Sweet Valley Twins #6: The New Girl

Not sure why I never recapped this one, but here goes!

Brooke Dennis just moved to Sweet Valley, and she is such a bitch that it makes me hate a sixth grade girl! She ran into Jessica when she was walking Mrs. Brambles' dog Sally and tried to kick the poor old dog. Naturally, Jessica is less than happy when Alice announces that Mr. Dennis is her new client and that he and his daughter are coming over for dessert. Jessica feigns a stomachache and runs off, leaving Elizabeth to fend for herself.

Mr. Dennis seems pretty nice and mentions how Brooke barely ate at dinner. She literally turns up her nose every time someone tries to talk to her and refuses to eat dessert. When Liz suggests they listen to the new Johnny Buck tape, Brooke laughingly grimaces and says she only listens to classical music. She then bitches about their house, the school she hasn't seen yet, and pretty much everyone in town.

Elizabeth admits to Jessica that she was write and that the new girl is awful. Unfortunately, Alice promised that they would walk to school the next day. He's some super rich guy who can afford to hire a stylist for his daughter, but he lives right down the street? Whatever. There's some big book fair coming up, and Jessica spent a ton of time on a poster of her favorite Nancy Drew books. She cons her dad into driving her to school with the poster, leaving Elizabeth stuck with Brooke again. Brooke acts the same way during their walk as she did the night before. She also tells on Charlie for throwing a spitwad at Caroline, which is something you apparently never ever do.

Brooke winds up in Jessica's English class. Since she doesn't have time to work on a project of her own, the teacher has her help Lila. Brooke almost instantly knocks over the bottle of paint, which spills over Jessica's poster and ruins it. When Mr. Bowman comes over, she denies that she did it and says that Lila bumped her arm on purpose. He just sighs and makes them both clean up while Jessica cries.

Cut to lunch and everyone chatting about her being a mega bitch. Brooke saunters over and just sits down with them. When they tell her the seat is reserved, she pitches a fit, which leads Jessica to say it's reserved for her sister. She explains that they are actually triplets, the seat is for Jennifer, and then takes off. Jessica comes back in a cardigan with a bow over her ear, acts all sweet and nice, and Brooke runs away.

Everyone then gets in on the act. Anytime they see Jessica with a bow in her hair, they call her Jennifer. Since she has Unicorn meetings and other “commitments,” she convinces Liz to take on the role sometimes. Brooke keeps acting like a huge bitch, even saying that Jessica deserved to have her poster ruined. When they go to the basketball game that night and Jessica falls, Liz even sees Brooke smiling. Creepy.

At Lila's birthday party, where she apparently invited everyone but Brooke, they decide to get back at her. She told Elizabeth/Jennifer about her birthday on Monday, which is the same day as the book thing. They go to Bruce and Jerry, who come up with a plan to make a collapsing seat. They'll sneak it into the auditorium, make her sit there, and she'll make a fool of herself in front of everyone.

Monday arrives, and Brooke goes to see Liz to ask about Jennifer. Liz initially plans to just ignore her but Brooke keeps coming back, so she dresses up as Jenn. Brooke takes her outside and gives her a piece of cake. She cries about how her mom left her and how her dad cares so little about her that he didn't even realize she doesn't like chocolate cake. Liz feels so bad that she decides not to go forward with the prank.

Yeah, that doesn't really work. The other kids block all the seats until they wind up in front, and when Liz tries to take the bad seat, Jessica stops her. Mr. Bowman asked Jessica to present the winner with the best book project, and she wins. He tells her that the committee decided her project showed the best promise and should have won. Whatever. Brooke is so excited and tells Liz/Jennifer that maybe now Jessica will let up on her. WTF? When she goes to sit down, the seat collapses and everyone laughs. Mr Bowman comes over as she cries over Jennifer betraying her, only to learn that it's Liz and they aren't really triplets.

Brooke runs off, and while Elizabeth catches up to her, Brooke refuses to talk to her. Liz gets home just in time to find Alice pissed off at Jessica because Mr. Dennis called her. They talk it over and decide to make it up to her with a party. The twins then call all their friends, invite them over, and have big talk, which leads to everyone feeling super bad. Despite his and her best efforts, both Alice and Mr. Dennis fail to get Brooke to come over.

Steven then points out that Jennifer was the one who really hurt her. They dress up like their fake triplet, pick up Sally, put a bow in her hair, and head to Brooke's house. Though she initially laughs, she then scowls and acts like a bitch again. The twins apologize and convince her to come to their house. Everyone surprises her, she gets all teared up and apologizes for being a bitch. Mr. Dennis then announces that her mom is coming back for a visit that summer. Brooke laughs and asks if she can give up the fancy clothes he got for her for simple clothes and everyone giggles.

What the hell? Brooke is such a MAJOR bitch in this book! She seriously laughs when someone gets hurt and then has the nerve to say she's glad Jess won the prize so she'll be nicer to her. I'm sorry, did I miss the point where you were nice to her even once? Not to mention her trying to kick a poor dog! Her explanation was that when she met Jessica, she figured she was the type of girl who had everything while the poor little rich girl had nothing. Um no, you tried to kick the dog after complaining that she clearly wasn't a purebred before walking off with your nose in the air.

*There are multiple mentions of Jessica being a great actress in this book, which makes me miss Francine not making her a starlet in Sweet Valley Confidential. I could totally see Jessica starring in some WB drama or stuck making movies like Sharknado.

*They keep saying that Brooke is tall constantly, but on the cover, she's roughly the same height as the twins.

*There's all these mentions of her being perfectly dressed and looking so great, but one description has her in shades of emerald and lime green. Is it just me, or do those colors not go together at all?

*Jessica also describes her as wearing (gasp) stockings and says she looks like the cover of Seventeen. Wouldn't Jess want to be her best friend?

*Brooke's description of her mom is strange too. She says that her parents divorced, her mom got pregnant, got married, and moved with her new husband to Europe but couldn't take her. It kind of comes across like her mom got married right after the divorce and was pregnant right off the bat, which sounds like cheating to me.

*Since when does Jessica like Nancy Drew? She should totally call Claudia and talk about their favorite books.

*BTW, her “project” was a poster where she traced her favorite book covers and outlined each one with blue glitter paint. That sounds...strange?