Crackwhore Martin returns!

Memories
Dec 1986

Can Cara make Steven forget Tricia Martin?

Torn apart by love...

   The Wakefield twins' older brother, Steven, hasn't dated anyone since his girlfriend died of leukemia. He can't even look at another girl without thinking of his beloved Tricia.
   But Steven is drawn to Cara Walker. Sweet Valley's biggest flirt and gossip has changed. Her parents have divorced, and her father and brother have moved away. Cara understands the pain of losing someone.
   When Tricia's sister Betsy sees Steven and Cara dancing together at a party, she accuses Steven of forgetting about Tricia. Steven is torn by Betsy's bitter accusation. He can't deny his attraction to Cara. But how can he ever love another girl after Tricia?

  Memories is an odd book. It's billed as the Steven/Cara 'ship finally sets sail only to be slammed by that crackwhore Betsy Martin, but that actually happened in the last book. Seriously, first time we see Bets this go round, she's ready to apologize for bitching out poor Steven, but he's so firmly under his thundercloud of guilt that he won't hear of it. If you've never read this or any other freakin' SVH book past the one where Trish bites it, but you've seen all of S7 of Buffy, think of how Willow flips out when she falls for that crackwhore pesky Kennedy. No, Steven doesn't morph into Warren thus freaking out the Scoobies, but he does act sort of similarly. Tis freaky. You see, by falling for Cara [finally!] he's betraying Tricia's memory by moving on. By forgetting her in bits and pieces. He can't handle that, so he runs to the one person who can fill in his foggy memory better than anyone else, as well as his biggest and easiest source of guilt. Crackwhore Martin. People keep trying to convince us that Crackwhore wouldn't be so bitchy, but hello? She so would. Betsy has three "defining" characteristics. One, she's an artist. Just like everyone else in the Valley. Two, she's got a horrible reputation. Just like half the brunette's in SV. Three, she's an unrelenting bitch. So yeah, it's totally like her to make someone miserable to keep them under her thumb.
  Now, in a related sort of way, we must look at this from Cara's view. She's had a thing for Steven for ages, and just when it looks like the gods might smile upon her, it's not until her home life is in the shitter [Daddy moved to Chicago and took her little brother, remember?] And then there's the little matter of Steven being a total bastard to her at every turn. After he totally fucks up her birthday because he's too... stupid? ... to tell her that the place she picked was the scene of his last actual date with Tricia, she tells him to fuck off. Romantically he's just as unavailable as he's always been, if not more so because she will not [and cannot] compete with a ghost, particularly one Steve has so romanticized. I added that last bit, but you know she's thinking it. Steve's all but got the halo drawn on all of Tricia's pictures.

  To distract us from this, we have a real "wait, what the fuck?" two-fer concerning the twins. We'll go with Jessica's first as it has nothing to do with anything at all. Jess has decided that she's definitely meant for the movies, but instead of auditioning or something, she decides to stalk Winston because she overheard her mother talking to Winston's mother about a movie director relation. To Jessica's credit, he actually was supposed to show up for a mini reunion, only he was forced to cancel after a movie shoot ran long. So when Jess meets one of Mrs. Egbert's cousins, she assumes it's the director. It's not. It's a civil engineer, and while you might not see that exact twist coming, you know the moment he opens his mouth that he's not the director and that when Jess professes to love his job and wants to be in the biz as well and he's shocked, that he does something totally un-Jessica. Even as a kid I knew that much.
  The best part of this is how hard to get Winston is.
  Then we have Liz. To properly put this in perspective, this book begins the day AFTER the last one. Less than 24 hours, people! Todd's still in town, although he's pretty much a no-show for the book. At the beginning of the book, he's still very much Elizabeth's boyfriend, but about halfway through he's demoted to "ex-boyfriend" or "former boyfriend." Um, okay, I guess. Liz sees a Todd lookalike at the mall and then at school and then, with the help of Penny, she figures out he's on the Big Mesa volleyball team and his name is Michael Sellers. Liz is totally infatuated because he's freakishly similar to Todd. I'm thinking more so than when they switched actors on the TV show and expected us to go with it because it was a soap and soaps do that all the time. So, Liz wants to meet the clone because he might be just like Todd and then she can just replace her boyfriend with an almost perfect replica!

