Rene turned to Elizabeth, his green eyes blazing. “Tell me, Liz, what difference does it make whether you said something or Jessica did?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You’re two of a kind,” he rushed on. “All you American girls are the same.”
Details: Originally published by Bantam books in March 1986. Paperback, 216 pages.
Summary/Overview: Elizabeth and Jessica are on their way to Cannes, France for Spring Break as part of an exchange program that Ms. Dalton put together. The girls will be staying with Avery Glize and her son, Rene, and in return, Avery’s daughter Ferney (who is, I think, about fifteen) will be staying with the Wakefields. When the girls arrive, they are greeted by a very friendly Avery and an incredibly cold and rude Rene, who makes it very clear that he hates Americans.
It isn’t long before Jessica meets a rich dork named Marc, and she agrees to go out with him because he drives a Rolls Royce and has a membership at an exclusive beach club. Liz goes out walking and finds a stray dog that belongs to a literal countess, who befriends Liz and introducers her to her handsome young grandson named Jean-Claude. The two spend a day together and decide to meet up again the next afternoon. Jessica is jealous when Liz mentions casually that he’s good-looking, but she’s already made plans again with Marc and can’t seem to weasel out of them.
When Avery needs someone to go pick up medicine for a patient, Liz offers to help, but it requires her to walk down the road and take a bus across town to the pharmacy. On the way back, her bus gets stuck in traffic because of a car accident, and this makes her extremely late for her date with Jean-Claude. Luckily, Jessica has intercepted the note Liz has left for him and pretends to be Liz and goes out with him instead. She falls in love with him and starts seeing him without telling Liz, and without telling Jean-Claude that she’s not Elizabeth.
Rene continues to be an absolute monster, even though Liz tries to repeatedly get through to him. When Marc shows up and thinks Liz is Jessica, Liz puts some things together and realizes that Jessica is out with Jean-Claude, and that they might be in danger: they’d taken his sailboat out and a storm has hit the water. She asks Rene to take her to the beach to look for the boat, and he’s shocked that she’s not mad that Jessica did a twin switch. He gives her a ride on his moped, and the two arrive in time to see the boat capsize and Jessica nearly drown. Liz swims out to save her, and she finds that Rene has come to help, even though he hasn’t gone near the water since he lost a friend to drowning years before.
Rene does a complete change in personality afterwards and he and Liz make a date. Jessica comes clean to Jean-Claude and the two date for the rest of the trip.
The B-Plot involves Ferney’s trip to Sweet Valley. She speaks almost no English but is an absolute dead ringer (pun intended) for Steven’s dead girlfriend Tricia Martin. He becomes taken with Ferney instantly, convinced that she has the same qualities and attributes that he loved about Tricia. He forgets that he’s been seeing Cara Walker pretty steadily, and she mopes around town while being ignored by Steven. When his friend shows up for a visit and is finally able to translate for the two of them, Steven discovers that Ferney is nothing like Tricia (the implication is that Ferney’s pretty shallow), and then has the realization that it’s Cara he really loves. He goes to her and apologizes, and she takes him back, because of course she does.
Steven was feeling more and more deflated. He kept anticipating Trivia’s wit, intelligence, and maturity in Ferney’s answers, and he was getting none of that. Perhaps he was asking the wrong questions.
Sweet Valley Social Calendar:
Estimated Elapsed Time: One week (technically 10 days)
– Student Exchange trip to Cannes, France
Trivia:
– Enid’s staying in Sweet Valley and babysitting during spring break (Cara is also staying home)
– Lila has been to France twice before (she goes on this trip but to a different city)
– Bruce Patman just got a new Swedish sauna
Pop Culture:
– Robert Redford (but not in relation to Mr. Collins)
– Elle (French version of Mademoiselle)
– The Bald Soprano
Does it hold up? (A totally unqualified critical analysis)
Jesus Christ! When I tell you that Rene is an insufferable shit throughout this entire book, I mean it. I remembered him having an about-face much earlier than he actually does in this book, and I was shocked to discover that he’s an absolute dick until the literal last 20 pages. He’s so incredibly mean to Elizabeth, who is genuinely trying to be nice (I hate being on her side, but I am here), and there’s absolutely no reason for it.
Oh, you have daddy issues? Your daddy left when you were small and you’re angry about it, and now you’re taking it out on the only other Americans you’ve ever come across? Basically everyone has daddy issues, buddy! Either get in line or get some therapy, because your pain and sadness is not more sad and painful than anyone else’s. It’s simultaneously so boring and also so infuriating. I HATE IT.
Honestly, the Steven/Ferney subplot is way more unsettling than I remember it being. It was always weird – the series’ obsession with Tricia Martin lookalikes has always been kind of a head-scratcher – but it’s incredibly weird this time around when I start thinking about the fact that Ferney is supposed to be like 14 or 15, and Steven is 18 and in college. There’s also the fact that the two can’t actually understand each other and are spending a lot of unsupervised time together – he just spends all his time staring at her face? It’s incredibly creepy.
A Critical Analysis of Sweet Valley's Most Famous Twins 
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