Inspired by the thread on horsey fiction: a thread on teenage fiction from the 70s and 80s

[Bookridden]

I loved the nostalgia of reading the pony books thread. I graduated onto teen reads at about 13/14, and wondered if anyone remembers these:
Sweet Dreams romances (American, mass produced, total hokum but strangely addictive)
The British version of Sweet Dreams, which I think was called Heartlines. The setting was a bit less glamorous but the basic idea was the same.
A trilogy by Francine Pascal about a selfish, bitchy girl called Caitlin (think her bf was called Jed)
Sweet Valley High - obviously.
And then there were individual titles that stood out :
A Fortunate Few by Tim Kennemore
Second Star to the Right by Deborah Hautzig
The best little girl in the world by Steven Levenkron
The Cool Boffin by Pete Johnson

So many more. Great times for teenage readers.

When I wasn't reading books about horses and ponies I remember some of my favourite books were written by S E Hinton:

The Outsiders,
That Was Then, This Is Now
Rumble Fish.

All were made into films; The Outsiders had a cast that included Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe Tom Cruise to name a few.

The books were still the best.

Oh the Sisters books are coming back to me now, although I can't remember anything about the stories other than one of the sisters was geeky and another was popular etc?

There was another series about 4 sisters set around WWI - I can't remember the author but the name of the series has stuck in my mind. The Quantocks Quartet.

Thank you, yes it was "Come Back Lucy".

I also loved the books by ? Pamela Brown? about a group of teens setting up a theatre company. I cant remember the titles but one of the characters was called Maddy.

The series about the four sisters is probably Marilyn Kaye. The sisters are Phoebe, Cassie, Daphne and Lydia.

@MyKingdomforaNameChange I think I still have my copy of We the Haunted. I thought about re-reading it a while ago but wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy it as much. I think I read a few of his books
@MirandaWest I loved Falling into Glory.

I also enjoyed a few Jacqueline Wilson books. Falling Apart was the one that really stuck with me.

Lois Duncan yes the family who were stuck in time and the new step daughter realised the stepmother and her two children actually a hundred years old. Brilliant

I inhaled books as a teen Chalet School Judy Blume Lyn Reid Banks Jean Plaidy historical books Agatha Christie Flowers in the Attic Jeffrey archer

@QueenOfTheAndals I think the WWI series about sisters might have been Linda Newberry.

I loved the judy blume books...Forever was passed around like contraband at school. Yes, the name Ralph is forever ruined for me!

Beginners Love by Norma Klein about teenagers in New York...I remember they go to the simon and Garfunkel concert in central park. The girl gets pregnant and has an abortion. Very touching.

My darling, my hamburger by paul zindel which is really weird

The Kevin and sadie books. Endless American romance books....I think the series I liked best was silhouette. All about cheerleaders, and dates and proms etc which was all as far away as possible from my life of a grotty comp, cider by the war memorial, a school disco once a year

@Goawayquickly - Noel Streatfeild’s Gemma books! I have them all.

@EmmaGrundyForPM - The Blue Door books! Golden Pavements was my favourite. All still available.

This has just been the most gorgeous thread!

It is pretty much split into half books I still own, and half books that have rung bells and I'm now trying to find

Thank you to everyone who helped with Marilyn Kaye - I've ordered the series.

Just remembered some more I loved: -

First Team at Tennis by Sally Jones - poor girl, great at tennis. Came complete with diagrams on how to train!
Degrassi Junior High Exit Stage Left y William Pasnak - gritty high school puts on play.

@zelbazinnamon I found them! www.goodreads.com/series/42108-the-quantock-quartet Looks like they're all out of print though.

@JacquesHammer ahhh Degrassi - "all the way with Stephanie Kaye"!

ahhh Degrassi - "all the way with Stephanie Kaye"!

in Exit Stage Left she becomes "more mature" and stops wearing make up for school!

Izzy, Willy-Nilly, by Cynthia Voigt, about a girl who loses a leg in an accident.

The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B Clooney, about a girl whose older sister is suddenly found after disappearing as a child. I recently found out this is the first in a trilogy but haven’t had the chance to look for the others.

Loved Sue Barton and was interested to find out that the author, Helen Dore-Boylston, was a very close friend of Rose Ingalls, Laura Ingalls-Wilder’s daughter. They tried to set up house together in Albania between the wars and were both very strong characters.

The sisters books set in the war might be the Sisters of the Quantock Hills books, by Ruth Elwin Harris? Frances, Julia, Gwen and Sarah?

Fabulous thread! I loved almost all of the authors and books mentioned here, especially Lois Duncan. Don’t Look Behind You was my favourite but I also loved Killing Mr Griffin and Daughters of Eve. I remember the last couple of pages of the latter gave an update on what each of the girls were doing 10+ years on. One of them had been killed in a car accident and that really shook me – the fact that this young person had their life ahead of them and all her friends had made it to adulthood. It made me appreciate how short life can be.