  And as other people have noted, no one calls her on this, despite the fact that the idiot doing this line of thinking is a twin and should therefor know how different two people can be even when they look IDENTICAL.
  So there's this volleyball match and I'm totally having Saved By The Bell flashbacks [their summer at the hotel or whatever, and Leah Remini was a cast member? I loved her then. So much love, so much makeup...] and to complement that, Liz is having Todd flashbacks because MS looks just like Todd! Eee! OMG! Whatever. As a result, she's the worst volleyball player, EVER. I'm thinking I might be better, and while I found v-ball to be the least evil of all sports, thinking me better than anyone at anything athletic is probably not a good sign. Mikey figures that Liz can't play for shit, so they target her and it works! They win! Then SVH wins! It's time for a tie-breaker! I've long since ceased to care! Of course the wonder-twins manage to fake out the other team despite Liz sucking so badly, and they win and it's all fabulous, and there's a dance afterward and Liz goes and meets Mikey there...
  And realizes he's more like Bruce than Todd, but without the fantastic over the top Patman flair. He's like Bruce-lite in Todd-lite form. So she blows him off to dance with Winston. And then Jess blows him off just to talk to Winston. So, so awesome.

  So, with that out of the way, we're back to Steve moping. Liz tires of it and takes matters into her own hands. She goes to Betsy and asks her to set her brother free because they're killing one another. Betsy looks at her like she's nuts for not wanting Steve to hold onto Tricia as hard as he can. Then Liz points out that for Betsy to go on with her life while still clinging to Tricia isn't a conflict of interest. For Steve to move on and have another relationship, he has to let go of Tricia and he can't do that without massive guilt on his own and Betsy, bitch, you ain't helping.

  What does Betsy do? She caves. Then somehow enlists the help of Teddy Collins who delivers two packages to Cara and Steven whose mother's "accidentally" set them up, and they're fantastic drawings of the other one. Which is Betsy's way of saying fine, have your own life, see if I care, Wakefield. Steve immediately falls all over Cara and she's too weak to resist and aww?

  The lead up for the next book is all about Emily Mayer and her family of woe. You'd think for book twenty five, they'd have outdone themselves, but I guess this is before we treated every multiple of five as a big deal, huh?


Trivia, baby:

• Begins the day after Lila's "it's a day ending in y" party.


• Tricia Martin was a robin in a third grade play. Woo?


• Sharon Egbert, for those keeping track of the parental names.


• Mr. Collins' English class is in room 103.


• Jess has English with Guy, Emily, Winston, and Lila.


• Winston and Jessica do their American author term project on F. Scott Fitzgerald. Lila goes with Hemingway because he's Mariel's grandfather. When she tries to get Jessica to buddy up with her, Jessica keeps thinking Li's saying "highway." Insert blond joke here.


• Michael Sellers is a football player as well as the captain of their charity volleyball team. He's also an ass.


• When Ned was a junior in college, his best friend died in a car accident. Ned named Steven for him.


• Whatever movie Liz was going to watch, Jess ruins by telling her the general poisoned everyone.


• Liz is willing to believe Crackwhore Martin can change, but Cara can't? She believed in Caroline for fuck's sake. What did Cara ever do to her? [Which is to say, Liz is against Cara/Steven and makes a big show of apologizing to Cara for basically thinking her brother could do better. Cara proves she's a lady by not backhanding Liz.]


• SVH's volleyball team: Ken [captain!], Jessica, Liz, Bruce [years of tennis make him good at this, apparently. Seriously, that's what we're told], Lila [who has her own v-ball court and defies gravity when she jumps. She's that awesome], and John Pfeifer who's good, but not swoon worthy.


• Bruce served first in the game. Liz sucked most.


• Artie Western is a senior at SVH, a friend of Steve's, and has a thing for Cara. Awkward!


• Marty Davis [graying blond, for those who like to know] and his wife Jane visit his cousin, Sharon Egbert, and Jess confuses Marty for the interesting cousin.


• Winston lives close enough to walk to the Dairi Burger, as Jessica does just this and you know she doesn't wear sensible shoes.


• Cara's birthday is sometime in the late winter, early spring, which is when I'm guessing this book takes place.


• Steven gives Cara a card that says, "happy birthday to someone nice." He gives her a mystery novel, luckily she really wanted to read it. See, Liz, Cara isn't so bad! She reads. Cara, I should add, does not give Steve a look for the lame card.


• Tricia's favorite song? "Always."


