Monday, May 23, 2011

Review: Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal

Genre:   YA

Release Date:  March 2011

Series:  Sweet Valley 

Publisher:  St. Martin’s Press


Format Read:  ebook

Pages:  304

Source:  Borrowed, but will put a copy on my bookshelf 

Rating: Three stars


Read an excerpt
Book Blurb
Ten years after graduating from Sweet Valley High, the Wakefield twins have had a falling-out of epic proportions. When Jessica commits a complete and utter betrayal, Elizabeth flees to New York to escape the pain and immerse herself in her lifelong dream of becoming a journalist.

Jessica remains in California, dealing with the fallout of her heart-wrenching choices. She has a career she loves and lots of old friends, but misses her sister, her oldest friend. With Jessica as her enemy, Sweet Valley is no longer the idyllic town of their youth.

Jessica longs for forgiveness, but Elizabeth can't forget her twin's duplicity. She decides the only way to heal her broken heart is to get revenge. Always the "good" twin, Elizabeth is now about to turn the tables....


My Thoughts
My sister read this one before I did and assured me that it was a crappy read.  No, those weren’t her exact words, but that’s the clean version of what she meant.  So, I started reading without high expectations, but found that I actually liked it.  Sure it could have been better, but I haven't read a SV book in about fifteen years so it was good to catch up with the good folks of Sweet Valley.   

This review may contain spoilers and way to much WTF so if you don't like those type of reviews, you might want to skip this one.

I think it’s safe to say that at one point in time, every tween has read a Sweet Valley book and loved the drama the twins always seemed to get themselves into.  In this new book, we catch up with the twins and they aren't as tight as they use to be.
Jessica is once again groveling for her sister’s forgiveness, but what she wants to be forgiven for is what made me not able to put the book down.  Okay, back in the day (and yeah I had to do some googling to confirm this because I missed this book and could not believe what I was reading) Jessica slept with Elizabeth’s boyfriend Todd…while they were still together… several times…and never confessed…and is currently engaged to him.

The book did start out kind of slow and I had to piece together what was happening because the author kept switching from the present to the past in order to explain how the drama started and how each character was dealing with the aftermath.  There was so much packed into this book, I hardly know where to start breaking down the juicy tidbits.

First, the Elizabeth/Todd/Jessica drama was soo unexpected.  Elizabeth wasn’t the same understanding person that she once was.  I actually liked the new Elizabeth because for once she moved away and stepped out of Jessica’s shadow.  I loved her with attitude and getting a little sex in the city.  I was all for her romance in the end, never would have thought Bruce would be there to pick up the pieces.   More on that story please!

I didn’t like Jessica.  She was just too whiny and acted like the Todd thing was really no biggie.  I also couldn’t believe what a hypocrite she was when it came to their brother, Steven; she really had no room to judge and should have minded her own business. 

Todd.  Wow, the balls of this guy.  I really wanted him to be kicked to the curb by both sisters.  For some reason, I’ve never liked him and through the flashbacks, I realized why.  He’s a selfish ass.  I hope there’s another book where Jessica cheats on him.  *Fingers crossed*

The deal with Steven was a total shocker.  Who would have thought?  First of all, everyone knew that he wasn’t faithful to his wife, but with who was another WTF.  And boy did I want Steven to go in on Jessica for being in his business. She really deserved to hear the truth about herself from someone that's been dealing with her BS over the years.

There were also mentions of other well know characters and an epilogue at the end that gets you caught up on what everyone’s been up to.  So, overall I was very entertained by this book.  I felt like it could have been better, but it was fun to catch up and now I want more! 





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Other Books In This Series:
 Too many to list!!!

Other Reviews Of This Book:

2 Talk to me!:

Lynette said...

I used to read SVH, but it has been so long that I have can't remember what all the stories were about and the charecters beside the twins and Todd. A part of me still wants to read this. I wonder if my library has it.

Yvonne said...

@Lynette
Read it! If you're an old fan, you should at least check it out.

It just made it back to the shelves of my local library because so many people wanted it.