Sweet Valley Senior Year #2: Say It to My Face

Elizabeth just found Conner in her bathroom and quickly learns that her new friend Megan is his little half-sister. After staring at his chest for way too long, she keeps fighting with him and sneaking looks back at his chest. I already don't like this, and I especially don't like the relationship between the two of them. They spend a good portion of the book snapping at each, so it doesn't help when Maria develops a crush on him.

Tia, her boyfriend Angel, and Andy come over to pick Conner up and instead invite Liz along to hit up the House of Java. They quickly become the best of friends, which gives her an excuse not to hang out with Maria. She even skips an Oracle meeting to go shopping with them because they want to get some new clothes to hit up Riot, an underage club in town. She asks Maria to go with them a few times and hides her delight when she can't go.

Unfortunately, Maria can go with them to Riot on Friday. They instantly start sharing in jokes and talking about a bunch of stuff that happened when she wasn't around, and Liz doesn't seem to pick up on her discomfort. Maria makes her way to the bar and runs into Conner, who buys her a drink because she's so not like all the other girls there. He takes her up to the roof, and I assume they make out a ton.

Liz nearly has a heart attack when she learned what happens and gets super possessive of Conner, but she does try to hide it by just not talking. When she hears from Tia that he never stays with one girl for too long and that most of his relationships have a shelf life, she gleefully tells Maria everything in a note. Maria races from the room, and when she catches up, Maria tells Liz that she can't always ruin everything for her and that maybe Conner really does like her and will change for her. Aww, poor girl.

Conner and Maria kind of date or something. They're making out on the couch in his house when Liz accidentally catches them. Conner looks right into her eyes and then goes back to making out, which is way too creepy for my tastes. Liz convinces her that he just didn't see her. Yeah, I'm sure that's it. Every time he and Maria kiss though, he keeps seeing Liz, so he makes an excuse to get her to leave. He does the whole "I'll be in touch" thing and gets annoyed that she already wants him to call.

Liz takes the drastic step of calling Enid, who wants to talk about her new friend Illena and how they watched a bunch of episodes of Xena on tape. Liz then asks if she can move in with her. Enid kind of hesitates and says that she'll have to check with her parents but she isn't sure because things have been tight since the earthquake. Since they're meeting up at House of Java the next morning, Liz can just come along and find out what they said.

That night, Conner randomly wanders into her room. After checking her out, which is gross, he gets ready to kiss her. The closer he gets, the more she realizes that he's drunk. She throws him out, and he says that she can make even flannel look sexy. The next day, she tells Enid to forget about it and that she'll work things out on her own.

Since this book wants me to feel bad for Jessica Wakefield, I have to hear about how everyone thinks that she's a slut. Melissa wants her to pay for having the nerve to go out with her boyfriend, yet she has no problems taking back the boyfriend who barely apologized. Her friends, Cherie and Gina, make fun of a skirt, which she borrowed from Lila by the way, because it looks more like something you would wear in a nightclub than at school. She later goes to class and sees that someone wrote "Jessica Wakefield is a slut" on the board and runs off in tears.

Lila and Amy both go out with Melissa and her snotty friends. She casually asks about who wrote the message on the board, and Cherie lies and says its was the guys. Melissa briefly wonders how much Lila will tell Jessica before deciding that she'll find out. During tryouts for the squad, Melissa switches the tape Jessica practiced to with something different. She screws up, but the coach lets her on the squad because she knows that she's better than that. Melissa announces that all the cheerleaders should head to Riot for a celebration.

Tia has this boyfriend Angel who got into Stamford but delayed a semester. She keeps worrying that he'll cheat on her in school and even writes a break up later but decides not to send it. Angel shows up at school with flowers and two letters. She opens one and it talks about how proud he is of her for making the squad. The other note was in case she didn't make it and says that now she'll have more time for him, which she thinks is adorable.

Jessica heads to the club and finds the whole squad there. Cherie calls her a slut in one of those "oh, I coughed under my breath so you couldn't here me" kind of things. Melissa tells her that she isn't welcome because she's a whore. Jess stands up to her and tells Amy and Lila to come with her, but neither of them move. Shocked, she runs outside and sees Todd. He acts really cool and seems uncomfortable until she asks him why everyone turned on her. Todd tells her that she can't hit on one guy and sleep with another guy in the same night and expect people not to talk.

*Conner rolls his eyes at freshmen girls in the club and thinks how lame it is whenever new freshmen discover the place. Oh, you mean the way you did when you were a freshman?

*Maria feels out of place in jeans and a vintage camisole because Liz is in a green tank top and a black skirt with a slit up to the knee. Yeah, I prefer Maria's look.

*Since when does Enid have two parents living together? Her dad was some big alcoholic, and her mom never really seemed to date except for that guy at the news station.

*Liz wears some super short nightgown to get milk in the middle of the night and then gets uncomfortable and tries to pull it down over her hips/thighs when she sees Conner. Damn girl, how short was that nightgown?

*Liz thinks that Tia doesn't look like a cheerleader because she has more of a compact and athletic body. Wait, did she just call her fat? Plus, you would think that Liz would know more about cheerleaders after competing at the national level.

*I just finished reading the book where Regina died (again), so this whole Jessica thing makes me laugh. Why doesn't she say something like, "hey Amy! Remember that time you totally stole that girl's boyfriend and she was so upset that she did coke and had a heart attack?" It seems like everyone in SVH has something worse that what Jessica did on their resumes!

*How is it that three new kids come into a school and just totally take things over? Melissa, Cherie, and Gina just absolutely rule the school in like three days.

*We do get a little from Lila's perspective. She basically says that she can't remember the last time someone looked at her and Jessica and chose her. Does she really think things will be better with Melissa?