The boys of summer Book

I'm pretty glad the Sweet Valley University: Lifeguards saga is over. Not least because Gin-Yung Suh died three books ago and they haven't had her funeral yet. I guess they put her on ice until her acquaintances Jessica and Elizabeth completed their second summer of lifeguarding at the Sweet Valley Shore.

What a summer it was. Jessica and Elizabeth vie for the attentions of alcoholic head lifeguard Ryan. Sober Ryan is serious and dedicated and likes Elizabeth. Drunk Ryan is wild and romantic and likes Jessica. He is like twins but in one body!

Elizabeth's best friend Nina's summer boyfriend Stu (whose existence she will no doubt forget entirely by Out of the Picture (Sweet Valley University, #33) ) is not in fact a psycho-hippy as I'd first suspected but is being stalked by last summer's villain Rachel Max.

Of course Winston has his own story (about trying to match-make his friend Wendy with her own husband) because EVERYONE LOVES THIS CHARACTER and he's SOOOOOOOOOO funny. Actually my futuristic knowledge of his fatal balcony-plunge in Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later makes his chapters a little poignant rather than just Catelyn Stark-style cheek-shreddingly annoying. RIP Winston.

I'll be relieved to get back to Sweet Valley University in the next book. Gin-Yung can finally be laid to rest, and for Jessica, Elizabeth, Nina and Winston, any memories of lifeguarding, the people they met and their near-death experiences can dissolve into the ether.

Goodbye forever, Sweet Valley Shore.