SVT #102: The Mysterious Dr. Q
Is it sad when the best part of the book is actually the ad in the back cover? It is, isn't it? I'm not sure if that statement is on my part or on the part of SVT, though. But the ad for the Sweet Valley High fan club cracks me up. With your membership payment, you get such priceless treasures as a "Members Only" door hanger, a pencil (for secret note writing!), and two editions of The Oracle newsletter. I kind of wonder if that offer's still good... And for the record, the wording is theirs, not mine.
What's in the rest of the book, you ask? A bunch of hypnotism and psychics! Huzzah!
While she's working on her newspaper article, Mr. Bowman tells Elizabeth a hypnotist is coming to Sweet Valley Middle School. Of course immediately, Elizabeth is a skeptic, although she knows Jessica will be enthusiastic, leading us into the "they look the same but couldn't be more different" spiel. I want to know why the school is letting a hypnotist come in. That doesn't seem very... academic. Then again, almost nothing they do at school is very academic, so maybe this shouldn't surprise me. Mr. Bowman suggests Elizabeth do a story about hypnotism, and right away Liz decides she wants to expose it as fake and the incoming Dr. Q as a fraud. It's a good thing she's keeping an open mind about all of this.
Meanwhile, Bruce, Todd, Aaron, and Ken are playing basketball and talking about chicks. Bruce announces that girls are icky, which seems rather odd coming from a 13-year-old boy. The other boys start talking about non-icky girls, while Todd obsesses over Elizabeth. Seriously, it's kind of creepy. Finally, he admits out loud he has a crush on Elizabeth, and Bruce starts to razz him, daring him to ask Elizabeth out. Todd gives in to the peer pressure and says he'll do it.
After school, Jess offers to read Elizabeth's tarot cards. Apparently she believes she'll be a wonderful hypnotist because she's psychic. What? They don't have anything to do with each other, but okay. Jessica's tarot reading is a bust, because she has no idea what she's doing, but it doesn't bother her. She justifies it all to suit her purpose, and both girls go away from it feeling the same as they did before.
Amy Sutton's mother, who is apparently a television reporter, tells Amy they're doing an interesting piece on women pilots, and as part of it they want to interview the daughters of those pilots. But they can't have an adult interview the daughters; they need someone their own age to do it. Why? I have no idea. But Amy is delighted when her mom asks her if she'd like to do it, until she finds out the interview will be conducted on a plane. Amy is terrified of flying, but she's determined to do this interview. After all, it's her big chance!
In homeroom, Mr. Bowman announces to the rest of the class about Dr. Q the hypnotist's visit. There's a debate going on about whether hypnotism is for real or not, but instead of participating, Todd stares at the back of Elizabeth's head. He has her every movement memorized, which I suppose might sound romantic to the kids these books are aimed at, but just strikes me as being reeeeally creepy. He gets the brilliant idea to ask Elizabeth out with a note, which he then sticks in her locker. Apparently Todd has not yet learned this is the LAMEST way to ask someone out EVER.
Elizabeth, still obsessing over how she'll expose Dr. Q as a fraud, opens her locker to find the note. She recognizes the paper, but is afraid to assume it's from Todd until she sees the signature. I have to share this note in all its awkward glory...
Dear Elizabeth,
Hi. This discussion is kind of boring. Don't you think so? (Great job, Einstein. Way to insult the discussion Elizabeth was leading.)
Well, I was just wondering if you wanted to go to a movie. With me, I mean. Saturday night. We could go see the Eileen Thomas movie if you wanted. Or if you didn't want to, we could do something else. Like I don't know what, but maybe we could think of something.
My dad and me can pick you up. (Now that's classy.)
But if you're really busy I understand.
Yours,
Todd
PS: Wilkins, that is. (How many Todds are there running around Sweet Valley, anyway?)
I would have run in terror from a note like this, but Elizabeth gives a girlish squee, delighted that Todd Wilkins has asked her out. She goes to find him, where he's again talking to Bruce and Ken, and tells him the answer is yes. Then she takes off, leaving the other two to assume she's agreeing that Todd can borrow her study notes. Hee!
