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)

I used to love those! My library had dozens of them. I got a few on Kindle to re read during the pandemic. The perfect size six figure and eyes the colour of the Pacific Ocean does get a little tiresome though..

I loved these books and devoured then as a child.

Also sweet dreams, there was one I used to re read about a girl spending a summer at the beach ended up being a life guard, fell for one of the male life guards, there was a memorable but in a sweater shop where she chose a sweater from all the colours and she bought one and then when she put it on it made her hair glow and bright out the colour of her eyes or something. Then another time after a miscommunication with the dreamboat lifeguard she went for an angry run on the beach but twisted her ankle and he found her, he then carried get into the ocean and they swam back together because she couldn't walk (couldn't carry her the whole way she clearly couldn't have been a perfect size six 😁). If anyone recognises it and can remember the name I'd love to find it.

Also is it a Judy Blume where the main character gives up her hobby (dancing or maybe an instrument) and the teacher makes a snarky comment about her prioritising mooning at her boyfriend in the dairy queen, so she stomps off and really wants ice cream but can't bring herself to office the teacher right, so has a burger instead that she chomps through angrily and is far less satisfying than the ice cream would've been 😂. Was that tiger eyes?

Yes!! I bought some old copies of sweet dreams a while ago. Will find it and post a photo tomorrow

Sigh, I can't find Robin Hardwick's book online for sale. I don't really do e-books, but thanks @Redglitter for the suggestion of signing up for a free Kindle trial, it might be there!

If anyone in the UK wants to sell their hard copy, I'll consider your price & shout the shipping to Australia 😍

I also don't do podcasts (I know, I'm a luddite, that's why I read SVH when it first came out).... so having trouble accessing 'Double Love'. Should I sign up to Spotify or one of those? I really need to experience this.

@LenaLamont I'm so pleased someone else recognised the name Janet Quin Harkin, that was a long shot!

I still have her spin-off series "On Our Own", from her 2 SD books "Ten Boy Summer" and "The Great Boy Chase". Remember Jill (the serious one) and Toni (the crazy one)? This was 6-books on their college years.

Also have the 'Kelly Blake' spin off, from Yvonne Greene (SD #9 'Cover Girls'). All about modelling in the 80's... Yvonne herself was a model earlier than that & wow, you'd not put your underage daughter through it today.

I was wrong! The sweet dreams I have is Kiss Me, Creep!

@Dustyblue i think the Robin Hardwick book was only ever released on kindle. However, I think it’s basically just a collection of her blog posts from The Dairi Burger so you could just read that and get pretty much the same experience

https://thedairiburger.wordpress.com/

I'd never read them, but enjoyed the new Netflix version.

@Dustyblue I was such a devoted reader of all the SD romances as a kid. I didn’t get on with SVH because I preferred the variety of characters (ok, they were all cardboard cutouts, but I was 12!) in SD to the same bunch of not terribly nice teens in all the SVH.

Before 11, when SD started, I was just as obsessed by the Pullein-Thompson sisters’ books about ponies.

First fairy tales, then Blyton boarding schools, then ponies, then boys.
Such a stereotypical progression 😂

As someone who bought and read her book after reading the blog, the blog is probably better (if you read from the first post) because she recaps out of order, and refers back to previous recaps. The book is a collection of the blog posts but in book order, so sometimes jokes/references back to book recaps that you won't have read yet.

I hope that made some kind of sense!!

i emjoyed a few of the series such as Freshman Dorm and Roomates, where people HAD SEX and DRANK

i also liked the swet valley confidential (just read the first one that kicked it off, not the series)

But then i also liked CHALET GIRLS GROW UP too! which purists hate.

I read a couple of sweet valley high books over Christmas as I found them at my parents house when we went to visit. Ah memories! Thanks to this thread, I have found The Sweet Life on the library app, so thatxsorts out this evening's entertainment. It appears that at 30, Jessica is struggling eith motherhood and Elizabeth is with Bruce!

Ah, it was The Dairi Burger, not 1bruce1- thank you for the memory jog!

In that case, yes I would've already effectively read this book. There's little on the web I haven't read on this topic.

Shame it doesn't come up much at pub trivia nights. Assuming none of the posters here were at the same pub, I'd take 1st place every time 😆

I started on SVH then SD, loved them both equally! We must be about the same age? I just turned 49.

I still have Malory Towers! Went on to SVH/SD mixed with Judy Blume, bit of Catherine Cookson and Mills & Boon (mother's bookshelf) then boys (missed the ponies entirely) and on to Jackie Collins, and 'Lace' and any raunchy book I could find 😊

I regret nothing!

