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Sweet Valley High Magna Editions #6
Return of the Evil Twin
Last Christmas, Margo, a girl who looked, talked, and dressed exactly like the Wakefield twins, tried to take the twins' place in the Wakefield household. Now her twin, Nora, has come to take revenge on the Wakefields for Margo's death.
330 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
5 people are currently reading
348 people want to read
About the author
Francine Pascal
1,147 books1,852 followersFrancine Paula Pascal was an American author best known for her Sweet Valley series of young adult novels. Sweet Valley High, the backbone of the collection, was made into a television series, which led to several spin-offs, including The Unicorn Club and Sweet Valley University. Although most of these books were published in the 1980s and 1990s, they remained so popular that several titles were re-released decades later.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
March 8, 2011
When I win the lottery, I am going to send a copy of The Evil Twin and Return of the Evil Twin to every book snob on Goodreads so they can love SVH and hate themselves for it.
Get over the fact that the concept for the first book was absurd, like the twins are Barbie and Margo is Midge so all she needs for a watertight identity heist is a blonde wig. I didn't think it was possible to top the absurdity that was The Evil Twin. I was blown away by this one. What? The evil twin has an evil twin??? How could this possibly suck?
I'm not making sense, I'm raving, I apologize because I can't help myself. This book was so freaking awesome that I choke on my own spit just thinking about it. I want to find the ghostwriter's name just in case he/she wrote anything else equally awesome.
Get over the fact that the concept for the first book was absurd, like the twins are Barbie and Margo is Midge so all she needs for a watertight identity heist is a blonde wig. I didn't think it was possible to top the absurdity that was The Evil Twin. I was blown away by this one. What? The evil twin has an evil twin??? How could this possibly suck?
I'm not making sense, I'm raving, I apologize because I can't help myself. This book was so freaking awesome that I choke on my own spit just thinking about it. I want to find the ghostwriter's name just in case he/she wrote anything else equally awesome.
January 7, 2025
Impossible to rate because it's just so damn chaotic.
If The Evil Twin was SVH reaching its peak soap opera form, Return of the Evil Twin just dissolves into madness. There's fun to be had but it's all so damn confusing.
A set of evil twins. One believed to be dead but is not actually dead. A new long-long twin. She yearns to reunite with her previously thought to be dead twin. The evil twins fight over who gets to be which Wakefield twin. A twin is stabbed to death! But which twin? An evil twin? A Wakefield twin? Could it be that an evil twin kidnapped a real Wakefield twin, and the other evil twin murdered her twin, but everyone thought that the original evil twin was back, not knowing that the OG has her own twin? Will the real twin please stand up?
I mean...
We've also had Margo with her voice in her head, but in this one we get Nora's smell-a-vision?
It also doesn't have enough festive feelings to really be considered that Christmast-y.
If The Evil Twin was SVH reaching its peak soap opera form, Return of the Evil Twin just dissolves into madness. There's fun to be had but it's all so damn confusing.
A set of evil twins. One believed to be dead but is not actually dead. A new long-long twin. She yearns to reunite with her previously thought to be dead twin. The evil twins fight over who gets to be which Wakefield twin. A twin is stabbed to death! But which twin? An evil twin? A Wakefield twin? Could it be that an evil twin kidnapped a real Wakefield twin, and the other evil twin murdered her twin, but everyone thought that the original evil twin was back, not knowing that the OG has her own twin? Will the real twin please stand up?
I mean...
We've also had Margo with her voice in her head, but in this one we get Nora's smell-a-vision?
It also doesn't have enough festive feelings to really be considered that Christmast-y.
August 23, 2014
This book should be studied in High Schools. Francine Pascal and her den of ghost writers got away with selling some of THE most bat shit stories EVER for decades. I kind of feel sorry for today's youth that the quality of YA lit has so vastly improved from the YA yarns of the 80s and 90s. Stephanie Meyer is almost Shakespearian by comparison. That being said... this book is GOLD. Plot holes every other page, ridiculous grammar and sentence structure, and paper thin characters that hardly even adhere to their own written characteristics. And I couldn't put it down....
February 11, 2009
The single greatest book I have ever read in my life.
January 2, 2024
Return of the Evil Twin isn't nearly as good as The Evil Twin, but it's still good, murderous fun. You've got your crazy Wakefield twin lookalike, only this time it's Nora Chapelle, from the South, and she's battier than Margo was. Margo was psychotic, Nora is insane. Because in the Valley, everyone from the South is nutsy cuckoo. Anyway, Nora's father has just died, and her stepmonster, Blanche offers Nora an obscene amount of money if she will leave the family's Georgia home and never come back. To sweeten the deal, Blanche lets Nora know that Nora has a twin out there. A twin named Margo.
Nora quickly follows Margo's lead to Sweet Valley and realizes that Margo died trying to take out Elizabeth, so she decides that to make the twins suffer for what they did to Margo, she will follow Margo's evil plan and take one of the twins' place. Then Margo turns up and they decide to off both twins and live happily ever after in their new identities.
Which would be fab, but now both girls want to be Jessica. It never occurs to either one, even as Nora plans all the ways Jessica will slowly change over time if she's 'cast' as Jess, to assume Elizabeth's identity and slowly change her and blame it on growing up. Doubly insane when you realize that Sweet Valley Senior Year does exactly that: turns Liz to Jessica. Huh, maybe one of the Chapelle twins pulled their plot off after all.
It's all down to New Year's Eve and suddenly one of the lookalikes is murdered in Jessica's bed.
