Rags to Riches

The most important part of this book is the Wakefields getting their first ever VCR. They got one almost a decade before my family did. Ripped off.

Anyway, this book is mostly just a slightly rejigged version of Racing Hearts, which, in turn, was an awful lot like Heart Breaker. This time it's Jessica who's after Roger, though, instead of Lila. The reason? Roger's mother has just died and he's found out that he's actually a Patman—and the richest boy in Sweet Valley. Ever the gold-digger, Jess thinks she'd rather like to be the girl on Roger's arm when his new-found aunt and uncle present him to society their friends at a big party at the Sweet Valley country club. Whether Jessica is actually genuinely interested in Roger is a show more question we'll probably never learn the answer to. She's genuinely interested in the Patman mansion, and that's the important thing.

Roger's still dating Olivia Davidson, but she doesn't really fit in with the Patmans' swanky décor. Jessica selflessly (ha!) offers to help her out. Given that Jess has never shown the slightest bit of interest in Olivia before, you kind of end up feeling that Olivia deserves everything she gets if she's stupid enough to think that Jess would do anything without an ulterior motive.

Under Jess's careful guidance (cheered on by Roger's new aunt and Bruce's mother, Maria Patman), Olivia just ends up embarrassing herself further, eventually leading to a big fight between her and Roger, who's starting to act a little Patman by this point. Of course, in the end Elizabeth works out what's going on and makes sure that it's Olivia, not Jessica, that gets to accompany Roger to the party. Jess cares for about five minutes.

The subplot in this one is that Regina Morrow has been missing school and has been spotted with a much older man. Lila's totally jealous that there's another extremely rich and extremely pretty girl in Sweet Valley now, so she's careful to spread the rumours as far as possible through the usual method of telling Caroline “Town Crier” Pearce. One day she decides to follow Regina, and discovers that she's actually been rushing off to modelling shoots, because she's going to be on the cover of Ingenue magazine. Lila being Lila, she figures that she can steal the cover from Regina, just as soon as the talent scout sees her. So she turns up in over-sprayed hair, a circus-worth of make-up and is told that her face is too flat for modelling. Poor darling :(

Also, Todd flips out at Liz for refusing to tell him Regina's secret. Lovely boy that he is.

Despite this basically being the third time this general plotline has been rolled out in the mere sixteen books that constitute the series so far, it's done quite well and the different story lines keep it interesting. It's not one of my absolute favourites, but it's definitely a solid offering.

Incidentally, normally I'm a Lila/Bruce shipper, but I actually ship him and Jess a bit in this book. They're perfectly devious together. I'm pretty sure Mrs. Patman could get behind the ship as well, given how much she adores Jessica.


Moral of the Story? Devious schemes are doomed to fail.

[re-read; previously read around 3 times] show less

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