Sweet Valley Twins Grow Up, Land On Best Seller List
If you're a woman between 25 and 45, you probably have read at least one Sweet Valley High book, featuring California gurls Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, with their blond hair, blue eyes, and perfect size six (back in the day; now they are a size four) figures and their cast of high school friends/ frenemies, Elizabeth's jock boyfriend Todd Wilkins, rich bitch Lila Fowler, nerdy nice girl Enid Rollins, rich jerk Bruce Patman, and many others. And for those of you who have read more than a few SVH books, you've probably heard that there's a new book, Sweet Valley Confidential, that looks at what good girl Elizabeth and bad girl Jessica are up to ten years later. Forget whether it's any good—you find out who has reformed, who has turned right-wing, who has died, who has turned gay, and who is marrying her twin's ex-boyfriend.
Francine Pascal, the Queens native and NYU grad who dreamed up the world of Sweet Valley and provided the "bible" for ghost writers to help churn out hundreds of books (there's the core high school series, the super editions, the thrillers, the magna sagas, etc.) and tells the NY Times about coming up with the idea, "There was nothing like this at the time. There were romance books, but this was different. And one of the great differences was that these books were girl-driven, and this was very important to me. So with two girls I had girl power. That gave it great appeal."
Pascal wrote Sweet Valley Confidential, which features Elizabeth now working for a theater blog (!!) and living in New York City (!!) but still wearing SVU t-shirts (which keep making us think of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) and now best friends with Bruce Patman (!!!!). Jessica is living in Sweet Valley and engaged to Todd Wilkins. And Elizabeth feels betrayed, when not listening to Beyonce or Justin Timberlake, being annoyed by Con Edison's digging, and crying after orgasms (all mentioned in the first chapter—read it here). If you can make it through 21 chapters, some set in Sweet Valley, some in NYC, you'll get the epilogue that ties of most loose ends and gives updates about many Sweet Valley characters, even recalling Regina Morrow, the super secondary character who is many girls' reasons not to try cocaine.
Librarians hated the original Sweet Valley High series, because they were the equivalent of junk food, but teen girls love no-calorie junk food for the mind! Still, many Sweet Valley fans are disappointed with the new book. An Entertainment Weekly reviewer gave it a C, "Sweet Valley fans should treat this book as a ridiculously indulgent exercise in nostalgia — and then revel in how well they've turned out compared with those crazy Wakefield girls," and Jezebel found it disappointingly "boring...if there's one thing Sweet Valley never was, it was dull. Reading it, you're left wondering about the intended audience: it's too racy for kids, but most fans returning to the book are likely to wonder whether they've just gotten jaded — or whether, just maybe, it's the Wakefields."
The Dairi Burger, which has recapped a ridiculous number of original SVH books, has started to review the book a few chapters at a time, and she's not hopeful, "I don’t mean to be this down on it. It’s just a lot of waiting for a lot of letdown," and wondering, the way we do about soap opera characters, "Why are they all still hanging out together? These folks were not friends in high school. For the sake of the story, we need to see all these characters interacting, but I just don’t buy that they would all move back to Sweet Valley after colleges and various careers."
Our take: The book is indeed disappointing and boring. Probably because it tries to address what was laid out in dozens of books, the twins' personal journeys are halting and confusing. (Also, fans of Sweet Valley High Senior Year are confused!) Additionally, some of the explanations of what's happened in the past ten years are confusing. On the upside, it has Pascal's take on what happened to various characters, so that's somewhat amusing. So, much like the actual books, it's trashy fun for people who will take any closure they can get/who love nostalgia porn. (Still, average rating on Amazon, from 74 reviews, is 2.5 stars.)
Sweet Valley Confidential is number 30 on the NY Times Best Seller list (hardcover fiction) this week. And Diablo Cody is working on the Sweet Valley High movie—it'll be set in the 1980s, thank Gawd.