I admit it. I still wish they'd done an alternate reality book where Nora and Margo won.
Nora quickly follows Margo's lead to Sweet Valley and realizes that Margo died trying to take out Elizabeth, so she decides that to make the twins suffer for what they did to Margo, she will follow Margo's evil plan and take one of the twins' place. Then Margo turns up and they decide to off both twins and live happily ever after in their new identities.
Which would be fab, but now both girls want to be Jessica. It never occurs to either one, even as Nora plans all the ways Jessica will slowly change over time if she's 'cast' as Jess, to assume Elizabeth's identity and slowly change her and blame it on growing up. Doubly insane when you realize that Sweet Valley Senior Year does exactly that: turns Liz to Jessica. Huh, maybe one of the Chapelle twins pulled their plot off after all.
It's all down to New Year's Eve and suddenly one of the lookalikes is murdered in Jessica's bed.
I admit it. I still wish they'd done an alternate reality book where Nora and Margo won.
Read
August 18, 2012Blanche blanched. Best worst book ever.
December 29, 2017
Even more ridiculous than "The Evil Twin," which I read immediately previous to this one. I think The Evil Twin is the superior horror novel from the Sweet Valley High Series, but this one is still enjoyable.
December 30, 2023
Ah, Return of the Evil Twin, one of the terribad books that followed TGMOAT, and the only one that ever tries to actually top it. The sad thing is, the first half of the book is quite compellingly written - its the second half where shit just goes completely OTT.
We're 20 books and 1 year after the events of book #100. Jessica and Elizabeth are feeling pretty weird as the one-year anniversary of Margo's antics looms upon them. Though everyone makes mention of Liz's trial for manslaughter and Sam's death in the miniseries immediately following TGMOAT, nobody ever says anything about Margo. Here, suddenly, they can't shut up about her. The Wakefields vow to never let anything so sinister happen to them again, and then discuss their upcoming fundraising function for the children's wing of the hospital. As with the Jungle Prom, the twins come up with the idea of having a carnival - or, more accurately, taking over a family-run carnival that's coming to town on New Year's Eve. Jessica actually sticks around to help plan it (unlike the prom), and everything seems to be going smoothly.
One night, the gang is meeting at Secca Lake for a caroling party. Jessica and Todd are noticeably absent. Todd's errands took too long, and he's driving his father's heretofore unknown old Thunderbird up the treacherous roads around Secca Lake. He swerves suddenly and crashes into the guardrail, falling unconscious. Jessica comes along shortly thereafter and sees the accident, and immediately jumps out to try to help. She's having visions of the car crash that killed Sam, and is determined not to let it happen again. She manages to pull Todd out of the car before it falls over the cliff and explodes in a fireball of gasoline.
Liz and co see the fireball from the lake and Liz takes off, also with visions of a previous car crash dancing in her head. She commandeers Lila's car and drives to the crash scene, just in time to see Jessica climbing into an ambulance clutching Todd's hand. She follows them to the hospital, worried and also feeling a little irrationally jealous. Her jealousy only gets worse when Todd wakes up and asks to see Jessica ~alone~. He's supremely grateful that Jessica saved his life and wants to express this to her. They are interrupted by a photographer from the Sweet Valley News, who snaps their pic and then splashes it across the front page the next day. Jessica is identified in the caption as Todd's girlfriend, much to Elizabeth's chagrin.
Even worse, neither Todd nor Jessica can shut up about Jessica's dramatic, heroic rescue of the unconscious Todd from the side of the mountain. Liz is going insane with jealousy and insecurity, convinced that Todd is going to dump her for her twin. Jessica revels in the spotlight, but neglects her own boyfriend, Ken Matthews. Liz and Ken go to a movie one night after Todd and Jess blow them off at the Dairi Burger, and Jessica gets pissy about Liz going out with her boyfriend behind her back. The twins aren't speaking too each other, and its like an eerie re-run of the Christmas before.
This time, however, the girls decide to make up on Christmas morning, and laugh and forgive each other for their silly fight.
Meanwhile, in Savannah, Georgia, Nora Chappelle has just lost her only living parent, her father. She is left with her wicked stepmother Blanche, who drops a bombshell on her: Nora once had a twin sister named Margo, whom Blanche forced Nora's father to give up when she was a toddler, because Margo was incredibly violent and unstable. Blanche wanted to give up both girls, but Mr Chappelle wouldn't do it. Blanche was Nora out of her life, so she gives her $50k along with this news, and Nora sets out to find her missing half. She traces Margo to New York, then follows the trail from the year before, as Margo left her last foster home and started killing people on her way to Sweet Valley. She learns of her twin's murderous deeds, culminating in her death on New Year's Day, and she sobs for the loss.
Margo was evil and malicious, and Nora isn't that. She's plenty unstable, though, with germaphobic OCD tendencies and a form of synesthesia - she can "see" scents and fragrances, and it drives her nuts. Nora starts looking in the mirror and seeing Margo, who is urging her to avenge her death in Sweet Valley, so she travels there to seek revenge on the "perfect" Wakefields.
So far, so good. There's just enough of a hint of the major storylines of TGMOAT, blended with current canon (Jessica and Ken are adorable together, and he holds the record as her only living canon boyfriend), and the ominous foreboding of Nora's journey to Sweet Valley, to make for pleasantly compelling reading. I had no memory of this, and was wondering if my judgment of the book as awful after the original read 30 years ago was somehow wrong
LOL, nope. Shit gets really crazy, really fast.
