February 19, 2008

From the "Sweet Valley" entry on Wikipedia:

The Sweet Valley series has often been criticized for its unrealistic portrayal of teenagers (although this was somewhat rectified in the Senior Year series), and its outlandish plots, especially within the original Sweet Valley High series. Some exotic examples include:

- The twins battling a werewolf in London;
- Jessica falling in love with a vampire;
- The twins and friends being chased by escaped criminals in Death Valley;
- Margo, a psychotic young woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to the twins, and later, her own twin sister Nora, attempting to murder Elizabeth in a diabolical scheme to 'replace' her;
- A former classmate of Alice Wakefield's luring them to a beauty spa with the intention of stealing Alice's face via a face transplant
- Elizabeth and a Parisian prince falling in love.
- The twins and many of their classmates being unrealistically "beautiful" in a model-like way and never having acne, oiliness, pubertal awkwardness, bodily odors, or greasy hair the way most real-life teenagers have.
- Francine Pascal creating the impression in the mind of readers that Jessica Wakefield is the most beautiful girl ever to exist.
- The books essentially plagarise the life and times of J. Edgar Hoover.

Aaaaaand now I have to go see what people said about V.C. Andrews, the zombie novelist who attempted to bring sibling incest into vogue in the 1980's like padded shoulders and rouge. Okay, nothing shocking. This article on Slate does a better job.

Thanks to Morgan, my old Sweet Valley twin and friend, for the tip.

Posted by Karen

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Comments: 4 so far

February 19, 2008 2:29 PM

Wandering Coyote said:

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Hi Karen,

Thanks for linking to that article on Slate - it was great. I was a huge VC fan as a pre-teen...maybe even younger, but I started off with My Sweet Audrina. I always read at a level higher than my peers, so for instace, I read The Mists of Avalon when I was 11, as well as most of my mother's other books (which didn't include VC...I got those from the library). I never read Sweet Valley High because I thought it was so stupid - and most of my classmates were all over them while snickering at my copy of Forever Amber (they thought it was a dictionary at first).

February 19, 2008 3:38 PM

PRQ said:

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If I had to describe J. Edgar Hoover in two words: SUPER CHILLER!

February 19, 2008 8:29 PM

Karen said:

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My intro to VC (Andrews, not the Viet Cong) was via a garbage bag full of every novel she (ie. her ghostwriters) had ever written before 1995. It was delivered to me by a coworker of my mother's, whose teenage daughter had obviously decided to purge the schlock from her bookshelf.

Did my mother even know what they were? I started reading them when I was 12. I remember them seeming disgusting, confusing and intriguing all at the same time.

February 24, 2008 1:17 PM

Johnnie said:

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I remember sitting on a bus coming home from a camping trip organized by my elementary school daycare centre "Superfriends" (yeah, that's really what they were called). It had been a hellish experience, involving me spraining my ankle, acquiring more mosquito bites than one would have thought humanly possibly and vomiting up KD the second we got back to Toronto. My only solace on the increasingly-queasy ride back to Toronto was the supervisor sitting next to me, reading to me from one of the books in the Flowers in the Attic series. I was enthralled, and able to put off puking on the bus. Imagine my delight when, a week or so later, I saw the books of VC Andrews on a stand at Bruno's Fine Foods. I asked my mother to buy me one, but she refused, calling them "trash." That's my VC Andrews story.

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