Welcome!
Last modified: August 18, 2009After receiving the first two Sweet Valley books from a friend for Christmas, I’ve become re-obsessed with the series. I loved them when I was a kid, so I got a bunch of them from ebay and started reading voraciously. I was saddened to find that the books don’t hold the same magic for my adult self that they did for my adolescent self. Turns out Jessica is a crazy person and Elizabeth is obnoxiously sweet. I decided to share my feelings with the world.
I just found your website today, and I absolutely love it! Yours is definitely one of the funniest SV snark sites. Can’t wait to read more!
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Shannon Reply:
March 26th, 2009 at 7:50 am
Thanks so much for reading! I’m glad you’re enjoying it!
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Shan….this is great. You honestly have such an amazing talent! I’m lucky to call you family! You’re awesome.
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Shannon Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:07 am
I’m so glad you like it! I knew you’d get a kick out of it, considering we read the crap out of this stuff when we were kids.
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I bought Sweet Valley 21 and 2 others, the Spring Break and Perfect Summer. I felt compelled to order some cool Sweet Valley Twins series…my tear jerkers was poor Mandy Miller, such a thing shouldn’t have had to happen, but I was glad she and Jessica were great friends, and ironic Mandy’s wish did come true for a while as she did become PResident of the Unicorns until Kimberly Haver of course wrecked things. I loved the one where Steven coached the Honeybees, now that was Physical with an F to say the least to coach girls into a unit team, more should’ve been written! The one of Jessica using voodoo on Steven was really funny! Course it didn’t really work, but it was funny to see Jessica getting even for a little while. I got to build my bank savings back up so I can order some more. I can’t detail the bargains for I don’t want them sold out. Book 21 of SVH was also great and passionate about the Wakefields learning not to ignore when problems arise in the family! That was too close of poor Jessica feeling unloved and going to San Francisco. Ironic how Nicky would never write back. Unless the Nick she met in SVU could’ve been Nicky, who knows?
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I love your Siskel and Ebert like version of Sweet Valley, keep up the good work. I myself have a lot of favorites and yeah, there were some clunkers too! Some of the ones like Sandra were OK. The one with Manuel was not half bad.
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Hey Shannon. I like reading about the Wakefields’ relatives from Mrs. Wakefield’s side of the family (Nancy, Alice, and Laura). My favorite is Robin and Stacey, Robin is so cool. I picture her as that girl from ‘The Nanny’, you know, Nicole Tom I believe, that played the eldest girl. That to me is Robin Robertson, sigh. I wish Kelly Bates didn’t have to go home and wasn’t heard from again in Sweet Valley High, that is just a suck ending for her!
I’m bringing the cousins all together in a new Sweet valley format. I got Robin living a mile from the Wakefields and Kelly and her mom are getting a house not that far either.
I’m rewriting ‘The Cousin War’ into a cool high school like battle as Robin again is not told Elizabeth and Todd have reunited, and Jessica is ‘getting even’ with her sister by setting Robin up with Todd. This time, Robin gets to check out the new Sweet Valley High school to see if she wants to transfer, which she will. The boy Robin is going to like is a Japanese boy named Don, little bit of 16 Candles. It should be pretty funny.
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Hmm SV doesn’t leave the same impression as it did when I was younger. I don’t remember any if these plots. I thought they were younger for some reason. I did get a slight kick remembering how corny the TV show was. I had completely forgotten all about that. This is a cute site. You really do have a knack for writing the recaps.
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Shannon Reply:
October 1st, 2009 at 10:24 pm
If you remember the twins being younger, then you probably read the Sweet Valley Twins books. They were in sixth grade in that series.
Thanks for reading!
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Hi! I love your blogs about SVH. I read them when I was a kid until my college years. I consider them as my childhood friends. I had a lot of fun reading your comments. Though I love the Sweet Valley characters dearly, I share your sentiments regarding Elizabeth’s infinite meddling with other people’s lives and jessica’s numerous dead boyfriends. Personally, I think the Sweet Valley Twins series are more realistic and funnier.
