Review: "Sweet Valley High #10: Wrong Kind of Girl"

CW: suicide attempt

Sweet Valley High #10: Wrong Kind of Girl by Francine Pascal
1 out of 5 stars

Before Reading: Annie Whitman is the "bad girl" in school, isn't she? Her haircut says "can I speak to your manager, please?" though.

The Main Plot in 50 Words or Less: Annie tries out for the cheer squad. Jessica doesn't want her on the team because she thinks she's "easy". Jess basically gaslights Annie into attempting suicide. Dark book.

The Second Plot in 20ish Words or Less: Elizabeth and Annie become friends.

Opening Lines: As she looked over the list of girls who had signed up to try out for the cheerleading squad, Jessica Wakefield purred like a satisfied cat.

Closing Lines: Both girls were filled with anticipation as they pulled into the driveway, jumped out of the car, and raced toward the house.

Best WTF Lines: [see above opening line]
Annie was one of the most beautiful girls in town, but she had a very bad reputation. She seemed to fall deeply in love with one guy after another, but each deep love never lasted more than a night or two.

Annie: Johnny is my mother's "very special friend". We're just one big happy family.

Johnny to Elizabeth: "Just call me Johnny, sugar. All the cute little girls call me Johnny."

Happenings in SV: Cheerleading tryouts. Jessica is a real b----- towards Annie, because she thinks she's "easy". Annie doesn't know about her reputation at school, she just wants some friends and the only ones she can manage to get are guys. Elizabeth starts tutoring her and Jessica is pissed. Liz is torn about it and almost alienates Todd & Enid in the process. Jess convinces all the other cheerleaders not to vote for Easy Annie. The "nice guy" Ricky falls for Annie and she for him but her reputation gets in the way.

And then, Annie tries to kill herself. She takes some pills. Ricky finds her in time and gets her to the hospital. Jessica & Elizabeth rush to the hospital. Jess blames herself, which she should, but turns it into a pity party for her instead of Annie. Annie isn't doing so well and the doctor says she has no will to live. Jess runs to him and tells him everything. The doctor says if Annie were on the cheerleading squad, maybe she'd want to live. WTFFFF??? Jess gives her the spot, Annie wakes up and is suddenly happy again, and all is well.

Fashion Icons: [Jessica] was wearing a black-and-red striped top and her shortest skirt. 

Annie Whitman was walking through the door-instantly catching everybody's attention in a slinky outfit with a skirt that had a slit almost to the top of her thigh.

Twin Hijinks: Jessica had tried over and over again to interest Elizabeth in the cheerleading squad. "The two of us together would be sensational!" she'd told Elizabeth at least a hundred and thirty-seven times.

Other Thoughts: I hated this book. Hated it. More than All Night Long and Power Play put together. Annie just wants someone to love her, for herself, for once. Her mom has a string of "boyfriends" herself and drinks a lot, sounds like the current one is after Annie too, her dad beat her mom when she was younger and threw Annie down the stairs. It's no wonder she's so messed up.

Jessica's behave would have her in jail if she did it now. And she'd deserve it. Outright bullying 100%. Elizabeth wasn't much better. She knew how much Annie wanted it and wanted to change and she also knew what kind of sick, scheming b---- Jessica is. But she did nothing. She should feel just as horrible about the whole situation.

The Next Book*: Both twins get more than they bargained for in Sweet Valley High #11, TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.

*(not necessarily what I'll be reading)

5 5-Star Books I've Read in the Last Year

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
A story about stories. Adventure, fairy-tales, contemporary romance, pirates, secret book groups, timeless love, twists and turns, endless libraries, Harry Potter and Where the Wild Things Are references. This book has it all. The Night Circus was my favorite book in 2013 and I've been waiting breathlessly for her to release another book. I was absolutely not disappointed, but I know some people were. This is a love/hate book. You will have strong feelings for it. Luckily for me, they were strong feelings of "omg I adored this book, it sucked me in and didn't let go!"

Not all stories speak to all listeners, but all listeners can find a story that does, somewhere, sometime. In one form or another.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

"Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town." But it turns out that Xan, the witch, isn't terrorizing their town, in fact she thinks the town people are a little crazy, leaving innocent babies in the woods each year. So she feeds them on moonlight and takes them to the next village over, where the people are more than happy to raise the star children. Xan just wants to live peacefully in her swamp with her swamp monster friend and tiny dragon who doesn't know he's tiny. Then she accidentally feeds a baby too much moonlight and things change forever. This middle-grade book broke my heart for awhile but then put it back together.

