Much to Jessica's dislike, Steven and Tricia are still happily in love... or are they?

The truth is, Tricia's been cancelling dates and refusing to take Steven's calls. He's completely devastated—especially when rumours start going around about Tricia dating other men. Eventually he confronts her and accuses her of heading off on a dirty weekend with a new beau (remember, guys, Tricia's still in high school) and they break up. But we soon discover that Tricia's not cheating at all but instead harbouring a Very Big Secret. She's dying of leukaemia, and wants to spare Steve the misery of watching her fade away. Because thinking your first love is cheating on you and then later finding out she's dead is obviously a bed of roses.

Meanwhile, Jess has heard that one of her favourite celebrities is currently stuck in Fowler Memorial Hospital with a broken leg, so she persuades Liz to join her as a candy striper so she can meet him and he can fall madly in love with her jailbait self. Liz somehow doesn't see right through Jess's claim that she wants to give back to the community, despite knowing her scheming twin for over sixteen years. It soon becomes obvious what Jess is really after, though, when she starts harassing the poor man every chance she gets.

Cara's always been hot for Steve, so with Tricia out of the way, Jess decides to throw her bestie and her brother together. Initially, Steve stays true to the memory of his ex, but before long he's snogging Cara and taking her to college parties, despite still thinking she's shallow and annoying. As you can see, using people runs in the Wakefield family.

Liz finds out Tricia's secret when she runs into her at the hospital, but Tricia makes Liz promise not to tell anyone. Here's one of the few times where the Sweet Valley books actually teach their junior readers a valid lesson, because it's made very obvious that some promises are damaging and shouldn't be kept. Liz angsts about it for a few chapters, pausing occasionally to scheme with Jeremy Frank about frightening Jessica into getting over him by proposing.

She says yes, but it's a very short-lived engagement.

Eventually Liz decides to tell Steven the truth about Tricia's strange behaviour and the two crazy kids are reunited, pausing only for Steven to thoroughly criticise Cara, never once thinking that perhaps his own rebound behaviour could be called into question.

Everything ends happily! Except for Cara, who's been dumped by the guy she's been crushing on forever. And for Tricia, who's still dying. Oh, and for Elizabeth, who's just been kidnapped by Creepy Carl the hospital orderly she was stupid enough to be nice to once.

Cliffhanger time!

This is one of the best early books in the series. There's a light-hearted Jessica plot to counter all the doom and gloom of Steven and Tricia's star-crossed love, and Cara gets to have her first featured role. As is often the case in Sweet Valley, everything could have been sorted out in a tenth of the time if people actually communicated honestly with each other... but where would be the story in that?

Moral of the Story? Don't accuse your girlfriend of cheating. She could just be dying and then how would you feel?

[re-read - previously read around 3 times]

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