Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, the two perfect, blonde, blue-eyed size six twins that were the stars of this serious?
I remember my cousin and I used to read those books constantly-of course now, I realize how horrible they were. Beautiful identical twins, popular, pretty, with their own convertible, tons of friends, boyfriends, living near the beach? Blech.
But they’re fun, in their own cheesy way.
I loved those books! Of course, I was 10… cut me some slack. 
Remember how one twin was bad and one good? The bad one was so much cooler. That was Jessica, right? That series and Jem & The Holograms totally warped my idea of cool life would be when I got older.
Ahhh…the eighties.
I remember those! They read like soap operas! 
I didn’t read that many of them; I was more into the Baby-Sitters Club and old Nancy Drew books at the time, but I remember SVH.
Now, why do I think of Jessica and Elizabeth and my first thought is the Olsen twins on that ‘Countdown to Legality’ site?
Then there was Sweet Valley Kids (they were about 7 years old), Sweet Valley Twins (10-12), and Sweet Valley University (I don’t know the age range there).
I actually had a Sweet Valley Twins book, although I preferred RL Stine (probably wrong spelling) and his horror books.
Once, when I was in high school already, I was desperate ( I needed to read something, anything) that I picked up a Sweet Valley High book. One of my friends caught me reading that. He couldn’t believe it…
oh man. i loved those books. although i didn’t read the high school ones, i read the ones when they were in middle school. ooh, did anyone else read the ‘sweet valley sagas’??? they had the stories of all these generations of their family, and the twins’ parents’ families kept missing each other…a great great grandfather on the dad’s side and -mother on the mom’s side fell in love on a boat to america, then they got separated and never saw each other again…it happened like that every other generation or so. and tons of twins! oh they were so good!
i also loved ‘the babysitters club’, ‘thoroughbred’, and the american girl doll books. aah. what was i thinking?!
I used to work in a book warehouse and we got tons of those things in. I hated them with a passion. Always wanted to write a thiny veiled parody of them called “Innocent Orchard” which had the twins as bigoted, hypocritical sluts, who die while investigating a murder (and who might have been easily saved by their friends, but it would have caused them to get dirty so they wouldn’t do it) and are served up as dinner to their friends at the local eatery.
They kept them right next to the Car Wars and Fighting Fantasy books in my local bookstore when I was a teenager, and I was always afraid someone would think I was looking at them instead of my geeky gaming books.
Oh hell yes I remember them. I read like the first…35? 40?..something like that.
I also remember how obsessed/upset I was when Elizabeth was kidnapped in book 16 or 18 (in that area). I was actually calling the bookstore to find out when they’d have it, then called the day it showed up, then zoomed over there to get my copy before it left the shipping box.
I was about 12, I think, at that time. I read them partially because the “cool” girls were into them, and they were an easy read for me…so I could be up on the “cool” stuff (which is oh, so important in junior high). I remember reading 3 of those books in one day, which to this date is my record. Of course, when you’re dealing with that kind of fluff, does it really count?
I remember certain lines from the book. Like…in one of the early books, students are speculating whether Jessica is a virgin (she claims she isn’t). She’d remembered someone saying that he could tell a virgin by the way they walked, and she deliberately altered her walk to make it seem nonvirgin. What she got was a “did you hurt yourself” instead. 
Still amuses me, 15 years later.
OH Man. They had a TV show, too. That was awful. I did read the books for a while, but I read pretty much anything I could get my hands on. It wasnt a favourite series, but entertaining when I was 12 or so.
Hell, I had the board game! Hehehe…
Jessica wasn’t bad, but she was the “wild one”. Meaning, the dumb, dopey idiot airhead.
Then there was the one where Jessica was shipwrecked on a deserted island with the class cown (Winston Egbert. I swear, I probably remember almost all the names).
I was more into Judy Blume…
The Sweet Valley Sixers! Elizabeth was the editor of the Sweet Valley Sixers, the 6th grade newspaper (I cannot believe I remember that). And their parents met at some Italian restaurant when their mom spilled spaghetti sauce on the dad and he had to change into the cook’s clothes while his were being cleaned or something. And I-thig or whatever it was - that language their dad t-Ithig-aught th-Ithig-em or something like that? Oh boy, the memories.
Adolescent girl fiction - even when it’s bad, it’s good!
Oh, man, I of course remember those!
Ruffian pretty much sums up how I felt - always rabidly awaiting the next installment.
I read them when I was in grade school. I read all of the Twins books and most of the High School books. The Kids ones, as I recall, came out after the Twins and so would have been too young for me, and the University ones didn’t start until after I’d grown out of the series as a whole.
I identified with Elizabeth, even though Jessica was clearly more fun. She was the good, nice, helpful, underappreciated twin. I might have been projecting the ‘underappreciated’ bit, slightly, though.
Oh, I loved those books. I remember when they first came out! I also read the dopey First Love by Silhouette books. Wow, so much time spent on those…
Such fond memories. My best friend’s mom would buy them for her as soon as they came out, and she would lend them to everyone who wanted to read them… they passed hand to hand and always came back to her a wreck.
I remember being so shocked by Jessica, who now would be a welcome relief from the real teenagers in my classes.
I remember all the names too, though I was too old for the extra series by the time they came out. I read them in semi-secret, since my mom would have a fit if she knew I was reading trash like that. (Mom’s a librarian. She used to complain about the women who would come in and trade one stack of 20 Harlequin novels for another.) I knew they were terrible, but I read them anyway, along with the “Sweet Dreams” series–anyone remember those? My cousin had the whole series, and I bet she saw herself as Jessica…
What I’ve always wanted to know is… Did any of the series ever had a proper conclusion?
Was there a book in which the Sweet Valley Kids just grew up and went to middle school for the first time, marking transition to Sweet Valley Twins? And subsequently with the rest of the series?
And did Sweet Valley University ended…well, how it ended?
Will they begin a reunion series in 30-40 decades called Sweet Valley Town? Or one in 50 decades, Sweet Valley Retirement Home?
Nope, they just went on and on and on…
Also, as for how the twins’ parents met-they gave a different version in the “Saga”. Weird.
I haven’t thought about these books in forever! I must have about the first 50 of the SVH books…could not get enough of them! Also read most of the Twins and the first few of University but then I outgrew them. Also read all the Sweet Dreams. With scout and Ruffian, I devoured them and could NOT wait to get the next one. I got in trouble for reading them so fast.
I was always so disgusted and angry with Jessica and the way she treated Elizabeth. I was such a geek.