"Francine Pascal," or whoever actually wrote these books, taught me how to read. Nancy Drew was my angel in first grade; by third, the Wakefield sisters were my guiding light, and if it weren't for them, I'd be television literate today. As it is, I cannot hold an informed conversation with members of my cohort about the Snorks or Family Ties, and I spend all my free time on a book-themed social networking site....O, Jessica! O, Elizabeth! How unjust it seemed at the time that I must share my name with the wanton airhead twin, while brainy, responsible, wonderful Elizabeth wrote for the school newspaper, and clearly had all her kind, charitable, writerly priorities in perfect place. Elizabeth would never have been friends with cruel, spoiled, predestined cocaine addict Lila Fowler! Elizabeth's finer nature meant she hung around with poor bespectacled Enid, even though she was ugly and boring. In retrospect, Jessica's teenage life looks like a lot more fun, while Elizabeth seems a bit like a neurotic, miserable, misplaced martyr figure with sparkling aquamarine eyes and a red Spider Fiat, but hey....These books indelibly scarred me by establishing deeply bizarre expectations for a particularly unrealistic adolescence that I am still trying to come to grips with missing. Nonetheless, I think it was worth it. When I was in elementary school, I had friends who weren't allowed to read Sweet Valley High, who were left with the vastly inferior Sweet Valley Twins series, which was stupid and boring with no boyfriends or kidnapping or motorcycle crashes, and was just about going to ballet lessons and Unicorn Club meetings.... LAME! If I'd been stuck with those books, I just wouldn't have read. Parents, if you want your kids to become serious readers, you should let them read garbage. Garbage! These books were glorious, reeking, wonderful piles of filthy GARBAGE, and I loved them like crazy, and I still do.Viva las Wakefields!
I was reading Sweet Valley Kids when I was little. All of it were hand me downs by the daughter of my mother's officemate. I didn't even see her or know her name (Wherever you are right now, thank you for giving me books when I was young).The Sweet Valley High is still about the sun-colored hair identical twins; this series is the adult or older version of the SVK. No matter how identical the Wakefield twins in appearance, their characters are far from each other. They're like day and night. Elizabeth Wakefield--older by four minutes than her sister--is smart, kind, and the best sister you can ever have. While Jessica Wakefield is the popular, vain, and the worst sister you can ever have. I just love to hate Jessica. She's the original Blair Waldorf of Gossip Girl or Regina George of Mean Girls. Do girls like these really exist? Throughout the story, she was preventing her sister's happiness. She's manipulative and doing things in her way, usually without being reprimanded. Though Elizabeth is very kind, I can't help but get irritated sometimes because she's being way too kind. She's spoiling her rotten sister, maybe that's one of the reasons why Jessica takes advantage of her. But Elizabeth is the epitome of good always wins in the end.I think that Todd is not the right guy for any of the twins because he did WHAT?! in the middle of the story. But I'll give him a chance as it is still the start of the series.I'm amazed on how Francine Pascal never ran out of plots for these twins; she made tons of series for all age brackets. It is evident that she got some formulas, but who cares? It's interesting and it's still making readers hooked.
What do You think about Double Love (1984)?
I'm rating this book as I would have at age 13. A few key points to take into consideration: At age 13 I probably had the ugliest haircut you could ever imagine. A disturbing cross of Michael Jackson's early hair from the Jackson Five and Dorothy Hamel's pixie cut. I also was sporting a uni-brow, acne, and a mouth full of metal. Is there any doubt why a story about beautiful blond popular twins excited me to no end. How I yearned to live their teenaged life......(cue gagging sounds) I don't regret reading all 5000 books of this series. It played baby steps in building my love of reading, but with that being said, I will not encourage my 6 year old daughter to venture into the superficial, shallow, Sweet Vally World.
—Monica Johnson
The entire premise behind "Childhood Trauma" is to go back and re-read the books we grew up with. I, however, never actually read Sweet Valley High as a kid, which gave me the unique perspective of being able to read these for the first time as a(n) (almost completely) functioning adult.Oh. My. God. In short, Jessica Wakefield is a bitch. A really, really pretty bitch. Her sister, Elizabeth Wakefield is a doormat. A really, really pretty doormat. In the first SVH book, Liz has fallen head over perfect-size-six-ass in love with Todd (affectionately known on our blog as Throat Punch Todd or TPT.) Jess decides this can't happen because all boys must love her. So, basically we get a book full of Jessica cockblocking her own sister, Elizabeth crying a whole freakin' lot and uh, doormat-ing. A lot. Jess gets sexually harassed by someone because that is what happens in Sweet Valley. A lot. The police are called and Jess lets them think that she is Liz, because she is a horrible human being. Todd decides that Liz is a bad, bad girl, because of the whole cops/bar thing and will not even look at her in the cafeteria anymore. Todd takes Jess to the school dance, but he's watching Liz the whole timeJess is pissed. It all culminates in Jess falsely accusing Todd of rape, because if there is one thing we should teach the youth of America, it's that you should lie about rape when you don't get your way. All's well that ends well when Liz and Todd talk it out and realize that Jess is just a crazy bitch. Liz forgives her sister. The End. So glad I read this. You can check out the full recap over at Childhood Trauma: "Double Love" or Welcome to Sweet Valley Cry.
—Mari
This book made me want to add a new shelf titled "Barfy". This was horrible! I thought I'd read a couple of Sweet Valley High books as a kid but realized it was the Sweet Valley Twins series after I started reading this. There were so many hilariously bad things to highlight! Here are a few of my favorites:"I make it a habit to know where all the foxiest chicks in Sweet Valley live." Shudder..."She was so beautiful and fragile at that moment, Steven thought, her brown eyes shining, her hair floating about her oval face in a red-gold cloud." WTF does that mean? Whose hair "floats"? Was it a perm gone awry? "Can we talk later? There's so much I want to tell you. How about a long conversation over clams and a shake at the Dairi Burger tonight?" The only proper answer to this inquiry is, "Who DOESN'T want to have a long chat over clams and milkshakes?" It's the combo of champions!"Within seconds, he had jumped into his Datsun and was speeding after them." The mention of a Datsun is just amazing!As a child, I only read books 1 and 2 of the Sweet Valley Twins series. After reading this book, I remembered why! Jessica is an insufferable brat and Liz is a wuss. These fools have nothing on Ramona Quimby.
—Kristen
