Sweet Valley Confidential II: Spoiler Alert--Everyone Continues to Not Get Laid

I've progressed nearly 40 pages, and I have to tell you that on the bus this morning, as I was reading, I very nearly broke out sweating, the dialogue was so painful. My reaction was so visceral, it reminded me of Kevin Murphy's account of going to see Corky Romano in the theater with Mike Nelson ("The whole movie hurts. We're sitting on coarse-grit sandpaper.")

I mean, honestly, take this flirty (read: puzzling, poorly translated from Telenovela Spanish to English) exchange betwixt Elizabeth and former object-of-hate, Todd-almost-lookalike Will:

     "Elizabeth Show Survey! [ed. note: okay, I admit, using the magazine as Elizabeth's last name sort of made me laugh; you win this round, Sweet Valley Confidential] That sucks. I'm actually one of the the nicest, kindest guys you'll ever meet."

      "How come when I asked you to answer a couple of questions you nearly bit my head off?" [asked Elizabeth flirtily-barifly]

     "Hey, I'm an angry young playwright. What was I supposed to do?"

Question: how many Os can one stick in the word "Groan" before it becomes overindulgent overstatement? Ten? Twelve?

So their "banter" progresses and they make out a little, but naturally, Elizabeth doesn't put out. I swear she's like the polar opposite of an episode of Red Shoe Diaries (remember that little gem on Showtime? David Duchovny narrates stories where people inexplicably ended up having paint-by-numbers soft-core sex?). And shortly after the two of them have overshared (He left his fiancee and law school for The Theeeeeeeatre! His father, Thurston Howell, is disappointed! Elizabeth, as we are all WELL AWARE, was cheated on by her boyfriend AND TWIN SISTER!) and drunkenly made out, the natural progression of such an acquaintence is to call the dude and have the following phone conversation shortly after not even giving the dude a my-pants-are-a-no-fly-zone BJ:

     Even though it was ridiculously early in the relationship, Will would probably understand [why Elizabeth is calling with the terrible, terrible idea to invite a near-stranger to fly to the opposite coast with her and attend her grandmother's 80th birthday party in the hopes that it will somehow relieve the sting of seeing Cheater McGee and Cipher Todd]. Without wasting a moment in sensible thinking [yeah, why do that? That's for losers and well-written three-dimensional characters who don't act like desperate Lifetime Movie villainesses], Elizabeth looked up [Will's] number and dialed.

     "Hello," Will said. She could tell he had been sleeping off the martinis.

     "Hi, it's Elizabeth."

     That woke him. "You're coming back?" [Poor deluded sap; prepare to have that half-mast woody dashed into flaccidity, sucka!]

     "No, not today anyway, but maybe soon [said the cocktease].

     [Blah blah stuff about the play, I will spare you all, who cares]

     "Actually, I'm calling about a big favor from a new friend" [said Elizabeth]

     "Am I the new friend?" [said Will]

     [blah blah Elizabeth asks him to fly to California, creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy]

     "I would really love to go with you and shove it to that sister and her lying, cheating fiance [that's right, folks, this guy is a playwright], but they would never let me leave, even for a day. [Blah blah I'm thinking about getting a restraining order] I'm really sorry, Elizabeth. Am I still your new friend?"

     "Forever."

At this juncture, I actually audibly groaned, like I was struck with appendicitis or food poisoning. Does Francine Pascal know the definition of the word "friend?" The overuse of the word reminds me of Frankenstein, seconds before he snapped a child's neck. Its awkwardness and artificiality make the dialogue read as creepy or mentally handicapped or...well, Frankenstein.

I'm waiting for the villagers of NYC to gather outside Elizabeth's apartment building with torches and pitchforks. I'd almost take the vacuous and idiotic Carrie Bradshaw approach to fun, flirty, single NYC living over this. There. I said it.

And to make matters weirder and more oddly contradictory, Elizabeth, with Will's help, ham-handedly put together a half-scheme for Elizabeth to invite Liam, the "black Irish" bartender to Sweet Valley instead. Who is even MORE of a stranger than Will, mind you. It's like the entire sequence is a setup for a PSA about the dangers of Craigslist or something. "Hey, that bartender that was giving me the sex eye seemed nice. I should ask him to accompany me on a trip. I certainly won't end up splashed on the cover of the New York Post as missing! L&O: SVU won't then rip my disappearance and subsequent corpsical discovery from the headlines!"

Like all plot progressions thus far, Liam conveniently/nonsensically is a California transplant who has been meaning to go see his Irish surgeon dad (I know, right? My reaction was the same as yours...that is, if you just RCA Dogged the screen and made a Tim Allen noise). So that worked out swimmingly. Until the murdering begins, that is. Because everything is a James Patterson novel or an SVU episode in my mind. Thanks, NBC Movie of the Week Starring Fred Savage Where He Domestically Abused, Then Murdered Candace Cameron!

And that isn't even the weirdest part:

     Additionally, what she'd taken for romantic interest on his part wasn't realy there. And that nonfeeling was mutual and comfortable.

Say what, girlfriend? I mean, I'm pretty sure it was mere pages ago that you were all:

      Elizabeth watched the bartender [blah blah hey kids buy Stolichnaya] eyes fixed on her all the while, mixing the drink by feel. Even without the alcohol, she was beginning to cheer up, though he was definitely wasting his time on her.
     "Olive?" he asked, pouring the chilled liquid into a martini glass and making the single word sound positively loving, flashing a dimple that was almost overkill.

So readers, I have determined that, much like Humbert Humbert, Elizabeth Wakefield is what the literary nerd set call an "unreliable narrator." By the time she kills her sister in a jealous rage and we all meet for book club, one of our discussion questions will be: "Was Elizabeth sane or insane? Can we trust that what she shared with us regarding her internal conflict was genuine? Also: does Elizabeth know what a friend is? Is she The Bride of Frankenstein?"

Onto another topic, I've realized why the flashback sections are so off-putting: they are written in present tense! What a jarring narrative decision, Francine. Well, also the flashbacks are stupid. That doesn't help. Did you know that Jessica was married to a possessive, borderline-abusive rich guy for four months? And lived on a yacht? And escaped, much like Julia Roberts in Sleeping with the Enemy, to a small town? Only she didn't fake her death and, one assumes, Patrick Bergin will not track her down to straighten her towels and stalk her? Yep!

I have this sense that all these various threads of sensational half-stories (or, in Elizabeth's own words, "enough family turmoil to start a new HBO series"), the introduction of various "frieeeeeend"s who are barely established, not useful for sex scenes, and awkwardly shoehorned into Elizabeth's ongoing 2.5-on-a-scale-of-10 efforts to get revenge or vent her spleen at Jessica will pan out to nothing.

Thus making me more irritated and eager to make fun of it. So good deal, I guess.

Next up: oh, my word, Jessica works for an ecologically-friendly makeup start-up. Mercy.