Thursday, April 28, 2011

Review: Sweet Valley Confidential

I recently got to indulge in a pile of adolescent nostalgia by picking up Sweet Valley Confidential - Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal. It's the continuing story of those plucky Wakefield twins, Elizabeth and Jessica.

The gist of the story is sometime between when we last read about the twins' adventures in Sweet Valley University and now, Jessica did something so horrible to Elizabeth that Elizabeth felt she needed to move to New York and stop speaking to her sister. Elizabeth has been transformed into an angry and vengeful woman who wants to lash out at those who betrayed her. The story follows Elizabeth as she makes plans to go back to Sweet Valley for a family event and ultimately confront Jessica.

I have been waiting for months to read this book. I read all of the Sweet Valley books and I loved them. I still have several of the books that were extra meaningful to me. When the book arrived, needless to say, I read it immediately and didn't stop reading until I was done. So, imagine my surprise that when I finished the book, I was left feeling confused and unfulfilled.

The main problem with the book is not the story per se, it's more with how it is told. Francine Pascal works very hard at mixing the past with the present and it falls flat. She alternates the story between what is happening in New York and California in the present, while also giving us flashbacks to what has happened over the past ten years. It becomes a bit of a mess.

Another problem is that the story is too short for what she is trying to do. She is trying to reintroduce us to all the characters we grew up with and loved, but there isn't enough time for us to fall in love with them again. She alludes to personality changes in some of the characters without being able to delve into what led them change or interesting pairings with only a couple of sentences to describe the journeys taken to get there, and then, as a way to make up for not being able to give us the full scoop in the story, she creates a roll call of characters at the end and gives us a brief description of what their lives have been like. I'm particularly annoyed with what happened to Winston Egbert and Enid Rollins, both characters appear to have underwent very radical evolutions, yet we are denied experiencing it. 

Even the changes within the Wakefield family are only somewhat covered. The story starts off in the present and the twins are so radically different that it is hard to remember why they were loved in the first place. Not to mention the huge, life altering changes undergone by their brother, Steven. His story arc is by far one of the most interesting ones and it isn't given nearly enough time, which is weird because Jessica plays a large role in it, and there she is considered a screw up even though what she did was for the best of everyone and they all know it. But I digress.

Finally, the last big problem is this book is being touted as a contemporary adult book. This is not an adult book, nor is it a young adult book. It seems to fall somewhere in between. There are sex scenes and curses added to give the book a more adult vibe, but again, since we weren't given enough time to get reacquainted with everyone, all the "adult" add-ins feel awkward. It is hard to view them as the adults they are, so reading about present day sexual encounters is a little off-putting. The flashback scenes felt more natural.

What I would have loved, and I think what would have worked better for the scope of the story, would have been if Francine Pascal announced she was making a short series, like a trilogy, of books catching us up with everyone. It's what she does best. Her ability to develop characters over the long term is why these characters are so well loved. Also, it's obvious she has the stories in her to tell. It's all there on the pages with the little nuggets she doled out to the readers. There is so much potential for a renewed interest in her books.

I came across an article on talking to Francine Pascal, and I learned a few new facts such as they tried to reboot the Sweet Valley High books in 2008, but they were "updated" in ways that were not necessarily for the best and there is a movie script in the works. It's being written by Diablo Cody. I think that by itself shows how much life is still in this world.

In the EW article it's revealed that Ms. Pascal never wrote a full Sweet Valley book until this one. She plotted the stories for each, and while I commend her for doing it, I want a sequel to this. I want Ms. Pascal to do what she had always done and plot it with someone else completing it, because this is not the way a beloved universe should end. Francine Pascal's legacy deserves better.