Sweet Valley High #140: Please Forgive Me


I only have a few of the “newer” books, and I found this one in a thrift store, so I figured I should recap the last one, which is does at the beginning. Apparently, Elizabeth “I-never-cheat-on-my-boyfriends” Wakefield surprisingly enough cheated on Todd with some random new hottie named Devon. They worked together in science class, and she fell “in love” with him. When Todd found out about her affair, he proposed to her. Devon saw, they fought, and she stormed off because, what woman would want to see two men fighting over her?

Elizabeth is so disgusted with them that she avoids talking to them both. Enid tells her that her cousin went on a trip with Project Adventure, which is a total rip-off, and she thinks it sounds interesting. The trip ends with each person left alone in the middle of the wilderness to fend for themselves overnight. Since Ned and Alice are without a doubt the worst parents alive, they agree to let her go.

Elizabeth is currently not speaking to Jessica because her sister “betrayed” her. Todd started dating Courtney to get back at Liz, and Jessica knew that they were meeting. She called Courtney and Devon, which led to the big fight. Jessica thinks that the best way to get her forgiveness is with a bitching party. She gets all her friends together, and they convince the guys to help.

Todd mopes over Liz constantly because she is the great love of his life. He sees some random dude named Keith, who goes on and on about how nature is the best cure-all for everything. He decides to go with him and his buddies on a mountain biking trip, and he likes it so much that he rushes out and buys a new bike. He also gets all of his friends involved, and they spend so much time outside that they ignore all the party planning. Todd even asks Devon to join them, but Devon just snaps at him and whines about how crunchy things are in California.

Elizabeth goes with her group, which is 100 percent adults. She naturally makes a bunch of brand new friends, and tells them all about her big problems and how she's in love with two men. Suddenly, it's time for her solo trek through the wilderness. She starts imagining that she's seeing things and feels like she's losing her mind. They gave her a beeper to call for help, and she contemplates using it.

Jessica and the girls keep trying to track down the guys, but they act all cagey and weird about what they've been doing. She finally organizes the girls into two groups, and they follow the guys into the woods. Oh, and by this point, Devon has decided to go ahead and join the group. He and Todd even make a deal to stay away from Liz until she makes her own choice. The girls eventually run into Liz who thinks she's imagining the whole exchange. Jess invites her to the Dairi Burger, but she decides that she's strong enough to finish out the day.

Suddenly, it's one day later and time for the party. Jessica wants to get to the lake early, so she asks Liz to pick up the deli platters. Todd shows up and tells Liz that he understands why she cheated (god I hate him) and that he forgives her. He then offers to pick up the platters for her, and they trade cars. Devon decides to stop by and see her too, but he sees Todd leaving. They have an ugly confrontation, and Todd points out that he and Liz were friends for years and he wanted to make sure they could remain friends, before he speeds off.

Jessica calls and flips out when she hears the news because oh-noes, the brakes on the Jeep are faulty! Liz tells Devon, who suggests that she go with him on his motorcycle. She briefly flashes back to her traumatic accident before hopping on his bike. They find the Jeep barely sitting on the edge of a cliff with Todd trapped inside. Devon manages to pull Todd out while Liz holds onto the back for stability. WTF?

Everyone rushes to the hospital to see Todd, but they will only let in family. The doctor calls Liz over because his parents called and said that they wanted her there until they could get to the hospital. She spent so much time crying over him that Devon thinks she loves Todd, and he tells her that she made her choice. She then asks him to go in with her because Todd would want that. Seriously, WTF? And then the book ends with Liz deciding not to date anyone. Seriously.

*Here's what pisses me off: one of the people in the nature group is there because she just went through a divorce after her husband CHEATED ON HER WITH HIS SECRETARY. She literally tells them this on the same page that Liz starts moaning about her big problem. Everyone tells her that it's oh-so-serious and offers suggestions, including the same woman! She even AGREES that you can love two people at once. I would have totally bitch slapped her up and down that mountain.

*I thought Liz didn't remember her accident. Here, she not only remembers the accident, but she also remembers what it was like in the coma.

