Double Trouble

As you may have noticed I have been on a hard core nostalgia kick.  I knew when I was in trouble when I had the urge to read a Sweet Valley High book...don't judge me :-)  I used to read them back when I was in middle school (having outgrown them by high school) and  remember rolling my eyes at them even then.  That being said I still devoured them all the way through the weird and disturbing super specials when they got into the 100's.  It took me a while to hunt down the original first book, they have rereleased them with "updates" which I will rant about shortly, but I wanted to read the originals in all of their early 80's glory. I'll give you a quick synopsis and then we can ramble on about it.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD.

Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield are perfect size 6 blond haired, aqua eyed, perfectly tanned 16 year old identical twins who live with their lawyer mother, interior decorator father, and college student brother in Sweet Valley, California.  We know the Wakefied twins are beautiful because we are told this in apx 85 of the 182 pages of the book.  Elizabeth is bookish, smart, a wanna-be writer and a complete pushover.  Jessica is wild, vibrant, spoiled and has a few diagnosable mental disorders.  We start our story with Elizabeth mooning over Todd Wilkens the oh so handsome captain of the high school basket ball team.  We learn that it sounds like Todd maybe, kinda of sorta likes Elizabeth in that way too, you know likes likes her. Unfortunately for Lizzy, her twin has decided that she is in love with Todd. Jessica pulls all kinds of hijinks to get Todd to notice her, all the while feeding him stories about Elizabeth's supposed popularity and lack of time for Todd.  Elizabeth notices the two of them together and decides to swallow her feelings for Todd so that her sister can be happy.  Meanwhile she decides to bury herself in her writing when she is assigned to write about a court case between the uber new and rich Fowlers, the uber old and rich Patmans, and the school on the matter of who can use the land the football field is currently on. The twins dad is one of the lead lawyers for this case and it causes him to spend a lot of time with the beautiful and recently divorced Marianna West.  This of course sends the Wakefield children into all kinds of unfounded speculation on the possibility of their father having an affair and leaving their mother.  Todd makes the unforgivable mistake of not worshiping the ground Jessica walks on for every waking second so she decides to go out with the bad boy Rick Andover.  Rick has dropped out of school, has tattoos and drives fast cars, and has now decided he is into Jessica.  Jessica being the brilliant person that she is agrees to go with Rick and ends up in the
middle of a bar brawl when she objects to his pawing of her person.  She is brought home by a friendly police officer who mistakes her for Elizabeth which is of course seen and heard by the school gossip. Now in Jessica's very minimal defense, she did not now the gossip had overheard, so she had no way to correct her.  The next day EVERYBODY at school (without the help of cell phones, Facebook, or any type of social media mind you) is talking about Elizabeth's bad boy encounter. Todd gets all self righteous and decides he can never forgive her for what she has done, even though he has barely spoken to her before the incident, does not actually know what happened, and is getting all his information second and third hand.  More hijinks ensue, and Elizabeth is devastated to be pegged as "the bad girl".  Jessica eventually confesses it was her that the gossip saw and promises to fix it for Lizzy.  She admits to Todd that it was her, but his head is so far up his own ass that he thinks that Jessica is just trying to cover for Liz and he asks her to the dance.  Elizabeth is asked by the class clown Winston Egbert, who has been in love with Jessica since grade school.  Through out the dance, Todd cannot keep his eyes off of Elizabeth, pissing of the royal and all wonderful Jessica, who of course must have her revenge.  After the dance Jess tells Liz that Todd tried to take things further then she wanted to go and almost would not take no for an answer...yep...awesome.  Todd calls Elizabeth the next day, condescendingly telling her he "forgives" her for her actions with Rick...which never happened...and even if it did there is nothing to be sorry for, she was the victim...anyways Elizabeth still thinking that he attacked her beloved sister coldly shuns him, quit possibly one of the only reasonable things she does in this book.  The family also finds out that Steven (the college brother, who is also impossibly handsome) is dating Tricia Martin, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, this sends Jessica into another manic depressive spin, but more on that later.  Eventually Stevens parents sit him down and tell him it is ok for their special little guy to date that girl with the druggie sister and drunk dad...as long as she doesn't have any of those problems.  The family all ends up getting their stories straight, Steven gets his girl, the Wakefield parents are obviously not getting a divorce, and all is almost right with the white upper middle class world.  Of course we must have one last bit of chaos, so Rick essentially kidnaps Jessica and Elizabeth and is saved by the heroic, if judgy Todd.  Elizabeth and Todd actually have a conversation, work everything out and end up in love.  Elizabeth tries to talk to Jessica about all of the heinous stunts she pulled, but Jess turns on the waterworks and Liz caves.  Elizabeth gets a bit of revenge by getting Jessica thrown into a pool, but that is it after her dear sister tried on several occasions to ruin her life.  And that my friends is the first installment of the soap opera that is Sweet Valley High.

