Sweet Valley High

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Sweet Valley High is a young adult book series created by Francine Pascal and written by several ghostwriters (including Emmy-award winning screenwriter Rodney Vaccaro), revolving around the lives of Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, beautiful blonde twins who live in fictitious Sweet Valley, California. The series began with the book Double Love, which was published in 1984. The Sweet Valley High series contained over 150 books and spawned several spin-off series. The last Sweet Valley book, Sweet 18 in the series Sweet Valley Senior Year, was published in January 2003. The books are generally classified as young adult or kids' fiction.

[edit] Structure of the books

Originally, the books centered solely on the lives of the Wakefield twins. As the series progressed, several books were dedicated to other characters within the Sweet Valley universe, although every book contained at least a subplot pertaining to Jessica or Elizabeth.

After the Magna Edition The Evil Twin, which was the 100th book in the regular series, Sweet Valley High was reformatted to contain a succession of story arcs which usually took place over three books, eg: the Cheerleading Miniseries, which saw the Sweet Valley cheerleading squad compete in a national competition, contained Jessica Quits the Squad, The Pom Pom Wars and V For Victory.

In addition to the regular books, the series also contained several Mystery and Super editions. Most of these stories contained outside the Sweet Valley High mainframe, with the events contained within bearing little significance to the main books.

[edit] Main characters

Elizabeth Wakefield is the elder twin, having been born four minutes before her "little sister" Jessica. Elizabeth enjoys reading and writing, and hopes to become a journalist someday. She writes for the Sweet Valley High newspaper, "The Oracle." She writes the weekly gossip column, "Eyes and Ears," (and later "Personal Profiles").

Jessica Wakefield, on the other hand, is superficial, self-absorbed and flirty. Her interests change from minute to minute and she loves being up to date on the latest fashions and music. She often gets herself into sticky situations, relying on Elizabeth to bail her out.

[edit] Recurring Characters

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Ned and Alice Wakefield, the twins' parents
Steven Wakefield, the twins' older brother
Todd Wilkins, Elizabeth's on/off boyfriend
Enid Rollins, Elizabeth's best friend
Lila Fowler, Jessica's best friend and arch-rival.
Winston Egbert, the class clown
Ken Matthews, the quarterback
Caroline Pierce, the school gossip who reforms.
Olivia Davidson, arts editor for The Oracle
Penny Ayala, editor in chief of The Oracle
Roger Barrett Patman, a poor student who turns out to be Bruce Patman's cousin
Jeannie West, Sandra Bacon and Annie Whitman, members of the cheerleading squad
Tom McKay, tennis star
Lois Waller, a shy, overweight student
Bruce Patman, a rich, handsome but extremely arrogant senior
Robin Wilson, cheerleading co-captain
Aaron Dallas, a soccer player
Roger Collins, school newspaper staff advisor and popular English teacher
Nora Dalton, a popular French teacher
Maria Santelli, a cheerleader, daughter of Sweet Valley's mayor and girlfriend of Winston
The Droids, resident Sweet Valley band, consisting of Dana Larson (vocals), Guy Chesney (keyboards), Emily Mayer (drums), Max Dellon (lead guitar) and Dan Scott (bass guitar.)
Bill Chase, a surfer
DeeDee Gordon, Bill's artist girlfriend
Rick Andover, the bad boy

[edit] Other Characters

Cara Walker and Amy Sutton, close friends of Jessica's. Amy was Elizabeth's best friend in the Sweet Valley Twins Books
Jeffrey French, Elizabeth's ex-boyfriend who disappeared from the series
Nicholas and Regina Morrow, wealthy but down to earth siblings
Suzanne Devlin, bad girl turned good
Abbie Richardson, cartoonist for The Oracle
Maria Slater, close friend of Elizabeth; former child star
John Pfeifer, sports editor for The Oracle, Jennifer's boyfriend
Tricia Martin, Steven's ex-girlfriend who died from cancer
AJ Morgan, Jessica's first serious boyfriend
George Warren, Enid's, then Robin's, boyfriend
Sam Woodruff, Jessica's boyfriend who died in a car crash
Christian Gorman, Jessica's boyfriend who died in a fight
Barry Rork, Amy's boyfriend
Scott Trost, Jean's boyfriend (character based upon the real-life person, Scott Trost, actor and author)
Devon Whitelaw, Elizabeth's brief love interest
Claire Middleton, Female player on football team
Pamela Robertson, Bruce's girlfriend

[edit] Spin-off Series

[edit] Sweet Valley Kids

The twins as seven-year-old second graders at Sweet Valley Elementary School. The series included several Special Editions and "Super Snooper" mystery books.

