Sweet Valley Blah

I read a lot of Sweet Valley books when I was younger; Twins, High, Sagas and The Unicorn Club that is, I read the first five Sweet Valley University books and decided that they weren't for me. I was excited eight years ago when the then titled Sweet Valley Heights was announced, and that excitement carried me up to the point when Sweet Valley Confidential came out last March. Upon the book's release though, I experienced a fizzling out. I didn't really enjoy the sample of the first chapter, but I figured I couldn't quit now and I would read it someday. That day came today, and man I want those two hours of my life back. This book irritated the hell out of me, but in that same vein of needing to slow down to look at a car crash, I kept reading anyway.

The story was underdeveloped, choppy, and in the end unbelievable ... though come to think of it now, that's Sweet Valley... unbelievable. I found myself caring less and less about Jessica, Elizabeth, and Todd's falling out and more about the stories of the background characters who got little more than passing blurbs written about them. Who would have ever thought that Bruce Patman would end up my favorite character and that the best part of the story would have involved hearing the always put together Alice Wakefield call to her husband to have someone "bring out the fucking cake!"???