• Cara booked reservations for 7:30 at the Valley Inn. She and Steve had prime rib, tossed green salad, and baked potatoes. Yes, they had the same meal. Don't you know you get something different so you can nibble off his plate? For dessert they have cherry pie and ice cream. Steve doesn't think to do the whole HB song and cake thing until after dessert is delivered, and Cara says she wouldn't have liked the attention anyway. Where'd the real Cara go?


• Cara doesn't take French, or if she does she's taking Spanish as well, as she and Steve bond over what a witch Mrs. Ray is.


• "Strategies for Waste Disposal in L.A." Fascinating literature, eh, Jess?


• Phil Davis was the cousin Jess meant to suck up to and impress with her fabulosity. Next time, love!




• And one last one: Why the hell do we not hear about Steven going to a shrink? Given how much time he spends depressed over Trish, you'd think he'd have been shipped to at least one...

Quotes:
  "Sounds good, Dad," Jessica agreed, "but I've decided the stage isn't big enough for me."
  "Why?" Elizabeth giggled. "Are you planning on gaining a lot of weight?" - Liz is hi-larious. If you're really drunk. p10

  Michael Sellers was astonished. He simply couldn't figure it out. What was wrong with those Wakefield twins? And what did Winston have that he didn't? - A personality, Mikey. p78

"But remember Cara's got one advantage over Tricia. She's alive." - Jessica being cruel to be kind. p91



   I find the Steve/Cara storyline worrisome as it's weird that Steve's only interested in Cara when she's broken and vulnerable, although if I squint I can see why. I think Steve's an ass towards Cara and got off lightly, but I do feel bad for him in having to let go of Tricia, although I was raised in a family where you loved your lost true love until the day you died, hell the only person I knew who remarried was still painfully in love with their lost love, and she'd died some twenty odd years prior. So a few months might feel like forever, but it's not. However, in the interest of getting Steven to shut the hell up, I'm all for Cara fixing him.
  I still hate Betsy and wish daily for a certain Fiat to accidentally swerve into her, killing her instantly while Jessica must try to pretend she cares. Sigh.
  The Liz/Mike storyline is stupid, but obviously when we all thought Todd had a lobotomy later in the series or in SVU, it was because it wasn't Todd. It was Mikey. D'oh! On the plus side, lookit all the pretty, shiny covers. I'd gotten tired of just one or two alternatives. This one's chock full of alternate goodies. Score!

Crackwhore Martin returns!

Memories
Dec 1986

Can Cara make Steven forget Tricia Martin?

Torn apart by love...

   The Wakefield twins' older brother, Steven, hasn't dated anyone since his girlfriend died of leukemia. He can't even look at another girl without thinking of his beloved Tricia.
   But Steven is drawn to Cara Walker. Sweet Valley's biggest flirt and gossip has changed. Her parents have divorced, and her father and brother have moved away. Cara understands the pain of losing someone.
   When Tricia's sister Betsy sees Steven and Cara dancing together at a party, she accuses Steven of forgetting about Tricia. Steven is torn by Betsy's bitter accusation. He can't deny his attraction to Cara. But how can he ever love another girl after Tricia?

  Memories is an odd book. It's billed as the Steven/Cara 'ship finally sets sail only to be slammed by that crackwhore Betsy Martin, but that actually happened in the last book. Seriously, first time we see Bets this go round, she's ready to apologize for bitching out poor Steven, but he's so firmly under his thundercloud of guilt that he won't hear of it. If you've never read this or any other freakin' SVH book past the one where Trish bites it, but you've seen all of S7 of Buffy, think of how Willow flips out when she falls for that crackwhore pesky Kennedy. No, Steven doesn't morph into Warren thus freaking out the Scoobies, but he does act sort of similarly. Tis freaky. You see, by falling for Cara [finally!] he's betraying Tricia's memory by moving on. By forgetting her in bits and pieces. He can't handle that, so he runs to the one person who can fill in his foggy memory better than anyone else, as well as his biggest and easiest source of guilt. Crackwhore Martin. People keep trying to convince us that Crackwhore wouldn't be so bitchy, but hello? She so would. Betsy has three "defining" characteristics. One, she's an artist. Just like everyone else in the Valley. Two, she's got a horrible reputation. Just like half the brunette's in SV. Three, she's an unrelenting bitch. So yeah, it's totally like her to make someone miserable to keep them under her thumb.
  Now, in a related sort of way, we must look at this from Cara's view. She's had a thing for Steven for ages, and just when it looks like the gods might smile upon her, it's not until her home life is in the shitter [Daddy moved to Chicago and took her little brother, remember?] And then there's the little matter of Steven being a total bastard to her at every turn. After he totally fucks up her birthday because he's too... stupid? ... to tell her that the place she picked was the scene of his last actual date with Tricia, she tells him to fuck off. Romantically he's just as unavailable as he's always been, if not more so because she will not [and cannot] compete with a ghost, particularly one Steve has so romanticized. I added that last bit, but you know she's thinking it. Steve's all but got the halo drawn on all of Tricia's pictures.

