Read This!: Sweet Valley Confidential

By Francine Pascal

I had heard this book was coming out awhile ago but I couldn't bring myself to purchase it so I opted at the chance to take it out of the library recently.

I had been a semi-big Sweet Valley fan when I was younger.  I was more into the SV Twins series than High maybe because at the time I was like 11.  Either way, Jessica and Elizabeth have been favorites of mine for years.  My fascination with twins helped that partiality along.

Anyways, Sweet Valley Confidential takes place 10 years later.  Jessica and Elizabeth have had a falling out primarily because Jessica had an affair with Elizabeth's fiance, Todd Wilkins.  Elizabeth has flown to NYC where she is writing for a theater magazine.  Jessica is still in Sweet Valley.

If you are looking for hardcore literature and to be mentally stimulated, put this back on the shelf.  If you are looking for some cheap thrills and nostalgia, go for it.  I enjoyed SVC for being a sequel to books I read as a kid but it was not the most quality thing I have ever read.

Some final thoughts on SV:

1.  I can thank SV for first showing me the word "chinos".  I had no idea what that meant for years until I picked up a JCrew catalog somewhere about Sophomore year of high school.

2.  It's funny now to think about how the sisters were always a "size 6".  Now, they would be a 2.

3.  Reading this now, this series is so 1980s.  I can't pinpoint why but it so seemed that way to me.

4.  I am not sure how to phrase this but so this whole town of SV is filled with people who stay there forever, they start out as babies, go to middle school, high school, university (of course Sweet Valley U), and then live there afterwards.  Same friends, same place.  Doesn't anyone want to leave there and see the world?  Make new friends?  As someone who said sayonara to her hometown at 18, I can't imagine not ever wanting to go somewhere else and to meet other people. It seems so stifling and boring.