On Christmas evening, after the Wakefield twins have made up and are happy and content with the world, Nora goes to the site of Margo's grave and starts digging around. Imagine her shock - and ours! - when she falls into hand-to-hand combat with her supposedly dead twin sister!
Apparently Margo didn't die from the glass cutting into her throat on the patio of the Fowler pool house earlier that year. No, she magically stayed alive long enough to attack the ambulance attendants, crash the bus, and escape, leaving the attendants' bodies floating in a nearby river. Apparently nobody notices this, or the fact that Margo's body has disappeared, because they erect a memorial stone for her and go on with their lives. (I mean, I could pick apart everything wrong with this explanation for days. First of all, there wouldn't be an ambulance, but a coroner's van. They'd put her in a body bag, not under a sheet on a stretcher, etc.)
Nora is overwhelmingly happy to see Margo and wants nothing more than to take her away and live happily on the remains of Blanche's money. Margo has other ideas, however. Nora is creeped out by Margo, her smoking, her uncleanliness, but convinces herself to go along with her, because she's always wanted a twin. Margo wants the Wakefields to pay for her near-death, and the only way to do that is to make the twins suffer. She's been stalking both of them for the last year (from her grave, apparently) and now with Nora on board, they can do what Margo wanted to do in the first place: kill the Wakefields and take their places.
Margo and Nora engineer a fight between the twins a couple days before the carnival. They prey on Elizabeth's continued insecurity about Todd and Jessica: Nora goes out with Todd in the guise of Liz and attend the movie that she knows Liz and Enid are seeing (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which is a bit too on the nose), and makes sure that Liz and Enid witness her making out with Todd in the front row. She's wearing the same outfit that Jessica left the house in, so when Jessica returns (having attended the same movie, spending the entire time making out with her own boyfriend in the back row), Liz lays into her without really telling her why she's so angry. She assumes Jessica knows what she did - and hell, that Todd does too for that matter). Liz goes absolutely crazy and OTT with the jealousy, lashing out at everyone. Enid is angry, too, and firmly in Liz's corner.
On the night of the carnival, the twins are angry and not speaking. They attend with their friends, with Liz feeling lonely and sorry for herself on top of feeling betrayed by Jessica and alienated from Todd. Jessica goes to the House of Mirrors by herself, unable to convince anyone to go in with her, and is absolutely creeped out by the funhouse mirrors and endless images of herself.
At the same time, Nora is pacing her hotel room, wondering where Margo went. The two had argued over who was going to be who - Margo and Nora both wanting to be Jessica this time, LOL - and Margo stormed off without another word. Nora decides that if she wants to be Jessica, she can't wait and follow Margo's meticulously laid plans: she's going to have to take her chance that very night, before Margo has the chance to strike.
Nora stalks the Wakefield home later that night, believing that Jessica is there by herself. She takes Margo's butcher knife and kills Jessica in bed, but unwittingly awakens the sleeping Liz next door. Liz rushes in to see her sister's bloody body, and Nora escaping through the window.
Liz had been awakened from a surreal dream she was having about Jessica pleading for her help, which was blending with the recurring nightmare of the year before, of Margo at Secca lake brandishing the knife. She rushes into Jessica's room just in time to see "Margo" leaving and Jessica's lifeless body in the bed.
Everyone is, of course, in complete shock. Nobody believes Liz when she claims that she saw Margo leaving the bedroom - after all, Margo was dead on New Year's Day! They all saw her! (But apparently didn't look very closely, or follow up to make sure her body had actually been buried, but you know. Semantics.) Elizabeth convinces her family to hold Jessica's memorial service at Sweet Valley High, because Jessica apparently loved the school so much (?!) and would want to swan away from the auditorium stage in style.
Nora knows she's made a terrible mistake: first of all, by killing Jessica and immediately being found out, and second of all, because she did it without Margo's blessing. Margo hasn't been seen since New Year's Eve and Nora becomes paranoid and convinced that Margo will kill her for taking out Jessica, leaving them to fight over who will kill Liz and take her place. She keeps hearing the voice in her head chanting "there is only one left," which she takes to mean that she has to get Margo before Margo kills her and takes over Liz's life, since there is no longer a place for both of them in the Wakefield household.
Nora goes to the memorial service and SVH and becomes convinced that Margo is there at the school, lurking somewhere. Elizabeth goes to the memorial service and becomes convinced that Jessica is somehow still alive. Everyone tries to dissuade her - her parents, her brother, Todd, Jessica's friends - but she's convinced that her twin isn't really dead, but is lurking somewhere at SVH and desperately needs her help. She begins having strange dreams about Jessica pleading for help, and ultimately steals the detective's gun when she returns to the house to question the Wakefield family about what happened.
Nora breaks into SVH to confront Margo; Liz breaks into SVH to save Jessica. All roads lead to the furnace room just off the auditorium, where in an eerie replay of book #100's events, Liz finds herself confronting two girls who look exactly alike, and who are fighting over a knife. Mercifully, she chooses to point her stolen gun at the perpetrator, and Jessica ties her up. The two begin exchanging notes about Margo's return, when "Margo" on the floor sputters, "You're not Margo?!" and the truth comes out: the real Margo kidnapped Jessica from the House of Mirrors at the carnival, brought her to the furnace room at SVH for some reason, and returned to the carnival to slip into her place. She's the one who returned to the Wakefield house that night, and Nora actually killed Margo in Jessica's bed. Nora has a complete comeapart at the thought of killing her own twin, and the police (who have followed Liz to the high school because of the stolen gun) can only sit there and shake their heads: it's the darndest thing they've ever seen!
