Sweet Valley Confidential: 10 Years Later

Heavy sigh.  Heavy, heavy sigh.  Remember my enthusiasm about this book?  If you missed it, you can find it here.  Unfortunately, the reviews were right and I was wrong.  The book is so bad that I'm mad at the author for even writing it.  Yes, it's that bad.

I was so hoping Ms. Pascal would take the opportunity to develop the twins, Elizabeth and Jessica, into strong women that were doing their part in the world.  I envisioned a novel where they still struggled with their sibling rivalry, but ideally had put their differences aside and had become flourishing citizens.  I was ready for career-minded twins on the verge of marriage or motherhood.  Or maybe they would be returning to Sweet Valley from a stint in the Peace Corps.  I don't know.  I was ready for anything, but instead I got a bunch of nothing.

Instead, I got adultery, divorce, drug use, and alcoholism.  And that was just in the first 115 pages!  It was as if the author decided the only way to prove herself has a hip, 21st century author was to throw in all of the recent headlines from E!News. SPOILER ALERT: Did the twins have a gay brother in the old books?  Well, they do now.   As if all of that wasn't enough, she also threw in a possible murder/suicide.  Why? 

I really couldn't find one thing about the book that I liked.  I tried.  I really did.  But hey, there is ONE piece of good news...the book is lendable on my nook.  The first person that contacts me gets it for free (if you have a nook).  Anyone?  Bueller?

Sweet Valley High Confidential, 10 years later...

I'm sorry, but this post could JUST.NOT.WAIT. 

I can still remember tracing my fingers over the spine of every single Sweet Valley High book on my bookshelf while dreaming up new ways to earn money so I could buy the next one in the series. Ahhhh.  Those were the good old days.

So how in the world did I miss that the author of the original series, Francine Pascal, had released Sweet Valley High Confidential, 10 Years Later....??  Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield are back?  Clearly I have not been spending near enough time surfing the web for useless information as I should be.  I owe it to the nine followers of this blog to know these things, don't you think?  Here is where I insert my shameless plug to click that little "Follow" button on the right toolbar.  (It makes us happy, so go ahead).  You wouldn't want to miss any more exciting book news, would you?

And yes, I bought the book and have started reading it.  And yes, it will be my next review.  And yes, I am probably going to reread all of my Sweet Valley High's now.