Book Whore--The Caitlin Trilogies 2 AKA The Promise Trilogy by Francine Pascal
RECAP: So the first trilogy AKA the Love Trilogy we met Caitlin Ryan--rich, beautiful, spoiled who basically is willing to do anything to get the love of her life Jed... In the three books she schemes, accidentally cripples a boy, drives a girl to an eating disorder, gets and loses her man before being trapped in a mining shaft (!!!) and almost dying. And this all takes places in Virginian horse country, her family owns one of the richest mining companies in the USA, but she is a lonely orphan with a bossy rich nana who she hides from at an elite private school.
Lots of horse riding, bad 80s fashion description but a prequel almost to 'Gossip Girl'.
It's a great read because Caitlin was so unique--even when she is trying to be good she is underhanded. She uses her drama club skills to make herself plain and talk a girl out of an eating disorder coma (!!!)... She plays everyone off of each other in horrible ways to make a crippled boy learn to walk again... She is awful and amusing
Just stop reading there.
Now the second trilogy--The Promise Trilogy--is the type of series that seems published by people who got a lot of "network notes and focus groups" because everything is changed about the characters and the world. Caitlin is suddenly nice and kind of stupid--she loses her uncanny sense of people and social situations because she cant phantom why people would be mean or lie. In the original trilogy, first book, first chapter, Caitlin could tell someone was lying if they turned away from her mid sentence but here she is an idiot
It's like going from reading about Scarlett and her POV to Melanie...
But the other thing is they drop everything from the first series--secondary characters including her best friend, the detailed horse riding world she lives in and even her relationship with her family is downplayed. It was like they knew the first series did well but didn't understand why...
So the first book in the new trilogy is all about the summer between high school graduation and college. Caitlin spends part of her summer running a charity for the poor children of the Appalachian Mountain due to her grandmother's mining company before heading off to Montana to spend the end of the summer with her boyfriend Jed's family. There's little hints here or there to previous events and characters but never specific enough to understand.
Now this book does have to do a lot of lifting--Caitlin and Jed have pretty serious life goals in the first series that have to be undone. We left them about to head off to Radcliffe College to study business (for Caitlin) and law (for Jed) but since the characters are now answering to outside publishers' notes this must be changed.
So they quickly change the college mentions to something made-up, Caitlin now is going for an unnamed degree of sorts and Jed is very concerned about not being as successful as Caitlin's family. She has gone from running the show to having to be reassuring and supportive of his dreams. And when she goes to visit his family--this is where the new Caitlin really shows up
Cause Jed has an ex girlfriend named Eve and his sister Melanie is her best friend--from the moment Caitlin disembarks (their words--not mine) from the private plane these two are scheming. They play all sorts of tricks on her and it doesn't even OCCUR to Caitlin that this is happening but instead is all bad luck. And while this happens there is a subplot about two con artists trying to hustle her grandmother and father back home and Caitlin has proof about this from the first meeting and doesn't understand what it means!!!
Eventually Caitlin wises up about Eve and Melanie by the end of the book, she and Jed mend fences and she returns home to go to college. But not before Jed realizes his father is getting too old to run their expansive ranch and he has to defer college to stay there which is sad but pro family.
Pretty much a stand alone book which is an odd way to start a trilogy.
But book two opens up and we finally get to the overarching plot of the trilogy--Caitlin arrives to college and ends up with enemies and a stalker out for revenge. It's so disconnected from the first book that you have to wonder what was going on with the author of this series. Basically Caitlin met some poor people as a child, wasn't nice and now at college has ran into one of them who decides he will make her fall in love with him, take her virginity and then denounce her as a rich whore.
That's the plot.
And if that wasn't anti-women enough, every girl Caitlin interacts with hates her and either willingly or accidentally helps this guy with his plot. It's kind of ugly and they make Caitlin stupider to facilitate it--because Jed isn't with her in college Caitlin spends her days and nights waiting for him to call or write but once people start sabotaging her mail and messages she becomes to depressed to eat or go to class. And this plot is over two books before they figure anything out--it just makes Caitlin and Jed both so foolish and awful that you have to wonder why you care.
And by stripping all the unique details; the world of thoroughbred horses, the blue blood lifestyle as well as the great supporting characters you suddenly have an "any book, anywhere, any character" which kills most of the magic.
But things to get happier by the end of the trilogy--Caitlin and Jed figure out the various plots, the bad people grow a heart or disappear and college is back on track for them. It's tidy but very 80s which is unfortunate because while I like Sweet Valley High--Caitlin was more evolved than those stand alone books.
However--what happens in the third trilogy is more odd and interesting.... Careers and weddings and babies and cocaine and another cripple are on the way!
