Sweet Valley Series

[Deleted]

Aw, I always loved Jessica! She could be pretty funny, unlike Liz, who was born without a sense of humor. And a mole on her cheek, which is how everyone could tell them apart.

[linared]

I think the writers on that site make a good point that Liz is worse than Jess because she will protest that whatever dastardly plan Jessica had that week is wrong but she will still go along with it. So at least Jess isn't a hypocrite. And what with was Liz's inability to say no to Jess? I would never go along with half of those schemes or cover for Jess's mistakes.

Wasn't Lila date raped or experienced an attempted date rape? Thinking back, I believe that the writers covered this well, Lila experienced some residual trauma, freaking out that other guys were going to try to rape her too. It is totally bizarre though that the other girls of Sweet Valley immediately turn to date rape accusations when they get pissed at a guy.

[Sunbaby]

linared said:

Wasn't Lila date raped or experienced an attempted date rape? Thinking back, I believe that the writers covered this well, Lila experienced some residual trauma, freaking out that other guys were going to try to rape her too. It is totally bizarre though that the other girls of Sweet Valley immediately turn to date rape accusations when they get pissed at a guy.

Yep, it was attempted date rape by John Pfieffer (the last name I don't remember how to spell). He was the editor at the school newspaper, the Oracle (I think that's what it was called!). The name of the book was called "Don't go home with John" (I think).

I can't believe I remember that.

[kostgard]

mizj said:

Aw, I always loved Jessica! She could be pretty funny, unlike Liz, who was born without a sense of humor. And a mole on her cheek, which is how everyone could tell them apart.

That is true - Jessica is a sociopath, but Liz just plain sucks. And yes, she'd complain about Jessica's schemes, but she almost always went along with them - because she is a total pushover. Looking back, I'm so ashamed that while growing up I identified a lot more with Liz than with Jessica. The only time I wanted to be Jessica was when she made herself over into Euro-Jess. I thought that was pretty cool.

So I was a totaly loser like Liz (though I hated her 40 year old soccer mom wardrobe), apparently secretly wanted to make myself over into the Euro-me, and I wanted Lila Fowler's car. I always wondered what it looked like, then I saw one in a parking lot one day (it was even green! Just not lime green), and thought it was the coolest car evah.

[linared]

That website I linked to is reviewing the All Night Long books and I only vaguely remember them, so I'd thought I would ask you all SVH experts about them. I guess I could wait for the reviewer to finish but I have burning questions:

Doesn't Jess admit that she was the one that slipped booze into Liz's drink? Does she get in trouble? What judge would accept this excuse and let Liz go scot free? I'm assuming that Jess isn't traumatized that her actions killed her boyfriend and almost sent her sister to jail. And everyone forgives her right away, even her sister, right?

Maybe this is because I've never been really wasted before (and who does get wasted on half a dixie cup of vodka) but wouldn't Liz at least realize that she is feeling weird and that it isn't a good idea to drive? And I love who everyone in the book thinks Liz is acting drunk but because she is the good twin, she can't be drunk. So they allow her to slur and fall down and drive because there couldn't be any possible explanation to why she is acting so weird and no one checks on her. Maybe she hit her head again. Morons.

For some reason, I do remember how Lila falsely accuses her counselor of attacking her because she has PTSD. I have to say that that counselor is stupid. If you have a client who was attacked, has PTSD and admits that she now sees every friendly contact from a guy as a prelude for an attack, you don't spend time alone with her in a dark secluded classroom.

[Deleted]

I remember that Jessica was the one who spiked Liz's punch, or whatever, but it turned out that the accident wasn't Liz's fault at all. It was some other guy, some poor schmuck who came forward at the last possible moment to take the fall.

I also remember there being a huge rift between the twins for that whole mini series, until the end, when their lookalike almost kills them. I guess all was mutually forgiven after that.

[dwanollah]

Nothing brings twin sisters together like a look-alike psycho killer....

[kostgard]

A look-alike psycho killer? Whah??

I didn't stick with this series for very long, and obviously I missed a lot of the truly crazy stuff. I don't know which number I stopped at, but I at least got through the Jeffrey French era, and I think I may have stopped around the time Todd came back from Vermont, although I'm not 100% positive. I may be thinking about one of their million and one Magical Christmas Breaks that they had over the course of their junior year where they all went skiing or something and Todd was there (but was apparently cool with Jeffrey).

I also understand that there was a werewolf at some point? Those twins are just magnets for trouble. How many times have they been abducted or nearly date raped or attacked by supernatural creatures?

[Mutagen]

Margo, the psycho lookalike! Who conveniently scrawled "I AM ELIZABETH WAKEFIELD" across her mirror with lipstick, so the police could figure out her dastardly plans!

I had an Embarrassing Literary Crush on Josh, the vigilante guy who was stalking Margo because she killed his little brother. Which incidentally, it still creeps me out to think about the scene where she drowns the little boy.

[luciano]

Margo AND Nora! There were two of them! They cracked me up because when it came time to choose which twin they were going to replace, they got pissed off at each other because neither of them wanted to be Liz. Heh.

Liz was horrible. The woman made out with Todd while poor Jeffrey was stuck in her closet and hearing everything - she still managed to make Jeffrey not say anything to Todd except that he had himself a good girl. Pfft.