The Sweet Life #1

I have a confession to make. I bought and read all six of The Sweet Life e-books and never recapped them. Each book was a little more ridiculous than the last, and I think I was too annoyed to write reviews. The other day, while on a trip to pick up cleaning supplies from Dollar Tree, I found the hardback with all six e-books inside and decided to give it another try.

Jessica is working for one of George Fowler's companies and is now in charge of marketing for some green cosmetics company. I always assumed the only green thing she cared about was making sure her hair didn't turn green from the chlorine in the swimming pool. After making a pitch to Revlon, which is really just her deciding to throw a party with naked models painted to look like they aren't naked (how is that selling makeup?), everyone oohs and ahs before she goes home to find Todd playing with their son. Todd and her snip at each other before he takes off. It turns out that she and Todd separated. Aw, you mean things didn't end perfectly when you screwed your sister's boyfriend behind her back for years?

Meanwhile, Liz and Bruce are still together, only now, she suddenly feels all out of place in his house. He bought her a $2 million painting as a "surprise," which only makes her feel more out of sorts. There's some creepy scene of them having sex, which was so bad that I had to read it out loud to my roommate and get his opinion. Verdict? Just as bad as Fifty Shades of Gray.

Oh and there's a story about Todd. He still somehow works as a sports writer but now has a hot woman working at the paper with him. Liz hears from Bruce that the two were at a basketball game together, and Caroline stops by one morning to give Jessica the latest gossip on Todd's new gal. Jessica looks her up and is all happy that Sarah, the writer, is older than her. She then discovers that Sarah plagiarized some of her work and used quotes from Jessica of all people without crediting her. Jessica tells the paper, Sarah gets fired, and Todd explodes.

He comes over to the house, flips out on her for being jealous, and it's like high school all over again. They basically end the fight with each telling the other to go screw someone else. Jessica then calls Liam, that hot Irish actor guy Liz met in NYC who is still obsessed with her, and plans a date. Todd goes to see Sarah, they kiss a little, she takes off her shirt and starts touching herself, and he freaks out and runs away.

Then there's good old Lila who is still married to Ken and a pampered stay at home wife who wants a role on The Real Housewives of Sweet Valley. She wins over the producers during the audition and later hosts the first filming day at her house. Lila pretty much treats Ken like shit and keeps saying things like, "whatever baby wants, baby gets," with her being baby.

One of the other housewives, Ashley, makes a play for Ken. Lila decides that this is the perfect time for her to take on the bitch role on the show. She acts like a huge C-U-Next-Tuesday and makes Ken look like a moron. The others actually kind of like her character, but Ken comes in later and sees some of the stuff she said about him. She thinks it will all blow over and that he'll get she's just playing, but he packs his bags and takes off.

Liam shows up, tries to win over her son Jake, and then takes her out. He spends all night talking about how she's the most amazing woman ever and how he fell in love with her the first time he saw her. After dinner, he suggests they get a room upstairs, she agrees, they have sex, and then Jess decides she made a huge mistake and demands he take her home. Todd, meanwhile, calls the house because he realized he was still in love with his wife and finds out she went on a date with Liam. Jessica finds dozens of messages from her husband professing his love for her.

The big story is that some intern accuses Bruce of sexual assault. Despite what he did to Liz in high school and probably a few dozen more girls in college, Liz swears that he isn't capable of this. He tells her that one of his work buddies left a note on his desk to meet him at a bar. He went, met a girl who cried over her dad dying, he spilled a drink on her, and then he got dizzy and laid down.

Liz calls on Jessica, who immediately springs into action. She gets actresses like Angelia Jolie and Susan Sarandon to film ads for Bruce because I guess they had nothing better to do. Personally, if some rich guy had his rich and famous friends speaking out for him, I'd probably assume he did it anyway. Liz goes on a hunt to track down the missing intern. Apparently, her priest was the one who leaked the story and only because she asked him too. Yup, that's not weird or strange at all.

After finding a few people who just want to gush over Bruce and how he's so amazing, she finally tracks down the intern. Pretending that she's an assault victim who went through something similar, Liz gets the whole story. The girl says that he basically got her alone at the bar, tried to assault her, and she ran away. Oh, and Liz also tracks down the bartender who tells her that Bruce was all over the girl all night. The book ends with the intern begging Liz to help her.

*This book is even more ridiculous than the first time I read it. Liz can't believe that the guy who tried to get her drunk and take advantage of her would do that to another girl, Lila completely changed from her more mellow college days, and pretty much everyone reverted to their high school selves. Ugh.