SVH

Another true confession time here. Hopefully some of you will relate.

5’6”. Blonde. Aquamarine eyes. Size 6 figures. Drove a red Fiat. Identical twins. California. More dances in a year than I went to in my entire school career, junior and high schools combined.

For those of you of a certain age, those bon mots mean only one thing: Sweet Valley High and the Wakefield Twins.

They set an impossible standard for us children of the 80’s. How couldn’t they? Elizabeth, with TBT (Trusty Boyfriend Todd) and her sister, Jessica with her ever revolving cast of boyfriends, but steady (and fabulous) bestie Lila. Their high jinks, at least subconsciously, had me thinking there was something wrong with me once I made it to 18 (although I had, in fact, moved onto more adult authors well before high school), since I had made it to maturity without ever having been: in a coma, kidnapped, in a small plane crash, date raped (or almost), had a boyfriend who played both basketball and football (imagine! He plays for both teams!), been drunk after one shot of vodka, had my kitchen decimated by an earthquake (admittedly difficult living in Pennsylvania) or recruited by cult. All before I turned 17 (let alone 18). Oh, and I never had a fabulously wealthy boyfriend (named Bruce of all things) that had a vanity plated Porsche – 1bruce1.

The cheesy, nostalgic part of me (who writes this blog) was ecstatic when I heard a sequel of sorts was coming out, revising the twins at the age of 27. The premise: Elizabeth, the “good” twin hastily relocating to NYC after some sort of betrayal by Jessica, the ubiquitous “bad” twin and Bruce, the driver of 1bruce1, at the time a vain playboy, now Elizabeth’s bestie, not Enid (her brunette, frizzy haired friend). Oh, and in SVH canon, with the exception of Lila, all brunettes were dull and rather unfortunate. Anybody else wonder why I’m obsessed with hair color? Ok. Good. Glad we’re all clear on that point.

I’m ashamed to admit I cleared my reading queue (i.e. not starting up another book on my Kindle or lengthy magazine) in the day or two before its release date.

Today was the day, and as I type this, I’m frankly disappointed.

I managed to read it on my lunch hour.

Yep, you read it right. My lunch HOUR. When I was 11 or 12 and reading the SVH books for the first time, they were quick reads at best. But hell, I read Mommie Dearest and Interview with A Vampire when I was 10 or so (much to my mother’s chagrin, even if though she did brag one day that an employee at the DMV was engrossed in an SVH novel when she went to get her license renewed, long after I outgrew the series), but I thought the creator, Francine Pascal, would have had enough respect for her seemingly (hopefully?) now adult readers to have made it more substantive than a short story in Cosmo (which, full disclosure, I stopped reading a few years ago. If I haven’t tried the Reverse Cowboy by now, odds are my hips are too bad to try anytime in the near future).

Yeah, it was nice reading a story with familiar characters, even if some of them swore more and drank more dirty martinis than I remembered from my youth. But I’m fairly certain I could have written a more mature novel with a little more character development after several bottles of wine.

Oh well, I guess you can’t go home again. Here’s hoping Diablo Cody (the writer/director of Juno) comes up with a decent screenplay!