Oddly enough I actually have a lot to say about this little gem, there is just so much that is horribly horribly wrong about it, yet it is some how still oddly appealing.  Anyways lets jump right in.  First off let us address the travesty that is updating books. Don't do it, just don't.  Books were/are written in certain eras and most of the appeal of the book is in some ways its datedness, I don't want to read about the twins using Facebok, or being a perfect size 4 (so so so so so so wrong)!  I want my perfect size 6 (also wrong, but in a different way), I want my Dairy Burger, and I want my land line phone gosh darn it.  Ok so now that is out of the way lets talk about our leading ladies.  Growing up I always knew that these two girls were not in any way realistic at all, and I was all of 12 when I started reading these, that being said, I always identified more with Jessica then Elizabeth, if for no other reason then Elizabeth was such a wussy pushover!  In pretty much every instance Elizabeth caves, to her parents, her teachers, her friends, but mostly to Jessica, whom she adores with an unhealthy devotion.  The relationship between the two girls if very one sided, with Jessica getting almost all the benefits and Elizabeth thrilled when Jessica is bored enough, or in enough trouble to use her. Elizabeth very rarely gets the upper hand in any situation, yet oddly enough is portrayed as extremely popular and well liked.  This lack of self confidence comes into play in her choice of boyfriend, not to get to deep into a mass produced, soap opera of a book, but her choice of Todd as a boyfriend is a bit messed up.  He gets all high and mighty and judgmental, feeling like it is within his right to make her miserable over an event that he has decided is wrong.  Never mind that he does not even have the facts, that he has never even really talked with Elizabeth and gotten to know her, nope doesn't matter, if Mr. Handsome Captain of the Basketball Team and Judge and Jury of Sweet Valley High School makes up his mind that Elizabeth is a dirty dirty whore then she is to be cast aside and shunned...unless he decides to forgive her and pretend it never happened.  Ladies this is NOT the guy you want to be dating, you will always be worried about pissing him off, you will be apologizing for everything, even if you are not wrong, and God forbid you ever have an

opinion that differs from his, seriously potential bad juju here.  This however seems to be right up Elizabeth's alley as the put-upon, wishy washy giver upper.   Moving on to Jessica.  I will give Jessica an under the table high five for figuring out how the people around her work and using it to her advantage.  She is conniving and border line evil, but she knows how to get what she wants. I think I have always like Jessica because she felt like a more honest character, one who knew she was the standard of 1980's all American beauty and had no issues using that to her advantage.  She is quick on her feet and seems to be able to turn any situation to her advantage, you go girl.  She also seems to be suffering from some sort of manic depressive disorder. She has some very extreme emotional swings, and not all of them are attributable to scheming manipulations.  The number of times she goes from genuine sobbing, to elation and back down to depression actually indicates the need for some kind of therapy and diagnosis.  I won't even get into the various class, race, and morality issues that are so prevalent in this (and the other books), I will save that rant for later books, because my darling readers I will be reading more of these.  Now that I have started I can't stop, so I will be hunting down the best/worst examples in the series and hiding them under my bed (that is where all my guilty pleasure books go) and every once in a while pulling one out to eviscerate just for fun.  I hope you have enjoyed my trip down memory lane and my obvious enjoyment in ripping this book to shreds.  This book teaches us that it is all about the looks, and barring that the money, where if you are conniving and manipulative it is ok if you are 5'6 size 6, blond and blue eyed, you can be a complete push over and still get the overbearing judgy guy, and that in the end all your first world problems will be solved, I give this book 2 out of 10 school newspapers for new readers (especially the 10-16 crowd) and an 8 our of ten red Fiats for nostalgia/guilty pleasure reads.
PS if you want some great snark/nostalgia combo check out these posts, I waste way to much time on these!
Are you a Jessica or and Elizabeth?  Do you wonder why I read these just to rip them apart?  What is your nostalgic guilty pleasure?

Identical Convolutedness

Finished a good little book called The Twins Daughter.  It is a gothicish, Victorian era type mystery 'cause that's not confusing at all.  I will try and warn you when I get to the spoily parts 'cause if you haven't read it yet and you have some time, you most definatly should and it would not be half as fun if you knew the ending, on the other hand it will be really hard for me to give you my impressions of this book if I didn't discuss the end...so...you have been warned.

