Story Time: When Amanda Met Sweet Valley

I put every Sweet Valley book still in my public library system on hold, and I won a few more from eBay, so expect some recapping goodness in the future!

The first one I will recap is SVU #1: College Girls.  I would say it’s fitting, because SVU ended up being my favorite series – I read it for 10 years.  It didn’t last for 10 years, but do you know how many Sweet Valley series there are and that I was reading at the same time?  It took me a few extra years to catch up.  But it’s not really fitting.  Fitting would be Sweet Valley Twins #1: Best Friends because that’s where I started it all.

Yay, story time!  This is the story of how I came to fall in love with the town of Sweet Valley.

So, it was Spring 1991, and it was the end of second grade.  I spent spring break utterly bored because I’d forgotten to check out books from the library, so my mom let me borrow her old Bobbsey Twins books.  Yes, this is relevant to the plot.  Mom let me read them because she knew of my obsession with twins – I made her watch Degrassi (Jr.) High just a couple years prior because of Heather and Erica.  Anyway, I loved the Bobbsey Twins, so when school started back up again, I went to the library to find more books.  The Bobbsey Twins happened to be next to another book series featuring twins.

Yes, Sweet Valley Twins.  The school only had the first 10 books, though.  I could only check out two books at a time back then, and I had a tendency to check out one for my mom every week – stuff like Where the Red Fern Grows and Little House on the Prairie books, stuff I knew she’d like, so it took me two weeks to read all 10 books – I checked out a new one every day.

Well, once I finished reading them, I told my friends how awesome the books were, and they wanted to see for themselves.  Soon, the 10 Sweet Valley books my library had was not enough for the girl population of the school.  They actually ordered more by third grade, including Sweet Valley High for the older kids.

But there was a meanwhile.  Meanwhile, I asked my mom if she could buy me all the Sweet Valley books.  She said, “We’ll see,” and I do think it was her honest intent to buy me them.  However, there were a lot more than 10 at the time, so my mom came up with a new solution – family needed a library card!

To this day, I wonder if I had never discovered Sweet Valley, would my family still have discovered they had a love for reading, too?

Anyway, I don’t know why SVU was my favorite.  I’m pretty sure I had a reason when I was ten, but that was a long time ago.  I know I was still reading them when I was twenty because they didn’t bore me yet, which is not a reason to say “it’s my favorite”.  I guess the world will never know.

I never really liked The Unicorn Club or Elizabeth, though.  Unicorn Club, I read the first four and was like, “Wow, this is horrible,” and never read it again.  Elizabeth, I read the first two, thought, “Wow, this is horrible,” but discovered there were only 6 books in the series so I braved through it, wishing the whole time there was a Jessica series, since that was bound to be more interesting.

Okay, that’s enough about my relationship with Sweet Valley!  Look for my recap of College Girls coming soon!

The Other Side of the School: Olivia Davidson

Olivia Davidson is, of course, the zombie I was alluding to earlier.  I did not have that much of a connection with Olivia Davidson.  I read Olivia’s Story when I was 9, and the only thing I really remember from that one was a reference to My Fair Lady, because I managed to read the book the day after I’d seen that movie for the first time.  I like My Fair Lady and quote it often.  I remember Olivia being weird, not artsy.

So the thing that bothered me about Olivia was, you know, her dying.  Not because I had any affinity for the character, obviously.  But because I’d been reading SVU since I was ten and the earthquake in Sweet Valley happened when I was sixteen, and learning that Olivia died, I had one very serious question.

“How the hell was she in that one SVU book for Christmas?” 

This was actually the first time in my life I very seriously questioned the world of Sweet Valley.  Yes, even with vampires and werewolves – those were obviously a very wild acid trip, even though you think the book would let us in on that so we’d see how bad acid is – but it’s not like anyone in book learned their lesson, so why should we?

You know, it is Sweet Valley, though.  She was obviously pretend dead, like Margo Black or Nick Fox.  But you would think someone would call her out on it!  “Hey, Olivia… you died.”  Was this resolved in the summer in between senior year and university?  Or did they meet another Olivia Davidson to fill a void in their lives and make her pretend like she was there the whole time?  It is seriously disturbed.