Also loved Hanging Out with Cici and the Marilyn Kaye Sisters books mentioned here. There was also a trilogy with a grandmother, mother and daughter all growing up in Hollywood – the grandmother was a child star in the post-war era, the mother became a massive star in the 60s and then the daughter in the 80s. At the start of the thread @ImportantWater mentions books about girls with life changing injuries. I wonder if these were the same books that I used to read – I remember the girl diving into the shallow pool and becoming paralysed, another book had a girl with leukaemia and one had a girl suffering from anorexia. Each story came in two parts with the first book narrated by the main character herself and the second by a close friend or family member who would pick up the story (usually because the girl would die).

There was another series of sisters books where each of the books focused on the 16th birthday of each sister. I remember one of the sisters was called Evvie (with two vs) so book was Evvie at 16, then the next was x at 16, and so on. There was a prequel with the mother at 16 too. I also remember a book about a teenage tennis player who was questioning her sexuality and had a crush on a female teacher who gave her private tuition. I vividly remember one scene where she got her period and bled onto the cushion of her teacher’s white sofa so flipped it around to hide the stain. When she went back the next time, she checked both sides and the stain had gone so she knew the teacher had found it and washed the cushion cover. I think there was also a murder at the tennis court and the main character was under suspicion but I could be confusing two separate books.

I was obsessed with the Kevin and Sadie books and learned so much from them. I was lucky enough to meet Joan Lindgard as an adult and told her how much her books had meant to me.

I've just done an order from AbeBooks and bought 8 books for £16

I'm also only 5 away from having a full Jean Plaidy collection started in my teens.

I was really obsessed by WW2 fiction as a teen. I still love We'll Meet Again by Molly Lefebure.

Oh and a very trashy novel about an overweight teenager whose mother was a famous model. The mother was embarrassed by her daughter and the daughter was trying to lose weight unsuccessfully. At the end of the book, the daughter decided to accept herself for who she is and set up a social/support group for fat people but after a very short time of “rushing around” organising group meetings and the like, it turned out she had shed a huge amount of the weight without trying or realising and so was beautiful after all. It was a terrible message really.

Has anyone mentioned Sweet Valley High? Some years ago I found hilarious blog that recapped the entire series. It's only now that I realise how batshit the series was!

I read series set on a fictional American island about a girl called zoey. Anymore read then? I remember them being published one at a time. That was 90's though. They were a bit pervy really.

OMG me, I loved those books! The island was off the coast of Maine and they had to get a ferry to school. It was all really incestuous for a bunch of teenagers. Zoey cheated on her nice-but-dim jock boyfriend Jake with bad-boy surfer Lucas who had previously dated stunning but bitchy Claire, who dated Zoey's blind brother Ben when Lucas got packed off to juvy, and then got together with nice-but-dim Jake after Zoey broke his heart, and Ben started dating/shagging Claire's younger sister/Zoey's best friend Nina, who subsequently cheated on him with Lucas when the rest of them all went off to college and abandoned them on the island. There was another nicer girl called Aisha as well who didn't seem to jump on anyone else's boyfriend

I haven't read those books since I was about 15 which is over 20 years ago now; I have no idea how my brain has held so much useless crap for all this time!

I also loved the Babysitter's Club and Sweet Valley High series and had dozens of them. Point Horror too. I started reading a few Stephen King books from about 16 onwards; I remember reading IT after watching the Tim Curry version, and also The Stand and Carrie.

Flowers in the Attic did the rounds at my (very sheltered NI all-girls grammar) school along with 'Forever' by Judy Blume

I still read a lot of animal related books in my teens, as well as all the horsey stuff I was obsessed with James Herriot, a series about two teenage brothers who travelled around the world collecting animals, Jack London, Gerald Durrell etc. I also read and adored (still do) The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit, but I don't think that's standard teenage-girl reading.

Lace by Shirley Conran was another I read as a teen and was at the goldfish scene!

The Face on the Milk Carton - thanks for reminding me. I read that loads. Was do tricky as her grandparents genuinely brought her up.

There was another book about an abducted girl. I can't remember the title. She moved around a lot with her 'mom'. Anytime they settled and got close to people her mom would make them leave. The girl had red hair and made sunset collages. Turned out her mom was a nurse and stole her as a baby from the hospital. The girl was reunited with her real parents and younger sister but still visited her fake Mon in prison.

I also had Degrassi Junior High Exit Stage Left. Funny how we all had the same one or were there no others? I always assumed it was one from a series. I remember the stage was a massive turntable.

From my collection

Amy the one with the girl who turned out to be stolen was called "where it stops nobody knows" but I think it was re published with s different name.
I loved Face on the Milk Carton too.
The Degrassi booked was based on the tv show. There were other Degrassi books I think based on the 'linked' shows (Kids of Degrassi Street etc).

I was really disappointed with the Sweet Valley High ten years on book that came out a few years a go. It was supposed to be ten years after they left High School but wasn't really based on the original dates the first books were written so was the wrong era really. If I have my dates right Jessica and Elizabeth would be 54 years old. I love figuring out how old a character would be based on when the book was published. Margaret from Are You There God (Judy Blume) would be about 62. She'd be somebody Granny probably.

JacquesHammer oh god that's really made me laugh. I wonder if my old copies are in my Mum's attic somewhere. I just Googled and apparently there are 28 books in the series although only the first 8 were written by Katherine Applegate, the rest were ghostwritten. I think I've read up to 12 or 13 going by the titles I recognise.