Sweet Valley High #45: Family Secrets

This is another one of those books that I devoured as a kid. I was 8 when the book came out and I’m pretty sure that I reenacted some of the scenes with my Barbie dolls LOL.

So, the twins are getting ready for their cousin Kelly Bates to come to Sweet Valley. Kelly is their aunt Laura’s daughter (Alice’s sister) and they haven’t seen her since they were kids. Laura’s ex-husband Greg was a douche and after she left him, she wouldn’t let Kelly even come back to town for a visit. Now that she’s getting married and Kelly can’t adjust to their new life, she lets her move in with the Wakefields until she adjusts.

Kelly looks almost exactly like the twins except that she’s a little taller, has darker hair, and her eyes are more green than blue. They tell her all about their friend Nicholas Morrow and how he can’t wait to meet her. Nicholas meets them at the Dairi Burger, they get along great, and he even invites her to the country club dance.

The girls decide to dress alike for Kelly’s first day at school. Everyone oohs and ahs over how much they look alike. Within a few days, Kelly is one of the most popular girls in school. While playing tennis with Jessica, Kirk Anderson walks over and introduces himself. He asks Kelly on a date and she goes even though Jess warns her that he’s a dick. When she gets home that night, she can’t stop gushing about how much she likes him.

Alice is a little uncomfortable with things because she knows that Greg is a dick. Laura made her promise not to say anything bad about him in front of Kelly, but she does tell the twins how he frequently cheated on his wife. Laura calls a few times and Alice gets stuck telling her that Kelly can’t come to the phone. Jessica shares a room with Kelly and she tells Liz that their cousin keeps waking up in the middle of the night with bad nightmares.

Kirk shows up late for his next date with Kelly, leaving her sitting around for 30 minutes. He tells her that he ran out of gas and then ditches her at the club to run off and talk to another girl who he claims is an old friend. Jessica hears through the grapevine that Kirk is back together with his ex Marci, but Kelly swears that they are just friends.

Kirk doesn’t show up for their next date, so she gets a ride to the beach with the twins. She runs into Kirk and Marci, but he tells her that Marci is just upset over her parents’ divorce. He ends up ditching her at the beach so he can take Marci home and “talk” to her a little more. Kelly gets upset and sends him a note in study hall asking about Marci. Kirk gets annoyed because she doesn’t believe her. Even though he swears he’s only interested in her, he rushes off to see Marci again.

Kelly conveniently has a birthday coming up and her dad is coming to see her. She announces that she wants him to move to Sweet Valley and she will move in with him. He shows up over an hour late claiming that he got stuck in traffic. He tells her that he wanted to get her something and found a great desk, but it would take too long to ship it so he didn’t bring her anything. He says they can talk about their living arrangements later and rushes off for a business meeting.

The big country club dance finally appears and the trio dress up like the hear, see, and speak no evil monkeys. Everyone at the dance loves their costumes, and Kirk suggests that they sneak off together to Miller’s Point. He brings along some beer, they start making out, and then he tries to put his hand down her costume. She pushes him off, he goes back again, and they have a huge fight. He starts screaming and smashing beer bottles and she runs away crying.

Liz and Jeffery come home and Jeannie and Tom bring Kelly home. Kelly finally remembers what happened when her mom left her dad. They had a big fight and her dad started breaking all of the dishes in the house. Her mom begged her to run for help but she was so scared that she just stood there.

Laura comes to Sweet Valley and admits that it happened just the way Kelly said. Kelly had been having nightmares about that night, but she could never remember it when she woke up. They decide to go back to Arizona, and Kelly agrees to give her new family a second chance. Then the book ends with Robin breaking down in tears because she got early acceptance to Sarah Lawrence.

*Penny doesn’t want Kelly to write an article about her impressions on Sweet Valley because she wants something with an angle. Yeah, because no one in town would want to read a story about how great the town is…wait a second.

*Liz is out of character in this book. She keeps asking Kelly to call Nicholas and break their date for the dance, especially after Kelly accepts Kirk’s invitation. In other books, she would just call and tell him.

*Nicholas vs. Kirk? Is that really a competition? Who in her right mind would pick that asshole over the hot rich guy?

*No one ever tells Kelly about all the mean stuff Kirk did. I’m pretty sure if I heard what he did to Penny, I wouldn’t even look at him again.

*Like everyone in school wants to know their costumes and bribe them for information. I’m not sure why they really give a shit.

*Sweet Valley is a creepy city. There are way too many people who look like the twins who manage to find their way to the city.