping in every book and continues to shop later, here he wants her to stick to a budget. She recently spent $600 on a new suede outfit and he limits her spending, especially since she lies about not spending that much. George is now dating Joan Borden who has a daughter Jacqueline who’s the same age as Lila, but doesn’t have the same life, even though Joan is super rich. Lila hates that they spend so much time together and thinks that George should be getting sick of her. Lila is also being rude to her friends because nothing ever happens in Sweet Valley and she’s bored. The two J’s come over for lunch and Lila hates the way they act. Jacqueline is all enamored of the hou...