Sweet Valley High #90: Don't Go Home With John

After way too much time working on this blog, I've finally made my way to Don't Go Home With John, one of the most infamous books in SVH history.

Lila recently developed a crush on John Pfiefer, which cracks everyone up because they can't imagine a more mismatched pair. John is super serious and just coming off a big break up, and Lila is, well, Lila. She starts picturing them as a real couple and having all these daydreams about him. The only problem is that he frequently talks to her and approaches her outside of school but never makes a move.

After talking it over with Liz, John finally gets up the courage to ask Lila out. She's instantly over the moon about it and starts planning what to wear and how to act. When her friends ask her about getting together that weekend though, she plays it really cool and acts like it's not a big deal. Jessica is the only one who realizes that it is a big deal and says she'll call Sunday morning to get all the details.

Lila decides to wear a black Lycra minidress with a pearl necklace and crushed velvet jacket, which is one of the most 90s date outfits I can picture in my head. The date goes really well until she suggests they take a drive, which naturally means heading up to Miller's Point. They kiss a few times, Lila goes weak in the knees, and she thinks about how she doesn't really want to stop but needs to put on the brakes.

When she tries to tell him to stop, John won't take no for an answer. She keeps telling him she needs to get home early, but he won't stop kissing her. They wind up fighting. He grabs her by the hair and scratches her face, and he also grabs her wrist. Lila manages to get away and throws his keys into the woods before running home.

Waking up the next morning, she thinks it was all a dream until she sees her clothes on the ground. Eva comes in because Jessica called, but she tells the housekeeper to say she's still asleep. Jessica finds the whole thing odd because Lila always wants to chat about even bad dates. No matter how often she calls though, her friend refuses to answer the phone.

Lila spends all day freaking out and wondering what will happen when she sees John again. What actually happens is nothing. He basically looks like her like she's invisible and then says something to his buddy that makes them all crack up laughing. Lila was in the middle of planning a costume party and contemplates canceling it but Jessica convinces her that it's way too late to cancel.

All their friends notice that something isn't quite right with Lila, but Jessica is the only one who pushes the issue. Lila keeps refusing to talk to her and makes it out like it was just a bad date. It turns out that John said similar things and made it seem like Lila was a spoiled princess. She finally works up the nerve to tell him that he can't come to her party. Jessica notices that Lila seems a little better later.

When the night of the party comes, Lila is seemingly fine until she sees a dude dressed as a pirate show up with some girl dressed as a bunny. The guy comes up for some punch, and she realizes that it's John. He makes a few nasty comments until she tells him to leave. When he starts to leave with the bunny, Lila stops them and tells the girl not to go with him. She then blurts out that he tried to rape her. John tries to laugh it off, but Sam stands up to him and tells him to go. Some other guys intimidate him into leaving also. Lila finally tells Jess what happened, and Jess vows to stand by her.

That turns out to be harder than anyone thought. Elizabeth tells Alice the whole story, and Alice points out that some people will take John's side. After all, Liz herself literally says she thought has was a good and nice guy, and what good guy would do something like that? A lot of people at SVH actually put the blame on Lila and think that she probably exaggerated the whole thing.

John is suddenly super popular and always surrounded by popular guys. When Lila sees him staring at her in the cafeteria, she freaks out until Liz and Enid come up and walk her past him. They talk about how amazing her party was until a gatecrasher ruined things. Many of the girls in school decide to take Lila's side.

Jessica has another problem on her hands, which is not knowing how to say no to Sam. Without actually mentioning the word sex in a book about near date rape, she and Sam keep going at it like bunnies without getting to that point. She starts wondering how other couples handle it. When she tries talking to Liz about it, her twin points out that she and Todd have a hard time stopping too. Jessica finds it hard to believe that a dull couple like the two of them could ever have anything that compares to what she has with Sam.

At one point, they were even going at it so hard that she fell out of the car. She had the door open to leave before they started kissing again, got distracted, and fell out. To keep herself in check, she decides that they can no longer be alone together. She even makes him help her parents clean out the garage. It gets so bad that Alice even picks up on it. Jessica gives up after seeing what happened to Lila because it makes her realize that Sam is a great guy who would never push her to do something she didn't want to do.

