goodreads | Sweet Valley Confidential - Franscine Pascal (Reply)

Title: Sweet Valley Confidential
Author: Franscine Pascal
Genre: YA
Rating: 3.5/5
# pages: 293 pages
Date read: June, 2011

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.

Disclaimer: I stopped reading Sweet Valley while they were still at high school, so haven't read any of the SVU books. Also, I don't know of Francine Pascal actually wrote this herself, or had a ghost writer do it, like with most of the older books.

That said, I found the atmosphere of SVC very different from that of SVH. Some of this is explained by everybody having gotten older, and the changes in technology - naturally people will have facebook and twitter, and it makes sense that couples do more than just hold hands and kiss now - but that doesn't cover all of it, and I feel that some of it is simply a change of writing style, meaning that SVC more than anything reads like a work of elaborate and well thought out fanfiction. The book didn't come across as canon to me at all, and I think that's partly because of all the stereotypes, clichés and fan wish-fulfilments (just take a look at 1bruce1 to see what I mean) that got their time in the sun here.

* Boring Enid gone arrogant.
* Winston gone arrogant! I'll admit to a bit of surprise and disappointment here. I LIKED Winston.
* Steve's gay! As is Aaron Dallas
* Todd/Jessica!!!
* Liz/Bruce!!!

At some point, I may write a snarky review of this, like I've done with several of the SVH books, because it definitely deserves it (suddenly everybody can tell Liz and Jess apart on the phone! Though they haven't seen each other in 8 months, they've managed to get the same haircut! Everything happens within the space of a week as per usual. Nobody can ever resist Jessica!), but for now I'll just say that I rather liked it, but it will never be part of the 'real' Sweet Valley universe to me.