Sweet Valley Confidential Review

Sweet Valley Confidential by Francine Pascal

I'm not really sure why I wanted to read this. I read Sweet Valley Twins (and I loved them) but I never really read SVH or SVU outside a few of them. In fact, I could probably count on my fingers how many I read... pretty much just the evil twin books (I think books 95-100 and 2 or 3 magna editions), the first two family legacy books and the first SVU book.

Still, I'm fascinated by this kind of book. I'm always interested in seeing how the author decides the characters have grown. And I am familiar with the core group of people. One thing I wasn't familiar with was the past events that took place during high school and college, so I don't know how accurate those were or if they were reimagined for the purpose of this book.

Spoilers ahead
The book opens with Elizabeth in New York, eight months after Jessica and Todd betrayed her. Understandably, she's still angry. A lot of people have complained about how bitter Elizabeth is in this book, but I have to say that it would be so weird if she wasn't. Who would be all puppies and rainbows after her twin and fiance decided to sneak around?

But, I also have to say that I'm disappointed in how Elizabeth found out about the betrayal. As far as I could tell, outside of one time in college, Todd and Jessica only longed for each other in silence. Elizabeth didn't walk in on them in bed together. She didn't catch them doing anything other than being accused by Jessica's ex of being together. It was extremely anticlimactic.

Elizabeth is pissed, however, and can only think of revenge. Luckily for me, because I was seriously dreading some evil revenge plot, she decided not to get revenge. Instead, she takes a male friend to her grandmother's birthday party. At this party, everything comes to a head.

After Elizabeth's friend hits on Jessica and Todd accuses Jessica of flirting, Jessica leaves him and runs to Elizabeth. Elizabeth forgives her a just a few minutes and everything is peachy again. Elizabeth is even the maid of honor in Jessica and Todd's wedding. And it's all okay because Elizabeth realized she loves her bff Bruce.
End spoilers

The book flipped between Elizabeth, Jessica and a few others (all in 3rd person). It also had flashbacks in first person, told by several different characters. It was always easy to tell who was who in those flashbacks, though, so they weren't that bothersome. What did bother me was Jessica's 1st person flashbacks. She kept using "like" and "so" in a valley girl sort of way, but they often seemed unnaturally placed. Sometimes it was the placement in the sentence and sometimes it was the fact that it was in the sentence at all. Obviously, the author doesn't naturally use those words or know anyone that does.

While a lot of people had a problem with how Elizabeth was portrayed, the character I hated most was Jessica. I felt like all she did was whine about how bad she felt, but still she seemed to feel entitled to forgiveness.  Todd was also pretty unbearable. They made a miserable couple and I couldn't even see what they saw in each other.

The ending was an after-school special sort of ending. It wrapped up in a neat little bow. It was a little annoying, but I don't know if you can expect much more from a Sweet Valley book, no matter how old the characters are supposed to be.

Overall, I didn't think it was horrible. I guess, from early reviews, I was expecting much worse. I actually thought it was okay. 3 out of 5