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Shannon Reply:
November 25th, 2009 at 8:22 am
I actually liked Sweet Valley Twins better, too. I’m still not sure why I decided to start my blog with SVH.
Thanks for reading!
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I just discovered your blog through a link on EW.com about the forthcoming SVH book – I used to be a big SVH fan as a kid and I remember re-reading a few several years ago and wondering how I never noticed Jessica was total psycopath. Looking forwarding to reliving the books through your recaps!
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Shannon Reply:
February 11th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Welcome!
I know when I started reading these last year, I was totally shocked at how different they were from the way I remembered. I always thought Jessica was just wild and fun, but no. She’s definitely a psycho.
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I stumbled upon your site and I have been laughing at your commentary of the books. This is great. I too loved SV as a kid and I am lookig forward to reading about the twins in their twenties.
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Shannon Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Welcome! I’m looking forward to the new book, too!
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I’ve just discovered your blog and having a great time reading the re-caps of the books and re-living the memories. I used to have such a large collection of them in my teen years and I now wish that I had kept them to look at again. It’s amazing that when I was younger I never realised how little diversity there was at that school, everyonw was white!
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Thanks for posting all these synopses of the storylines I never read! I just got two books from the Humane Society and read them in five minutes. I knew when I was a teen that they were trashy but I immersed myself in the lives of those high school kids … and I’m still curious to know all the stories.
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Thanks Shannon, for your sharp wit and humor in everything to do with these books. I cracked up from the summaries and also from the quote commentaries and the cover reviews!I need an outlet to laugh…my son passed away in November…and your site has helped me to do just that. Hope to see the Sweet Valley Twins reviews soon!
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Shannon Reply:
May 1st, 2010 at 5:16 pm
I’m very sorry to hear that. I really don’t know what to say to that. I’m glad I could make you laugh!
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Well done Shannon – this is a fantastic blog!
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This is a clever, and very funny analysis of my favourite book series as a teen. I just love your commentary!!
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So I have just started rereading my whole collection as well and fell upon your site. How do all the specials and thrillers fit in to the series. Were they meant to be read in between certain books in the numerical series?
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Shannon Reply:
May 22nd, 2010 at 7:41 pm
I read them all in the order they were published. They’re listed in that order on my book list page. As for how they were meant to be read, I don’t think it really matters since there’s absolutely no continuity, haha.
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This is amazing! I literally stumbled across this and I can’t stop reading your reviews. I’m 23 now and I haven’t read Sweet Valley since I was about 16, but I read everything from SV kids to university plus the unicorn club and the newer Jr High & Elizabeth series. I was addicted! And it’s just funny to look back on it with an adult perpective and realize that, yes, Elizabeth was actually pretty freaking self-obsessed in a neurotic “wants to be nice” way and Jessica was definitely a crazy person. LOL. love reading your thoughts on it all!
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Shannon Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 9:22 am
Thank you, and welcome!
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love your site!!!absolutely hillarious and very very true comments.i loved all the sweet valley books and read them all up until SVU,although i don’t remember the Senior Year books and after reading your recaps i don’t think i missed much there!how do they even tie in with SVU as as far as I can remember the characters from the original series went on to the SVU books.can’t wait to see what you have to say about them.
totally gutted i gave all my books away (thought i had outgrown them at 16!),10years later i’d love to re read them but will cost a fortune to replace so for now will have to rely on your site for my sweeet valley fix!!
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SV (along with the Baby-sitters Club) used to be my favorite series when I was younger. I read them voraciously between the ages of 12-16, put them down for a while and then picked up a few the SVU books while I was in university. The SVU books didn’t do for me, but I blame that on growing up and the teens not being as innocent as they used to be. Now I hear Pascal is putting out another book ten years into the future. I don’t think I could read it because it will shatter the image of them. Weirdly though, I find myself wanting to reread Sweet Valley Twins and Friends.
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