I mean. This is just wild and crazy shit, even for post-#100 SVH. Nora is way too weak a character to actually kill; she's rather pitiful, actually, in how easily she's persuaded to follow Margo's plans even though she is afraid and repulsed by her. Margo still being alive and actively stalking the twins is ridiculous. Jessica being taken to SVH instead of being killed makes absolutely no damn sense - especially considering the carnival is in the next town over!! - as is the idea of having a memorial service for her there.
I can't believe Frannie & co had the audacity to even try to revive the Evil Twin storyline in the first place, but to do it and then botch the execution so completely (especially after a promising start) is just mind-boggling. If TGMOAT and the preceding 20 books hadn't convinced you that SVH jumped the shark in 1993, surely this book does. The fact that it's immediately followed by the miniseries where Jessica dumps Ken is just icing on the shittastic cake.
We're 20 books and 1 year after the events of book #100. Jessica and Elizabeth are feeling pretty weird as the one-year anniversary of Margo's antics looms upon them. Though everyone makes mention of Liz's trial for manslaughter and Sam's death in the miniseries immediately following TGMOAT, nobody ever says anything about Margo. Here, suddenly, they can't shut up about her. The Wakefields vow to never let anything so sinister happen to them again, and then discuss their upcoming fundraising function for the children's wing of the hospital. As with the Jungle Prom, the twins come up with the idea of having a carnival - or, more accurately, taking over a family-run carnival that's coming to town on New Year's Eve. Jessica actually sticks around to help plan it (unlike the prom), and everything seems to be going smoothly.
One night, the gang is meeting at Secca Lake for a caroling party. Jessica and Todd are noticeably absent. Todd's errands took too long, and he's driving his father's heretofore unknown old Thunderbird up the treacherous roads around Secca Lake. He swerves suddenly and crashes into the guardrail, falling unconscious. Jessica comes along shortly thereafter and sees the accident, and immediately jumps out to try to help. She's having visions of the car crash that killed Sam, and is determined not to let it happen again. She manages to pull Todd out of the car before it falls over the cliff and explodes in a fireball of gasoline.
Liz and co see the fireball from the lake and Liz takes off, also with visions of a previous car crash dancing in her head. She commandeers Lila's car and drives to the crash scene, just in time to see Jessica climbing into an ambulance clutching Todd's hand. She follows them to the hospital, worried and also feeling a little irrationally jealous. Her jealousy only gets worse when Todd wakes up and asks to see Jessica ~alone~. He's supremely grateful that Jessica saved his life and wants to express this to her. They are interrupted by a photographer from the Sweet Valley News, who snaps their pic and then splashes it across the front page the next day. Jessica is identified in the caption as Todd's girlfriend, much to Elizabeth's chagrin.
Even worse, neither Todd nor Jessica can shut up about Jessica's dramatic, heroic rescue of the unconscious Todd from the side of the mountain. Liz is going insane with jealousy and insecurity, convinced that Todd is going to dump her for her twin. Jessica revels in the spotlight, but neglects her own boyfriend, Ken Matthews. Liz and Ken go to a movie one night after Todd and Jess blow them off at the Dairi Burger, and Jessica gets pissy about Liz going out with her boyfriend behind her back. The twins aren't speaking too each other, and its like an eerie re-run of the Christmas before.
This time, however, the girls decide to make up on Christmas morning, and laugh and forgive each other for their silly fight.
Meanwhile, in Savannah, Georgia, Nora Chappelle has just lost her only living parent, her father. She is left with her wicked stepmother Blanche, who drops a bombshell on her: Nora once had a twin sister named Margo, whom Blanche forced Nora's father to give up when she was a toddler, because Margo was incredibly violent and unstable. Blanche wanted to give up both girls, but Mr Chappelle wouldn't do it. Blanche was Nora out of her life, so she gives her $50k along with this news, and Nora sets out to find her missing half. She traces Margo to New York, then follows the trail from the year before, as Margo left her last foster home and started killing people on her way to Sweet Valley. She learns of her twin's murderous deeds, culminating in her death on New Year's Day, and she sobs for the loss.
Margo was evil and malicious, and Nora isn't that. She's plenty unstable, though, with germaphobic OCD tendencies and a form of synesthesia - she can "see" scents and fragrances, and it drives her nuts. Nora starts looking in the mirror and seeing Margo, who is urging her to avenge her death in Sweet Valley, so she travels there to seek revenge on the "perfect" Wakefields.
So far, so good. There's just enough of a hint of the major storylines of TGMOAT, blended with current canon (Jessica and Ken are adorable together, and he holds the record as her only living canon boyfriend), and the ominous foreboding of Nora's journey to Sweet Valley, to make for pleasantly compelling reading. I had no memory of this, and was wondering if my judgment of the book as awful after the original read 30 years ago was somehow wrong
LOL, nope. Shit gets really crazy, really fast.
On Christmas evening, after the Wakefield twins have made up and are happy and content with the world, Nora goes to the site of Margo's grave and starts digging around. Imagine her shock - and ours! - when she falls into hand-to-hand combat with her supposedly dead twin sister!
