Young Adult Revisited

Bess and George call Nancy for help after Bess's new locket goes missing. She took it off to jump rope and asked George to hold it for her. George instead put it in her backpack and when she came back, it was gone. Someone left a sandwich with mustard, ketchup, relish, and peanut butter in its place. George gets distracted and wants to show off her picture from the paper, which leads Bess to saying that she'll never speak to her again. The two girls get into a huge fight that ends with Bess tearing up the picture and the two storming off. Nancy sticks around to make up her suspect list, which includes this mean girl named Brenda and another girl named Karen. She suspects Karen even more after seeing her riffling through a coat that isn't hers. Karen claims she just wanted a piece of gum from her friend's jacket. Bess agrees to help investigate the case as long as George isn't around. She gives Nancy a list of all the kids who were around that day, whic...

Nancy, Bess, and George are off to Ireland for a bike tour, despite the fact that every single book makes it seem like Bess is too fat to walk around the block let alone cycle up and down hills. Since she's a detective, Nancy can't help noticing a guy with a missing pinkie finger getting off a flight from Australia. They then meet Bob, the leader of their tour group. He introduces them to all the others, including Natalie and her husband, Jim, from California, a college professor named Carl, and two Australian girls: Rhonda and Rachel. Nancy notices that Rhonda freaks out when they leave the airport after seeing some guy, but the girl calms down pretty fast. Bob then takes them to their first stop and where they'll spend the night. He introduces them to Derek and Camilla, two more riders and lays down the rules. Basically, everyone can ride at their own pace. Groups will get cell phones to stay in touch, but some people will ride more every day than others. That do...

Kids in Sweet Valley suddenly start going crazy about some new rock star from France named Coco. At the same time, Brooke Dennis is excited because her mom is coming to visit from France. See where this is going? She's bringing along her new husband Bobby and their daughter Sonya. When Brooke makes plans to meet her mom at her hotel, her mom tells her a big secret: she's actually Coco. Apparently, she took some voice lessons while trying to make it as an actress and got an agent who convinced her to move to France because Europe has a big need for American singers. He then helped her reinvent herself on her way to becoming a big star. She then meets Bernice, her mom's agent. Bernice tells her that they have to keep her mom's private life a big secret. No one knows that she is on her second husband or that she has kids. It would totally ruin her public image because rock stars don't have kids. I'm not making that up either. Bernice literally tells h...

Nancy, Bess, and George have a teacher named Mrs. Ramirez who decided to do a project on animals. She brought in eggs and an incubator and had the kids write journals about the eggs' development over the last few weeks. At the beginning of the book, it's time for the eggs to hatch. Tommy, one of their classmates, is super excited because he's obsessed with the chicks. He even wrote them poems and songs. Catherine, another girl in their class, is less than excited. See, it's actually her birthday and no one cares. Right when Mrs. Ramirez gathers the class together to sing her Happy Birthday, the chicks start hatching. Nancy and the girls feel bad for Catherine though and make her a super special birthday card. When they show up to class the next day, they find that someone defaced Tommy's special sign with a blue-green marker that smells like bubblegum. Though the girls do some investigating, they can only find a few people in class with that same color...

Dawn is back home in California and getting ready to head to her second home in Stoneybrook for the summer. She keeps thinking about how much she will miss Sunny and Sunny's mom, but she also keeps freaking out because she has so much stuff to do before she goes. Carol gives her a hug the morning of her flight and starts crying because she thinks of Dawn as a daughter. She also worries after having a dream that the BSC voted her out in favor of Abby and because she doesn't know how things will work with Abby there. Of course it turns out that she has nothing to worry about. Everyone shows up for her first meeting, and a bunch of members take her out shopping that morning. Richard and Sharon let them order Chinese food and pizza. Even Jeff seems happy to be back, if only because he loves running around with the triplets. Claudia had to take her math final over again and has some big news. The school signed up for a special program that offers a discounted rate for ...

I'm sure I've mentioned Brenda Carlton before in another review. She's a “reporter” for the local paper, which means that her dad owns the paper and lets her write. While on vacation with Bess, George, and Ned, Nancy gets a letter sent via messenger that asks her to meet someone unknown person at an abandoned drive-in theater. She naturally goes and meets Mr. Carlton. He explains to her that Brenda has a brand new boyfriend named Mike who's a guitarist. Mike is extremely shady about his past and doesn't seem like a good guy. They met while she was on vacation, and he then followed her back to River Heights. Mr. Carlton begs Nancy to check him out and make sure that Mike is good for Belinda. This involves going to the club and seeing him play. Brenda gets way too suspicious and actually accuses Nancy of going after him for herself, which causes Nancy to point out that she doesn't need some rando when she has Ned waiting for her. Just as Brenda loose...

This is the only SVK book I've read so far that has Steven as the narrator instead of one of the twins. He's tired of his sisters being around all the time and gets them back on Valentine's Day. Steven puts a card in Charlie's lunchbox from Jessica and one in Todd's from Elizabeth. Charlie finds his and makes a big deal out of how gross it is, which makes everyone laugh at Jess. Todd just reads his and puts it away without saying anything. While taking the kids out for dinner, Ned and Alice tell Steven that they signed him up for dance lessons. His friend Bob has to go too. The twins act like huge pests and dance around him while drawing attention to him in the middle of the restaurant. Bob tells him that even if they have to wear a tie and long pants, they can still do something different and comes up with a plan. At his first lesson, the teacher pairs him with this girl Tina. He shows her their “plan,” which is that they both wore heavy hiking boots....