dear sister #7

"can jessica face life without elizabeth?" the line on the front reads. WOAH sweet valley metaphor to the MAX!

liz is in a coma, apparently that is what this book is supposed to be about according to everything that is written in the blurb - "horrible motorcycle accident", "lies in a coma", "without elizabeth, can life go on?" well it does indeed go on, liz is actually out of the coma by page 11.

but that is where this book truly begins! so liz comes out of the coma unscathed apart from one tiny thing - she has turned into JESSICA! liz starts acting like a total bitch, flirting with boys, stealing boyfriends, shopping for bikinis when she is meant to be helping make dip for the pool party - omg you are going to love this - jess makes a dip out of FRENCH ONION SOUP MIX! retro-gasm! while liz is out being generally irresponsible and slutty, jess is at home crying about it because SHE'S the one who's supposed to be generally irresponsible and slutty! LIFE IS NOT FAIR!

ok so the best bit is when all the kids from SVH go to lila's pick up party. omg this is so awesome, you have to go single, like even if you are dating someone, and lila prides herself on how many couples break up after one of her pick up parties - WHAT? ok, so liz goes single because she kicked todd to the curb right after she came out of the coma, such something jessica would do, except jessica marries him in the end GAH! DAMN YOU SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL! right so they are at lila's and guess who starts flirting with liz thinking that she is jess? only BRUCE PATMAN hottest guy on the planet! he gets pretty hot when he realises she is LIZ and not JESS because liz is like the only girl in the world who's been able to resist his charms, oh yeah and they end up together in the end of sweet valley confidential (ruinous) because bruce turns good and jess steals todd from liz. [HEAD EXPLODES].

ugh so where am i? yes ok we're at the party, liz is dancing with bruce and guess what? he gives her ALCOHOL! omg! she takes a swig from his flask behind a tree, and guess what? it's enough to make her pretty much paralytic. he touches her boob and then tries to take her to his HOUSE to do god knows what to her! :-O anyway, todd comes and saves her just moments before she passes out, there's a gal that can't hold her liquor.

next time liz 'aint so lucky, or she is. she goes willingly to bruce's house on the hill because his parents are out of town... while she is waiting in the "master bedroom" for him to bring the wine up she stands up for some reason and GUESS WHAT? she trips over, banging her head on the floor, and would you believe it, she has no memory of anything that has happened since she went into the coma and she is back to her normal boring sensible responsible self and runs straight back into todd's arms.

well, so that's sorted then.

playing with fire #3

so, after reading sweet valley confidential which ignited a fire of flaming, burning hatred for the "writer", "francine pascal" i was somewhat hesitant to continue with my reading of all the sweet valley high books ever written mission. could i ever read about todd again without thinking of him shagging jessica all day under liz's nose? could i ever revive my tween crush on steven now that i know he left his wife cara to bake in the kitchen only to be with aaron? it was a tough decision, but then i looked at all the svh books sitting unread on my bookshelf and decided yes. i paid 70p for those!

actually once i started this one it was fine, and worth way more than 70p. this was pure svh gold my friends. bruce patman love of my svh life stars as jessica's new bf. he is SUCH a jerk to her, making her skip classes, quit cheerleading, make out in the woods even though elizabeth has gone mental, he even gets tries to get her topless in the river! :-O

bruce is so cool with his 1BRUCE1 number plate on his black porsche like seriously. he is the richest and hottest guy on the planet so when jessica gives up her whole life, personality and everything she believes in (cheerleading and new wave outfits) to be with him it's like totally understandable.

liz is less than impressed and when she's not busy trying to follow the droids around (svh's most awesome rockband for those without the know, who have just found a manager who promises them the big time, but actually he is a JERK too and really just wants to get a date with the singer) she is trying to split up jess and bruce by badmouthing him at every opportunity and not really doing much else actually.

but every girl who has ever dated a JERK knows that you can only come to the realisation that you're dating a JERK by yourself no matter how many of your friends tell you that he is a JERK, and jessica does indeed come to  this realisation when she sees BRUCE at the pizza place with a gorgeous redhead. ok stop there, bruce cheats on jessica wakefield - the perfect blonde, tanned cheerleader with a gorgeous pale redhead? 100 POINTS FOR BRUCE! ok cheating is never ok, but it's refreshing to see a blonde get duped for a redhead once in a while.

jessica goes nuts of course and she pours a jug of soda over his head and throws an ENTIRE PIZZA into his face. 10 points for women's lib.