Apparently Margo didn't die from the glass cutting into her throat on the patio of the Fowler pool house earlier that year. No, she magically stayed alive long enough to attack the ambulance attendants, crash the bus, and escape, leaving the attendants' bodies floating in a nearby river. Apparently nobody notices this, or the fact that Margo's body has disappeared, because they erect a memorial stone for her and go on with their lives. (I mean, I could pick apart everything wrong with this explanation for days. First of all, there wouldn't be an ambulance, but a coroner's van. They'd put her in a body bag, not under a sheet on a stretcher, etc.)
Nora is overwhelmingly happy to see Margo and wants nothing more than to take her away and live happily on the remains of Blanche's money. Margo has other ideas, however. Nora is creeped out by Margo, her smoking, her uncleanliness, but convinces herself to go along with her, because she's always wanted a twin. Margo wants the Wakefields to pay for her near-death, and the only way to do that is to make the twins suffer. She's been stalking both of them for the last year (from her grave, apparently) and now with Nora on board, they can do what Margo wanted to do in the first place: kill the Wakefields and take their places.
Margo and Nora engineer a fight between the twins a couple days before the carnival. They prey on Elizabeth's continued insecurity about Todd and Jessica: Nora goes out with Todd in the guise of Liz and attend the movie that she knows Liz and Enid are seeing (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which is a bit too on the nose), and makes sure that Liz and Enid witness her making out with Todd in the front row. She's wearing the same outfit that Jessica left the house in, so when Jessica returns (having attended the same movie, spending the entire time making out with her own boyfriend in the back row), Liz lays into her without really telling her why she's so angry. She assumes Jessica knows what she did - and hell, that Todd does too for that matter). Liz goes absolutely crazy and OTT with the jealousy, lashing out at everyone. Enid is angry, too, and firmly in Liz's corner.
On the night of the carnival, the twins are angry and not speaking. They attend with their friends, with Liz feeling lonely and sorry for herself on top of feeling betrayed by Jessica and alienated from Todd. Jessica goes to the House of Mirrors by herself, unable to convince anyone to go in with her, and is absolutely creeped out by the funhouse mirrors and endless images of herself.
At the same time, Nora is pacing her hotel room, wondering where Margo went. The two had argued over who was going to be who - Margo and Nora both wanting to be Jessica this time, LOL - and Margo stormed off without another word. Nora decides that if she wants to be Jessica, she can't wait and follow Margo's meticulously laid plans: she's going to have to take her chance that very night, before Margo has the chance to strike.
Nora stalks the Wakefield home later that night, believing that Jessica is there by herself. She takes Margo's butcher knife and kills Jessica in bed, but unwittingly awakens the sleeping Liz next door. Liz rushes in to see her sister's bloody body, and Nora escaping through the window.
Liz had been awakened from a surreal dream she was having about Jessica pleading for her help, which was blending with the recurring nightmare of the year before, of Margo at Secca lake brandishing the knife. She rushes into Jessica's room just in time to see "Margo" leaving and Jessica's lifeless body in the bed.
Everyone is, of course, in complete shock. Nobody believes Liz when she claims that she saw Margo leaving the bedroom - after all, Margo was dead on New Year's Day! They all saw her! (But apparently didn't look very closely, or follow up to make sure her body had actually been buried, but you know. Semantics.) Elizabeth convinces her family to hold Jessica's memorial service at Sweet Valley High, because Jessica apparently loved the school so much (?!) and would want to swan away from the auditorium stage in style.
Nora knows she's made a terrible mistake: first of all, by killing Jessica and immediately being found out, and second of all, because she did it without Margo's blessing. Margo hasn't been seen since New Year's Eve and Nora becomes paranoid and convinced that Margo will kill her for taking out Jessica, leaving them to fight over who will kill Liz and take her place. She keeps hearing the voice in her head chanting "there is only one left," which she takes to mean that she has to get Margo before Margo kills her and takes over Liz's life, since there is no longer a place for both of them in the Wakefield household.
Nora goes to the memorial service and SVH and becomes convinced that Margo is there at the school, lurking somewhere. Elizabeth goes to the memorial service and becomes convinced that Jessica is somehow still alive. Everyone tries to dissuade her - her parents, her brother, Todd, Jessica's friends - but she's convinced that her twin isn't really dead, but is lurking somewhere at SVH and desperately needs her help. She begins having strange dreams about Jessica pleading for help, and ultimately steals the detective's gun when she returns to the house to question the Wakefield family about what happened.
Nora breaks into SVH to confront Margo; Liz breaks into SVH to save Jessica. All roads lead to the furnace room just off the auditorium, where in an eerie replay of book #100's events, Liz finds herself confronting two girls who look exactly alike, and who are fighting over a knife. Mercifully, she chooses to point her stolen gun at the perpetrator, and Jessica ties her up. The two begin exchanging notes about Margo's return, when "Margo" on the floor sputters, "You're not Margo?!" and the truth comes out: the real Margo kidnapped Jessica from the House of Mirrors at the carnival, brought her to the furnace room at SVH for some reason, and returned to the carnival to slip into her place. She's the one who returned to the Wakefield house that night, and Nora actually killed Margo in Jessica's bed. Nora has a complete comeapart at the thought of killing her own twin, and the police (who have followed Liz to the high school because of the stolen gun) can only sit there and shake their heads: it's the darndest thing they've ever seen!
I mean. This is just wild and crazy shit, even for post-#100 SVH. Nora is way too weak a character to actually kill; she's rather pitiful, actually, in how easily she's persuaded to follow Margo's plans even though she is afraid and repulsed by her. Margo still being alive and actively stalking the twins is ridiculous. Jessica being taken to SVH instead of being killed makes absolutely no damn sense - especially considering the carnival is in the next town over!! - as is the idea of having a memorial service for her there.
