The books are generally classified as young adult or children's fiction and belong mostly to the genre of soap opera, romance novel or fantasy-adventure.
The twins are seven-year-old second graders at Sweet Valley Elementary School in this series, which included several Special Editions and "Super Snooper" mystery books.
Jessica does not adapt to Sweet Valley Junior High as quickly as Elizabeth, especially as she struggles to establish some semblance of the popularity she enjoyed in middle school.
Elizabeth and Jessica find their senior year to be as emotionally tumultuous as the last as new relationships are formed, old ones are changed, and they must look forward to life after high school.
One review from Entertainment Weekly stated, "Make no mistake: This is a very bad book, bloated and silly and, worst of all, often quite boring.
For example, near the beginning of the book, Elizabeth's ex-boyfriend Jeffrey French is mentioned as being happily married, while in the last "epilogue" chapter, he is "still unmarried and unattached."
Suzanne Devlin was mistakenly diagnosed with MS in the SVH magna edition Perfect Christmas, but then finds out that she was misdiagnosed, and she and Todd fall in love.
In describing what became of Roger Collins, Pascal states that after having been accused of molestation by Suzanne Devlin (book 11, "Too Good to be True"), he "felt too uncomfortable being a teacher and left to become a nonfiction writer."
Another inconsistency is the way Jessica talks in the book, peppering her sentences with "So," and "like," which is a departure from the way she spoke in the SVH and SVU series.
The story begins with Elizabeth in New York, where she is working on a magazine called Show Survey, described as "a sort of Zagat for Off Broadway."
Through flashbacks, we learn that Jessica and Todd had been having an affair off and on for the last five years, and that eight months ago Elizabeth discovered their duplicity, and has not spoken to either of them since.
Time, unrequited love and other negative life experiences have turned Winston into a bitter hateful Scrooge-like miser who womanizes and shows contempt for himself and all humanity.
She goes to the party, bringing Liam, a handsome bartender she has met in New York in order to have him flirt with Jessica and get her revenge for the affair.
Alice Wakefield, the twins' mother, desperately tries to keep the peace, repeatedly asking the staff to serve the cake, finally losing her cool and screaming to her husband, "Ned!
She finally comes to the realization that she and Todd weren't going to make it work a long time ago, but was too much of a "commitment control freak" to admit it to herself.
At first, she didn't want to forgive her, but remembering Bruce's wise words, she relents and the sisters hold each other, sobbing, and make up.
At the end of book six, Elizabeth is hoping that Bruce will propose, but instead he confesses to being in love with an old flame he dated in high school.
Also in the books it develops the relationship between the twins' brother Steven and his partner Aaron as the two get married and have a baby girl.