Young Adult Revisited

Cassie is your typical 16 year old girl who has three best friends, all of them guys. Scott is her secret crush, but she’s too afraid to say anything or anything about it. There’s Wink who’s pretty much an asshole and Eddie who everyone picks on. Winks gets a human eyeball from Eddie’s cousin Jerry, who works in a morgue and apparently also thinks it’s funny to pick on him. Eddie gets all freaked out and runs off. A few days later the gang decides to take Scott’s dad’s car for a long drive. None of them have a license, but they figure it’s good practice. Wink screams about seeing something in the road when it’s Eddie’s turn behind the wheel, but there’s nothing actually there and they all get a big laugh out of it. After a few more days, they all go back out for another drive. This time they hit someone. The whole gang runs out to see what happened and find the man laying in the road. Eddie digs out his wallet and learn that his name was Brett Tinker. After a long fight, they decide to...

Kelsey is pissed off at her mom because she takes her to spend the summer with mom’s boyfriend Eric and his kids. They’ve apparently never met before, even though they’ve been dating forever (unlike Trick or Treat, where the parents marry after 3 months). On the boat ride to Beverly Island where the family lives, she meets a hot guy named Skip who tells her that he’s a lifeguard in town. When they arrive on the island, they meet his sons Neale and Justin, but learn that his daughter Beth just went missing. Apparently she was supposed to meet some guy and then disappeared and now the police think she drowned. Kelsey also meets the requisite creepy town drunk without any teeth Isaac, who seemingly attacks her. Kelsey automatically likes Justin, who is super sweet and nice. But she hates Neale, who acts dark and moody. Oh and both are lifeguards…apparently the whole town only has three. She finds a couple of notes left for her by Beth and wishes she had the chance to meet the sweet girl. ...

You should prepare yourself for an onslaught of Sweet Valley University reviews in the coming month(s). I was the high bidder on a set of the books, which included 10 of the Super Thrillers and the entire run of the original series. I plan on reading them in order, which will be a first for the blog. I'll try to cut them with a few reviews of other stuff. I went to a charity book sale this weekend and ended up buying about 30 different teen books including Pike, Stine, Fear Street, Hoh, Sweet Valley High and a bunch of the old Point Thriller/Horror books. In an ironic twist of fate, one of the books I bought actually came from my old high school and I actually remember checking it out back then! Needless to say, I plan on reviewing quite a few books in the next couple of months. Look for at least two reviews a week!

Memories picks up with a scene that makes much more sense if you read the last one right before this, or at least had some idea of what happened. Steven was at a party and flirting with Cara, but then Betsy Martin showed up and flipped out at him because her sister’s only been gone for ten books! In Sweet Valley time that could be anywhere from a week to six years. Steve runs home and cries himself to sleep, vowing to always keep Tricia in mind. Jessica tries to make him feel bad by pointing out how much Cara liked him, but he won’t listen. Liz is all heartbroken because Todd is back in Vermont and she can’t do squat without him attached to her hip. There’s also some charity volleyball game with a dance later (of course) and she’s upset that she won’t have a date. Jessica turns all snoopy (big surprise) and hears Alice on the phone with Winston’s mom. She learns that his uncle is some hotshot movie director (who will never, ever be mentioned again) and decides that she has to get close...

Carter Phillips is one of those secondary characters who pops up in Fear Street books. In those she’s rich, blonde and slightly snobby. In The Cheater she gets her own story where she’s rich, blonde and slightly snobby. Carter is moaning to her boyfriend Dan about how horrible her life is. Yeah, I really feel for you girl. She took some special math test and scored 500 something, but that’s not good enough for her dad. Judge Phillips wants his little girl to go to Princeton and insists she retake the test and score at least 700. Dan acts all uncomfortable because he’s a math genius who scored 715 on his test. The head to The Corner, the local after school hang out and she “jokingly” suggests that Dan take the test for her. He gets all freaked out and she changes the subject fast. After he leaves, Adam Messner, a math genius from their school who works at the restaurant, approaches her and offers to take the test. All he wants in return is one date and she gets all excited, barely notic...

The Visitor opens with a high school student named Mary trying to get over the loss of her boyfriend Jerry who died a month ago. She started smoking after he died and she doesn’t seem to care about much, which worries her parents, but not enough to make them cancel a trip out of town. Seems like a running theme with Christopher Pike: get rid of the adults as soon as possible. Jerry’s best friend Savey stops by to pick her up and take her to a party at Pamela’s house, a cheerleader who used to date Jerry and now has sex with everyone. Savey’s band plays the party while Mary sits in a corner and drinks and entire bottle of wine. She’s momentarily interrupted by Jerry’s brother Tom who just wants to know the truth about what happened to his brother. She runs from the party after he suggests they hold a séance, but later agrees to stay as long as Savey is there. At the séance they contact some weird spirit who claims someone at the party drew him there, but he won’t say who because it will...

Will that Elizabeth never learn? The gang is still at Sweet Valley Shore for the summer, along with our new cast of characters: Wendy, Ben, Ryan and Paul. Jessica is still out to get Ryan all to herself, completely disregarding the fact that she saw him kissing her sister. Wendy is pissed at Winston for making Pedro Paloma take her out on a date and Ben is still mooning over Jess. Ah and Liz is still obsessed with Ryan and Nina is still unsure about Paul, both of whom still have boyfriends. Jess is back to her conniving ways, lying to Nina about being sick so the other girl will take her shift. She heads off to town where she gets a slinky new dress because she plans on seducing Ryan and stops by to get her nails done. Ben pops in to see her, they start flirting and he puts his heart out on the table. They goof around, only to get caught by Nina who is pissed that Jess lied again. Of course Jess gets pissed at Ben because she blames him for getting her caught. She stops at a fortune te...