Sweet Valley High #75 Amy's True Love, #76 Miss Teen Sweet Valley, and #77 Cheating to Win

In Sweet Valley High #75, Amy's True Love, Amy Sutton is certain that tennis star Tom McKay is the boy of her dreams.  Amy does everything she can, but Tom will not pay attention to her.

Meanwhile, Amy begins volunteering at Project Youth.  She becomes good friends with Barry Rork, who is another volunteer.  Barry has strong feelings for Amy, but she doesn't think that Barry is her type.  Amy ignores Barry while continuing to chase after Tom.

Partway through the book, the reader learns that the reason Tom wants nothing to do with Amy is because he is beginning to think that he might be gay.  Tom struggles with his feelings and goes to Project Youth for help.



Once again, I like that the series has begun tackling serious issues, but Tom's story was dropped after this book.  I would have liked to have read what happens to Tom next.  The series makes these feeble attempts to go deep but fails to follow through with anything of real meaning.

I greatly enjoyed this book.

In Sweet Valley High #76, Miss Teen Sweet Valley, Jessica has her heart set on becoming the first Miss Teen Sweet Valley.  Liz is equally determined to prevent the pageant from happening, since she feels that pageants are sexist.  Liz begins a campaign to force the city to reconsider.  Soon, Liz and Jess are not speaking to each other.

Liz is insufferable in this book.  I could not stand her behavior and her endless sanctimonious comments about pageants.  Liz goes too far, and I just wanted her to shut up.

On pages 110 and 111, Liz finally figures out how awful she has been.

She was ready to admit, to herself if not yet to Jessica, that she had been just a little pigheaded about the whole thing.

Her feelings about beauty pageants hadn't changed, but this was clearly a case where the best advice was to live and let live. Elizabeth couldn't understand why she hadn't grasped that idea before.

Neither can we, Liz.  Neither can we.

I greatly enjoyed the last part of the story, mainly because of what happens during the pageant.  I did not enjoy all the parts where Liz lectures everyone about pageants.

In Sweet Valley High #77, Cheating to Win, Tony Esteban hopes to get a track scholarship to college.  Tony's father puts tremendous pressure on him, and Tony is devastated when he tears his knee.  Tony begins taking magic vitamins that a friend from the gym gives him.  Deep down, Tony knows that he is probably taking steroids, but he refuses to admit it.  Meanwhile, Tony's girlfriend, Annie Whitman, suspects the truth.  Annie risks losing Tony so that she can prevent him from making a big mistake.

Towards the end of the story, Tony comes clean about the steroids, but he is still allowed to compete.  It is determined that the steroids didn't affect Tony enough to matter.  Huh?  Amazingly, Tony breaks the school record, and everyone is okay that he used steroids for three weeks.  I find this hard to believe.

I enjoyed this book.