The Sweet Life (The Sweet Life #1)

The Sweet Life (The Sweet Life #1)

3.14 of 5 stars 3.14  ·  rating details  ·  436 ratings  ·  94 reviews
For Jessica and Elizabeth, the sweet life begins at 30…

From Francine Pascal, creator of the bestselling Sweet Valley High series and author of the NY Times bestselling Sweet Valley Confidential, comes the continuing adventures of beautiful blonde twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield in an exciting new six-part e-serial, The Sweet Life.

The first novella-length episode - Th...more
ebook, 128 pages
Published July 15th 2012 by St. Martin's Griffin (first published July 2012)
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Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 731)
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Cheryl
Jessica Wakefield-Wilkins is the vice president of VERTPLUS.NET, a green marketing and promotion company. Jessica's latest campaign is for Revlon. Jessica and Todd Wilkins are currently seperated. They have a two year old son named Jake. Jessica and Todd's relationship did not start off on the right foot with Jessica up to her usual schemes and tricking Todd. If Jessica has any plans of hanging on to Todd, she better watch herself as she has competition. Her name is Sarah Miller and she is the n...more
Jenna Brennan
As I understand it, this edition encompasses all six books. As such, here is my review of the six edition series as a WHOLE. It includes a lot of the material I included in the review I wrote for the first portion of the serial, with some added commentary. I do expect to publish separate reviews for each of the six novellas. This review is for the entire mini-series. I hope you enjoy!

You Can't Go Home Again

I am a major Sweet Valley fan from way back (think 1988 and no I am not revealing my age h...more
Lindsay
Oh dear. This is just bad.
Melissa
I didn't know this e-serial existed until very recently. But then again I wasn't really looking forward to other Sweet Valley books after having read Sweet Valley Confidential. The book wasn't that great and the only reason I rated it three stars was because even though I thought it was pretty bad and ridiculous and I hated the ending, it still made me laugh because of how awful it was. You know how some things are just so bad, they just make you laugh because you can't believe what you're readi...more
Heather
Read more reviews here!

The Sweet Life #1 is the first novella in the 6 volume E-serial. It looks like all 6 will be published in October in hardcover, but it is still cheaper to buy them as separate e-books for $2 each.

Three years after the end of Sweet Valley Confidential (which I reviewed on my other blog), Jessica and Todd have a two year old son but not much of a marriage. They have been separated for over 4 months. Elizabeth is living with Bruce Patman and everything is great until he is sl...more
Lucia
The first installment of The Sweet Life e-serial starts three years after the events of Sweet Valley Confidential. Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield's lives remain laughable, yet oddly compelling to me as a long-time fan. I guess you can't escape Sweet Valley. I laughed out loud several times at the ridiculous descriptions of Jessica's new "green" career, fueled by her "idea gene." Yet I read the first two installments quickly on a recent plane trip to Portland, so something about it makes me unab...more
Sara
I have been eagerly awaiting this for YEARS! After Sweet Valley Confidential was released last year, featuring the Wakefield twins as 26 year olds fighting over Todd, I was unsure what to expect from this. After all, it's a Sweet Valley book, so what's not to love? But then again, while SVC featured the twins and their friends as adults and it was entertaining to see how they'd grown up and turned out, it also didn't have the same "feel" to it as the original Sweet Valley High novels. This, the...more
Victoria
Having read Sweet Valley books for what feels like my entire life - from the Kids series, to the the Twins series, through all the high school and university books, I had a lot of anticipation when I first heard about this six part serial! The inconsistencies and outright strange shifts in characters that appeared in Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later dampened some of my initial excitement, but I have to say this book felt like the authors wrote it almost in direct response to the many n...more
Paula  Phillips
The Sweet Life starts up three years later from where Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later ended. Jessica Wakefield and Todd Wilkins have a 2yr old son named Jake , Bruce Patman is dating Elizabeth Wakefield ,Lila Fowler is married to Ken Matthews and Steven Wakefield and his partner Aaron have an four month old daughter called Em.
It seems though , that living the sweet life in Sweet Valley is a lot harder than it sounds.
Jessica and Todd have been on rocky ground and it seems that their ma...more
Kate
The first installment of the Sweet Life series sets up all sorts of plot lines (but resolves none!) – Jessica’s marriage to Todd is on the rocks; Lila is the star of a reality show, ‘True Housewives’; and Bruce Patman has been accused of sexual assault – an accusation that journalist and amateur sleuth Elizabeth wants to get to the bottom of.

