We're Not Gonna Sleep Tonight

Playing With Fire
December 1983


Can Jessica play Bruce Patman's game and win?

Too hot to handle...

   Watch out, Sweet Valley High! Once again, Jessica Wakefield has gotten her way. Fresh from her greatest social triumph, Jessica proceeds to sink her hooks into rich, handsome Bruce Patman, the most eligible, sought-after guy at SVH.
   Or has Bruce gotten his hooks into Jessica? Elizabeth, Jessica's twin, notices a big change in her sister. Suddenly Jessica's following Bruce everywhere and dropping everything just to spend time with him.
   Elizabeth doesn't trust Bruce one bit- he's arrogant, demanding, and way too fast. Jessica can usually hold her own with any guy, but this time Elizabeth's afraid her sister may be going too far...

  Playing With Fire is even more simple in its plot than the previous books. Jessica's been after Bruce for the last, oh, three years. She finally manages to snag him and convinces herself that he is her boyfriend. Thing is, he seems more like a fuck buddy without the fucking. Or the buddy part. At first it's not so bad. There's a dance that Jessica is supposed to show up to with Winston in tow. Yeah, like that's gonna happen. There's a dance contest, and Winston is many things [funny, lanky, incredibly dense when it comes to the true nature of the Jessica] but a fantastic dancer is not one of them. Proving that there ain't nobody who ain't white in SV at this point, Jessica Wakefield's hair can dance better than most of the people in this competition. In fact, the only other female who stands a chance in HELL of beating Jessica is her very own twin. However, Liz isn't bogged down by Winston's more comedic style of dancing, and from DL, we know Todd is a fantabulous dancer.

  As is Bruce Patman, who does not take well to the thought of losing. Anything, anytime, EVER. So he cuts in on Winston, and within moments he and Jessica are dancing up a storm. Which, I guess is great, but frankly, I'm still stuck on Jessica's hair moving to the rhythm. I mean, really, how does that work exactly?

  Anyway, from there, Jess and Bruce head to Ken's lake house for the cool kids only after party. This is what, the fourth or fifth party and we're only in the third book? Awesome. No wonder I thought HS would be nothing but fun. Now, I should stress this isn't even their first date. He just hijacked Jess mid-song from her actual "date", [and if Jess were real and could hear this, she'd kill me twice] wins a contest, and then they go to the after party. Still with me? Good. While in the lake, Bruce undoes the strings to Jessica's top, which is about the most action anyone gets in SVH, ever. Ah, how romantic. Then they scuttle off to the woods to grope like mad, only to be interrupted by a very concerned Liz who is rewarded for her troubles with serious amounts of 'tude from Jess. Mainly because you don't interrupt the bitchy ones when they're in heat. It's dangerous to your health.

  Which sets up the main conflict between the twins. Liz knows full well that Bruce is a jackass. Jess thinks he's going to change and be the bestest Bruce he can be, all for her. One could argue that a tamed Bruce isn't really what Jessica wants, but we're far too early into the series to point that out. Anyway, Liz must learn the hardest of all lessons: When your best friend has fallen for a jerk, no amount of badmouthing him/her/them will help. You make it clear that, hey, maybe you could do better, but realize this isn't going to do you any good until they come around to the same realization.

  Jessica [eventually] learns that Bruce is a jerk. Considering Jessica actually has feelings for Bruce, she seems totally unable to recognize the fact that he's only interested in her for a limited amount of fun physical time. He probably doesn't mind the fact that hooking up with Jessica, especially as something more than just a random date, has to be good for your reputation amongst the other guys, particularly when you're telling them you can get whatever you want, when you want.

  Which leads to the best controversy ever. Did Bruce and Jess actually have sex? The realists in the world say yes, yes they did. He and Jessica were "together" for an awfully long time if all he was getting was to cop a feel here and there, not to mention marathon sessions of tonsil hockey. He seemed to get nothing else out of it, except maybe the thrill of breaking Jessica, and even that seems drawn out a bit too long. Jessica is attached quickly and irrationally, and hints are made as to what they get up to, and how attractive they find one another. Also, the earlier SVH books don't really seem to mind mentioning sex [even if it's just hinted], drugs, or various other things that would pretty much be relegated to the fringe bad guys later on in the series.

