Friday, August 31, 2012

Francine Pascal's Sweet Valley Saga The Wakefields of Sweet Valley

          Most women have either heard about, read, or even watched the twins of Sweet Valley High at some point in their lives, but they may not have heard of the two prequels before the series.  In The Wakefields of Sweet Valley, Francine Pascal takes the reader through the five generations of women before the Sweet Valley High twins.  This book moves from 1866 with Alice Larson traveling from Sweden to the US through the story of her tragic children, twins in the 1920s, a girl who grows to be a woman in the French resistance in WWII, and finally to the twins' mother Alice Robertson who is a child of the sixties.
          Though the stories are exciting and cover interesting points in history, it is hard to get through.  The writing is simple and inviting, causing the reader to move quickly through the pages; however, heart ache after heart ache beats down on these characters.  Yes, they do continue on and make lives for themselves in some way or another but most of the stories are tragic or just short of tragic and some of the tragedies seem author imposed instead of natural to the plot and or characters.  For instance, Alice Larson's grand-daughter Amanda falls in love with a man and when her twin sister does something unforgivable to drive the two apart while pretending to be Amanda, it is left unexplained to the man.  Amanda sends a letter to him but it seems more realistic for her, a character who already braved going to all the jails in the area to look for him, to actually go to his home in person and make sure that he at least knew she hadn't betrayed him.  Amanda just stays home and nurses her broken heart and then raises her sister's child instead of doing anything and this just seems unbelievable.
          The most entertaining stories were the last two stories, but perhaps that is because one was less tragic and the other was not even really painful.  Another reason these were enjoyable may be the back drop of the stories.  WWII in France is a vastly intriguing topic and opens itself to being romanticized through the eyes of a young girl falling in love.  The sixties, it can be supposed, may be interesting to some.
          Francine Pascal succeeded in creating inviting characters that draw the reader in and sewing a pattern into all of the stories with a wooden rose from the first Alice to the second, but this story would not be something easy to re-read. She also told the tale of losing love and moving on with life and finding it in a different way, which is something good to share with society. Therefore, the characters are well crafted and the plot interesting at times, but the book is removed far from the favorite's list because of its tragic often author imposed losses.

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