As well as the progression of the main storylines, there are a few subplots within each book. In trademark Pascal style they are unashamedly ludicrous and b...more
Sonya
These are never going to be a great challenge or set the literary world on fire as cliffhanger writing, but what is great is the books still have the unrealistic plot lines and take me back to a time of great fondness and nostalgia. I could not wait until the next book came out when I was in middle school and the books are still great campy fun. If you want the series to go deeper because the twins grew up this book is not for you-first off it is how many years later and the same people from hig...more
Stacy
I'd like to rate these higher, but I'm afraid "It was ok" is about the best I can say about it. I can't say it truly felt like a waste of time, but it definitely would have felt like a waste of money if I'd had to pay for it, especially considering the whole book is going to end up costing you $12. (Thanks again, Barnes & Noble Read In Store!! You're awesome!) At $.99 apiece, or if there were to be fewer episodes, maybe you wouldn't feel ripped off, but definitely not six volumes at $1.99 ea...more
Nicole
Oh wow.

I read Sweet Valley Confidential a while back and it was pretty terrible. And then I found out about the Sweet Life e-serial and for some reason I decided to pay Francine Pascal for her efforts to rape and pillage my childhood memories.

My biggest concern is that Francine Pascal thinks people actually talk like this, in conversations peppered with "like" and "so totally" and, worst of all, "like so totally." I'd be afraid to have a conversation with her, honestly, lest I kick her in the te...more
Fran
The trash of my teens becomes the trash of my adulthood. This is much better that I remember the painful Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later being. Even though this came out last year, I only found out about it at the beginning of this year. The serial seems the perfect format for these kinds of books. I'm going to enjoy reading these 'light bites' between my main readings.

I've always taken each of the Sweet Valley lines (e.g. SV Twins, SV High, SV University, etc.) as its own contained u...more
Selina
I wanted to like this novella... I really did! I guess I was just hoping for some fluffy fun with the Wakefields, with a little bit of drama thrown in. Well, in the span of 105 pages, there was a sex scandal, essentially two divorces, an undercover operation and tons of drama abound. I think maybe one of the plot lines would have been enough in this book to keep it interesting. The only character I am inclined to like right now is Jessica because she is honest wi herself, and though she is a par...more
Sarah
I'm a Sweet Valley fan! There, I've said it.


Yes, they have next to no literary worth (except for getting kids reading) and are pretty cringeworthy when you do. The characters are predictable and...need I go on? So why do I like them?


Well, it is like slipping on a comfy pair of old pjs on a cold winter's night. They are familiar, they aren't taxing, and you know what you're going to get. You can read one and watch tv at the same time.


The new series of e-books released are set when the twins are...more
Elizabeth De Marco
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Kyla Crowley
Well, here it is, gals. When the last Sweet Valley book was published (Sweet 18, SV Sr. Year), Francine wrote a note in the back promising that she would one day revive the series ten years later. That time has come. I was a hot mess today, absolutely glued to my phone and sucking this first installment up. It was like what I imagine the experience of taking crack cocaine to be. Assuming I would get addicted to crack cocaine. I probably would. I must say I think this time around SV will only be...more
Kate Gorman
You best believe I am reading the e-serial.

It's basically like your old SVH books, but now they're in their 30s.

