The Unicorn Club #5: Unicorns in Love

Mr. Drew, the new theater teacher, announces that he wants to do a new play. Everyone in the Unicorn Club signs up for a part, even Elizabeth. It's about a boy who moves from New York to California, rides some vampire ride, and turns into some type of vampire. He becomes irresistible to girls, wears funky clothes, goes after everything that moves, and generally sounds like a teenage boy to me.

Evie narrates this book, and it doesn't take her long to realize that the Unicorns keep falling in love with random guys. Lila starts dating some guy named Tommy, Mandy hooks up with Peter Dehaven (is he not a dork anymore?), Ellen dates someone named Tim, and Mary winds up with Rick Hunter, who has a lead in the play. This all leads to lots and lots of trouble.

Instead of sitting at their table in the cafeteria, they start sitting with their boyfriends. They constantly blow off plans with their friends for guys and ignore the club too. They forget that they made plans to go shopping, and the other girls later find them at Casey's with their boyfriends. It annoys all of the girls, but it especially annoys Jessica.

She finally gives them an ultimatum: come to a slumber party at her house on Friday or else. They naturally make up a bunch of excuses about why they can't come: meeting his family, going to the movies, etc. It leads to a huge fight, which ends with the club breaking up. The "taken" girls are so ticked that they even skip going to the center where they volunteer and work with kids. The kids all get upset that they aren't around anymore.

The remaining members (Jessica, Evie, Maria, and Elizabeth) have their sleepover and try to go on, but they refuse to sit at their old table. The other girls get really snotty and bitchy. They make other people talk to them or send them notes instead of speaking to them. When Liz needs to talk to Mary at school, she talks through a classmate, and when Mandy needs to talk to Evie, she just sends her a note. Then they hear rumors that Rick wants to go to the big semi-formal dance with someone else!

They talk about it and basically decide just to wait and see what happens. Then they hear Rick talking about going out with the other girl. They corner him, and he admits that he plans on just telling Mary he got sick right before the dance and going with the other girl. They get together, arrange a meeting with the rest of the club, and decide to tell Mary the truth. She doesn't really believe them until the other girl admits it, and then they come up with a plan to get back at him.

During an important scene in the play, they change the lines around to reveal that he's a cheater. Ellen and Mary then playfully fight over him until his pants come off. He gets pissed off and says they should have just told him that they knew, and the teacher tells them that he hopes things go much better the next night.

The Unicorn members all meet up to talk about what happened and come up with a new list of rules. They'll only meet once every other week from now on, they'll make time for their friends, and they'll understand the importance of boyfriends. Though everything seems settled, Evie can't help wondering if the club really does have a future.

*Mr. Drew is an award winning director and a big deal in Hollywood, who somehow decides to move to Sweet Valley and take up teaching. Of course he did.

*The actors audition for roles, but everyone else just decides what they want to do. Mandy and Evie literally sign up as co-costume designers/directors and the teacher goes along with it.

*The ghostwriter keeps bringing up things that happened in the SVT series, but she doesn't mention that Lila dated/had a massive crush on Rick in a lot of those books.

*The teacher/director doesn't even notice that the girls keep skipping rehearsals and not doing their jobs. Mandy, who is responsible for a lot of the costumes, doesn't even do most of her work and he never says a word.

*I love that at the end of the book, all the girls with boyfriends suddenly have free time and act like they always did and it's not a big deal if they blow off their friends for a guy.

*It's hard to believe that Jessica is one of the girls without a boyfriend. Lila even makes a joke that she must have been living under a rock not to have a date for the dance.

*Isn't it funny that in the SVT books the Unicorns meet constantly even though they all have boyfriends, but now, they can't be bothered to spend time with their friends.