Review: "Double Love" by Kate William (created by Francine Pascal)

Double Love by Kate William (created by Francine Pascal)
First published 1983
★★

The terrible twosome has somehow survived until high school, I have somehow survived rereading more than one of these, and...here we go. Double Love is the book that kicked the Sweet Valley franchise off—the related series taking place in elementary school and middle school launched several years after the Sweet Valley High books—and it is absolutely chaos soup. I can see why so many teens were hooked.

The book starts us off with some good old fat-shaming mixed with reminders that Elizabeth and Jessica are, as thin blondes, the most adorable, most dazzling sixteen-year-old girl[s] imaginable (3). (Perfection, folks! It only comes in skinny blonde format!) From there we get our intro to Jessica-as-psychopath: when she's not busy being a terrible person ("How can you be best friends with somebody as blah as [Enid] Rollins? I don't want you to go over there. Somebody might think it was me talking to her." [15]), she's...busy being a terrible person. Here's Jessica supporting her sister when Elizabeth's membership in the best high school sorority is announced:

Jessica was tugging on her sleeve, trying to stop her as she was about to make her way to the front of the room. "What about me?" Jessica hissed. "Why haven't they called my name?" (20)

This is, of course, after Jessica throws a fit at Elizabeth because Jessica's not currently allowed to drive the family car, and after she steals the keys and almost runs Elizabeth and Enid over to impress a boy, but before she steals Elizabeth's crush out from under her nose and drives him home, leaving Elizabeth to walk. Oh, and then she gaslights Elizabeth into believing that it was an accident. At that point the car plot is basically forgotten, because there are other things to worry about: the lease for the school football field has expired, and one wealthy man wants to buy the lot and build a factory, while another wealthy man wants to turn it into formal gardens—whatever will the poor football team do? (It's not lost on me that in a contemporary book this could just as easily be a rich dude wanting to raze some gardens to build a football field...)

Anyway, the main focus of the book is twofold: first, Jessica goes out with a Bad Boy, it doesn't go well, and she comes home in a police car...and then lets everyone think it was Elizabeth. For some inexplicable reason, the entire school is absolutely convinced that Elizabeth would in fact go out with a Bad Boy and be brought home in a police car, and that there's no possible way that there could be another explanation. Like, say, her impulsive, chaotic, sociopathic identical twin sister...? Noooo. Never. Further, they're convinced that because "Elizabeth" made the decision to go out with the Bad Boy, she deserves everything she gets, and she can never be forgiven for it. Even Good Boy Todd Wilkins, who has the hots for Elizabeth (hoo boy, more on that in a moment), cannot fathom of the idea that Jessica might have been responsible...even when Jessica confesses. (Elizabeth has gone along with Jessica's lie so as not to hurt Jessica's reputation, when in fact we all know that nothing can damage Jessica's reputation, while Elizabeth's is so squeaky-clean that the slightest ding sends the entirety of Sweet Valley into shock.)

And second, Todd Wilkins has the hots for Elizabeth, and Elizabeth has the hots for Todd...and Jessica is deeply offended that Todd doesn't have the hots for her, so she decides to go after him. (The German title for this book is Küß nicht immer meinen Zwilling, which translates confusingly to Don't Always Kiss My Twin...) She sweeps him away from Elizabeth at every opportunity, lies to Elizabeth about Todd, continues to get upset when any boy she deems attractive shows interest in Elizabeth rather than herself, and then gets so offended that Todd doesn't fall all over himself to woo Jessica that she decides to "get even" with him by telling Elizabeth that he's a cad who basically sexually assaulted her. (Naturally, Elizabeth cannot imagine that Jessica might be telling anything other than the truth.)

My gosh. This is book one, folks.