This story is told by a 13 year old Lucy who has grown up the only child of a wealthy family.  Her father is an independantly rich author and her mother is a beautiful socialite who dotes on her only daughter.  Our story starts with Lucy giving us a quick overview of her parents and her life, which seem comfortable and normal, if not a bit boring for the lack of other young people in the area.  Life takes a bit of a dramatic turn when a knock on the door turns out to be Lucy's mothers unknown identical twin sister. Apperantly they were born to a maid and the well to do couple who employed her decided they would raise one girl as there own and sent the other to an orphanage.  Aunt Helen is a bit rough around the edges but is invited to live with Lucy and her parents.  Aliese (Lucy's mother) decides to teach her new found sister deportment, manners, style, and so forth so she can also be passed of as a lady of standing.  Eventually after all the training and dressing up it becomes almost impossible to tell the two women apart.  The family decides to hold a party for Aunt Helen and here is where Lucy meets the new neighbor boy Kit, whom she at first finds boring, but eventually becomes friends with. Time passes and we see Lucy grow from a child to a young woman, and her friendship with Kit turn into a bit of a crush on both sides.  One day after sneaking out to the park on her own Lucy comes home to find a horrific scene in the parlor.  The twins each tied to a chair, one with her throat slit and dead, the other in a daze...but who is who?
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

This is where if you want to really enjoy the book you should read no further 'cause this is where it gets twisty.  So obviously the big mystery here is supposed to be which twin survived and which twin was brutally murdered.  Lucy goes in and the woman who is alive claims to be her mother, and the dead woman Aunt Helen. Lucy notices that the woman is not wearing a wedding ring, but she soon spots it on the floor and gives it back. Aliese claims that a man was robbing them and tied her and Aunt Helen up and killed Helen.  As part of the investigation an autopsy reveals that Aunt Helen was pregnant, which since she was unmarried at the time is more than a bit scandoulus.  Time goes on and Lucy notices a great change in her mother, she is sharper and more outspoken then she ever was before.  She treats Lucy's father with border line contempt

and is always off to some party or another.  Lucy grows into her late teens and her relationship with Kit continues to develop, even as her fathers health starts to decline, he dies from a heart attack no more than a couple of years after Aunt Helen is murdered.  After her fathers death, Lucy notices her mother dissaperaing and staying out very late.  One night Lucy waits up for her and see's her with a man she remebers seeing with Aunt Helen before she died.  Lucy realizes that the woman is not her mother, but Aunt Helen posing as Aliese.  Lucy decides that she is only impersonating her mother as to not lose her home and be turned out into the streets so Lucy makes the descision to not tell her she knows who she is and instead covertly help her maintain her cover.  Aunt Helen/Aliese soon remarries the man Lucy saw her with, a man who is not from the same class as Lucy's family.  Lucy takes an immediate dislike to him, but has no real say in the matter.  Aunt Helen/Aliese soon becomes pregnant and relies heavly on Lucy to help her through the birth and the babies first couple of years.  Kit heads of to war after declaring his love for Lucy.  Lucy essentially becomes her little sister/cousins Emma's nurse maid and becomes very attached and bonded with her.  A couple more years pass, Kit comes back wounded, but alive from the war and proposes to Lucy who accepts.  They decide to wed quickly and as she is getting ready Aunt Helen/Aliese says something to Lucy that only her mother would know and all at once Lucy realizes that it is her mother and not Aunt Helen that survived after all, and putting all the pieces together realizes that something horrible occured in the death of her Aunt.  After the wedding she confronts her mother who confesses everything.  She met her now husband and fell in love with him around the time
Aunt Helen showed up, she also discovered that Aunt Helen and her husband were having an affair which resulted in Aunt Helen becoming pregnant.  Aliese not wanting the scandal convinced her lover to come up with a plan to get rid of Aunt Helen and stage it a botched robbery. Aliese said she also purposly acted like Aunt Helen at times to confuse people so that they would not ask to many questions and to drive away Lucy's father. Aliese's new husband sneaks up on Lucy and decides they have to kill her now that she knows there secret, she is saved by Kit and they turn the pair into the police.  The pair end up hanging for their crimes and Lucy raises her sister Emma along with her own daughter wondering how they will tell her about her real parents when she is older.

Ok so that was a long one, but the last third of the book threw out some very well written twists that I have to say I loved.  You really think you have it figured out pretty early, in fact you may even be dissapointed in how easily you figured it out, then BAM new twist thrown in.  I loved watching Lucy grow from a 13 year old girl into a 20 year old married woman.  The growth and progression seemed to make a lot of sense and her romance with Kit followed an equally reasonable progression growing in stages as she did.  The only thing I had a really hard time with, is the seeming ease that Lucy turned her beloved mother into the authorities knowing full well that she would be hung for her crimes.  I know the author established a bond between Aunt Helen and Lucy, but there was also a very tight bond between mother and daughter as well.  Even though Aliese seemed to get a bit more distant after Aunt Helen died she seemed to maintain her bond with Lucy.  To me it just seemed a little abrupt for all of that to dissapear in an instant, even with the horror of what her mother had done.  All in all I found it to be a good little book, it was a fairly quick read, the pacing stayed at a nice brisk pace and the story made sense.  Good curl up in a comfy chair during a rain storm book. I give it four out of five toasted marshmallows.
Do you like mistaken identity stories?  What is your favorite book with a twist?  What would it take for you to turn in your own mother?