  On the other hand, realists don't read Sweet Valley High. It's clearly stated much later on that Jessica is still a virgin right up until she and Mike hook up in SVU, and the sugary sweet overtones of the series as a whole does kind of point in the general direction of, "NO! God, it's possible for two people to have a relationship, even amidst the raging hormones of HS, and not sleep together. GOD."

  I fall somewhere between the two. I don't find it impossible to believe, but I can't imagine they wouldn't have mentioned it at one time or another. If nothing else, a quick mention in some forgettable book that they knew wouldn't sell all that well or one of the diaries.

  Now, where were we? Oh yeah. Bruce and Jessica make out all over campus, her grades slide into the toilet, Bruce makes some unflattering remarks about the cheerleaders, and then, when Jessica has given up everything that makes her Jessica [aside from being a total wench when it comes to Robin Wilson], he predictably pulls away. Only he doesn't break up with her. Instead he uses that as the omnipresent threat anytime she steps outside this strange little box he's created for her. He's obviously seeing someone else, but Jess won't believe it. Meanwhile...

  B-story this time around concerns Liz [duh!] and The Droids. The who? Sweet Valley High's rock band. I'd say only rock band, but I'm fairly certain they mention another one or two later on. But really, The Droids? Totally the only band you need to remember. It appears they've finally snagged the attention of someone who could, in theory, make them famous. They do a little [and I do mean little] research, find out he's legit, and bam. They stop playing in SV and instead play some dives elsewhere in Cali. There are only two reasons to bring this up, aside from it being the B-story.

1. There's a little thing between Winston and Robin. Namely, Jess keeps trying to foist Robin off on Winston, figuring this'll get rid of them both all at once. Liz knows all about this, but still manages to invite them both to tag along when she and Todd go see the Droids perform. Winston manages to lose any and all sympathy points he'd managed to accrue thus far in the series, by spouting off some crap about Robin and being uncomfortable around people who eat all the time. Oi.


2. Remember when I said Jess was failing? Well, her backup plan is to cheat off Emily Mayer. Only Emily is the Droids' drummer and hasn't been studying either. So Bruce tells Jess how to get a copy of the test. Which she has Robin do under the guise of it being a PBA prank, and then has Robin stash the test in Emily's locker, figuring that Em will cheat, then they'll both be in the clear. It's almost ingenious. But Jess didn't count on Russo changing some of the questions. Still, Em admits to cheating. Which makes no sense, since she failed anyway. Curse you, morality! CURSE YOU!

  To tie up the B-story, it seems their "manager" was really only interested into getting into Dana Larson's tight pants, and that ain't ever gonna happen, so POOF. Well, that and he was canned from the agency he claimed to still work for, and wouldn't be able to book them anything other than dives anyway.

  Back to Jessica. Jess was expecting a nice quiet evening of making out with Bruce for his 18th birthday. Instead, he's throwing himself a HUGE party. Nothing important happens until they move the shindig to the pizza place. Bruce gets a call from his "grandmother" and declares he has to leave early. That, by the way, has been his excuse lately. That his gran is sick and needs him. And the youngest Wakefield actually bought that lie. Repeatedly. Liz smells a rich rat, so she offers to take Jess home. She quickly cons Todd into driving around for half an hour and then returning to the scene of the crime. Todd agrees, because he's bored and obviously nothing good is going to come of this. Wait, no, he agrees because he's Todd.
So they drive around, pissing Jess off to no end, and when they return to Guido's, Liz mentions that it appears Bruce hasn't left yet after all. So Jess runs in with her twin [Liz returned under the guise of having left her keys at the restaurant] and it appears Bruce did leave. It's just that he came back with another date.

  Again, I've got to interrupt. What the hell? Beforehand, it wasn't as if Bruce was subtle about his non-Jessica female "friends", but this time, one has to wonder whether he was just going to dump her or see if she'd believe anyone who mentioned he spent the rest of the night NOT with his gran, but instead with a knockout redhead.

  Jess sees non!Gran and suddenly the meek, mild mannered Jessica is no more. Instead she tells Bruce and his tramp off, dumps a pizza and soda all over the birthday boy, and dissolves into giggles when he manages to fall into a fountain. Which, I admit, always gives me a giant grin. And thus, order is returned to the universe. Except for that part where Jessica gets Winston to take her home. That's cute, but not exactly realistic or conducive to the world being back on its axis theory.