5 stars.

sweet valley confidential - ten years later

on a scale of one to completely horrible this book rates pretty high.

FRANCINE PASCAL WHAT THE HELL?

oh my god. this was awful. 

i'm not actually sure that francine pascal ever wrote any of the other sweet valley high books. this book was written by someone who has clearly no writing ability whatsoever. the grammar is disgraceful, the plot is full of holes, repetitive, strange and basically stupid.

so jessica comes to stay with elizabeth and todd who are about to get married and she spends her days shagging todd while elizabeth goes to work. WHAT? the whole point of SVH was that liz and jess were besties and had this connection that made every teen and pre-teen girl (and some boys) on the planet in the mid-late 80s/early 90s want to be a twin (and blonde and tanned and from california). like as if you would ever do that to your twin. ok so jess did shag todd in sweet valley university, but like, that was once and it was a mistake, and she like learned stuff from it and everything. at the age of 27 "love" is like the most pathetic excuse to shag your twin sister's fiance. 

the whole book is basically about elizabeth shagging random guys in nyc to try and get over todd and the whole thing is like an internal monologue about how each character "feels" about what is going on, and the "journey" elizabeth goes on from being totally destroyed by everyone she cared about to complete forgiveness - even to the point of turning up to jess and todd's wedding as the bridesmaid. WHAT?!!????

the only good thing about this book is bruce patman. bruce was always my favourite svh spunk even though he was such a dick. but it turns out he comes good in the end and is like the nicest guy in sweet valley. SWOON!

regardless, this was TERRIBLE and i am so PISSED about what "francine" has done.

steven is gay and winston dies. now you don't need to read it.

don't read it. 

EVER!

rock star's girl #72

jamie peters is like the hottest most awesomest celebrity on the planet in 1991 and would you believe he has just bought the old kitterby masion just four houses down from lila's place? 

jessica and her cronies begin stalking him by hiding in the bushes by his pool and watching him walking around with his shirt off, when they aren't listening to his new cd that is. yes that's right, lila actually owns a CD PLAYER! jessica refuses to listen to tapes any more and goes to lila's place to listen to the one cd that she owns, which is of course jamie's new album "pride" which, although is a cd is still referred to as having "sides" - retro-gasm! of course listening to anything at lila's is hard these days since she's taken up the MARIMBA and to everyone's surprise is actually pretty good at it. 

meanwhile, liz makes friends with the new girl, andrea slade, who just moved to sweet valley from new york. everyone thinks she's hiding something because she always acts weird about people coming to her house and she won't tell anyone what her father does for a living.

while hiding out in the bushes one afternoon jessica and co see jamie peters AND andrea slade hanging out by the pool. of course the only explanation is that they are LOVERS! so she tells everyone and svh rumour mill madness ensues. 

of course they aren't lovers, svh was never that liberal. it turns out [SPOILER] that jamie is andrea's DAD!

ha ha ha! aren't you all silly? 

actually i thought this was all a bit weird, i mean everyone has the hots for andrea's dad? like if she's 16 he has to be at least like 34 right? pop stars in the early 90s were never that old. 

not the most dramatic work in the series. 

