Monday, October 5, 2015

Sweet Valley High #15: Promises




Front Cover: Somehow, Jessica will get rid of Betsy!

Back Cover: Bad girl in town...
Steven Wakefield is crushed when his girlfriend, Tricia, dies after a tragic illness. The only things that keep him going are the memory of their love and his promise to Tricia to take care of her sister, Betsy, after she's gone.
Betsy Martin's wild exploits with drink, drugs and boys have left her with the worst reputation in Sweet Valley. But when Steven takes her into the Wakefield home, Betsy makes a promise to change. And as her goodness grows, so does her love for Steven.
 Jessica, Steven's conniving younger sister, doesn't like this one bit. She makes a little promise of her own - to get Betsy out of the house and out of Steven's life... forever!
I like how this book doesn't hide the fact that Jessica is totally mean and a bitch. Betsy's sister just died, and Jessica is all "But what about me? ME!!!" I really wished people in the book called her out on her behaviour more often.

Even though Jessica and Elizabeth still feature prominently in this book, it's largely about Steven, which I really liked. I wish we got more books about him. I'm excited for all the books in the future that feature him being all creepy about Tricia haha

I wonder if anyone ever brings up the fact that Betsy's name must be Elizabeth. I mean, I suppose it's always possible that her parents just named her Betsy straight-up, but generally, "Betsy" is a nickname for "Elizabeth". Oh the irony!

Anyways, what basically ends up happening is that Betsy stays true to her word. It's not easy, and with Jessica's machinations, she very nearly decides to forgo it all and just resign her life to being poor white trailer trash. But of course, it wouldn't be a Sweet Valley book without everything ending up all hunky-dory in the end. Steven and his friend Jason Stone decide to enter Betsy in an art contest to get a scholarship at an art school. Of course, she wins, so I'm guessing that means we won't be seeing much of her anymore.

Jason Stone seemed like such a generic nice-guy. I'm guessing in the future, if he or Betsy ever get mentioned, it'll be that they're dating.

The subplot is that Roger Barrett's mom is dying, and Bruce Patman's father is being super-nice about it. In the end, we find out that Bruce's uncle, Paul, who died in a plane accident long long long ago, is actually Roger's father.

Hook: Now Roger is as rich as Bruce, but how muvh will he have to change to fit in to the Patmans' world?

I'm guessing that at first, Roger will be all like, "This doesn't change anything. I mean, I won't have to work so many hours and I won't have to worry about money for school, but I'm still the nice guy I've always been!" But then Jessica is going to sink her hooks into him, and convince him to change, and others will have an influence on him, and the next thing we know, he'll break up with his girlfriend, date Jess (who will realize that despite the money, she thinks Roger is the most boring person ever) and eventually realize that money can't buy happiness and that he was better off before. So even though he'll still have the money, he'll eschew the lifestyle and everything will pretty much be status quo haha