I still have Malory Towers! Went on to SVH/SD mixed with Judy Blume, bit of Catherine Cookson and Mills & Boon (mother's bookshelf) then boys (missed the ponies entirely) and on to Jackie Collins, and 'Lace' and any raunchy book I could find 😊

Are you me?! lol. I still have all my Enid Blyton and Judy Blume's. Also every Jackie Collins, some are my mum's original 80s ones (like Hollywood Wives, which I used to sneak into school and read in English class) and later ones I bought myself. Re-read them all a couple of years back. Also loved some CC like the Glass Virgin, I read several Shirley Conran, particularly loved Lace and Savages, also a few of my mums Jilly Coopers and Elizabeth Gage, another raunchy author. One of the reasons I decided to get rid of all my SVH, the attic can't take any more books 😆

Yes, I think I am your star-crossed twin!!

I still have all the Jackie Collins- have you seen the film version of 'Hollywood Wives'? Candice Bergen plays Elaine Conti, I highly recommend it! Might still be on Youtube.

Still have my 80's hardback pictorial versions of 'The Faraway Tree' series and all the Malory Towers. Re-reading those was delightful, but then I was sad I'll never have a daughter I can name Darryl and send to a clifftop boarding school 😪

Yes to all the Shirley Conran, Judith Krantz, Penny Vincenzi, etc etc!

From your sister in Australia😆

Does anyone know anywhere reputable to buy Sweet Valley Twin books?! I have quite a lot of them but certainly not the whole series as I used to borrow them from the library! I also have a lot of the Sweet Valley High and SVU ..

My daughter is showing an interest in reading them! Probably because her name is Jessica Elizabeth!

My best bet for these books is ebay. I say this as a former online & shop-owning bookseller.

Loads available but they're getting pricier.

For example, I recently contacted an Australian ebay seller who had the most impressive collection... I swooned. But I wanted only some, to complete my own collection, and she was reluctant to split the awesomeness that was her collection... but we came to an agreement.

I love your daughter's name!! Both are classics.

For the true fans- Lila was the character I wanted to be, not the twins. 10 years ago my cousin had a daughter and named her Lila. Not only that, but she was born on Feb 29th!!

I bought a load of stuff online with "Team Lila" written on it. Yes I am a tragic!

@Dustyblue hello sister in Australia 👋😆
I loved Faraway Tree books, those and Malory Towers were my favourite Enid Blyton books. I haven't ever read them since my kids were little and I used to read to them. I sometimes contemplate it then think the magic of them might have faded now. Yes I have seen that 'Hollywood Wives' movie many years ago! I loved the fact Jackie made many of her female characters feisty and ballsy during such a misogynistic time.

My daughter is showing an interest in reading them! Probably because her name is Jessica Elizabeth!

That's so weird! I have a daughter named that too!! I didn't consciously name her after the characters but maybe somewhere in my subconscious it was there!! Unfortunately she wouldn't have touched those kind of books with a bargepole! Very disappointing 😆

I imagine some of you SV fans @Dustyblue and @MermaidEyes also read the Flowers in the Attic and Heaven books, as I also read the same bonkbusters as you. And I was reading them early and still reading the SV books late so I would have been reading them all from 13/14. Excited to know some of the SV books are on Kindle unlimited!

@MermaidEyes Hey Sis!

I like your daughter's name!! Both are classics.

I saved these back in the day, thinking if I ever have a daughter she can read them. Uhh, hmmm, perhaps not. I might have let her after I said a few pertinent words first! "It was a different time, and you should note that..."

I still love the 3 Faraway books... you're right, they do sort of lose their magic, especially when you're trying to convince the child "But we haven't made it to the Land of Take What You Want yet!" Or The Land of Birthdays, the Army of Red Goblins... she's damn good reading!

Hells Bells yes.

I have the books & the box set of 4 Dvds "Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday". (Preens)

Heaven was bloody evil wasn't it? The mountain Father who gave away his children to the highest bidder and on it went for... how many books? I gave up after a while!

After Virginia Andrews died, her lovely family hired a ghostwriter and kept pumping out the books under V.C. Andrews. The Dawn series for example.

Sorry, I've taken this thread way off track! Fun though 😍

Some of these books are giving me a real blast from the past! I read Flowers in the Attic but don't remember the Heaven series. Unfortunately my girls have never been massively interested in a lot of my old books, despite trying to convince them many times that Judy Blume or the Nancy Drew series or SVH are quite excellent reading! One did read a couple of my Christopher Pike teenage horror books though.

@Dustyblue have you seen Garden of Shadows? It’s a four parter, higher quality than the other four films.

@Namechangeforthisthread45 Whoa-ho! I remember that book... that was a prequel to FITA, where Olivia marries Malcolm Foxwoth? And then his Dad turns up with a young bride... it's coming back to me...

That better be on Youtube... thanks so much!