  To distract us from this, we have a real "wait, what the fuck?" two-fer concerning the twins. We'll go with Jessica's first as it has nothing to do with anything at all. Jess has decided that she's definitely meant for the movies, but instead of auditioning or something, she decides to stalk Winston because she overheard her mother talking to Winston's mother about a movie director relation. To Jessica's credit, he actually was supposed to show up for a mini reunion, only he was forced to cancel after a movie shoot ran long. So when Jess meets one of Mrs. Egbert's cousins, she assumes it's the director. It's not. It's a civil engineer, and while you might not see that exact twist coming, you know the moment he opens his mouth that he's not the director and that when Jess professes to love his job and wants to be in the biz as well and he's shocked, that he does something totally un-Jessica. Even as a kid I knew that much.
  The best part of this is how hard to get Winston is.
  Then we have Liz. To properly put this in perspective, this book begins the day AFTER the last one. Less than 24 hours, people! Todd's still in town, although he's pretty much a no-show for the book. At the beginning of the book, he's still very much Elizabeth's boyfriend, but about halfway through he's demoted to "ex-boyfriend" or "former boyfriend." Um, okay, I guess. Liz sees a Todd lookalike at the mall and then at school and then, with the help of Penny, she figures out he's on the Big Mesa volleyball team and his name is Michael Sellers. Liz is totally infatuated because he's freakishly similar to Todd. I'm thinking more so than when they switched actors on the TV show and expected us to go with it because it was a soap and soaps do that all the time. So, Liz wants to meet the clone because he might be just like Todd and then she can just replace her boyfriend with an almost perfect replica!

  And as other people have noted, no one calls her on this, despite the fact that the idiot doing this line of thinking is a twin and should therefor know how different two people can be even when they look IDENTICAL.
  So there's this volleyball match and I'm totally having Saved By The Bell flashbacks [their summer at the hotel or whatever, and Leah Remini was a cast member? I loved her then. So much love, so much makeup...] and to complement that, Liz is having Todd flashbacks because MS looks just like Todd! Eee! OMG! Whatever. As a result, she's the worst volleyball player, EVER. I'm thinking I might be better, and while I found v-ball to be the least evil of all sports, thinking me better than anyone at anything athletic is probably not a good sign. Mikey figures that Liz can't play for shit, so they target her and it works! They win! Then SVH wins! It's time for a tie-breaker! I've long since ceased to care! Of course the wonder-twins manage to fake out the other team despite Liz sucking so badly, and they win and it's all fabulous, and there's a dance afterward and Liz goes and meets Mikey there...
  And realizes he's more like Bruce than Todd, but without the fantastic over the top Patman flair. He's like Bruce-lite in Todd-lite form. So she blows him off to dance with Winston. And then Jess blows him off just to talk to Winston. So, so awesome.

  So, with that out of the way, we're back to Steve moping. Liz tires of it and takes matters into her own hands. She goes to Betsy and asks her to set her brother free because they're killing one another. Betsy looks at her like she's nuts for not wanting Steve to hold onto Tricia as hard as he can. Then Liz points out that for Betsy to go on with her life while still clinging to Tricia isn't a conflict of interest. For Steve to move on and have another relationship, he has to let go of Tricia and he can't do that without massive guilt on his own and Betsy, bitch, you ain't helping.

  What does Betsy do? She caves. Then somehow enlists the help of Teddy Collins who delivers two packages to Cara and Steven whose mother's "accidentally" set them up, and they're fantastic drawings of the other one. Which is Betsy's way of saying fine, have your own life, see if I care, Wakefield. Steve immediately falls all over Cara and she's too weak to resist and aww?

  The lead up for the next book is all about Emily Mayer and her family of woe. You'd think for book twenty five, they'd have outdone themselves, but I guess this is before we treated every multiple of five as a big deal, huh?


Trivia, baby:

• Begins the day after Lila's "it's a day ending in y" party.


• Tricia Martin was a robin in a third grade play. Woo?


• Sharon Egbert, for those keeping track of the parental names.


