Sweet Valley Confidential

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I just finished reading the first chapter of Sweet Valley Confidential. If you sign up as a "Super Fan", the publisher emails a copy to you. Actually, if you're like me, you register/sign up, watch it say that you registered, wait around for a day without getting anything and then go back to the site. Register again, watch as you get a message thanking you for updating your information and then (and only then) get the chapter emailed to you. Seems like a lot of work for something I was kind of disappointed with.

Maybe it's working as a writer. Granted I do non-fiction and will never reach the level of success (or money!) as Ms. Pascal, but I do understand passive voice...and I read a couple of them in the one chapter that made my head hurt. Hopefully those disappear before the book comes out.

Plus, I wasn't crazy about Liz and orgasms in the first chapter. Yes they're all grown up now, but the Liz we knew and loved wasn't so gung ho about sex talk. Now she's contemplating screwing a guy, just so she doesn't have to talk and being all besties with Bruce Patman. Anyone remember how in the SVU series, she still thought he was an ass and never even shared a scene with him? Wherever he is, I hope he's with Lila and not contemplating a "reunion" with Liz!

And I never thought I'd say it, but reading the chapter, made me miss Jessica...

Comments

  1. DANE YOUSSEFMay 29, 2017 at 12:11 PM

    To all blasting this as if THIS NOVEL was the worst of them all… As if THIS the lowest point from a town called Sweet Valley…


    And especially the union of Todd and Jessica…
    Now let’s be fair for a moment–and honest. Todd and Jessica were together. On and off for a while, I believe. It was a big thing in the books. Jess was always kinda jonesin’ for Todd. Her and Liz. But Todd has his eye on ”the good girl.” Liz committed many, many infidelities. And it was disgusting the way he tolerated it. Not to mention unbelievable. Many of us would hate Liz more than Todd did for it. And dammit, it was tiring. They really milked that to death, didn’t they? Come on.


    Anyway, if you read “Jessica’s Secret Diary II, you can see how the likes of Jess and Todd would make quite an interesting pair. Them being exact opposites… they’ve got that “fire-and-ice” quality. Like Steven Hyde and Jackie Burkhart on “That ’70’s Show.” But honestly… Liz and Bruce. Come on. Did Francine even READ some of those damn books she put her own name on? Or was that just for the sake of shameless self-promotion and vanity (I should talk–I put my own name on all the comments I post).


    Liz and Bruce. Todd and Jess. Sounds like it should be the other way around, doesn’t it? I guess Francine was deliberately trying to throw us a curve-ball, wasn’t she? She was trying so hard to shock us… she forgot to make ANY SENSE!


    Seriously, seriously… I jest, I jest. I’m a jester. The point is–it’s a soap-opera and they do this kind of thing all the time. Todd “fucked” Jessica if you will… because he had real feelings for her. They ALL poked around–it’s a “soap-opera” once again. And come on… Todd didn’t force her. Jessica had a choice. She had feelings for him too.


    What a soap… and like I said before, it all makes a sad, strange sort of sense, doesn’t it?
    Well, except Liz and Bruce… come on.


    It all does make a strange, sad sort-of-sense, doesn’t it? They had a lot of conflict in the books… Real tension between them.


    And do you know why Jessica has had so much animosity towards Todd?


    She has feelings for him, just like her sister does. Jessica resents him for picking the other sister, “the good twin.” Jess always kind of knew they belonged together. If only Liz hadn’t beaten her to the punch. To the “right guy.” Would he have been the right guy for both of them?


    Check out the book series. She had a secret liaison affair with him for a while. In one, she fools around with him after getting her sister arrested for vehicular manslaughter. In another book, she has a long- time affair while him while Liz was missing him the whole time.


    Elizabeth and Jessica have nothing in common. At all, do they? Just like Elizabeth and Todd. But Todd and Jessica have EVERYTHING in common. It makes a sad, hard sort of sense that THEY wound up together….


    Now to be fair as far as being unfaithful goes, Todd committed a few. But only a few. But one of those was with her sister–”the bad twin.” And it was going on behind her back for some time.


    Considering all of it… It really does make a sad, divine, karmatic kind of sense. ALL of it does.


    –Loving The Confidential, Dane Youssef

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JennJune 10, 2017 at 12:20 AM

      Doesn't the fact that they fooled around behind her back a few times make it even worse? In real life, they'd get off on the secretiveness of the whole thing and flame out when they tried to actually be together.

      My problem with the pairing - or at least one of them - is that in EVERY series, there are scenes of Jessica not liking Todd, going all the way back to SVK. In terms of continuity, the SVU series had the two of them barely interacting and then never interacting during their sophomore year. I've read all the sophomore year books, and they never said one word to each other. Yet somehow, less than a year later, they're sneaking around behind her twin's back yet again? And let's not forget the fact that Liz literally took off for England with plans to never speak to her twin again at the end of SVU because Jessica made her think she was sleeping with Sam, the guy she loved.

      It's just plain lazy storytelling. To have Jessica sneak around with her sister's boyfriend as teenagers, have her make her twin she slept with the guy she loved in college, and THEN to have her supposedly steal her on/off boyfriend yet again!

      Francine screwed us with SVC anyway. According to her, SVU is not cannon, yet the SL series references Neil, a guy who only exists in SVU. You can't have it both ways doll face :)

      Delete

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