Sweet Valley Series

[dwanollah]

What about Jess's first summer fling, "Robbie October"? SV or pr0n?

[Mutagen]

carrier76 said:

UM. There's a book called "KIDNAPPED BY THE CULT"? And the cult leader's name is ADAM MARVEL. Oh good gravy.

Oh I loooooooooooooooved the cult book! And by "loved" I mean I read it repeatedly, gawking at it trainwreck-style. That is up there with Elizabeth's motorcycle accident and Lila's almost-date rape as one of the Sweet Valley moments I most keenly remember. Didn't Jessica have to go to the mall to recruit people, or did she get recruited herself at the mall?

[linared]

I went to the library today and bought ten SWH and SWU books. I don't have all of the titles on hand but when I do, I will list them and if anyone wants a recap let me know. Of course, now I'm going to start a Sweet Valley buying obsession, just like my BSC buying obsession. I don't have room for all of these books.

ETA: I'm currently reading Jessica's Secret Diary, Volume 2. Observations so far: Jessica is completely self obsessed and mentions how attractive she is on almost every single page. Jessica is a huge bitch to Lila, by pretending to ignore her bday while planning a surprise party. It is bit harsh to pretend you don't care about someone who has really bad abandonment/family issues. Plus she makes Lila nearly cry in front of the whole school. Bitch. Jessica also admits that she and her friends are backstabbing hos. Weird note: the picture of Jessica on the outside cover looks modern and totally different from the picture of Jessica on the inside cover. It is like they forget to modernize both pictures. I've only gotten to page 60 so I haven't gotten to the part where Jessica betrays her sister again.

[kostgard]

Oh, crap - that site linked above just did a recap on "The New Elizabeth" - the one where she cuts loose and goes crazy by getting a perm and learning to surf.

Anyway, they've got a picture of the cover art and I just realized that I had Liz's swimsuit! The only difference is that mine was black and green instead of black and pink. My goodness, was I a huge dork!

[marywebgirl]

She got a perm then decided to spend her free time in saltwater and sun? I thought she was supposed to be the smart one.

[kostgard]

Well, considering that in the book she had never heard of a "riptide" before and didn't know what it meant to "hang ten" despite living in southern California her whole life and spending huge amounts of time on the beach, "smart one" must be a completely relative term.

Man. No wonder Jessica was so nuts - knowing that everyone considered you intellectually inferior to that.

[kathy1977]

I just got a shitload of SVH books from my local library. We have this thing called "Iborrow" where if my closest library doesn't have a specific book they will get it from another library. I'm surprised that alot of libraries no longer carry much in the way of this series so I had SVH books coming from libraries all over the county! And I got them all within 3 days. The best part is that it's totally free.

I still have about 20 more that should be here by Saturday.

[Mutagen]

Days later, it still randomly occurs to me that the SVU recap community on livejournal is named 1bruce1, and makes me laugh so hard. Even in meetings, people! Where I'm supposed to act like a professional!

[kbchase]

I used to LOVE the special where the girls are nannies in Malibu...and the dorky relative of one of the couples the girls are sitting for is actually a SUPERSTAR! Of course he is incognito as a bookish nerd, so Jessica ignores him but he and Liz make sparks.

So ridiculous.

Was Robbie October Jessica's fling in the Bike trip special?

I know that we did get a gay character later in the series....but I can't recall who it was! Aaron Dallas? Ken Matthews?

[dwanollah]

Tom... er, what was his last name again? I'll have to look it up.

ETA: Tom McKay! And here's what I wrote in my SVH Blather:

Worst Handling of an “Issue”
Around 1990-91, SVH decided to tackle “serious” issues like drugs, divorce, racism, eating disorders and homosexuality. Regina died of a one-time-sample of cocaine. Sweet Valley was torn apart by harassment and hate speech towards their token 3 black students. The Wakefields had all sorts of marriage trouble and separated. Yeah, most of these were kinda clunky “issues,” but the worst by far was the homosexuality plotline. See, Tom McKay breaks up with Jean West because he doesn’t feel passionate about her. Around the same time, Enid’s cousin Jake comes to town, and all the girls are all aflutter over him. At some party, Tom and Jake discuss jazz music and tennis or something and strike up a friendship. Then Jake confesses to Tom that he’s gay. And Tom freaks because… HE might be gay too!

There’s no mention of sex or attraction or passion or interest or ANYTHING. Just “what if I’m gay too?” because he couldn’t “feel passion” for Jeannie…? And because he enjoyed talking to Jake about tennis and jazz…? Because you know how those boys who like tennis and jazz are….