Sweet Valley Confidential by Francine Pascal

I could not wait to read Sweet Valley Confidential, the new adult novel from writer and creator Francine Pascal. I was a diehard Sweet Valley fan back in the day, reading all the books and eventually watching the shows when they came out. So I was pretty excited to catch up on my favorite twins and their friends, and see how their lives played out. And I was not prepared for what I read….

The story starts off with Elizabeth Wakefield, the shy studious twin in high school, walking into her New York apartment. Readers are instantly aware that some sort of feud is brewing between Elizabeth and twin sister Jessica, the fashionista and selfish one. The sisters are now 27, Elizabeth living in NY and Jessica still in Sweet Valley. Turns out, Elizabeth actually fled to New York because she found out her lovely twin sister stole her fiancé away from her. Yes, Jessica is in love with Todd. And has been since SVU days. Huh? Not what I expected, and sadly, not where I wanted the twins to be in their lives. How could Jessica do such a thing to Elizabeth? And how could Todd possibly be interested in Jessica? Befuddling. So the story goes on to show how the characters got to that point in their lives- Jessica going through two failed marriages, Todd and Elizabeth living together, preparing to get married, how the Jessica/Todd fling got started, friendships that got ruined because of it, etc. I thought it was fun checking in on the other lives- Lila Fowler, who hasn’t changed a bit, Ken Matthews, Winston Egbert, and Bruce Patman to name a few. I liked seeing who ended up with who, what careers they were holding, and how they had grown from high school and college days. But of course, the main chunk of story goes back to the Jessica/Elizabeth/Todd love triangle. It made me sad that a sister would do something so horrible to her own twin and supposed best friend, but the book makes it pretty clear all is fair in love and war. But I hate to say it, it just wasn’t very believable. Jessica’s two failed marriages makes more sense, but not truly madly deeply falling in love with her sister’s future husband. And there were quite a few very obvious mistakes made, such as wrong names and completely omitting people that had pretty big storylines in the past. And I really didn’t get the twist with Steven’s character. That came from left field.

Overall, I thought the book was okay. It was a little disappointing as a Sweet Valley fan to have Pascal choose to make Jessica betray Elizabeth in such a way, and have them fighting throughout the story. And many of the supporting cast characters were changed in such ways that it seemed they weren’t anything like their high school characters. Along with all the errors made, it was tough to be really happy with the book. But it was a bit fun to catch up with old characters, hilarious when Elizabeth talks about orgasms, and I actually gasped when Alice Wakefield dropped the F-bomb. I wish the characters lives would have gone a different direction, but I guess that’s why I’m not the creator. Even with a lot of things that I didn’t like about the book, I will say that I got into the story for what it was, and questioned how it would end. I laughed and wanted to cry for the twins and their now dysfunctional family, and I read with enthusiasm throughout. If you were a diehard Sweet Valley like I was years ago, I would still recommend the book just so you can see how it turns out. But don’t be surprised to find your own mistakes along the way, and wonder why the editors didn’t catch what was missed.