Anyone remember the Sweet Valley High books?

Cafe Society
21

I loved those books! I wanted to be Jessica, but was more like the redhead who made up a BF. Except mine never appeared out of thin air. Hmmph.

Around the same time, I was also reading the “Twilight” books, ghosts, vampires, etc. I remember one where 2 girls took an instant dislike to each other and then it turned out they were being haunted by ghosts of their ancestors in a Scottish clan fued or some such. Or the hoity-toity prep school where the “cool” kids were all vampires. And the haunted mirror. Wish I could recall the titles of some of those - I let my mom send mine to a garage sale years ago and could just kick myself.
Great cheesy fun!

22

I used to mock my friends who read the Sweet Valley books whilst I absorbed fine literature from the Star Trek canon. (I think I had more dates too) :wink:

Guin, we actually played the Sweet Valley High game in my sociology class last semester. I think the lesson was about how games reinforce popular ideas about gender and society in general. I seem to recall there was a provision in the game that let you swap boyfriends. What goes on in Southern California?

23

My sister had a ton of them. She also had a bunch of “The Boxcar Children” books. Anyone remember those? I read a few of 'em, a little more up my alley (sorry for the minor hijack).

24

I used to mock my friends who read the Sweet Valley books whilst I absorbed fine literature from the Star Trek canon. (I think I had more dates too) :wink:

Guin, we actually played the Sweet Valley High game in my sociology class last semester. I think the lesson was about how games reinforce popular ideas about gender and society in general. I seem to recall there was a provision in the game that let you swap boyfriends. What goes on in Southern California?

25

I probably read 20 of the SVH books.

However, my 4-H horse club friends and I loved The Saddle Club books so much we actually appointed ourselves as the main characters in the books.

26

yeah in the saga, the dad saved the mom from drowning…she was engaged to this evil kid’s future father at the time i forget his name. he was loaded though. bruce or something.

27

Bruce Patman. His father was Henry Patman.

Then they did sagas about Bruce, and then about Lila Fowler’s family.

28

I remember how they never failed to mention that Bruce Patman drove a black porsche with number plates “1Bruce1”, and Lila Fowler drove a lime green Triumph.

God I’m sad

29

Didn’t someone fall in love with a Tricia who was dying of leukemia in book twelve?

Yes, we read them in New Zealand, too.

30

That was Steven, the twin’s older brother.

I also never understood how everyone in Sweet Valley was good looking. I mean, they had like 1 fat chick (Robin), and then she lost weight and became popular. No one was ugly!

31

I read about the first, um, 90 or so…

It started innocently. When I was in 5th grade, all of the cool girls (whom I scorned) read SVH, and I certainly didn’t want to be like them. (Hmph!) But I was intrigued by all the little books they carried around.

So, first I read the four “mystery” one-offs. Then I read the Spring Break/Christmas editions. (Aren’t there, like, at least two Spring Break books? And yet the twins always stayed 16?) Then I was hooked.

I really wanted Bruce and Elizabeth to be together – he was so bad and she was so good. In one of the mystery episodes they work together, and I thought they had great chemistry. (Sad? Who, me?) I think in the SV University series they do date, but I gave up long before then.

32

Didn’t one of them die of a cocaine overdose? Regina or something. It was a pretty spicy one for SVH.

And then Lila got busted for shoplifting.

haha, I can’t believe I remember this shit.

33

I read those books. There weren’t nearly as many as there were of the Sweet Valley ones, though. Other series in the same vein that I read were some that were set at Sadler’s Wells ballet school, and a set that were set at a private girl’s school that had a Mrs Garretesque den mother and sets of roommates who were, of course best friends, and as I recall there was four of them, but they changed over time as the girls ‘graduated’. The thing I remember most about that series is that one of the characters was from Texas and she had a tea bag taped above her bed. I can’t remember the title of the series, but I can remember the tea bag.

34

Regina was Bruce’s gf, then he dumped her for Amy Sutton, and she hung out with the class addict. She did two lines of coke, but she had a heart murmur, and ended up dying.

Elizabeth made out with Bruce in number 7, I think, after she was in an accident and had a mini personality change.

Then there was Lynne Henry, who was sort of plain, but then she started wearing contacts and dressing up. Oh, and she sang and played the guitar.
Then let’s see:

Jade Wu-Chinese American girl whose father was super strict and conservative-wouldn’t let her date, or go out after school, and she wanted to be a ballerina.

Annie-something or other. Class Slut who wanted to be a cheerleader. Jessica arranged it so she wouldn’t make the cut, and then she tries to commit suicide. So Jessica lets her be a cheerleader after all.
Amy Sutton-originally Elizabeth’s best friend, moves away then comes back. Now she’s more like Jessica and a slut. In the Twins series, she was cool and friends with Elizabeth.

Lois Waller-school fat girl.

Caroline whatever-class gossip.

Mr. Collins-EVERYONE’S favorite teacher, looks like Robert Redford.

For some reason, I always end up remembering stupid crap like this, but I couldn’t remember enough to ace exams.

35

Ok, so what was the plot of the las SVU book?

36

I was more into the “Kids” and “Twins” one when I was younger. The only one I remember is the one where Jessica is in that club where everything they wear is purple.

37

bean: I think that was the book I had.

And the only SVH book I read was the one about the fat girl that loses weight.

38

[Moe to Homer] “That is the stupidest story I’ve ever heard, and I’ve read the entire Sweet Valley High series.” [/Moe to Homer]

39

Well, I found this thread, and I can’t resist. More than you ever wanted to know about Sweet Valley, or at least about the Twins series…

Jessica’s club was the Unicorn Club. It is mentioned in nearly all the books, sometimes as an important focus, sometimes more as an aside. The club, in two somewhat different incarnations, also formed the basis of a spinoff series of the Twins, aptly named the Unicorn Club series, in which the girls and their friends were in seventh grade.

The last book in the Twins series served as a kind of bookend to the whole set. The girls were sixth graders throughout the series till this book. In the last one, they were about to enter eighth grade. The book included a few characters not introduced in the Twins series but present in the Unicorn Club books–most notably Rachel Grant, a wealthy African American counterpart to Lila. The book served as a leadin to a new and not very successful series about the kids attending a new junior high school.

The gossip was named Caroline Pearce.

The details of how Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield met varied from book to book and series to series. Besides the two stories mentioned above, there was also one Twins book in which they described how they met at college (more specifically, at Sweet Valley University before it was called that, and even more specifically, while teammates in a pickup volleyball game). Some items have to remain consistent from one book to the next. But when you are producing a book every couple of months for each of four major series, many other things kind of go by the boards.

The fat girl was indeed Lois Waller. Robin was the name of the twins’ coolest cousin, who lived down San Diego way and made an occasional appearance. She was the daughter of Mrs. Wakefield’s favorite–but as it turns out not ONLY–sister.

There. The expert speaks.

[No, I am not Francine Pascal, though she does actually exist. But I WAS one of the ghostwriters for the series–now it can be told–and I wrote a bunch of Twins and Unicorn books from outlines. It was fun, though the deadlines were tight, and it helped keep my kids in Cheerios.]

40

I read a few of the Sweet Valley books. I remember being obsessed with Baby-Sitters Club in 3rd and 4th grade. I read all the American Girl Collection books that they had.