At the assembly, waiting for Dr. Q, Jess and Lila start discussing which of them is the most psychic, and how much they want to meet Dr. Q so they can learn from her. Note for ghostwriter: psychics and hypnotists are not the same thing! They're not even related! Throughout the book they're lumped together though, which annoys me. The Dr comes out, and asks for volunteers. Amy raises her hand, much to Elizabeth's horror. Jessica raises hers, too, and once Dr. Q finds out she and Elizabeth are identical twins, she has to pick both of them. Of course she does. Apparently she thinks they'll prove interesting subjects, especially considering one's a believer and one's a skeptic. At any rate, Dr. Q hypnotizes about half a dozen students, getting them to do and say interesting things. Elizabeth isn't hypnotized, but she goes along with it, for reasons I don't understand. Wouldn't the best way to disprove hynotism be to, say, prove it doesn't work? Whatever. The other students, including Jessica, are acting strangely, though, and Elizabeth can't quite be certain they're faking the way she is.
After school, Lila is annoyed that she wasn't chosen as a guinea pig volunteer, so Jessica volunteers to hypnotize her. Because after having been hypnotized once, she clearly knows all there is to know about the art. At first, Jess thinks it's worked, but when she instructs the seemingly hypnotized Lila to profess her undying love for Todd, Lila refuses. Jessica comes to the conclusion she might have to practice a little before becoming a master hypnotist. Ya think?
Amy is also disappointed she wasn't selected to be hypnotized. She'd been hoping Dr. Q could cure her of her fear of flight, so she could do the interview with no worries. She has an idea, though; Elizabeth is supposed to be interviewing Dr. Q for the Oracle the next day. Amy can just tag along and ask for another demonstration. I'm sure that attempt won't be transparent in the least.
Because Bruce Patman is one of the SV antagonists and can't go a full book without attempting to screw someone over, he asks Liz out to see the latest action flick. Elizabeth is decidedly not interested, and tells him she has a date with Todd instead. Bruce tells her to give him a call if she changes his mind. I want to know what changed his mind, considering he was talking about how icky girls are earlier in the book.
When Elizabeth shows up to Dr. Q's office after school to do her interview, Amy and Jessica are already there waiting, Amy hoping for a demonstration, Jessica hoping to learn the secrets of hynosis from the good doctor. Fortunately, Dr. Q is very patient with all three girls, answering Liz's hostile questions gracefully, and making sure to tell Jessica that hypnosis is a powerful tool, something never to be used as a toy. Jessica, of course, brushes this aside as unimportant. Good thing she's taking the advice she's sought out from the expert.
After the interview, Elizabeth comes away just as convinced as ever that hynosis doesn't work, much to Jessica's annoyance. To settle the argument once and for all, Jess offers to hynotize Liz, who accepts the challenge. I'm not sure why Jessica thinks she can hypnotize Elizabeth more thoroughly than the practiced Dr. Q, but they decide to have a hypnotism party. I was going to list the kids who are invited until I realized it's pretty much the same names from every other book, even the ones nobody likes (ie: Bruce Patman).
Bruce is annoyed that the hypnosis party is at the same time as the Angels-Twins baseball game. Lila is busy telling anyone who will listen how Jessica failed to hypnotize her last time. Jessica manages to get them all to shut up, and starts working on her victims: Janet, Amy, Elizabeth, and Lila. Soon, all four of them are staring at her glassy-eyed, and Jessica excitedly thinks it must actually be working this time. She starts off by trying to tell Amy she will no longer be afraid of spiders, and Janet will not be scared of spiders. As she's saying it, though, Bruce starts talking about the Twins, and Jess realizes he's listening to the game through an earphone. She makes him turn it off, and returns her attention to Elizabeth. She decides to make Liz have absolute adoration for the greatest person on earth: Jessica herself, of course. But as she's saying her name, Ellen yells at Bruce, who has just rammed his chair into her foot. Annoyed, Jess finishes up with Lila, who gets the most ridiculous task because of her earlier mocking; she will only be able to quack whenever she sees the principal. Man, that's clever. Yeah.
