No Answer or "Teenaged Girls Are Terrible Planners"

Ahh I finally have time to blog! I read “Episode” Four of the Seniors last week actually, and then couldn’t find the time to write all down til today! So bear with me if my memory is a little foggy.

So “Episode” Four (I refused to call it an “episode” without the mocking quotations. It’s a book. It’s Book Four. Get over yourself R.L.) finally gives us the big payoff we’ve been wanting. An effing MURDER! But who gets murdered? Let’s find out…

Clarissa is our main character in this “episode” and R.L. is showing some personal growth because Clarissa is a black woman! Is this our first non-caucasian main character? I think so! This unfortunately doesn’t mean she has any better luck than our other leading ladies. We find out that Clarissa just got out of an institution. She was in there because she couldn’t deal with the fact that her sister, Justine, had died and Clarissa was the one that found her. (Fair enough, I probably wouldn’t bounce back too quickly from L.K.’s death. SISTER LOVE) Justine had fallen down the stairs while talking on her CORDLESS phone and broke her neck. While Clarissa was in the institution, she became close to a boy from her high school, Will. Apparently he’s super hot.

Clarissa goes back to school, and everyone is so excited to see her, yada yada yada. She has two best friends, Debra and Mira. We’ve already met Debra before, and we know that Mira isn’t important because she doesn’t even merit a yearbook picture. Mira is also the slutty one. You know how there’s always one. We also find out that Clarissa’s parents are adopting a little boy and he’s arriving that weekend! That seems like … a replacement, hey? But Clarissa tries to be upbeat about Aaron coming, and goes to clean out her room for him, because she’s taking over Justine’s room.

While she’s cleaning out Justine’s room, Clarissa has a vision (hallucination? Encounter with a ghost?) of her sister, who points to a notebook left on her desk. There’s nothing special in the notebook, except that on the day Justine died, she had an appointment to call a psychic named Renata. Debra and Mira come over to help Clarissa clean, and for some reason, Clarissa tells them about the ghost encounter! Bad idea. All I’m saying, is that on my first day out of an institution? Imma keep all my crazy visions to myself.

The girls believe Clarissa for some reason, (they are also crazy?) and decide to call Renata. As soon as someone answers though, they heard a small, ghosty voice that called Clarissa “Moongirl” which was Justine’s private nickname for her. Voice from beyond the grave! Justine tells Clarissa that she was murdered, but disappears before she can name her killer. Renata comes onto the phone, saying that she was possessed by Justine and proves to Clarissa she’s the real deal by telling her the boy she’s had a secret crush on her whole life (hint: its Josh. Will is gonna be pissed!)

Clarissa decides to trust Will with her secret hallucinations too. He does two terrible things: he doesn’t believe her for one, and then he tells her that Mira already told him! Apparently they email because they have computer class together. Telling your new girlfriend that her slutty friend emails you? That’s a no. The girls call Renata again that night, and she gives them the upsetting news that one of them is going to die next! I’d stop calling this lady, she is just full of bad news!

Clarissa finds her sister’s secret hiding spot that night. She finds a fake ID, a knife with the word SLASH on it, and her diary. Which of course she reads, because, hey, she’s dead! What does she care about privacy? Apparently Justine had this secret life where she snuck out of the house and partied and dated this guy named Slash. Who gave her a knife with his name engraved on it. (Guess what L.K.’s getting for Christmas this year?!) Clarissa is pretty upset because she thought she knew Justine pretty well, but apparently Justine was thinking about running away, and totally ditching her. Harsh! Will breaks into her room, and they argue a little because Mira told Will about calling Renata again, and Will doesn’t want her to go crazy again. Whatevs, Will, you just broke into her room.

Clarissa decides that the best plan to find her sister’s murderer, (and her maybe soon-to-be murderer) is to use the fake ID and go to the club to find out who this Slash guy is. She assumes he killed Justine because Justine’s diary discussed how mad Slash was when she wanted to see other people. So. I don’t understand what Clarissa’s plan was here. Step one: Find Slash, the man who murdered my sister. Step two: ? She doesn’t find out who Slash is, but she does run into Will there. He’s a musician (swoon!) and goes to the clubs all the time to check out places to play.