Pretenses #44

steven returns from college because he has allergies - total geek-gasm! we're off to a good start with #44. i will admit that of all the boys from svh i crush on steven the most. not only because i would one day like to marry into the wakefield family (it could still happen), but he's just so darn cute. especially when he has allergies. put that boy in a pair of rayban frames, have him not shave for a week and i'd consider him perfect. 

right, so a whole book about steven's allergies although quite enjoyable for a person like myself apparently required more. so, here we have a plot which is quite boring really, compared to cocaine over doses and being arrested for murder. it's really just about some silly anonymous love letters written to steven on some fancy floral stationary... except that it's HIS DEAD GIRLFRIEND'S stationary. OMG! so steven flips out, and is like - omg what is happening with this stationary? 

little does he know that cara, his alive girlfriend, has been taking relationship advice from jessica, who ps - has never actually really had a boyfriend unless you count sam who like died after their first date or something. jessica is like - your relationship needs more mystery or steven will get bored,  and cara is all like - yeah you are right jessica, because you know SO MUCH about relationships.

meanwhile, back at the wakefield ranch this new chic abbie has turned up to draw comics and be best friends with everyone. everyone likes her until like page 121 when they all go nuts about her trying to steal steven and writing mental letters to him so they kick her out and she's like - i didn't write those letters! SCREW YOU WAKEFIELDS!

blah blah some other stuff happens, everyone finds out that [SPOILER] cara (the alive one) wrote the letters and everyone is like HAHAHAHAH! hugs, makes up and then goes to a lakers game. 

probably only slightly less enjoyable than a whole book on steven's allergies, but for those who are interested it turns out he's allergic to mould, dust and grass.

love letters #17

ok SO not the best sweet valley book i've ever read. pretty boring really. compared to cheerleaders taking overdoses and drownings in france this was pretty tame. ridiculously tame. who wrote this? not francine pascal for sure. i'm assuming that the ghost writer responsible for this fiasco got kicked off the team, or conveniently shot in a hostage situation or drowned in a mysteriously leaking boat in the south of france...


poor caroline pearce, she's got red hair AND she doesn't have a boyfriend, kill yourself! oh finally a svh character i can relate to! WRONG! caroline pearce is an annoying little so and so who ruins everyone lives with her gossip mongering. i can't stand a book with such a stupid protagonist. little caz makes up that she has a boyfriend because no one likes her, and it TOTALLY WORKS! everyone wants to be her friend for like five minutes until everyone realises that she's made him up. but seriously, we've all had boyfriends we've made up, like that's not even that bad. in the end [SPOILER] elizabeth feels sorry for caroline with her red hair and all and so she gets one of todd's mates to pretend to be this guy she made up... of course she like comes clean at the end, because they always do in these american things, but the guy that was pretending to be the guy she made up actually wants to like mack out with her anyway and all the blonde girls are hells jealous. 


so what's the moral of the story? don't make up hot boyfriends or you might end up with a hot boyfriend? oh who's that knocking? oh is that my new hot boyfriend come over with roses and a puppy to take me on a date to france in a helicopter? 

hostage! #26

any book that has an exclamation mark in the title is ok by me. hostage! was pretty awesome. it was like dan brown had gone in a time machine back to 1986 and joined francine pascal's dream team of ghost writers for like a day. i'm assuming it only takes a day to write one, like it's taking me between an hour an half to two hours to read one.


this book was pretty sweet, it was like go-go-go from go to woah. regina morrow used to be deaf right, but then she went to switzerland to get this treatment that like makes her not-deaf any more (what?). and then while she's there she gets kidnapped and taken back to sweet valley because these criminals want her dad's microchip that he developed that is going to forever change the way we use computers (SO dan brown!)!


so jess and liz come up with all these mad schemes that involve delivering groceries in bruce's black porsche (oh yeah, i'm totes crushing on bruce right now) and hiding letters in fashion magazines and jess sluts it up for the criminal's son and kind of has a big crush on him because he looks SO decent in a crop top and short shorts! 


no one wins a prize for guessing that [SPOILER] everyone gets saved in the end, nicholas (hot brother of regina who like randomly makes out with liz in the fiat convertable when hiding from criminals) almost gets shot, but doesn't. the criminals go to jail and the hot son of said criminals is free "yay!" says jessica as she completely forgets about him and starts flirting with randoms at the "free from hostages party" the morrows have thrown at their mansion on the hill. it's like the best party EVER, not only is everyone alive, but like there is a rock band and cocktail franks! 


dan brown could put some more cocktail franks and red convertibles in his books i think.