*I don't like Devon. This is the only book I read with him in it, and I really disliked him. He literally spent the entire book moping over Liz, thinking about Liz, riding his bike to get away from Liz, and the talking to Liz/wondering why Liz won't talk to him.

*You have to love Bruce. He never rode a mountain bike before, but he owns two of them.

*The whole thing with the Jeep is that it's about to go over the cliff, and Todd's body is what's holding it up. I'm pretty sure that Liz sitting on the bumper is not going to stop it.

*Someone suggests that the boys were abducted by aliens, and Maria says that if Winston uses that excuse, he better be ready to show her the probe marks. LOL.

*I don't get why the boys are so secretive in this one. They've surely done worse things before, but they act all embarrassed about mountain biking.

*Jessica's date for the party? Aaron Dallas. Remember him? The guy that Sweet Valley Confidential tells us numerous times that she never liked or found attractive.

*Speaking of SVC, Jessica tells Liz that she has to love Todd for the way that he loves Liz. Ha!

*Liz is such a bitch. She literally sits in the waiting room, thinking about the time she spent in the hospital and how hard it was for her and how Todd was always there for her. Yet, when she gets the chance to see him, she makes someone else go with her. She doesn't really know that they made up/are friends, so why the hell would she do that?

Comments

  1. ONE OF THE STUPIDEST MOMENTS IN THE TIME CAPSULE


    by Dane Youssef


    They couldn't be a home-run every day and they couldn't be a strike-out every day. This was neither. It was a nuclear stink-bomb. They tried to have all the characters live every possible incarnation and experience.


    Well, it was cheap episodic teen soap-opera melodrama. But I think this was the point where the series was really waning and running out of good ideas. The lesson here is that at some point, you have to know when to say, "You're not worth it, lady."


    Todd responds to her infidelity by proposing... Uh-huh.


    Elizabeth cheats on Todd and he retaliates by cheating on her. But he proposes to Elizabeth first... come on. Liz isn't as disgusted as we are.


    Also, he turns down the opportunity to get back at Liz by fooling around with Jessica to whine and pout over her. I guess they're trying to give us a message about how "it's not worth it when it's someone who would do this to you." But... that's kind of given. Even the smallest children would be rolling their eyes.


    "Please Forgive Me"


    No, Mrs. Pascal and ghostwriters. Not for a book this stupid and lazy and ludicrous. Maybe there were so many readers, they felt they didn't even have to make any kind of effort anymore.


    Oh crap, what if they're right?


    Thanks for all, Jenn. Your diagnosis... more right than the rain. And worth infinitely more than this piece-of-shit, waste-of-time, insult-to-the-intelligence-and-taste book.


    --Gratefully, Dane Youssef

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  3. Is anyone out there still wondering why Todd ends up marrying Jessica?


    Or rather... why he cheats on Elizabeth repeatedly with Jessica, even while engaged to Elizabeth?


    It wasn't just for the sake of "drama"... was it?


    --Always The Voice of Reason, Dane Youssef

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  4. I'm guessing that Todd actually wants the best of both worlds. He wants the sexy twin who is hot to trot and always up for some fun, but he also wants someone who is a little more mellow and likes curling up on the couch every single day. Instead of actually going out into the world and finding the right woman, he just keeps bouncing between the twins.

    I have to admit that when I was a kid, I loved Todd and Liz. When I read SVC, I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on. I know Francine wanted to stick with the same characters, but it's a little sad that years after high school ends, they still wind up in the same little group, dating the same people they knew from high school.

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  6. Well Jenn, I was really just sort of half-way joking with that comment--Come on, I KNOW the real reason Todd was making time with both twins.


    It's a SOAP OPERA! Come on, they all cheated on one another all the time. It was all for the sake of drama. For F-'s sakes, he had an affair with her identical twin sister! There's honestly not even a better metaphor for the definition of a soap... is there?


    Despite the fact that Liz and Todd were literally made for each other (yes literally, Miss Pascal wrote them to be perfect for one another)--they tended to philander whenever they got the opportunity. But no one cheated more than Jess, of course. It was a soap.


    Yes, that's why.


    --Sincerely Here Jenn, Dane Youssef

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