Sweet Valley Series

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While I was cleaning out my cupboards last weekend, I found Return of the Evil Twin . The plot's ridiculous even for SVH: Nora, the rich southern long-lost twin of dead Wakefield twin impersonator Margo, searches for her sister and winds up in Sweet Valley, where she learns Margo didn't actually die --she just tricked the paramedics by holding her breath for a really long time and then escaping after causing the ambulance to crash -- and then plots with her to replace both twins. But the funniest thing about it is that the fight between M&N which results in Nora mistakenly killing Margo is about who gets to be which twin: neither one wants to be "boring" Elizabeth, and the ghostwriter gets in a few jabs at her wardrobe and sexless relationship with Todd. Heh

I had that one! I read it when I was maybe 11 and it scared the crap out of me. Now I wish I'd kept it because it would be so hilarious. I remember something about a Hall of Mirrors....

I also had two of the "Twins" Christmas special-type books, one was a ripoff of Big and the other was the one where they travel to some fantasy land. The special books were the cheesiest!

[Jibby]

the other was the one where they travel to some fantasy land. The special books were the cheesiest!

Was it the Christmas one? Where the twins get dolls for Christmas and the dolls come alive and turn out to be princes from the fantasy land? I LOVE that book! It was always one of my favorite SV books for some reason. I read it so many times I practically had it memorized.

/dork

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jibby said:

the other was the one where they travel to some fantasy land. The special books were the cheesiest!

Was it the Christmas one? Where the twins get dolls for Christmas and the dolls come alive and turn out to be princes from the fantasy land? I LOVE that book! It was always one of my favorite SV books for some reason. I read it so many times I practically had it memorized.

/dork

Ooh, besides the generation ones, the Specials were my favorite too! I LOVED that one.

I'm really wishing I hadn't given away my hundreds of SVH/SVU/BSC books!

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jibby said:

the other was the one where they travel to some fantasy land. The special books were the cheesiest!

Was it the Christmas one? Where the twins get dolls for Christmas and the dolls come alive and turn out to be princes from the fantasy land? I LOVE that book! It was always one of my favorite SV books for some reason. I read it so many times I practically had it memorized.

/dork

Yeah, that's the one. I loved it too. I think the 1bruce1 site has a review up of it.

[dwanollah]

Didn't Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher also show up in that one...? I read a stripped-cover copy of it, and it was so craptastical that I threw it out. And I have copies of the first two of the Sweet Valley Twins books still. Not to mention the warewolf ones. But a girl's gotta have standards, y'know.

[lyrasilver]

There was a Sweet Valley Twins Christmas special where Elizabeth wishes she'd never been born, and then this angel comes down to show her what it would be like in Sweet Valley if she really hadn't been born, and the Wakefield family was all fractured and Jessica was a big mess and Steven was mean, and Sweet Valley was not the same OMG!

I just looked it up on Amazon to see if it really existed. Here's the summary:

Everyone is furious with Elizabeth for loaning the Christmas party money to a homeless family, so she decides to run away. She thinks Sweet Valley would be better off if she'd never been born. Elizabeth meets a girl who claims to be her guardian angel who shows her how important she is after all.

There are some other SVT Christmas books on Amazon, including a Groundhog Day style one where Jessica relives Christmas Eve until she learns to stop being so selfish. Awesome.

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larisa said:

I had that one! I read it when I was maybe 11 and it scared the crap out of me. Now I wish I'd kept it because it would be so hilarious. I remember something about a Hall of Mirrors....

Yeah, that's where Margo kidnapped Jess --and instead of killing her then like any reasonable psycho, she decides to stash her in the basement of SVH before taking her place at the Wakefields' . Could she have picked a stupider hiding-place?

Does anyone know what a Liz-free Sweet Valley was like?

[kateln]

Bliss?

Am I imagining it, or was there a book where they went to the midwest to visit their aunt and uncle, who totally lived in a backwards small town? And Jessica was ridiculed for dressing over the top?

[dwanollah]

Oh, gads... the second Spring Break one. It was one of the worst SVH books ever. At least, until the werewolf and evil plastic surgeon and Jungle Prom bullshit came along.

[nuclearteacup]

dwanollah said:

At least, until the werewolf and evil plastic surgeon and Jungle Prom bullshit came along.

See, now what other book series can claim all this (in addition to the kidnappings, evil lookalikes, and unlikely internships)? This is why I still love these books!