[edit] Sweet Valley Twins

(aka Sweet Valley Twins and Friends)
The twins as twelve year old sixth-graders at Sweet Valley Middle School. This was the first spin-off to originate from SVH, and was written by ghost-writers, who wrote under the name of Jamie Suzanne.

[edit] Team Sweet Valley

A two part deviation from the Sweet Valley Twins series, which sees SVMS compete in the California games, Jessica as a gymnast and Elizabeth as part of the beach volley ball team.

[edit] The Unicorn Club

A popular group of girls from SVMS, including Jessica. The series centers around Jessica and her other five Unicorn friends in the seventh grade.

The Unicorn Club has now expanded to include new members (which is very surprising!), and each book is written from the viewpoint of one of the members.

[edit] Sweet Valley Junior High

The twins as eighth graders. This series saw Jessica and Elizabeth attend a new school after the re-zoning of the Sweet Valley school area.

[edit] Sweet Valley Senior Year

The Sweet Valley High: Senior Year series is the continuation of the Sweet Valley High series. Following an earthquake that happened at the end of the Sweet Valley High series, El Carro High (a school in Sweet Valley) have been ripped apart and its school administration sent five hundred of their students to Sweet Valley High. Hence, new characters have been introduced and it is said to be more realistic.

See Sweet Valley Senior Year

[edit] Sweet Valley University

See Sweet Valley University

[edit] Elizabeth

Chronological, the final chapter in the series and the only spin-off that did not feature Jessica directly. Continues from the plot that occurred at the end of Sweet Valley University; Elizabeth flees to London, intending to continue her university studies, but ends up working as a scullery maid. The series contained six books.

[edit] Sweet Valley Heights

This is an as yet unpublished spin-off of the franchise described by Francine Pascal in the April/May 2005 edition of Bust magazine. According to the interview, Sweet Valley Heights will feature characters from the original series living in a gated community and aged in their 20s or 30s. Some sources claim the title has been changed to Sweet Valley Confidential. The Bust interview claimed the initial publication would appear in late 2005, but as of 2006 it has not appeared.

Sweet Valley Heights - News Updates & Predictions

[edit] TV Show

See Sweet Valley High (TV series)

A TV series based on Sweet Valley High ran for 88 episodes between 1994 and 1997. It starred real-life twins Brittany and Cynthia Daniel (formerly Doublemint Twin models) as Jessica and Elizabeth respectively. The twins also modeled for later editions of the book covers. The show ran for 4 seasons, and saw the introduction of new characters that were not in the Sweet Valley High books, including Reginald "Shred" Patman and Renata Vargas.

[edit] Other products

Many tie in products were produced for this series (primarily the Sweet Valley High Run) including a series of puzzles, a board game, audio book versions of selected SVH books, commercially available VHS and DVDs of the SVH TV Series, a CD soundtrack for the TV show, dolls and doll clothing, at least one calendar (for the year 1989/90) and books that were not part of the series (including TV tie-in reprints, a trivia book, a behind-the-scenes book about the TV show, and a "Slam Book").

Sweet Valley High Merchandise

[edit] Criticisms

The Sweet Valley series has often been criticized for its unrealistic portrayal of teenagers (although this was somewhat rectified in the Senior Year series), and its outlandish plots, especially within the original Sweet Valley High series. Some exotic examples include:

the twins battling a werewolf in London;
Margo, a psychotic young woman, and later, her own twin sister Nora, attempting to murder Elizabeth and Jessica in a diabolical scheme to 'replace' them;
a former classmate of Alice Wakefield's luring them to a beauty spa with the intention of stealing Alice's face via a face transplant; and
Elizabeth and a Parisian prince falling in love.

[edit] Pop Culture References

The Simpsons episode, "Homer the Moe,": After Homer tells his friends a bizarre story, Moe replies, "That is the stupidest story I ever heard, and I read the entire 'Sweet Valley High' series."

Veronica Mars episode 1.14 "Mars vs. Mars": After a student tells Veronica that their teacher seduced her, Veronica replies by saying, "Yeah, I have that same Sweet Valley High Book." (see Suzanne Devlin)

[edit] References

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