I can't believe Frannie & co had the audacity to even try to revive the Evil Twin storyline in the first place, but to do it and then botch the execution so completely (especially after a promising start) is just mind-boggling. If TGMOAT and the preceding 20 books hadn't convinced you that SVH jumped the shark in 1993, surely this book does. The fact that it's immediately followed by the miniseries where Jessica dumps Ken is just icing on the shittastic cake.
Read
January 12, 2016Oh yes I did. Haha.
Found this in a box of old books from my parents' house and couldn't resist revisiting it. I *loved* the Sweet Valley High books when I was in middle school. I suspected I'd discover that they are pretty much obnoxious twaddle with no literary value whatsoever, and I was right, of course. Pretty ridiculous. And yet part of me wants to read more of them!--childhood nostalgia I suppose.
I could lament all the hours I spent reading these silly books as a kid, thinking of all the valuable books with which I could have fed my mind instead...but instead I'll choose to be grateful that however silly, these books and others like them fueled a lifelong love for reading--one that, eventually, would lead me to richer and deeper fare :)
Found this in a box of old books from my parents' house and couldn't resist revisiting it. I *loved* the Sweet Valley High books when I was in middle school. I suspected I'd discover that they are pretty much obnoxious twaddle with no literary value whatsoever, and I was right, of course. Pretty ridiculous. And yet part of me wants to read more of them!--childhood nostalgia I suppose.
I could lament all the hours I spent reading these silly books as a kid, thinking of all the valuable books with which I could have fed my mind instead...but instead I'll choose to be grateful that however silly, these books and others like them fueled a lifelong love for reading--one that, eventually, would lead me to richer and deeper fare :)
April 29, 2009
How terrible is this series? :D The evil twin ALSO HAS A TWIN HERSELF!!! Oh man, I love it.
April 9, 2023
Great story about the evil twins Margo and Nora as they attempt to get revenge on the Wakefield twins 🖤🖤
April 7, 2020
Six books was too many for the Evil Twin saga, with too many damn side plots so part of me is glad they didn’t repeat that set up in return....but part of me wanted more of Margo’s retcon— I mean, miraculous survival and her relationship with her own messed twin, Nora. Also would have loved to see more of them messing with the Wakefield twins.
I also enjoyed that this it was completely Elizabeth’s own neurotic insecurity that causes the usual Wakefield twin riff. Also love that both Nora & Margo want to take over Jessica’s life because Elizabeth is too damn boring.
Same here, evil twins. Same here. Overall it was a fun return of the craziest Sweet Valley characters.
I also enjoyed that this it was completely Elizabeth’s own neurotic insecurity that causes the usual Wakefield twin riff. Also love that both Nora & Margo want to take over Jessica’s life because Elizabeth is too damn boring.
Same here, evil twins. Same here. Overall it was a fun return of the craziest Sweet Valley characters.
August 11, 2016
Bless. Still so enthralling, still so terrible. SVH books are the best, I don't even care.
February 27, 2023
The Evil Twin vs. Her Evil Twin vs. The Twins
Ehhh this was a bit boring.
Needs more Margo
Also why are the guys always so surprised that the twins look like each other
Ehhh this was a bit boring.
Needs more Margo
Also why are the guys always so surprised that the twins look like each other
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 14, 2018
Epic, epic, epic. And totally fucking bonkers. This was one of the few SV books I owned growing up, and I read it so many times. I remember being fascinated with what the Jungle Prom business was all about from the previous book. I always thought this one was better, but Margo’s storyline was definitely more engrossing, and she killed way more people than Nora did.
If you haven’t read this one, I won’t spoil it for you. It would be a most grave injustice! But you know the basics: it’s the holidays again, and they have to get the twins mad at each other again in order for Margo and Nora to come between them. The easiest way to do that is to put Jess and Todd together. The thing is, they’ve already been together in her secret diary. And remember way back in book one? She fought Liz for him. Anyway. I wish this book had had more Margo, or more Margo and Nora. But with Nora in jail, you can’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, they will make a third one where Nora escapes and comes for the twins again. A girl can dream.
Quotes:
“But as Todd watched her leave, he couldn’t help marveling about how much she looked like Jessica.”
Well, butter my biscuits, Todd. What the fuck did you expect her to look like?!
Todd: Another normal holiday in normal Sweet Valley.
That explains it. The kids in this town are on drugs. It’s the only explanation for Todd believing SV is normal!! By my calculations, it’s home to more murderers than Detroit.
Jessica: Reconnaissance? I thought they was a time in Italy when lots of people painted pictures and things.
Oh, Jess. A for effort.
“A funeral seemed so final. It made Jessica’s death seem so... irrevocable.”
Well, yes, Liz, death is generally not one to allow take-backsies.
Of course you’re dying to read the poem Liz wrote for Jess’s “funeral,” right?! Here it is:
Reflection, soul mate, sister, friend,
Half of what I am is you—
A vibrant smile, a helping hand
A love that always pulled us through.
You, who so loved life, are gone
The life I loved is torn apart,
And I am left to carry on
My mirror empty as my heart.
Liz: I’ll drive Jessica and me in the Jeep. We have a lot of lost time to make up for.
Um, three days?!
