I don't proofread my posts before I publish them... cause I keep my thoughts au naturale.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Sweet Valley Confidential by Francine Pascal

Are you familiar with the Sweet Valley series of the past?  I am!  I was IN LOVE with these books!  When I was in elementary school I read all of the Sweet Valley Twin books.  I would anxiously await the new arrivals and run out and buy them.  As I got into middle school, I start reading the Sweet Valley High series.  I was ecstatic about these and would go to used book stores and try to get the entire series.  At one point I think I had all of both series, but get this- I boxed them up and put them in my parents' basement and haven't seen them since.  The optimistic part of me wants to say that they are still buried somewhere down there.  The pessimistic side of me fears that my sister stole them and sold them.  I can't think of another logical explanation because I can't imagine my parents just throwing them away without asking me!  Then there was the short lived series The Unicorn Club, which I wasn't a big fan of.

Anyway, fast forward to today.  Francine Pascal has realized that some of her fans are probably wondering what would have happened to Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield after becoming adults and moving out of Sweet Valley. 

I was THRILLED when I got offered this book to review.  It was like they had somehow received full documentation of my interests from the past and realized I'd love to review this... but that's probably not what happened.  When I received it I was giddy and stoked to get started.

Okay, now onto what I thought.  The book established that Elizabeth had pursued journalism and moved to New York to make her way into the writing world.  This was after a huge fallout with Jessica when something completely unforgivable happened.  I won't tell you what because it's a shocker.  Jessica is still in Sweet Valley living with her boyfriend (or was he her fiancee, I can't remember.)  She is beyond desolate that Elizabeth refuses to speak to her.  In fact, most of her old friends are so shocked by what happened that they feel awkward being around her.  Life is extremely rough for Jessica, but it's not that easy for Elizabeth either.  The book details the struggles they have dealing with their own problems while trying to repair a bond that no one thought could be broken.

I wish I could say I loved the book.  I really tried.  I just had a couple things that really bugged me.  The first was all the flash backs and references to things in the past.  It happened quite a bit and I found it extremely annoying.  I ended up just skipping all those parts.  The other thing that bothered me, which I'm sure wouldn't bother a lot of other people is that I was so used to the writing in Sweet Valley High being mostly PG and PG-13 on the rare occasion.  So, this book was a bit more graphic and talked more about sex and it made me sad because it showed a change in writing style that I wasn't quite able to readily adopt.  I guarantee that isn't going to be the way most of the other readers feel.  I just had a loyalty to the previous writing.

Otherwise, it was good catching up with the girls and I would definitely say that people who were die hard fans like I was would be really interested.

MOTR Grade:  B

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