Not your standard fare

I won't be going into the SVT series anytime soon, as there are quite a few more SVH books to go through, and my heart belongs to SVU next, but I got a copy of Jessica's First Kiss in the mail Friday, and I read through it yesterday morning. I should mention that I always sort of skipped around in the SVT series and was much more interested in the Unicorn Club or Jessica getting her purple glasses, and I was never all that into owning all the books because I was more fixated on the BSC or SVH. They launched SVT a smidge too late for me to be completely addicted, you know?

Also, I stopped well before book 100, although I did pick up the Beast miniseries because it looked awesome and I'm a sucker for any and all instances of Horror in SV. That'd be the Christopher Pike in me, luv. So anything after the Beast mini is pretty much new to me. Hell, I thought they'd ended the books pretty much right after that, and it was always such a shock to find a new one when I was out looking for some other book-crack.

As I read through JFK [and I swear, didn't she already get kissed? There is no way the Jessica who pitched a fit over not getting her period at the same time as her twin would let Liz get all smoochy-smoochy and stay that way for a zillion-plus books. No way, no how.] I realized the other reason I ran screaming. The later books sucked and didn't have the nostalgia factor to lure me back in when things got rough. Actually, wait, that was it. That and the books work best for me when relying less on one twin over the other and having the twins be two parts of the same person. There are exceptions to this rule, particularly SY: Jessica who was much better than SY: Liz more often than not, but the Twins series? As it dragged on, Liz tended to be brushed off as a big old dork who was still, miracle of miracles, popular, and Jessica was much closer to her SVH counterpart, only less... fun. She was thwarted all too often and frequently was just as 2-D as Liz. But most of all, the books lacked that feeling that the twins needed one another.

The series, as a whole, was built on the theory that Liz and Jessica are freakishly close. When they aren't mostly united, Bad Things Happen [Margo, we're looking at you!]. Maybe another part is that as someone without a sister, I got my vicarious girly bonding time through the Wakefields. I dunno. But there is almost no interaction between Jessica and Elizabeth in this book, to the point that Liz lets her twin go around for a week looking like something a grizzly dragged in, and smelling like something the cat left in its box. And not because she was mad at her! Just because it... never occurred to her to take her sister aside and point out that maybe if she used one of the ninety billion brushes she brought to camp, and braided her hair, and I dunno, did something about the smell, maybe she wouldn't be so scary. This is never treated as an issue. Oh, sure, people recoil in horror from the scary sight that is the Unicorns without their electricity, but Saint Liz never even considers getting her sister to wipe that mud off her face. What planet is this and where, oh where, is the escape pod? These two barely act like sisters, let alone my freakishly close twins!

Other books have them fighting and fighting and fighting, and while, yeah, middle school girls fight a lot, they abused the fight card entirely too much.

I like my SV a little bit realistic, but not at the cost of enjoyability. One could argue that SY aged the twins in a semi-decent way, as Lila knows there are a ton of fans of the series, but I... don't think SVT aged all that well. Maybe I'm biased as the last few books I've read haven't appealed.

Or maybe Jessica's First Kiss is just one to be avoided.

A+ for Winston, though. His twisted twin story? Oh, my evil twins... For telling that story Winston, you win. Again.

Not your standard fare

I won't be going into the SVT series anytime soon, as there are quite a few more SVH books to go through, and my heart belongs to SVU next, but I got a copy of Jessica's First Kiss in the mail Friday, and I read through it yesterday morning. I should mention that I always sort of skipped around in the SVT series and was much more interested in the Unicorn Club or Jessica getting her purple glasses, and I was never all that into owning all the books because I was more fixated on the BSC or SVH. They launched SVT a smidge too late for me to be completely addicted, you know?

Also, I stopped well before book 100, although I did pick up the Beast miniseries because it looked awesome and I'm a sucker for any and all instances of Horror in SV. That'd be the Christopher Pike in me, luv. So anything after the Beast mini is pretty much new to me. Hell, I thought they'd ended the books pretty much right after that, and it was always such a shock to find a new one when I was out looking for some other book-crack.

As I read through JFK [and I swear, didn't she already get kissed? There is no way the Jessica who pitched a fit over not getting her period at the same time as her twin would let Liz get all smoochy-smoochy and stay that way for a zillion-plus books. No way, no how.] I realized the other reason I ran screaming. The later books sucked and didn't have the nostalgia factor to lure me back in when things got rough. Actually, wait, that was it. That and the books work best for me when relying less on one twin over the other and having the twins be two parts of the same person. There are exceptions to this rule, particularly SY: Jessica who was much better than SY: Liz more often than not, but the Twins series? As it dragged on, Liz tended to be brushed off as a big old dork who was still, miracle of miracles, popular, and Jessica was much closer to her SVH counterpart, only less... fun. She was thwarted all too often and frequently was just as 2-D as Liz. But most of all, the books lacked that feeling that the twins needed one another.

The series, as a whole, was built on the theory that Liz and Jessica are freakishly close. When they aren't mostly united, Bad Things Happen [Margo, we're looking at you!]. Maybe another part is that as someone without a sister, I got my vicarious girly bonding time through the Wakefields. I dunno. But there is almost no interaction between Jessica and Elizabeth in this book, to the point that Liz lets her twin go around for a week looking like something a grizzly dragged in, and smelling like something the cat left in its box. And not because she was mad at her! Just because it... never occurred to her to take her sister aside and point out that maybe if she used one of the ninety billion brushes she brought to camp, and braided her hair, and I dunno, did something about the smell, maybe she wouldn't be so scary. This is never treated as an issue. Oh, sure, people recoil in horror from the scary sight that is the Unicorns without their electricity, but Saint Liz never even considers getting her sister to wipe that mud off her face. What planet is this and where, oh where, is the escape pod? These two barely act like sisters, let alone my freakishly close twins!

Other books have them fighting and fighting and fighting, and while, yeah, middle school girls fight a lot, they abused the fight card entirely too much.

I like my SV a little bit realistic, but not at the cost of enjoyability. One could argue that SY aged the twins in a semi-decent way, as Lila knows there are a ton of fans of the series, but I... don't think SVT aged all that well. Maybe I'm biased as the last few books I've read haven't appealed.

Or maybe Jessica's First Kiss is just one to be avoided.

A+ for Winston, though. His twisted twin story? Oh, my evil twins... For telling that story Winston, you win. Again.