GoodRead review: Sweet Valley Confidential [FULL REVIEW]

[snapdragon76]

Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Ahhh, the Sweet Valley High books. I read them religiously as a preteen/teenager. Now we follow the Wakefield twins into adulthood and their distinctly different lives.



I think this series started me on my fondness for twins. Sure, the stories and characters were idealized and a little fanciful. But that's what makes good fiction. Best of all, the characters had identifiable flaws.



Personality-wise I identified more with Elizabeth (except the flawless beauty of course) than with her twin Jessica. But I was engrossed by their many adventures and day to day lives. The books were a nice escape.



ETA:



Well, it's strange to see how the truth is masked by nostalgia. I think my fondness for the series was tempered by the fact I was a teenager and teenagers tend to not have the greatest taste in literature (the twilight series being a prime example).



Basically what I'm saying is the SVH series was the literary equivalent of Beverly Hills 90210. Your basic cheesy High School drama series.



In any case, in this particular book, we revisit the pretty, perfect California Wakefield twins ten years after they graduate High School. Elizabeth has moved away from Sweet valley, California and is a struggling writer in New York (is there any other kind?) writing for a small Off-Broadway review blog and living in a tiny apartment. Her once close relationship with her identical twin Jessica has been seemingly irreparably damaged after it was revealed that Jessica had been involved in a secret relationship with Elizabeth's fiance, the staid, stalwart Todd Wilkins.



This is the very same Todd Wilkins that Elizabeth has had a relationship with throughout almost the entire series and also with-whom she's had the warm fuzzies for since KINDERGARTEN. We find out later in flashback (and there are a LOT of flashbacks in this book), that Jessica and Todd had sex once during their senior year of college five years prior. Granted they had secret meetings with one another over a period of one month in a out of the way diner.



So Liz leaves the two in a fury and flees to New York, stewing in her hate and disgust. Meanwhile, Jessica and Todd have moved in together and are planning to wed. Jessica is feeling tremendous amounts of guilt, not only for her betrayal eight months before the start of the story (which led to Liz moving to New York), but also for the initial affair five years previous.



The story is told mostly in third person, but when we get to a particular plot point, the perspective shifts to first person narrative and it can be a little confusing as to who's talking at first since it's used for several different characters throughout the book.



Also, we find out that the twins' older brother Steven is gay (which came out of the blue. I think because in order to be relevant to the times, there needed to be at least one gay character).



I don't know if Ms. Pascal wrote this book herself or had one of her ghostwriters do it. But the style seems uneven from the previous series. Jessica's vocabulary is very off in that she uses 'teenage' slang frequently when she never did in the book. It seems especially odd since she's now in her late twenties.



Also, is no one physically flawed in this book. Everyone has perfect hair, perfect breasts (well, the women do) and perfect teeth. They all have interesting jobs and impeccable fashion sense.



There's also swearing in this book when there never was in the original series. It seems very out of place. I guess it's to show this is a more 'mature' story. That and the sex (which is always fabulous, btw).



In the end, after a major fiasco at the twins' grandmother's 80th birthday party, they eventually make up when Liz realizes she fell out of love with Todd a long time ago but due to her committed personality, she never thought of leaving. Then, Liz hooks up with Bruce Patman (rich, gorgeous and a former jerkass), and they have awesome sex and they go to the wedding and things are fine.



I know this series is far from realistic, but I may be a little cynical anymore. I just hoped to have a little more depth to it is all.







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