Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later

Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I was a Sweet Valley fan as a teenager, so I was looking forward to picking up this book and seeing where the girls and company had been over the last 10 years. Unfortunately, I was mostly disappointed.

I found this book to be cliche, with no depth to the characters. We're told they have changed, but when we don't see that change happen, it's just not believable. The over the top language and imagery, like bodies leaning with passion, made it laughably ridiculous. In addition to the plotting and character flaws, the constantly switching narrator made things hard to follow. It was one thing when it kept switching between Elizabeth and Jessica, noted by their location, but then suddenly we were hearing other people's thoughts and feelings, with no transition. If your narrator is an omniscient observer, that's one thing, but this wasn't that. This was just poor writing. The flashbacks were also a little frustrating, though less so than the narrator issue.

The characters also changed feelings too quickly. For the amount of rage Elizabeth claimed to have felt, it seemed like she forgave Jessica pretty easily. Not that she shouldn't, it just seemed too sudden of a change. Also, for someone so serious, her feelings about men changed really suddenly: from attraction to friends with benefits to just friends with Will, then from friends to lovers with Bruce. By the way, I HATE the word lovers. It's the 21st century. Pick a different word.

In addition to the previously mentioned writing issues, there also seemed to be a plot problem -- the timeline was all screwed up. Was the wedding only a week after the party? It seemed like it should be longer, but then at one point it referenced "the party a week ago." The resolution of conflict felt rushed and sudden as is, but then when compressed down into the space of a week, it was excessively unbelievable.

In the end, I think I figured out the primary source of the problems while listening to the author interview at the end of the audiobook. Francine Pascal says, "I am the god of Sweet Valley and I can make these characters do whatever I want." And that she wanted to shock people by having characters do things they'd never done before. It's because the author was throwing the characters around at her whim that they were so inconsistent and unbelievable.

I honestly would have a hard time recommending this to anyone other than the most diehard Sweet Valley fans.

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