If you haven’t read this one, I won’t spoil it for you. It would be a most grave injustice! But you know the basics: it’s the holidays again, and they have to get the twins mad at each other again in order for Margo and Nora to come between them. The easiest way to do that is to put Jess and Todd together. The thing is, they’ve already been together in her secret diary. And remember way back in book one? She fought Liz for him. Anyway. I wish this book had had more Margo, or more Margo and Nora. But with Nora in jail, you can’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, they will make a third one where Nora escapes and comes for the twins again. A girl can dream.
Quotes:
“But as Todd watched her leave, he couldn’t help marveling about how much she looked like Jessica.”
Well, butter my biscuits, Todd. What the fuck did you expect her to look like?!
Todd: Another normal holiday in normal Sweet Valley.
That explains it. The kids in this town are on drugs. It’s the only explanation for Todd believing SV is normal!! By my calculations, it’s home to more murderers than Detroit.
Jessica: Reconnaissance? I thought they was a time in Italy when lots of people painted pictures and things.
Oh, Jess. A for effort.
“A funeral seemed so final. It made Jessica’s death seem so... irrevocable.”
Well, yes, Liz, death is generally not one to allow take-backsies.
Of course you’re dying to read the poem Liz wrote for Jess’s “funeral,” right?! Here it is:
Reflection, soul mate, sister, friend,
Half of what I am is you—
A vibrant smile, a helping hand
A love that always pulled us through.
You, who so loved life, are gone
The life I loved is torn apart,
And I am left to carry on
My mirror empty as my heart.
Liz: I’ll drive Jessica and me in the Jeep. We have a lot of lost time to make up for.
Um, three days?!
January 21, 2017
You knew this was coming, right? You can’t read The Evil Twin and then not read Return of the Evil Twin. It would just be silly. Usually I try to at least include literary or grown-up person fiction, but there was a lot self-indulgence in my reading list over Christmas break. Is my credibility damaged beyond repair? Did I have any credibility to begin with? Spoilers for The Evil Twin and overall series spoilers ahead.
A year has passed since the terrifying New Years Eve party where Margo tried to kill Elizabeth and take her place in the Wakefield family. The danger has passed, Jessica and Elizabeth are friends again, and they’re planning a New Years Eve fundraiser at a traveling carnival. But Margo’s long-lost twin, Nora, has come to Sweet Valley looking for her sister, and if she can’t find her, she may settle for taking one of the Wakefield twins instead.
This novel is a pretty-near replica of its predecessor. There isn’t much in the way of literary fireworks or character development, but it’s another fun romp through the Wakefield family and their murderous shadows, the Blacks/Chapelles. While the introduction of Margo’s twin is an interesting twist, Nora isn’t as frightening a villain, and there seem to be fewer casualties with her in charge-–with one glaring exception. While scary, it comes rather late in the novel, and it’s eclipsed by the extremely sad chapters after, which is rarely something I like in my horror fiction. It’s fun, and I always feel it necessary to read them together, but it doesn’t quite match the delightful creepiness of the first.
I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.
A year has passed since the terrifying New Years Eve party where Margo tried to kill Elizabeth and take her place in the Wakefield family. The danger has passed, Jessica and Elizabeth are friends again, and they’re planning a New Years Eve fundraiser at a traveling carnival. But Margo’s long-lost twin, Nora, has come to Sweet Valley looking for her sister, and if she can’t find her, she may settle for taking one of the Wakefield twins instead.
This novel is a pretty-near replica of its predecessor. There isn’t much in the way of literary fireworks or character development, but it’s another fun romp through the Wakefield family and their murderous shadows, the Blacks/Chapelles. While the introduction of Margo’s twin is an interesting twist, Nora isn’t as frightening a villain, and there seem to be fewer casualties with her in charge-–with one glaring exception. While scary, it comes rather late in the novel, and it’s eclipsed by the extremely sad chapters after, which is rarely something I like in my horror fiction. It’s fun, and I always feel it necessary to read them together, but it doesn’t quite match the delightful creepiness of the first.
I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.
September 25, 2020
Took me a while to finish but it was actually pretty good. It almost felt like two stories put together, by the second half, I completely forgot the whole plot line of Todd and Jessica. But it comes back up later of course. Speaking of Jessica, I knew right when it happened that it was Margo that was murdered and not her, obviously they wouldn’t kill off one of the two main characters. But the idea that they could’ve was pretty intense. I always like the thriller SVH books they’re lots of fun. Definitely recommend.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 2, 2019
A classic Sweet Valley drama, in which we find out that on top of the existence of an evil stranger identical to the twins, she also has an identical twin who seems just as crazy. Of course Liz and Jess are fighting over Todd (classic) so once again they don't put the pieces together until the dramatic shenanigans escalate. Betrayal, murder, sibling rivalry and forgiveness- this is pretty much peak Sweet Valley
November 27, 2023
Absolutely bonkers storyline. Terrible characters. Such an easy brain cleanser. I think the entire Sweet Valley universe is where my love of absolute garbage teen dramas started. Give me some farfetched action sequences and some beautiful yet stupid people and I will follow you to the ends of the earth to watch the batshittery happen. 4/5 stars. Needed more Todd and Jessica scenes.
February 4, 2024
Aka the evil twin's evil twin! Featuring the most baffling instance of Sweet Valley Time(tm) ever - they acknowledge that this takes place a year after the events in The Evil Twin, and yet everyone is somehow still sixteen. At some point you have to just shrug and accept the existential nightmare that is Sweet Valley.
