Sweet Valley Twins #90: The Cousin War

The Wakefield twins are super excited because their cousin Robin is coming from San Diego for a two-week vacation while her parents go to France. Jessica can’t wait because the annual Sadie Hawkins’ dance is coming up and it’s the perfect excuse for Robin to get a boyfriend. Jessica has a crush on an Argentinian exchange student named Juan, who is staying with Aaron Dallas. Even though Aaron is kind of her boyfriend, she decides not to tell him about her crush. Jessica tells Robin about her crush, but Elizabeth doesn’t want to talk about Todd. She’s worried that she’ll jinx herself by mentioning his name before she asks him to the dance.

From the moment that Juan meets Robin, he’s smitten with her. Jessica notices it and naturally doesn’t like it. Aaron notices her crush and doesn’t like that either. Everyone plans on meeting up at the bowling alley after school and Jessica thinks it’s her perfect chance to get together with Juan. While working on an all-sports edition of the newspaper, the computer crashes and Elizabeth is stuck putting it back together. She asks Todd to go to the bowling alley and be nice to Robin because she doesn’t know many people in Sweet Valley. Does anyone not see where this is going?

Jessica rushes off to dry hump Juan or whatever it is that sixth graders do, while Robin bowls with Mandy Miller. Todd joins them at the next alley, introduces himself to Robin and spends the whole afternoon talking to her. Robin decides that she likes him and tells her cousins that she met the perfect guy. She won’t tell them his name, but she does drop some hints. Jessica becomes convinced that it’s Juan because she can’t think of a single brown eyed, handsome, athletic guy that has a one-syllable name. Sigh, I hate you Sweet Valley Confidential.

Jessica goes to Steven for advice who basically tells her that she has two options: find a new date or tell Robin how she feels. She decides to opt for option C, which is lie her ass off. When Robin finally tells her that she has a crush on Todd, she lies and says that he doesn’t have a girlfriend and doesn’t like anyone. Someone leaves Robin a note on her locker and she convinces herself that it was Todd. He also leaves her a box of her favorite candy and later a necklace.

This all leads up to Todd and Elizabeth meeting for ice cream. Robin goes to meet him, planning to ask him to the dance. She sees Elizabeth feeding him ice cream and runs off in tears. She rants to Jessica about Elizabeth stealing her boyfriend and refuses to speak to her. Jessica dresses up like her twin and goes to Todd. She tells him that she can’t make it to the dance because of the newspaper and she wants him to go with Robin. Then she convinces Robin to ask Todd to the dance. Robin does and he agrees, but the real Elizabeth overhears and storms off in anger.

Elizabeth won’t talk to Todd and he has no idea why. Jessica asks Juan to the dance and he tells her that he likes her cousin. She tells him that she already has a date, so he agrees to go with her. Todd gets Robin alone, tells her that Elizabeth is his girlfriend and that he can’t really go with her because it wouldn’t feel right. Robin feels like crap, but decides not to say anything.

Everyone lets Jessica go off to the dance. Robin calls Todd and invites him over to the house. She sets them down and explains what happened. Elizabeth realizes that her twin screwed her over yet again and dresses up in the same outfit that Jessica wore. She goes to the dance, gets Juan alone and tells him that she knows he really wanted to come with Robin.

Juan rushes off to dance with Robin and Elizabeth dances with Todd. Aaron confesses to Jessica that he helped Juan write the love letters to Robin and that he didn’t want her to go to the dance with anyone else. She feels slightly bad, but only because she realizes how cute he looks. The book ends with the three girls staying up late gossiping and talking about how much fun they had. So basically, Jessica gets off the hook again.

*Why do all of these YA books feature someone going to a different school for a week or two? Robin goes to class every day, even though she’s only in town for two weeks. Does any school even allow this?

*Am I the only one that thinks the ghostwriters forgot Kelly’s name, so they decided to name her Robin? In SVH, the twins have a lookalike cousin named Kelly, but in SVT the lookalike is Robin. I don’t think either one is ever mentioned in the other series.

*Lila hates bowling and a few other characters mention the bowling alley being lame. Yet in the Elizabeth’s First Kiss book, the bowling alley just opened and everyone is excited about it. Here, it’s an outdated bowling alley that’s never been updated.

*Robin mentions that Jessica wore a red dress, but Elizabeth puts on a green dress. Then they mention that Jessica is wearing a green dress. Can we not even retain continuity between three pages?