Jessica also decides to gather some dirt on John. She approaches Jennifer, his ex-girlfriend, for help. Jennifer apparently ended things because he was too bossy and demanding. She doesn't give Jessica any new information but does make it clear that no one should trust him and that she feels bad for Lila.

Lila gets the kick in the pants that she needs when Susan, some random freshman, comes to see her. Susan was actually John's first date after the break up and a date that he kept secret. They went for a walk on the beach, did some kissing, and he got way too pushy. She just barely managed to fight him off before another couple came up who gave her a ride home. The girls make a deal to confront him the next day.

Instead of doing this in private though, they do it at the Dairi Burger. Lila accuses him again, he denies it and jokes with his friends, and then Susan walks up. They both tell him that he needs serious help, and Lila even tells his friends that he needs help. John still denies it, but it turns out that Susan is the best friend of one of the guy's little sisters. He tells John that he needs help and that Susan would never lie. The others agree and walk out on him. Jessica, Elizabeth, Todd, and Sam are all there to support Lila.

Lila and Jessica go shopping a few days later and actually talk. She says that the girl in the bunny suit found her in school and thanked her before telling her that all the girls at SVH owe her for telling the truth. Lila then reveals that she will start counseling soon but not at Project Youth because that's where John is going. She thinks that she can finally recover and move on.

*Having John talk to Elizabeth about how he likes Lila and is nervous about asking her out is an odd note given what happens later. It's like the ghostwriter didn't want him to seem like that bad of a guy until the end.

*Jessica comparing her and Sam to Todd and Liz makes me want to punch her. After Sam died and Todd left her, Liz was devastated and sad all the time. Jessica literally started dating Todd like a week after Sam died and was with that James guy not long after.

*Jessica's final decision on what to do about Sam irritated me too. She literally says that she has a hard time stopping herself when they're together, but then she's fine because he would never push her to do anything. It's basically her making a decision to keep doing exactly what she did before.

*Lila acts in a fairly realistic way after what happens. She stops wearing makeup, dresses in old clothing, and tries to be by herself. What's not really realistic is the fact that she seemingly gets over everything for a few books and then gets so depressed that George has to call Grace back to town.

*I'm on the fence about the almost rapist being John. On the one hand, I like that they used someone totally normal from the books who you would never expect instead of bringing in some totally new character. On the other hand though, this is a guy who has been around since book one. We even had a whole book about how he was such a great guy to Jennifer and won her heart. It sucks what they eventually did to him.

*The couples keep fighting about what to dress as for the party. Elizabeth wants to go as some historic couple, and Todd wants them to go as a cowboy and a dance hall girl because he's apparently never met his girlfriend before. Jessica and Sam fight too because she thinks they should be Romeo and Juliet but he refuses to wear tights.

*Alice has an ick factor for me in this book. She says that she and Ned always liked how casually romantic Jessica and Sam were around each other. They both picked up on something different about them and wanted to know if they were okay. Just be glad your daughter isn't jumping her boyfriend's bones every 20 seconds in front of you.

*Actual costumes include Jessica and Sam as Leia and Han Solo, Todd and Liz as the sun and moon, Lila as Peter Pan, and Enid and Hugh as a telephone because they spend so much time talking to each other on the phone.

*Dana and Aaron are no longer a couple because the ghostwriter wanted to set up the book where Prince Arthur comes back. He's also been writing to Liz quite a bit, as in three letters in two weeks. She tries to keep it a secret from Todd, but Jessica blabs the news to him. Todd instantly becomes jealous while she tries to calm him down because it's not like she would ever cheat on him or anything. /s

*So I totally do not remember ever reading this book before. I think I only read through The Evil Twin originally anyway. Despite that, I vividly recall the Jessica and Sam story, so it either pops up again later or is one of those Secret Diary books.

*Steven sends a postcard home to say he's going on a ski trip. Oh, so this is the one weekend a semester when he doesn't come back to Sweet Valley?