January 14, 2025
3.5 ⭐
More utter madness, even more ridiculous than the first one. Chaotic in all the right ways. The entire second half wouldn't have happened if anyone had just had a clear and direct conversation with anyone else. Missed Mama Wakefield's POV and intuition in this one, but probably only because I'm now her age 🤣
More utter madness, even more ridiculous than the first one. Chaotic in all the right ways. The entire second half wouldn't have happened if anyone had just had a clear and direct conversation with anyone else. Missed Mama Wakefield's POV and intuition in this one, but probably only because I'm now her age 🤣
February 2, 2026
reading this and being a woman with black hair, gray-blue eyes, and a heart-shaped face feels so weird. like what do you mean i could steal either wakefield twin's identity if i bought a blonde wig...
also donald sutherland mentioned!! <3
also donald sutherland mentioned!! <3
December 4, 2017
Classic! Love the crazy twists and the character of Nora is great.
May 14, 2023
I really enjoyed this. From reading reviews in other platforms, I was worried it would be too jumbled to follow. I had no issues understanding the story.
June 2, 2023
This book is ALSO insane. But not as insane, so four stars.
February 17, 2024
Without a doubt one of the best sweet valley books of all time. It’s completely implausible and unhinged and I effing love it!
October 18, 2013
Poor little Margo has been passed down from foster to foster home. She had enough with the abusive parent, siblings and feeling neglected each time. She had all that anger boiling in her for too long she decides to take matters in her own hand. She kills her foster family in a “mysterious ” fire accident; she then kills her foster brother Georgie who she drowned. She had to get away from all of this and find a new life. Find a warm house, a loving father and mother, people who love and admire her. She finds a newspaper and discovers a girl that looks like her but with just a few touch ups she will become her. She will become Elizabeth Wakefield. What she didn’t know is that Gerogie’s brother Josh has a hunch that she was the one who killed her brother and he’s out to seek his revenge.
The Wakefield family have no idea what is coming for them. They have had their own family problems that started all with the Jungle prom where the twins Elizabeth and Jessica became too competitive on who will earn the crown. During the prom someone spiced Elizabeth’s and Sam’s drink at the party they had no idea what was going on they drove of and sadly got into a car crash were Jessica’s boyfriend died. The family has never been the same ever since for weeks. During those times Margo has died her hair blond put in blue contacts to match every feature the twins have. She has been studying them for weeks and even gone into their house, school and pretended to be part of the family when one twin wasn’t there. Josh has figured out what evil plan Margo has up her sleep and tries to stop her and goes in search for hear and stop any more disruptions. Will Margo be part of the Wakefield family after all?
Francine Pascal does it again. Francine Pascal has many books. One of my favorite series that she has been writing about is the Sweet Valley Twins. In this series it talks about 2 loving parents, an older brother named Steve, and 2 beautiful twin sisters everyone adores. She starts writing about them since they were in elementary school until they are all the way in college and marriage. The book The Evil Twin is one of my favorite books and I can’t wait to read Return of the Evil Twin. I wonder what Francine P. has up her sleeve.
The Wakefield family have no idea what is coming for them. They have had their own family problems that started all with the Jungle prom where the twins Elizabeth and Jessica became too competitive on who will earn the crown. During the prom someone spiced Elizabeth’s and Sam’s drink at the party they had no idea what was going on they drove of and sadly got into a car crash were Jessica’s boyfriend died. The family has never been the same ever since for weeks. During those times Margo has died her hair blond put in blue contacts to match every feature the twins have. She has been studying them for weeks and even gone into their house, school and pretended to be part of the family when one twin wasn’t there. Josh has figured out what evil plan Margo has up her sleep and tries to stop her and goes in search for hear and stop any more disruptions. Will Margo be part of the Wakefield family after all?
Francine Pascal does it again. Francine Pascal has many books. One of my favorite series that she has been writing about is the Sweet Valley Twins. In this series it talks about 2 loving parents, an older brother named Steve, and 2 beautiful twin sisters everyone adores. She starts writing about them since they were in elementary school until they are all the way in college and marriage. The book The Evil Twin is one of my favorite books and I can’t wait to read Return of the Evil Twin. I wonder what Francine P. has up her sleeve.
April 20, 2020
Reliving my middle school and high school years I found a bunch of these books for a dollar and got them. I loved the evil twin mysteries and to my surprise this one held up. I miss the days of Sweet Valley high where kids read and used their imagination...I liked that there was always a hint of something between Jessica and Todd...always a little threat of romance and found that even though I am grown now-Jessica is still my favorite twin. There is a twin or triplet of the Wakefield girls and now as it turns out a quadruplet who wants the Wakefield twin’s life. Campy and a bit cheesy but so fun to read all over again. If I say too much I will give it all away, but it was fun to catch up and reread a childhood classic.
December 15, 2010
I have so many questions about this book.
1. If Margo had been hanging around SV for a year, where was she staying? She had to be close enough to Casa Wakefield to sneak peeks at Liz's diary, right?
2. Wouldn't the glass have left a scar in Margo's throat?
3. Did they not perform an autopsy on Margo? Wouldn't theyhave noticed she was a heavy smoker?
1. If Margo had been hanging around SV for a year, where was she staying? She had to be close enough to Casa Wakefield to sneak peeks at Liz's diary, right?
2. Wouldn't the glass have left a scar in Margo's throat?
3. Did they not perform an autopsy on Margo? Wouldn't theyhave noticed she was a heavy smoker?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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July 10, 2009My trashy YA kick continues. OMG. This book was pure, hilarious crack. I almost took a long lunch today to finish it. Sadly, if Jessica Wakefield were a controlling, 100-year-old vampire, this book would still be on the bestseller list.
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