Title: Heart Breaker
Author: Francine Pascal, Kate Willliam
Series: Sweet Valley High #8
Blurb: The surf’s up in Sweet Valley, and gorgeous Jessica Wakefield is making a big splash with Bill Chase, the hottest surfer in town. But after she tricks him into falling madly in love with her, she ignores him completely.
To complicate matters, shy, quiet DeeDee Gordon is also after Bill. But Jessica has the upper hand. If Bill even looks at DeeDee, Hurricane Jessica blows him off his board and back into her arms. Can Bill escape Jessica’s undertow, or is he in over his head?
Review: Ugh. This is another one where Jessica is the absolute worst person. Come on, all you 80s girls, answer this for me: why did we like this character?
You can’t help but feel sorry for Bill in this story. He’s very shy, very quiet. Likes to surf and . . . not much else. Spends a lot of time alone out on the waves. He also can’t help himself around Jessica. She leads him on, mostly because she can’t forgive him for turning down her invitation to the Sadie Hawkins Dance. Jessica does not handle rejection at all and is determined to make him pay. Mind you, they were never really dating. It’s not like she was all emotionally invested, they were boyfriend/girlfriend, and then he broke her heart. Bill is absolutely enthralled with Jessica, and she ignores him completely. Or worse than that. She takes advantage of his adoration, gets him to do things for her, and then treats him like dirt. And when a nice girl like DeeDee Gordon shows interest in Bill, Jessica does whatever she can to get the spotlight back on herself so that Bill can’t look away.
Another tragic thing about Bill? His previous girlfriend, Julianne, who was also a surfer and absolutely perfect for him, had died in a car crash before he moved to Sweet Valley. Part of his attraction to the Wakefield girls (he had a crush on Liz first, before falling head over heels for Jessica) was their physical resemblance to Julianne. Which is why he turned Jessica down at first — he was too shocked and still grieving.
Granted, Jessica doesn’t know this bit of background information when she starts messing with Bill’s mind, and I would like to think that she would never have treated him the way she did if she had known. She’s not a complete monster.
Side note: DeeDee’s father is a Hollywood agent. Jessica and Bill are playing the leads in a school play, and when DeeDee’s father drops in for rehearsal, there is a rumor that he thinks one of the actors has true star potential. Jessica spends the entire time absolutely positive that it’s her — and it’s not. It’s Bill. Hahahahaha.
There’s also a little trouble in paradise – Liz and Todd paradise, to be exact. An old friend of Todd’s — a beautiful, female old friend, mind you — moves back to town and make Lizzie all kinds of jealous. True, Todd and Patsy Webber used to date a while back, but they say that they are just friends now. Also, Patsy just came back from living in Paris, which makes Liz feel even worse about her boring self in comparison. As much as I really hate Jessica’s constant preening about how awesome she is, I really don’t like how insecure Elizabeth is about pretty much everything. She’s just as beautiful as Jessica is (identical twins, hello!) and is way smarter, not to mention nicer and an all-around better person. But she’s also always worried about Todd and letting other people walk all over her. Sigh. Luckily, this time there was nothing to worry about. Todd and Patsy are just friends and Todd is still madly in love with Liz.
Bill ends up with DeeDee, Todd and Liz are back together and happy, but there’s one other loose end here — Roger Barrett. Liz finds out that he is actually working nights and weekends as a janitor to help his parents pay for things. He also has a crush on Lila Fowler, the richest girl in school. The set up at the end of this one hints that something might happen between the two of them in the next book, so I guess we shall see. That would definitely be a case of opposites attract!
Categories: nostalgic reads
Life With No Plot 
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