You know who could have died was Maria Slater.  Or, you know, someone that they brought back from the other side of the school just to die since we were never going to see them again anyway.  Not somebody that it’s already been established that she’s still alive when the twins go to University.  This is all kinds of messed up, even for Sweet Valley.

I’m going with pretend dead, to teach Ken Matthews a lesson in being a douche.  Which is a harsh lesson, but – it’s better than she came back from the dead for Christmas.  That is just freaking creepy.

The Other Side of the School: Janet Howell

I have decided that The Other Side of the School will be my own little “segment” to discuss characters that were put on a bus/sent to the other side of the school/made zombies and hope that maybe readers will correct me, because I swear with some of these things I really hope I’m wrong/missed a book somewhere.

That said, I know that characters being put on a bus or sent to the other side of the school to never return is just normal in Sweet Valley. It kind of always disturbed me in the case of Janet Howell from Sweet Valley Twins.

Janet Howell is two years older than Elizabeth, Jessica, and Lila, so I can’t call shenanigans on this one, really. She’d have already been at college, or something more epic, or dead, by the time SVH took place. The biggest problem I have with this is that Janet Howell is Lila’s cousin. I know the Fowler’s are like the crappiest family ever (unless money equals love, because I would definitely sign up to be a Fowler to have Lila’s monetary clout), but every other extended family member in Lila’s family managed to get a mention in SVH and SVU, but there’s no mention of Janet, ever.

I live in the same town as my cousin who’s two years younger than me. We didn’t even go to the same high school and we would still run into each other in public places. What, did Janet give up the mall?

Ooh! Janet became a nun right out of high school. That’s the only way I’m going to accept that she is never mentioned again despite being a relative to the most important character who’s last name isn’t Wakefield ever.

I mean, they brought Maria Slater back from the other side of the school New York, and I didn’t even care that much about her. Maria made me feel “less than”, I’m not going to lie. Plus, they already had Maria Santanelli, so that was just confusing. Can’t even say Maria S.

Basically, Janet Howell is the one character I need to know what happened to her RIGHT NOW or my brain will implode. Did she really even have to be related to Lila at all? I know they used it as a plot device in Best Friends because that’s how Lila got an in to the Unicorns, but – she’s Lila Freaking Fowler. If they didn’t let her in, she would have started an even more exclusive club that made the Unicorns look less popular than Lois Waller. Plus, Janet wasn’t even rich. I always had a feeling that the Fowler’s had old money, so I just imagined Janet would be a little better off than the Wakefields.

I bet the other kids of Sweet Valley disowned her for having a crappy car. It was probably a Toyota with the T fallen off and missing part of the bumper and one of the headlights didn’t work. Or worse, she didn’t have a car at all and had to TAKE THE BUS. That, or the nun thing.

Do You Want to Win a Free Copy of Sweet Valley Confidential?

There’s a contest to win a free copy of Sweet Valley Confidential once it is released!  The contest is being run on Addicted 2 Novels, and you only have until August 9 to enter!  To enter, you have to comment on their blog – all the rules are listed there.  Other things also qualify you for extra entries into the contest!  Good luck to you!

WWJWD – What Would Jessica Wakefield Do?

In all honesty, this really is just going to be another fan blog because I can no longer contain my excitement for Sweet Valley Confidential or the Diablo Cody movie.  Pay attention – I fully plan on doing things for the fans of Sweet Valley, and I already have some contests and stuff planned, even though they’re for much later.

But, I really would give my left leg just to be on set of the Sweet Valley High movie – when I was only 11 and the TV series barely came out, I was already casting a Sweet Valley movie in my head – granted it was Twins and I wanted to be Patty and thought Mary-Kate and Ashley should be Elizabeth and Jessica, but that’s besides the point.  At three in the morning, because that’s when all great ideas are born, I had the awesomest of ideas – WWJWD?  What Would Jessica Wakefield Do?

Jessica Wakefield would scheme and campaign to get her way.

And I do plan on doing a little of that now and again.  Do I expect it to work?  No.  But it’ll still be entertaining.

I have started a Facebook group – I haven’t advertised it on Facebook, so there’s probably no members, but I plan on using it in conjunction with this blog.  You can also follow me on Twitter @AmandaSVH.