Francine 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.
Summary: Gaia hides in Ed's house for a long time to avoid Loki and in turns learns of his DNA Cloning plan, Ed confesses his love for Gaia, George and Tom work together to try keeping Gaia safe, Heather tries to talk to Ed and eventually helps Gaia with her friends, Gaia learns that Sam is dead, and after some other events the book ends with Gaia is driven away from Josh and approaching enemies by Ed's apartment building.
Love was a tough read- mostly because of how much the writing deteriorated. For starters, The characters have become lesser versions of themselves and the plot is has it's own stupid moments.
1) I might have already mentioned this before but if Tom is constantly unhappy with his job as an agent, why did he even join it in the first place? I'm tired of hearing him complain about something he could have easily refused to say no to joining years ago.
2) Why would Tom mourn Sam's death if he's never really spent time with him beforehand? Yes, it's sad (in-universe; I could care less what happens to Sam), but it's not like you and Sam were buddies.
3) I'm not sure if Francine purposely forgot the name of "The Kid from The Sixth Sense" for comedy but a simple internet search or re-watch would have cleared everything up. In fact just searching that phrase got me Haley Joel Osment. It's that easy.
4) This series can't really make fun of cliches every book if Fearless itself is filled with just as many cliches. Also, the many mentions of cliches to make fun of cliches in turn makes it a cliche.
5) Remember when Gaia was stoic and brave? Here, she's so worried about being killed and cries about it to Ed.
6) If Gaia has such a high IQ, why did she have to learn the word Closure when she would have already known what it meant??
7) What happened to that costume party that Josh and Loki planned a few books ago? Did that just get scrapped?
8) Heather and her friends helping Gaia in her plan didn't make any sense. You could easily erase that part from Love and the book's climatic ending would still remain the same. Why would Heather's friends even bother when they don't even like Gaia?
9) If Loki doesn't really care about people's feelings "...even the feelings of those he claimed to love..", does that mean he doesn't actually love Katia?
10) The overuse of the phrase "Solar Plexus" should really be added to the list of phrases Fearless should STOP using ASAP.
11) If Tom really wanted to be easily identifiable to Gaia, why could he get a tattoo, haircut, or something to stick out from Loki? You can make the argument that Loki will try to copy it but there's still other ways to go about this? Has Tom never thought about trying this?
( I couldn't come up with a pun to close this review out but just pretend a cooler transition phrase is in place of this one )
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I find myself getting frustrated with the constant state of confusion that is Gaia's life throughout these books. I feel like the story hasn't really evolved at all...anyways on to the next one...
Another one I didn't like. And I got feeling she has trusted the wrong person this time at the end of the book.
Gaia finds out the truth about her uncle Oliver. He kept saying her dad was Loki but she forced someone that she knew tell truth to say which one was which.
Ed finally confessed his feelings. He also tried keep her safe this book but if course opening that email gave her location away and what was inside played into her emotions. For now Sam's definitely out picture but read spoilers he eventually back.
I'm now officially half way my challenge of finishing this series this year.
Just because I want to something different I'm going to write the reviews in a Friends episode format. Enjoy!
The One With Gaia's Rediscovered Feelings
Sam Moon did what he did to protect Gaia. Too bad she didn't realize this until it was too late. Meanwhile, the more time Gaia and Ed spend together, their feelings for each other deepen. And Gaia faces a hurtful realization: She doesn't know who her enemy is. Is it her father Tom or her uncle Oliver? Who is Loki? Who is telling the truth? It's hard to figure that out because both these men are . . . twins. Identical twins.
It wasn't as action-packed as Flee, but damn, that was intense! Loki is sick. Not only literally, but also in the good way. That man is a manipulative bastard. I love it.
I've read this series over ten years ago. But I remember it being very good. For the first 18 books. After that the more it lasted the worst it got. I stopped at book 32. These days I wouldn't give it more than 20.
Back to the good stuff. I found that Gaia was a good strong, pretty but still flawed character. She was special without being annoying. It's just that once the author stopped looking over the shoulder of the ghost writer. Things went down the drain pretty fast.
Last note. The series may be in boxes but I won't be giving them away any time soon. She's a good example of an interesting main character in an interesting premise.
Maybe the series is starting to drag on. After the loss of my favorite character I'm not sure I want to go on, and I'm only halfway thru the series.....but still, it's well written, has lots of section and I truly do think Gaia is a perfect heroine. Strong, fierce, deadly but soft in sll the tight places........I'll keep going......