The next day, her new little brother Aaron arrives. He’s 5 years old, and super cute. Clarissa shows him around his new house and they hang out in her room. He picks up the phone in her room (the one they’ve been calling Renata on) and is instantly possessed by Justine. She tells Clarissa to be careful because someone is going to get murdered! Clarissa immediately calls Debra to warn her. Debra has some of her own information, too. She just ran into Justine’s high school boyfriend, who had something really important to say…. And then Debra gets pushed down the stairs. What?! Yup, Clarissa hears her argue with someone, then tumble down the stairs. She lives close by, so Clarissa books it over to Debs house, and finds her at the bottom of the stairs. Pretty suspicious for you, Clar, if you keep finding dead bodies at the bottom of the stairs.

First important murder of this series! Finally! Debra Lake who I think is dating that vampire guy is DEAD! Woot woot! Luckily for us, R.L. doesn’t waste too much time on that whole boring process of “mourning” and “grieving”. We get right back to the action, as Clarissa calls Justine’s old boyfriend to find out what he told Debra. He’s kind of uncomfortable because…it turns out that Slash is non-other than WILL! Ewwww, he dated the dead sister then moved on to the living!?

Clarissa puts two and two together and decides that Will is the murderer. Mira comes over to sleep with Clarissa because the two girls are convinced he’s going to kill them. And Will doesn’t help much, because that night, he decides to break into Clarissa’s room again! (Justine’s old room. No wonder he’s so good at getting in there). Mira and Clarissa stop him before he gets into the room tho, and push him off the trellis he was climbing.

This whole incident lands Clarissa back in the institution. Oh, also the fact that the phone they’ve been calling Renata and Justine on hasn’t been hooked up since Justine died. Soooo Clarissa’s parents figure that she might have gone off the deep end again. Will calls her though, and forgives her. (Does she forgive him for being a huge pervy creep that is using her to get over his dead girlfriend? Who knows!) Will actually believes her know and has his own theory: He thinks the killer is Mira. Will confesses that Mira is actually really into him, which he’s known about for a while. And was still emailing her? Nice. Way to lead both girls on. Clarissa thinks that’s crazy talk! (Haha, puns)

But Mira comes to visit Clarissa that day. She’s babysitting Aaron for Clarissa’s parents and brought him to see her. Mira’s bag falls open though, and Clarissa sees that Mira has stolen Justine’s phone! Which is weird, but Mira said that she wanted to have it in case Justine tried to contact them again. Nice thing to say to the girl in the institution.

After Mira and Aaron leave though, Clarissa decides that she doesn’t believe Mira and is worried about Aaron. She called Mira’s house and finds out that Mira is taking Aaron to Fear Lake for a boat ride. Innocent, right? Except I kinda forgot to mention that Aaron is a disturbed kid because he saw both his parents drown in front of him and now he’s deathly afraid of water, AND Mira knows it. (I guess that’s kind of an important plot point). So instead of calling her parents and telling them Aaron’s babysitter might be crazy, she breaks out of the institution. That’ll look good!

She sees their boat out in the middle of Fear Lake, so Clarissa jumps right in! Haha my notes actually say “does a shit job of saving Aaron”. Which is true! Mira tries to whack the shit out of her with the oars and confesses she killed Justine because she’s in love with Will and killed Debra because she was going to figure it out. Well, that was easy! Clarissa starts her terrible rescue attempt by pulling Aaron into the water, then losing him, then she almost drowns herself and they both need to be rescued by some random stranger. Her parents, as well as her doctors, are waiting for her on the shore. Mira rows up and starts yelling about how Clarissa is sooo crazy and tried to kill Aaron. Clarissa is about to be hauled back to the institution, (but this time with padded cells) when Aaron pipes up and said it was all Mira. I don’t know how Mira thought she would get away with just lying about the whole thing, and hoping Aaron would just go along with it. Another poor plan.

The book ends with Clarissa and Will dating (I still think it’s gross) and Aaron happily replacing Justine in Clarissa’s heart. Harsh. But I think this book was a success because we finally killed off one the main characters! A lot of stuff was left unexplained, and frankly, that’s the way I like my R.L. books. Completely nonsensical. 57 telephones to heaven out of 74!