Sweet Valley High #5: All Night Long

Publication Date: February 1984

Let’s get the B story out of the way first. Bill Chase, Sweet Valley High’s resident surf champion, is depressed because some guy named Sonny Callahan might beat him in a surfing competition. Throughout the book Bill is only seen from a distance and he eventually stops coming to school. Gossipy Cara Walker says he’s in hiding so he can avoid the surfing championship. In reality, Todd sold him a surfboard and Bill has been cutting school to practice on it. I don’t care and you don’t either, so let’s move on to the real story.

Jessica has been hanging out with an older crowd lately. In particular, a college man named Scott Daniels. She goes to a party with him and his friends one night that she isn’t allowed to go to, which means Elizabeth has to lie to cover for her. Liz even lies to Todd because she knows Todd hates Jessica and she just doesn’t want to hear him get judgey about it. The lie is that Jessica is with Cara and her family on a trip up the coast, but Liz and Todd see Cara at the beach so Todd has to know what’s going on. He’s annoying.

Jessica, it turns out, is in way over her head. She’s at a beach party like ten miles away and Scott Daniels ends up being a creep. Big surprise. He takes her to a rundown old boathouse and gets pissed when Jessica won’t have sex with him. He leaves her there and stomps off, leaving Jessica to try to follow him. She finally makes it to the cabin where Scott and his buddies are getting drunk and sexing their girlfriends. Scott tells Jessica he’ll take her home if she sleeps with him and then immediately passes out drunk. Jessica has no choice but to curl up on the floor and try to sleep and feel sorry for herself. You’d think she might take this time to reflect on her choices and wonder how she always ends up in these situations, but you’d be silly to think that.

The next morning, Elizabeth is horrified that Jessica still isn’t home. Jessica calls and begs Liz to cover for her, so Liz goes downstairs and has breakfast, then sneaks back upstairs, changes into some Jessica clothes, and goes back down to eat breakfast again. Mom Alice is totally fooled. She’s maybe not the best mother. She keeps saying the twins need to hurry up so she can go to work, but I can’t figure out why she thinks she needs to supervise breakfast.

Liz and Jessica are supposed to take a test to get their tour guide licenses. It doesn’t really matter because we’ll never hear about it again after this book, but right now it’s the most important thing in the world. Liz takes her test during first period. Jessica is supposed to take hers during second period, but she’s still not at school. Liz tells Todd she’s thinking of taking the test for Jessica, and he tells her that’s stupid, so they have a big fight and break up. Liz takes Jessica’s test right afterward, and she’s so distraught that gets all the questions wrong. Over the course of the day, Enid, Olivia, and Dana all try to make Liz feel better by telling her stories about their own past breakups. It’s not helpful.

Jessica finally shows up to school just in time for cheerleading practice. She’s so happy that Liz kept her out of trouble that Liz doesn’t have the heart to tell her she probably flunked the tour guide test. When the scores are posted, Jessica accuses Liz of failing on purpose to get back at her for having to cover for her. The next chapter or two is mostly just Elizabeth crying about Todd and feeling guilty about failing Jessica’s test.

Liz and Todd make up, don’t worry. Then Jessica finds out she can retake the tour guide test so she’s not mad at Liz anymore. Bill Chase wins the surfing contest and Todd buys a motorcycle with the money Bill paid him for the surfboard. We never find out how Jessica actually got home from that party and it doesn’t seem to matter. The End.

Dana Larson, fashionista

Notes:

1.     It’s weird that all of these books are the same length, but in some of them absolutely nothing seems to happen. This is one of those books.

2.     I just want to say, I absolutely understand Elizabeth blowing up at Todd. You can’t trash talk someone else’s loved one and expect them not to care. I mean, we all know that Liz is an idiot and a pushover, but you keep that to yourself.

3.     Best outfit goes to Dana again: oversized t-shirt over a red striped miniskirt, purple tights, black suede ankle boots. Enormous gold hoop in one ear, tiny silver star in the other.