Random:

• - Robin Wilson is new to SV, which might partially explain why she's trying so damn hard.


• - The Boston Shop is where Jess goes shopping after she's been Bruce-ified. Why, oh why is he encouraging her to dress like a snooty old lady?


• - Todd admires a motorcycle outside the Seaside Express, one of the dives The Droids play. GASP. Foreshadowing!


• - Jessica's PBA teddy is named Bartholomew. I thought it was cute.


• - Ken is Lila's go-to guy. Despite having just dumped her for being a colossal bitch to his crush [Ms. Dalton], Ken is back dating Lila in this book. That's just wrong.


• - Jess was apparently on the girl's swim team in junior high. Which begs the question, why call their spin off's school Sweet Valley Middle School if they'd refer to it as Jr. high? As someone who went to MS, you don't call it junior high. Of course, later we'd get the Jr. High spin off, but I never read anything past the second book and I don't remember anything other than a whole lot of, "No. Just no."

Quotes:

"Oh, and thanks for making dinner tonight. I promise I'll make it up to you sometime."
"With you, 'sometime' could be around the year 2000. I won't hold my breath," Elizabeth retorted.

   Actually, they kinda nailed that. Isn't that when the Senior Year books were happening? Liz was the space case and Jess was relatively tame in comparison, and definitely more mature. But it's always funny when a series makes a crack like that and you pass the year mentioned. Always.




  This could have been much shorter. Bruce and Jessica start 'dating', though I'm still not sure I'd call it that. Jessica changes herself to suit Bruce's needs, but it's not enough for him, and eventually, through Liz's tricky maneuvering, Jess sees the light. She begins her hatred of Bruce and this'll carry on for the rest of the series. That's about it.
  I have no real attachment to the book one way or another. It was about time for Jess to prove herself sort of human, and I like Todd being forced to stick up for Jess for a change. That would be when Liz complains that Jessica has ceased living, only coming back to life when Bruce deigns to spend anytime with her. Todd points out that Liz is happy when he's around, yes? It's one of the most realistic moments we're treated to, and I like those mixed in with my over the top melodramatic theatrics.

We're Not Gonna Sleep Tonight

Playing With Fire
December 1983


Can Jessica play Bruce Patman's game and win?

Too hot to handle...

   Watch out, Sweet Valley High! Once again, Jessica Wakefield has gotten her way. Fresh from her greatest social triumph, Jessica proceeds to sink her hooks into rich, handsome Bruce Patman, the most eligible, sought-after guy at SVH.
   Or has Bruce gotten his hooks into Jessica? Elizabeth, Jessica's twin, notices a big change in her sister. Suddenly Jessica's following Bruce everywhere and dropping everything just to spend time with him.
   Elizabeth doesn't trust Bruce one bit- he's arrogant, demanding, and way too fast. Jessica can usually hold her own with any guy, but this time Elizabeth's afraid her sister may be going too far...

  Playing With Fire is even more simple in its plot than the previous books. Jessica's been after Bruce for the last, oh, three years. She finally manages to snag him and convinces herself that he is her boyfriend. Thing is, he seems more like a fuck buddy without the fucking. Or the buddy part. At first it's not so bad. There's a dance that Jessica is supposed to show up to with Winston in tow. Yeah, like that's gonna happen. There's a dance contest, and Winston is many things [funny, lanky, incredibly dense when it comes to the true nature of the Jessica] but a fantastic dancer is not one of them. Proving that there ain't nobody who ain't white in SV at this point, Jessica Wakefield's hair can dance better than most of the people in this competition. In fact, the only other female who stands a chance in HELL of beating Jessica is her very own twin. However, Liz isn't bogged down by Winston's more comedic style of dancing, and from DL, we know Todd is a fantabulous dancer.

  As is Bruce Patman, who does not take well to the thought of losing. Anything, anytime, EVER. So he cuts in on Winston, and within moments he and Jessica are dancing up a storm. Which, I guess is great, but frankly, I'm still stuck on Jessica's hair moving to the rhythm. I mean, really, how does that work exactly?

