Sugar and Spice
Author: Lauren Conrad
ISBN: 9780061767623

Warning: There may be spoilers in this review if you haven’t read the first two books in the series yet.

Sugar and Spice by Lauren Conrad is the third and final book in the L.A. Candy series. After loving the first book and slowly making it through the second book, I was excited to see how Conrad would wrap this series up.

In Sugar and Spice, Jane Roberts has finally figured out that Madison Parker is NOT her friend. After discovering that Madison is the one who betrayed her, not her best friend Scarlett, Jane and Scarlett are back to being inseparable.

After all of the drama in the first two books, Jane has sworn off boys, but it becomes difficult when her high school boyfriend Caleb and her latest crush Braden both show interest in her. Then of course, there is always Jesse in the background stirring up trouble and this latest book is no different.

Jane is getting sick of being on the show L.A. Candy. She doesn’t enjoy being given directions through text message while filming her so called “real life” and she definitely doesn’t like being told who to hang out with in front of the cameras. While Jane and Scarlett are both struggling with their next moves when this season of L.A. Candy is over, Jane makes a shocking discovery.

She finds the notebook of Trevor, the producer of L.A. Candy. The notebook is filled with story ideas for upcoming episodes of the show. It’s filled with dialogue, locations and conflicts. Jane realizes that Trevor has already planned what is going to happen on the show. The show that’s supposed to be about her real life. Jane must decide if she should confront Trevor or figure out another strategy that shows that two can play at the reality game.

While this last book in the series was a definite improvement over the second book, it still didn’t top the first book. I’m not sure if I just loved the first book because it was my first glimpse at what I assumed was behind the scenes information from Lauren Conrad’s time on The Hills, or if it was just full of exciting plots, but the first book was my favorite.

I think my main problem with this latest book was that there didn’t seem to be any MAJOR conflicts for Jane or Scarlett. There were some, but not enough to keep me turning the pages wondering what would happen next. In fact, this book seemed to focus a lot on Madison, a character I couldn’t really get behind, so I was rooting against her the entire book anyway. I also wasn’t interested in Sophie, Madison’s sister who was introduced in this book. It seemed like there were many more opportunities for drama between the existing four main characters that I didn’t see the point in introducing another.

My favorite part about reading this series was trying to figure out what was truly “fiction” and what Lauren Conrad had drawn from her experience on The Hills. I’m glad Conrad wrote these books because I feel like in a way, she is “fictionally” telling us all secrets about what really happened behind the scenes on The Hills. Apparently, Lauren Conrad has a new MTV show coming out…interesting after all of her experiences with The Hills and writing this book.

This is definitely a fun novel, and a fun series, at that. I loved that these books were quick and easy reads.

4/5