Review: "Best Friends" by Jamie Suzanne (created by Francine Pascal)

Best Friends by Jamie Suzanne (created by Francine Pascal)
First published 1986
★★★

I wondered when I reread the first Sweet Valley Kids book just how long it would take for Jessica's true sociopathic colours to show—and we have a partial answer. In this first book of the middle-school series, Jessica is already wreaking havoc, and not one of the other characters is in the slightest surprised. (Note: There are untagged spoilers below the fold, if you're worried about spoilers for a very outdated, toxic-ideals book published 38 years ago.)

There are yellow sweatsuits in this one as well as in the first SV Kids book, which makes me wonder whether the sweatsuits in the SV Kids book (which was written later) were a nod to the ones here or whether sweatsuits were just really, really popular in the 80s. But mostly it's all about the drama:

The big to-do of the book is Jessica's quest to join the Unicorn club, which is made up of popular girls whose great quest is to maintain their popularity, mostly through putting down anyone who is not a Unicorn themselves. (This is right up Jessica's alley.) Anyway, Jessica's in, but next it's Elizabeth's turn because...twins have to do everything together, right? Right? Wrong. Jessica's hazing tasks have been relatively mild, but—because the Unicorns don't want Elizabeth any more than Elizabeth wants them—Elizabeth is tasked with publicly humiliating Lois, the local Unpopular Girl.

You can guess how this goes. Elizabeth refuses (because, though she doesn't recognise a sociopath when she lives with one, she's not one herself), Jessica is horrified about what Elizabeth's refusal will mean for Jessica's reputation, Jessica decides to take matters into her own hands, Jessica goes forth and humiliates Lois. (The fat-shaming starts early in these books—the first SV High one is full of it too.)

Now...none of this is surprising, because...Jessica. But what's interesting to me is this: When Elizabeth and Lois get revenge, Jessica gets off scot-free. She wouldn't view it that way, of course (if the Unicorns are humiliated, Jessica is humiliated), but to me it looks an awful lot like Jessica doing awful things and then suffering no consequences...which, if I remember correctly, rapidly becomes something of a theme in these books. Suddenly the Jessica of Sweet Valley High makes a lot more sense...