How many feelings can one heart hold?... Infinite, Luna thought. 

The way the universe is infinite. It is light and dark and endless motion; 

it is space and time, and space within space, and time within time. 

And she knew: there is no limit to what the heart can carry.

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell
This graphic novel will have you yearning, yearning I say!, for crisp fall weather, caramel apples, and all things pumpkin (even if you can't stand pumpkin any other time of the year). Think if this was made into a cartoon special! It would become an instant classic, like It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Deja & Josiah are seasonal bffs who work each fall at the local pumpkin patch. It's their last year & they want to have the best night possible. And they totally do. I want to reread this now but I will restrain myself. Maybe.

Like every autumn smell all at once.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
A dark twisty tale that will leave you breathless at the end. Two sisters and their uncle live together in a large old house after the rest of the family dies under suspicious circumstances. They do not like to go into town or interact with anyone outside their little circle. Until they are forced to and bad things happen. I was completely bewitched by this classic from the very first page. When I finished, I hungered for more and more.

On the moon we have everything. 

Lettuce, and pumpkin pie and Amanita phalloides. 

We have cat-furred plants and horses dancing with their wings. 

All the locks are solid and tight, and there are no ghosts.

The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart
For 5 years, Coyote and her dad, Rodeo, have been travelling the country in their renovated school bus. They are running from sadness but eventually it will catch up to them. I love roadtrip stories and this one was full of adventure, quirky friends they meet along the way, crazy animals, laughter, songs, tears, and everything you need! When I finished this book, I wondered if I could have a favorite author after only one book. I haven't read any of his others yet, so I'm not sure, but if they're like this one then he will definitely be in the running!
I just wanted everyone to be happy...

It's hard, though, when everyone carries around a heart 

inside them that is so loud and so strong and so easily broken.

Musings of a book blogger....

Does book blogging still exist? Does this blog have any readers still? Can I post more than 5 times in one year? Should I still try blogging other books besides Baby-Sitters Club & Sweet Valley High? These are the questions that plague me at night. (Not really, more like at work when I'm bored hah.)

I am still reading of course, you can check me out on Instagram or Goodreads to see that. So what is stopping me from blogging, which I sincerely enjoy? I would say the rise of streaming tv shows and movies plays a large part. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+, I've got them all and I still browse aimlessly trying to find something to watch. A longer work commute is another. When I finally get home, I just want to sit and zone out. I barely have enough energy to cook dinner some nights. Weekends are spent catching up on house stuff and spending time with the boyfriend fiance :) <3 or family. And I suppose lack of activity is the final piece. When I haven't blogged in awhile, I forget how. Even now, I am wondering if this is a good post, if it's too wordy, what kind of pictures I should include, should this be another paragraph? It can be hard. Especially knowing you're doing this mostly for yourself.

But should that stop you/me? I don't think so. I'm proud of (most of) my posts. The Baby-Sitters Club reviews especially. I want to finish them, to make the Master List a complete list full of snarky comments, nostalgic sighs, and glorious reincarnations of Claudia's outfits. So how do I do that? Use a planner again? Schedule specific time on the weekends? Stop being so lazy at night, blog while I watch tv, go to bed a smidge later? (Blog on the sly at work?) All of these things probably. And I think that's enough semi-rhetorical questions for one post, don't you agree? (See what I did there? Okay, I'll stop.)

Let's talk books! I want to know what you're reading right now, what your favorite book was last year, what you're most looking forward to this year! I am currently reading Nureyev, a biography about the male Russian ballet dancer. He is fascinating, I highly recommend watching some of his performances on YouTube or reading about him. I have also been reading some Mary Higgins Clark books off & on since she died recently. I devoured her books as a young teenager, they were probably some of the first "adult" books I read. She and Dean Koontz really taught me how to be a first rate serial killer stalker. :D I wasn't sure if they would still be as good and engrossing after all this time, but they really are. I'm also reading a graphic novel by Jason Walz called Last Pick. Aliens take over Earth and abduct anyone over the age of 16 and in good health. Then it's the kids turn to protect the world and get things back to normal.

I will have a post up in a few days of my favorite books in the last year so I won't mention those here. I am very much looking forward to reading the sequels for Melissa Albert's Hazel Wood series and Kiersten White's Slayer one. I have both already so just need to get to it! And of course, I have an overstuffed library cart of to-read books to choose from. :) I keep saying that I will stop buying books and read the ones I have. Alas, the allure of the library book sale is strong.