Sweet Valley High #137: Fight Fire With Fire

This is the book that made me scream, “god, you two are such little bitches!” more times than I would like to admit.

Despite the fact that she's a minor and oh the daughter of the richest man in town, the cops take Lila immediately to the police station. They book her, take her fingerprints, and then throw her in a cell with a woman with way too many tattoos. Lila cries a lot and worries about what's going to happen to her. She also spends a lot of time staring at the ceiling and silently begging Steven for help.

Steven somehow comes up with the cash to bail her out of jail. He wants to spend some alone time with her and talk about the case, but all Lila can think about is going to the spa. They have a huge fight that ends with her telling him to take her home so she can change. She makes it clear that while she loves spending time with him and really does want to talk, only a spa trip will make her feel better.

When he heads to work the next day, the DA calls him right into his office. The man kind of explodes on him and basically calls him an idiot. All the evidence points to Lila and he doesn't care about the evidence that doesn't. Since Steven can't be objective and is now involved with the guilty party, he's fired. The DA will fill out his school form with the truth but who knows what will happen.

Since he still has access to the evidence locker, Steven gets inside and goes over the evidence collected. He finds a piece of a sports drink can, which is exactly the same kind that John Pfiefer drinks. Conveniently, the twins came to see him and hear everything that happens with the DA. They decide that – despite the fact that Lila just got out of jail – that breaking them up is the most important thing in the world.

Steven takes Lila to a gas station and makes her pick a soda. When she doesn't pick the sport drink, he grabs one for her and takes her to the woods. He asks her to throw it as far and as high as she can. When she fails and seems really confused, he throws it for her. Steven then tells her that the person who threw the bomb at the restaurant threw it high enough that it crashed through the top of the window. Since Lila doesn't have the same amount of strength, she's clearly not guilty.

Going back to school makes Lila feel more alone than ever. Most of the other girls, namely Heather who is still a mega bitch but girls like Amy too, are either super uncomfortable around her or just leaves when she comes around. She finds the twins waiting for her at her locker. Liz tells her to keep her head up, and Jessica tells her that she knows she's innocent. Lila then finds a note in her locker from Steven. It's all about how they'll get married one day, go camping on their honeymoon, live in a small house with a white picket fence, and have lots of dogs and kids that they can barely afford because his DA salary is so low. Lila gets really turned off and wonders what's wrong with him.

Steven then gets a similar letter from Lila, which is weird because she seems unhappy with him since the whole spa thing. It's all about how she'll use her connections to make him a celebrity among lawyers and how they can travel the world together and enjoy four star everything. The twins just gloat because they wrote both letters. When the twins see them together again though, they decide to push things even more.

Jessica takes Lila the photo album she made her. They have a nice moment that she then ruins by talking about how Steven should realize how much Lila could help him in the real world. Lila gets a little upset and starts thinking about their relationship. She decides to break up with him at the big football game at the same time that Steven decides to break up with her too.

They meet in front of the gym and start talking. It quickly becomes clear that Lila is breaking up with him, but when she mentions the letter, Steven gets really confused. They then show each other the letters they got and realize the twins were behind the whole thing. To get them back, they'll pretend like they're happier than ever. Before that can happen though, in walks John with a bomb in his hand.

John immediately starts talking about how Lila ruined his life and how she's a lying bitch. Steven tries to save Lila and tells her to run. It turns into a big thing that ends with John throwing the bomb in the gym as he screams that he's “still alive” right as the bomb explodes. As everyone rushes to see what happened, the twins find Steven and Lila. Lila bursts into tears about what happened to John, and Steven is the one who holds her and tells her the dude's dead as they wheel his body away.

Steven wakes up the next morning and thinks about how his parents made him and Lila stay up for 90 minutes the night before to go over everything that happened. The twins come downstairs to find him making pancakes, and Lila comes down later. She and Steven play some kissy face and then announce that they're officially engaged. Jessica is in shock as the idea of three Wakefield girls in the same high school.

The doorbell rings, and it's the DA to talk with Steven. It seems as though now that all the evidence is out, Steven was right all along. The cops found proof that John was stalking Lila. He even stole her old gloves to set her up. The DA offers Steven his internship back.

Devon, the guy I strongly dislike, gets a bunch of letters at his hotel room, and there's one letter from his former nanny. Nan, real imaginative, wrote to express her feelings for the death of his parents and to invite him to stay with her in Sweet Valley. He decides to go and finds that she saved stuff from when he was a kid. Though he agrees to stay with her, he tells her that he's broke. He also explodes on her one night for leaving him and never staying in touch.

That makes him look like an ass when he finds a conveniently placed box of letters in her garage. Nan wrote to him all the time and even sent him birthday and Christmas gifts. His parents sent all the letters back unopened. She then explains that she loved him like a kid and that it killed her to leave. Devon decides to stay with her and for her to be his legal guardian. He also heads over to SVH to check out the football game and sees the most beautiful woman in the world. I'll spare you the details, it's Liz.

Lila heads home and finds her parents waiting for her. They apparently stopped on the way home, still without calling by the way, and found out what happened. George almost pops a blood vessel at the way the cops treated his little girl, and Grace just worries. Her parents start offering to buy her all kinds of stuff, but she points out that she just wants them. Lila says that no matter what she tells them, she's still just a kid and that a kid needs her parents. They agree to spend more time together, which is something George says like every dozen books. She then agrees to accept a luxury ski vacation for her and a friend, so I guess Lila will be fine.

*Lila has bail set the same day that they booked her. I'm not sure if the ghostwriter knows how the system works, but it usually doesn't happen that fast.

*The timeline is these books absolutely kills me! The cops found proof that John was stalking Lila for almost a year. That means he almost raped her, they had the holidays with Margo, went to London, had internships at the magazine, and did about 900 other things but it's still not even been a year.

*Liz encourages Steven to call Billie and at least catch up with her. I know that she really likes Billie, but she needs to back way off.

*Steven does call Billie though, and they start talking again, which I guess explains why they're together in SVU. Hey! This might also explain why their apartment in those books is different from the one they had when the twins stayed with them!

*The main reason I hate the Devon story is because of Nan. She was your freaking nanny, your parents paid her to spend time with you. Nannies move on all the time, get over it! Also, she makes it out like it killed her to leave him. It was a job! Nannies seriously move from job to job on a regular basis.

*Devon sees Liz in a yellow sundress and can't stop thinking about her until he sees Jessica in her cheerleader uniform. He then thinks about how he likes her so much better in the sundress. Gag me.

*Todd and Liz have a fight in this one, surprise surprise, because she tells him about the letters. He actually ends a date early and leaves because it's not right to mess around in the love lives of other people.

*The twins are so freaking awful in this book! Lila literally got out of jail the day before and all they can think about is breaking her and Steven up. Did they seriously not think that losing her one support might send her over the edge?

*There's no resolution about the fake engagement. I like to think that Lila went all out and made the twins try on a bunch of ugly bridesmaid dresses and sample all this disgusting food before having a fake fight and calling off the engagement.

*I read Don't Go Home With John for the first time fairly recently and then read books where he was kind of back to being a normal guy or at least having friends. I never read any of these later books back in the day, so I was actually pretty shocked with what happened in the end. Who would ever guess reading that book with him and Jennifer that he would one day blow himself up?!