Too Good To Be True

This is the first occasion where the twins are separated for any great period of time. Jessica heads off to New York City to stay with Ned's old college friend, while the friend's daughter, Suzanne Devlin, heads to Sweet Valley to take Jessica's place.

At first, everyone thinks that Suzanne's the best thing to arrive in Sweet Valley since the Vanderbilts. She's stunningly beautiful, super sophisticated, and she has a vaguely European accent. Even Lila, who usually does her best to dispose of any girls she considers a threat, is all over her. The boys can't get enough of Suzanne—except, of course, for Todd, who has eyes only for Liz—and Winston even takes to serenading her outside the Wakefields' split-level home.

This is Sweet Valley show more High, though, so obviously something's not right. It turns out that Suzanne's even more two-faced than Jessica when she's on her latest quest to destroy some poor girl. You know she's pure evil, because she steals Elizabeth's lavalier—and everyone knows that if the twins go too long without those around their necks, their heads fall off. (Or is that another story...)

Despite (or perhaps because of) Winston's attempt at wooing her, Suzanne isn't interested in any of the usual Sweet Valley boys. She likes her man-meat a little older, and preferably in the form of a younger Robert Redford. She throws herself at Mr. Collins, pulling out all the usual stops, like pretending to drown and holding her own personal wet t-shirt contest in poor Roger's back yard. With Teddy Collins looking on. (No wonder Master Teddy wanted her to babysit.)

Mr. Collins, being the good, upstanding man he is, rejects all of Suzanne's advances. (If, by 'upstanding', you mean 'prefers to cuddle Elizabeth alone in his office'. He may not have been guilty this time around, but the man was not very well acquainted with proper teacher-student boundaries, was he?)

Suzanne doesn't mess around. She tears her blouse (did she learn her tricks from Jessica?) and accuses Mr. Collins of attempted rape. Sweet Valley is big on false accusations of assault. It's one of the many dodgy ways the series presents sexuality: girls lying about attempted rape is almost as common as boys attempting to rape them. (Reminder: these books are read by pre-teens.)

The town is divided in to pro-and-anti-Roger camps, Roger himself grows some stubble, and eventually Suzanne is shown to be the devious lass she is, when Liz finds her precious lavalier in Suzanne's suitcase.

Meanwhile, Jess is off in New York chasing after Suzanne's boyfriend, Pete. Remember what I said about attempted rape being a big part of Sweet Valley life? Pete attempts to force himself on Jess and then, when he doesn't get what he wants, pulls out the usual victim blaming about her having led him on and of course he was going to expect sex when she (gasp!) had hinted that she would like to kiss him and blah blah blah. So he and Suzanne are basically a perfect match.

This is a thoroughly entertaining instalment in the series, but it definitely loses marks for the way it plays around with sexual assault and false accusations. These books normalise things they really shouldn't be normalising.

Moral of the Story? Don't go to New York.

[re-read - previously read around three times] show less

Trigger Warning. Potential sexual assault

A quick and easy read for teenagers.

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