• Mr. Collins' English class is in room 103.


• Jess has English with Guy, Emily, Winston, and Lila.


• Winston and Jessica do their American author term project on F. Scott Fitzgerald. Lila goes with Hemingway because he's Mariel's grandfather. When she tries to get Jessica to buddy up with her, Jessica keeps thinking Li's saying "highway." Insert blond joke here.


• Michael Sellers is a football player as well as the captain of their charity volleyball team. He's also an ass.


• When Ned was a junior in college, his best friend died in a car accident. Ned named Steven for him.


• Whatever movie Liz was going to watch, Jess ruins by telling her the general poisoned everyone.


• Liz is willing to believe Crackwhore Martin can change, but Cara can't? She believed in Caroline for fuck's sake. What did Cara ever do to her? [Which is to say, Liz is against Cara/Steven and makes a big show of apologizing to Cara for basically thinking her brother could do better. Cara proves she's a lady by not backhanding Liz.]


• SVH's volleyball team: Ken [captain!], Jessica, Liz, Bruce [years of tennis make him good at this, apparently. Seriously, that's what we're told], Lila [who has her own v-ball court and defies gravity when she jumps. She's that awesome], and John Pfeifer who's good, but not swoon worthy.


• Bruce served first in the game. Liz sucked most.


• Artie Western is a senior at SVH, a friend of Steve's, and has a thing for Cara. Awkward!


• Marty Davis [graying blond, for those who like to know] and his wife Jane visit his cousin, Sharon Egbert, and Jess confuses Marty for the interesting cousin.


• Winston lives close enough to walk to the Dairi Burger, as Jessica does just this and you know she doesn't wear sensible shoes.


• Cara's birthday is sometime in the late winter, early spring, which is when I'm guessing this book takes place.


• Steven gives Cara a card that says, "happy birthday to someone nice." He gives her a mystery novel, luckily she really wanted to read it. See, Liz, Cara isn't so bad! She reads. Cara, I should add, does not give Steve a look for the lame card.


• Tricia's favorite song? "Always."


• Cara booked reservations for 7:30 at the Valley Inn. She and Steve had prime rib, tossed green salad, and baked potatoes. Yes, they had the same meal. Don't you know you get something different so you can nibble off his plate? For dessert they have cherry pie and ice cream. Steve doesn't think to do the whole HB song and cake thing until after dessert is delivered, and Cara says she wouldn't have liked the attention anyway. Where'd the real Cara go?


• Cara doesn't take French, or if she does she's taking Spanish as well, as she and Steve bond over what a witch Mrs. Ray is.


• "Strategies for Waste Disposal in L.A." Fascinating literature, eh, Jess?


• Phil Davis was the cousin Jess meant to suck up to and impress with her fabulosity. Next time, love!




• And one last one: Why the hell do we not hear about Steven going to a shrink? Given how much time he spends depressed over Trish, you'd think he'd have been shipped to at least one...

Quotes:
  "Sounds good, Dad," Jessica agreed, "but I've decided the stage isn't big enough for me."
  "Why?" Elizabeth giggled. "Are you planning on gaining a lot of weight?" - Liz is hi-larious. If you're really drunk. p10

  Michael Sellers was astonished. He simply couldn't figure it out. What was wrong with those Wakefield twins? And what did Winston have that he didn't? - A personality, Mikey. p78

"But remember Cara's got one advantage over Tricia. She's alive." - Jessica being cruel to be kind. p91



   I find the Steve/Cara storyline worrisome as it's weird that Steve's only interested in Cara when she's broken and vulnerable, although if I squint I can see why. I think Steve's an ass towards Cara and got off lightly, but I do feel bad for him in having to let go of Tricia, although I was raised in a family where you loved your lost true love until the day you died, hell the only person I knew who remarried was still painfully in love with their lost love, and she'd died some twenty odd years prior. So a few months might feel like forever, but it's not. However, in the interest of getting Steven to shut the hell up, I'm all for Cara fixing him.
  I still hate Betsy and wish daily for a certain Fiat to accidentally swerve into her, killing her instantly while Jessica must try to pretend she cares. Sigh.
  The Liz/Mike storyline is stupid, but obviously when we all thought Todd had a lobotomy later in the series or in SVU, it was because it wasn't Todd. It was Mikey. D'oh! On the plus side, lookit all the pretty, shiny covers. I'd gotten tired of just one or two alternatives. This one's chock full of alternate goodies. Score!