Same ridiculous plots and same ridiculous characters, but now since they're 30 we can read about their sex life and marital problems! HOORAY!!!
Kelsey
This a book only for fans of Sweet Valley. It is about 10 times better than Sweet Valley Confidential; it seems somoene actually edited this book- someone who had read the old series.
It is fun to revist the characters I loved growing up and see how they've changed. The story lines are a little predicitable- once you get past the things that are so outlandish, like the fact Eizabeth is with Bruce Patman and Jessica is (or was) with Todd. The writing reminds me of a lot of Sweet Valley Twins and S...more
Farrah Cole
This book was much better than Sweet Valley Confidential, in the sense there was more plot and more insight into the characters. I devoured the Sweet Valley books in my teen years including Twins, High and University. This book picks up three years after Confidential left off. Despite the disappointing state of many of these characters lives, it was an enjoyable read if only so I could revisit with the fun and popular characters of this series. So if you enjoy a spoiled and selfish Jessica, a di...more
Virginia
I really am enjoying this, as I would enjoy pretty much any chance to return to these characters...however, even compared with Sweet Valley Confidential (which had its share of issues, but overall was a fantastic read), this new series has serious problems. The versions of Jessica and especially Lila featured here are frozen in the mold Pascal originally wrote them in: spoiled, selfish bimbos. It's irritating to see all of the character development of hundreds of books just ignored as the ladies...more
Lani Jones
Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield are back. It is three years later; Elizabeth is a star reporter and has moved back to Sweet Valley. She is living with her boyfriend, Bruce Patman, in his mansion. They are in love but a scandal may threaten to pull them apart. Jessica is on the fast track with her PR career. She and Todd have a two year old son named Jake however they are not happily married but separated. Lila Fowler Matthews is back together with her hubby but her dream of being on the reality...more
Chantal
The Sweet Valley books were always my favorite growing up, so I was excited to read these E-Serial books. Sadly they are seeming more of a disappointment then enjoyment. First off, they seem to base everything on SVH - the earlier books. Anything later in SVH or SVU (which was my favorite series) seems to have not existed. That bothers me - at least include some history of the later works - even if the plots and characters seem to go completely against anything established in them.

And the chara...more
Donny Avery
Loved Sweet Valley when I was younger and this online e-serial brings back the excitement of Sweet Valley. It's not particularly groundbreaking, but it's a fun soap opera and I loved revisiting the characters I knew and loved as a young adult. Pretty predictable storyline and I thought a lot of the character choices were stupid, but it's typical soap opera. Still fun with a couple fun twists. LOVED Lila Fowler Matthews on The Real Housewives of Sweet Valley. Loved how they divided it up into 6 e...more
Jenna
I grew up with these girls. Collected just about every single Sweet Valley High book ever in existence so when this book and it's predecessor Sweet Valley Confidential came out I was ECSTATIC! I felt like my childhood was coming back to me. And really, it has, but in a form that at the age I'm at now I can truly appreciate and relate to. Francine Pascal was able to do that when I was a kid as well. I love that she is bringing the twins back to us!! Anyone who has grown up with these two characte...more
Melinda Elizabeth


You don't read these types of books for contemporary literary genius, you read them to remember the fun you had with the characters when you were a kid. Alas, the writing isn't much better and the plot barely there, but you plod through it anyways because you loved the series once. It's akin to trashy romance novels, and I still have issues seeing such loved childhood characters using colorful language, but beyond that there isn't much that's changed about the books, and that's why you still wa...more
Marilyn
Good start!
Already have the 2nd one downloaded... but will have to wait till at least next Sunday for the 3rd, as it's going to be a weekly publication apparently until all six are out.

Going to start the next one as soon as possible!

This was a three hour read!

Can't believe I got hooked on these girls in grade one (the first 5 books of Sweet valley twins (or kids??) was my end of grade 1 present... been hooked ever since. Hehe.

I guess I'll keep going!
Rouselle
I enjoyed it! Definitely a good start to this 6-part ebook serial. I can't remember the last time I read a Sweet Valley book, so reading about old familiar characters like Bruce Patman, Todd Wilkins and Steven Wakefield felt like a blast from the past. I'm not gonna spoil the surprise by divulging who hooked up with who, but let's just say the biggest shocker for me was one prominent character who turned out to be gay. Now on to the next book!
Jennifer at The Bawdy Book Blog
The Wakefield twins are no strangers to scandal. In fact, I'd go so far as to say they attract it. The Sweet Life is better than Confidential, but still terribly written. I wish Pascal would go back to ghost writers. She's good at coming up with story ideas, but executing them? No.
Still...these characters are my guilty pleasure and have been since I was 8 years old. I'll read the next one, of course *grin*
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The Sweet Life (The Sweet Life, #1)
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Francine Pascal (May 13, 1938— ) is an American author best known for creating the Sweet Valley series of novels. In 1982 she created the characters and the stories for the first six books and her agent, Amy Berkower of Writers House sold them to Bantam Books. Book number one is mostly written by Ms. Pascal. From then on she wrote the stories for every book ever published in the series. After the...more
More about Francine Pascal...
Best Friends (Sweet Valley Twins, #1) Double Love (Sweet Valley High, #1) Fearless (Fearless, #1) Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later Secrets (Sweet Valley High, #2)

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