  Anyway, from there, Jess and Bruce head to Ken's lake house for the cool kids only after party. This is what, the fourth or fifth party and we're only in the third book? Awesome. No wonder I thought HS would be nothing but fun. Now, I should stress this isn't even their first date. He just hijacked Jess mid-song from her actual "date", [and if Jess were real and could hear this, she'd kill me twice] wins a contest, and then they go to the after party. Still with me? Good. While in the lake, Bruce undoes the strings to Jessica's top, which is about the most action anyone gets in SVH, ever. Ah, how romantic. Then they scuttle off to the woods to grope like mad, only to be interrupted by a very concerned Liz who is rewarded for her troubles with serious amounts of 'tude from Jess. Mainly because you don't interrupt the bitchy ones when they're in heat. It's dangerous to your health.

  Which sets up the main conflict between the twins. Liz knows full well that Bruce is a jackass. Jess thinks he's going to change and be the bestest Bruce he can be, all for her. One could argue that a tamed Bruce isn't really what Jessica wants, but we're far too early into the series to point that out. Anyway, Liz must learn the hardest of all lessons: When your best friend has fallen for a jerk, no amount of badmouthing him/her/them will help. You make it clear that, hey, maybe you could do better, but realize this isn't going to do you any good until they come around to the same realization.

  Jessica [eventually] learns that Bruce is a jerk. Considering Jessica actually has feelings for Bruce, she seems totally unable to recognize the fact that he's only interested in her for a limited amount of fun physical time. He probably doesn't mind the fact that hooking up with Jessica, especially as something more than just a random date, has to be good for your reputation amongst the other guys, particularly when you're telling them you can get whatever you want, when you want.

  Which leads to the best controversy ever. Did Bruce and Jess actually have sex? The realists in the world say yes, yes they did. He and Jessica were "together" for an awfully long time if all he was getting was to cop a feel here and there, not to mention marathon sessions of tonsil hockey. He seemed to get nothing else out of it, except maybe the thrill of breaking Jessica, and even that seems drawn out a bit too long. Jessica is attached quickly and irrationally, and hints are made as to what they get up to, and how attractive they find one another. Also, the earlier SVH books don't really seem to mind mentioning sex [even if it's just hinted], drugs, or various other things that would pretty much be relegated to the fringe bad guys later on in the series.

  On the other hand, realists don't read Sweet Valley High. It's clearly stated much later on that Jessica is still a virgin right up until she and Mike hook up in SVU, and the sugary sweet overtones of the series as a whole does kind of point in the general direction of, "NO! God, it's possible for two people to have a relationship, even amidst the raging hormones of HS, and not sleep together. GOD."

  I fall somewhere between the two. I don't find it impossible to believe, but I can't imagine they wouldn't have mentioned it at one time or another. If nothing else, a quick mention in some forgettable book that they knew wouldn't sell all that well or one of the diaries.

  Now, where were we? Oh yeah. Bruce and Jessica make out all over campus, her grades slide into the toilet, Bruce makes some unflattering remarks about the cheerleaders, and then, when Jessica has given up everything that makes her Jessica [aside from being a total wench when it comes to Robin Wilson], he predictably pulls away. Only he doesn't break up with her. Instead he uses that as the omnipresent threat anytime she steps outside this strange little box he's created for her. He's obviously seeing someone else, but Jess won't believe it. Meanwhile...

  B-story this time around concerns Liz [duh!] and The Droids. The who? Sweet Valley High's rock band. I'd say only rock band, but I'm fairly certain they mention another one or two later on. But really, The Droids? Totally the only band you need to remember. It appears they've finally snagged the attention of someone who could, in theory, make them famous. They do a little [and I do mean little] research, find out he's legit, and bam. They stop playing in SV and instead play some dives elsewhere in Cali. There are only two reasons to bring this up, aside from it being the B-story.

1. There's a little thing between Winston and Robin. Namely, Jess keeps trying to foist Robin off on Winston, figuring this'll get rid of them both all at once. Liz knows all about this, but still manages to invite them both to tag along when she and Todd go see the Droids perform. Winston manages to lose any and all sympathy points he'd managed to accrue thus far in the series, by spouting off some crap about Robin and being uncomfortable around people who eat all the time. Oi.


