Sweet Valley High, the books & the TV series

[Dustyblue]

I was tempted to put this in the Telly section but this seemed better.

As a massive fan of the books (I have a few hundred of them... they're getting harder and harder to find in decent condition) I've watched many of the TV series episodes. Even though they butchered the books, I'm that much of a fan I kept watching 😁

The actors who played Elizabeth & Jessica, Brittany & Cynthia Daniels, are interviewed here years later. Wow, what a story... Francine Pascal herself didn't come up with this!

Brittany Daniel Had a Baby Using Her Twin Sister Cynthia's Donor Egg (people.com)

Have you read the books about them as grown ups? Think one is called Sweet Valley Confidential. Oh the scandals!

I loved those books!! Had a couple of hundred. Recently got rid of them all (very reluctantly) as I just had nowhere to store them, and I know my kids will never be interested in reading them. I loved the show too, although I don't think I ever watched them all. I wanted to be a Jessica so badly as a teen but I was probably more an Elizabeth 😆

You should check out the Double Love podcast - very amusing take on the SVH books by two Irish women.

Oooh I will check out that podcast, thanks!

I highly recommend “If you lived here you’d be perfect by now” by Robin Hardwick. She was a huge fan of the SVH books then reread them as an adult and wrote this review style book. It’s very funny, and contains a lot of WTF moments that just never occurred to the teenager reader at the time, me included! I did want to read the series again after though.

Came here to suggest this. It's so funny - they have a membership where they discuss the TV series too. Their online community is lovely.

This rings a bell with me.... I think Robin was on the 1bruce1 community and was researching her book at the time.

I still read the 1bruce1 Recap List when I need a laugh, it's endlessly awesome 😂

Admin: Recap List (livejournal.com)

What a blast from the past! I loved SVH and Sweet Valley University books. So did my friends, we used to buy and swap them and the local library had a few in too. Didn't see much of the TV shows though.

I loved SVH. I got into big trouble one year for blowing all my Easter money on their books at Uni! Had no idea they had a series in their 30s too 🤩

I still have all my books!!! The entire series!

How could I forget the twins and their "perfect size six figures"? No body positivity movement in 1983!

Loved these books and the TV series back in the day.
My English teacher hated them, said they were "chewing gum for the eyeballs." 😂

Wasn't there a similar series called Sweet Dreams? Completely different stories and characters in each one, kind of Mills & Boon-lite!

I loved the books. I always wanted to be Elizabeth.

Thinking back tho it seems awful that they were labelled as the smart one and the popular one. As tho that was the limits of who they were

Sweet Dreams came first, in 1981, and SVH was an offshoot from 1983.

Sweet Dreams had a stable of authors turning out high school romances with a variety of settings. The first on, P.S. I Love You had the live interest die of cancer, which was a weird way to launch romance novels aimed at 12-15 year olds!

This thread just triggered a memory in me. I was never really a big reader of SVH but my best friend was and sometimes I flicked through them at her house. I seem to remember each book ended with a bit of a cliffhanger and a teaser for the next book. One time I'm sure I read one which ended with one of the twins having a sore throat, and something a lot like, "will she have to go to hospital? Find out in the next book The Twins Go To Hospital" 😂

I remember in one book Elizabeth hit her head and when she woke up she was behaving like Jessica. What 'cured' her? Another bump on the head of course!

There’s a word press called ‘snark valley’ about SVH.
I loved the books when I was younger, but this cracked me up

https://snarkvalley.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/1-double-love/

@autienotnaughty I remember that one! I was astounded Elizabeth got on a motorbike without a helmet, and that Todd didn't give her his helmet!

Elizabeth and Todd broke up for a while, can't remember why, and then back together but I never managed to find the connecting book!

I used to love these! And the adults one where they were getting married etc and they tried to make them racy😂🙈

There was a very weird Christmas (?) one too, that went a bit fantasy-ish. They were given twin dolls with bracelets with poems on and ended up in an alternate universe for a bit I think.

There were historical versions too! One followed their dad's line back and the other followed their mums. All the characters had similar names and they were inter-twined with the main characters almost getting together but never did until the twins parents met. I loved those so much!

You mean the whole SVH series or the whole lot of 578-odd in all the series together??

I mainly have the original series and SVU, plus the Special Eds.

Please tell me yours are on very special bookshelves painted purple and adorned with unicorns etc?? 😁

That's right! I think if I remember correctly Elizabeth cheated on him!

I have a fair number of Sweet Dreams too! Agreed that was a weird way of introducing a series. I reckon they were aiming at something a bit 'Judy Blume' at first. She covered lots of darker topics & was pretty much Queen of teen fiction at the time.

Yup there was definitely much cross-over of writers between SVH & SD. One of my favourite SD authors was Janet Quin Harkin, and to my relief she admitted years later she was also ghost-writing SVH. I knew it all along! 😝

This is a great interview with one of the many ghostwriters, worth a read!

A 'Sweet Valley High' Ghostwriter On Living A Double Life : NPR

I also have the SVH spin-off "Caitlin". She was supposed to be like a more evil Jessica with black hair. She rode horses a lot and lived with her nasty grandmother. Ahh memories, might have to re-read that series.