Predictably, all the interruptions get everyone mixed up. Instead of overcoming their fears, Amy and Janet believe they're identical twins, and start acting even more obnoxious than Jessica and Elizabeth. No, seriously. I didn't think it was possible, but evidently it is. Elizabeth is now madly in love with Bruce Patman (bet you all saw that one coming), and the Lila one actually did end up working. In spite of the mix-ups, Jessica is thrilled. Because she can effectively hypnotize people, she is obviously a psychic! "Today, Sweet Valley. Tomorrow, the world!" (No, seriously. She actually thinks that. Which... considering she's a psychopath, actually makes more sense than a lot of the crap in these books.)
Because of the hynosis, Liz blows Todd off to go see the action flick with Bruce, who lords it over the violent geek. Todd turns around and asks Jessica to come to the movie with him for reasons I don't quite understand. He wants to follow Liz and Bruce to see what they're doing, getting an early start on his stalkerific self, but why invite Jess? Jessica isn't too keen on the idea of being seen out in public with Todd (HA!), but he promises he'll never tell anyone, and reminds her it's her best chance to see the true results of her handiwork. Also, he's willing to pay. They go, and they sit right behind Bruce and Liz. Bruce is his usual obnoxious self, and Liz can't quite remember why she likes him, just that he's Bruce Patman and therefore awesome. She rests her head on his shoulder, and Todd wishes he was the action star in the movie so he could tear Bruce in half. Yaay, violent Todd is surfacing! This whole scene made me gleeful. Later, it looks like Bruce is going in to kiss Liz, and Todd dumps all of Jessica's food over Patman's head. Bruce grabs him, and they're about to fight, when an usher comes and kicks them all out. I am disappointed, especially when they don't take the fight over to a place with a pool.
At school, Janet and Amy are driving everyone nuts with their identical act. I want to know what they did that evening, if they went to sleep at the same house or something. And if they did, whose house did they go to? I'm putting way too much thought into this. Even when it's pointed out that the two of them look nothing alike and usually can't stand each other, they just giggle like it's some sort of joke. And apparently they have invented twin memories that they can recite together. Which... that's beyond the limits of hypnosis, but whatever. Logic clearly has no place in this book. The principal comes by then, and Lila of course can do nothing but quack. This infuriates the principal, who assumes it's a Unicorn prank of some sort, and all the girls are given detention. It's the final straw for Jessica, who decides she needs to hold another hypnosis session to set everyone right again. She sets up a time, and calls Dr Q a number of times, leaving frantic messages on her answering machine until she decides leaving messages is silly. After all, Dr. Q is a psychic, therefore she should instinctively know Jessica needs her!
I can't even put into words how ludicrous this all sounds.
So once again, everyone gathers at the Wakefield home, and Jessica puts her four victims under. There's another baseball game on, but this time Steven's the one keeping tabs on it. He's got the volume on the tv turned way up, enough that Jessica is having a hard time concentrating on what she wants to tell the girls to do. She tries to shout her hypnotic suggestions down the stairs to Steven, telling him to turn off the tv and never think about baseball again. Of course it backfires, and instead Amy, Janet, Liz, and Lila wake up without any recollection of what baseball is. Conveniently, this is when Dr. Q shows up. She lectures Jessica about having ignored the warning about hypnosis not being a toy and quickly sets everyone straight, even going so far as to take care of Amy's fear of flying. Everyone is happy. Liz asks Todd out to make up for ditching him earlier, Amy and Janet agree never to do anything together ever again, and Lila... continues to be awesome, I guess. Amy nails her interview, and Jessica manages to forget all the screwups and tells everyone what an amazing psychic/hypnotist she is, that she's responsible for curing Amy's fear. Oh, and Todd holds Elizabeth's hand while reflecting that sometimes you don't need hypnosis to get exactly what you want. I have to fight a wave of nausea.
So... all in all, I think this has to be one of the worst Sweet Valley books I've ever read. Just painful, really.
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1bruce1,