2. Remember when I said Jess was failing? Well, her backup plan is to cheat off Emily Mayer. Only Emily is the Droids' drummer and hasn't been studying either. So Bruce tells Jess how to get a copy of the test. Which she has Robin do under the guise of it being a PBA prank, and then has Robin stash the test in Emily's locker, figuring that Em will cheat, then they'll both be in the clear. It's almost ingenious. But Jess didn't count on Russo changing some of the questions. Still, Em admits to cheating. Which makes no sense, since she failed anyway. Curse you, morality! CURSE YOU!

  To tie up the B-story, it seems their "manager" was really only interested into getting into Dana Larson's tight pants, and that ain't ever gonna happen, so POOF. Well, that and he was canned from the agency he claimed to still work for, and wouldn't be able to book them anything other than dives anyway.

  Back to Jessica. Jess was expecting a nice quiet evening of making out with Bruce for his 18th birthday. Instead, he's throwing himself a HUGE party. Nothing important happens until they move the shindig to the pizza place. Bruce gets a call from his "grandmother" and declares he has to leave early. That, by the way, has been his excuse lately. That his gran is sick and needs him. And the youngest Wakefield actually bought that lie. Repeatedly. Liz smells a rich rat, so she offers to take Jess home. She quickly cons Todd into driving around for half an hour and then returning to the scene of the crime. Todd agrees, because he's bored and obviously nothing good is going to come of this. Wait, no, he agrees because he's Todd.
So they drive around, pissing Jess off to no end, and when they return to Guido's, Liz mentions that it appears Bruce hasn't left yet after all. So Jess runs in with her twin [Liz returned under the guise of having left her keys at the restaurant] and it appears Bruce did leave. It's just that he came back with another date.

  Again, I've got to interrupt. What the hell? Beforehand, it wasn't as if Bruce was subtle about his non-Jessica female "friends", but this time, one has to wonder whether he was just going to dump her or see if she'd believe anyone who mentioned he spent the rest of the night NOT with his gran, but instead with a knockout redhead.

  Jess sees non!Gran and suddenly the meek, mild mannered Jessica is no more. Instead she tells Bruce and his tramp off, dumps a pizza and soda all over the birthday boy, and dissolves into giggles when he manages to fall into a fountain. Which, I admit, always gives me a giant grin. And thus, order is returned to the universe. Except for that part where Jessica gets Winston to take her home. That's cute, but not exactly realistic or conducive to the world being back on its axis theory.



Random:

• - Robin Wilson is new to SV, which might partially explain why she's trying so damn hard.


• - The Boston Shop is where Jess goes shopping after she's been Bruce-ified. Why, oh why is he encouraging her to dress like a snooty old lady?


• - Todd admires a motorcycle outside the Seaside Express, one of the dives The Droids play. GASP. Foreshadowing!


• - Jessica's PBA teddy is named Bartholomew. I thought it was cute.


• - Ken is Lila's go-to guy. Despite having just dumped her for being a colossal bitch to his crush [Ms. Dalton], Ken is back dating Lila in this book. That's just wrong.


• - Jess was apparently on the girl's swim team in junior high. Which begs the question, why call their spin off's school Sweet Valley Middle School if they'd refer to it as Jr. high? As someone who went to MS, you don't call it junior high. Of course, later we'd get the Jr. High spin off, but I never read anything past the second book and I don't remember anything other than a whole lot of, "No. Just no."

Quotes:

"Oh, and thanks for making dinner tonight. I promise I'll make it up to you sometime."
"With you, 'sometime' could be around the year 2000. I won't hold my breath," Elizabeth retorted.

   Actually, they kinda nailed that. Isn't that when the Senior Year books were happening? Liz was the space case and Jess was relatively tame in comparison, and definitely more mature. But it's always funny when a series makes a crack like that and you pass the year mentioned. Always.




  This could have been much shorter. Bruce and Jessica start 'dating', though I'm still not sure I'd call it that. Jessica changes herself to suit Bruce's needs, but it's not enough for him, and eventually, through Liz's tricky maneuvering, Jess sees the light. She begins her hatred of Bruce and this'll carry on for the rest of the series. That's about it.
  I have no real attachment to the book one way or another. It was about time for Jess to prove herself sort of human, and I like Todd being forced to stick up for Jess for a change. That would be when Liz complains that Jessica has ceased living, only coming back to life when Bruce deigns to spend anytime with her. Todd points out that Liz is happy when he's around, yes? It's one of the most realistic moments we're treated to, and I like those mixed in with my over the top melodramatic theatrics.