Summary
With the passing ofSweet Valley Highauthor Francine Pascal, I’m thinking about how much I learned about life from her books. The series was pioneered by Pascal, who passed today at the age of 92. While she penned quite a few of thebetter YA booksin the series, which officially began in 1983, at 181 books,Pascal also enlisted the help of a team of ghostwriters to pen subsequent sequels. I was 3 at the time the first book was published, but you better believe I found them in my preteen years and began devouring them, a rite of passage for so many girls my age in the early ’90s.
The books, for those of you who never had the exquisite pleasure of reading the delightful drama-fest that wasSweet Valley High,followed identical twins Elizabeth (who is older by 4 minutes - this is very important, for some reason) and Jessica Wakefield. Elizabeth and Jessica were best friends, often rivals, sometimes enemies, and always wildly different in a way that often propelled much of the conflict. As they navigated the halls of their sunny Los Angeles suburb high school and navigated the problems of their rich, affluent lifestyle, they became icons for an entire swath of younger Gen X and elder millennials.
1 Of The Most Popular YA Book Series Of The 80s Has A Surprising Backstory
It’s not rare for pulpy book series to be handled by multiple writers, but one 1980s YA series took the idea to the extreme & found success doing it.
Why The Sweet Valley High Books Were So Important To Elder Millennials
They Shaped A Generation Of Us
It is impossible to overstate the hold theSweet Valley Highbooks (and later the TV adaptation)had on us girls of a certain age – namely,elder millennials and the Oregon Trail microgeneration.I read them, my friends read them, everyone I knew in school read them. It’s impossible to overstate how strongly Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield influenced us – mostly because we all liked to think we were vivacious Jessicas when we were really (if we’re being honest) steady Elizabeths. Though, in hindsight, Jessica was a monster, so it was probably better most of us didn’t grow up to be like her, because we’d be sociopaths. But she sure made it look fun.
It’s impossible to overstate how strongly Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield influenced us – mostly because we all liked to think we were vivacious Jessicas when we were really (if we’re being honest) steady Elizabeths.
While the series started in the early ’80s, it really hit its stride in the ’90s, and it fully embraced and shaped girl culture of the decade. One of the reasons for that is thatit was a series that grew with its readers.When the series began, Elizabeth and Jessica were 12 years old, but they aged through high school and into college – even past college with the follow-up book,Sweet Valley Confidential. In that way, it was a bit likeHarry Potterfans growing up with the books, exceptSweet Valley Highdid it far earlier. TheSweet Valley Highseries was just part of my life, since it had been around for so much of it.
The aging and growth of the charactersalso allowed for storylines that other lightweight series lacked.Don’t get me wrong, I lovedThe Baby-Sitters ClubandThe Fabulous Five, for example, but they weren’t exactly heavy hitters when it came to specific adult topics. That’s not to say the characters didn’t grapple with real-world issues, but they weren’t operating at the level ofSweet Valley High. I was first introduced to difficult topics in these silly books I loved, and they opened my eyes to challenges and real issues I hadn’t thought about before, being a preteen girl in rural western Pennsylvania.
Sweet Valley High Taught Me About Serious Subjects
Leukemia, Drug Overdoses, Drunk Driving, And More Were All Touched Upon
For a fun series about two pretty twins who chased boys and fought with each other,Sweet Valley Highwasn’t afraid to dip into some really serious stuff.The story of Steven (their brother) alone was a whole galaxy of poignant, real-world plotlines. For example, his first girlfriend, Tricia, died of leukemia. At a time when childhood leukemia, HIV, and AIDS were issues really blowing up in the public consciousness, that was an eye-opener to read as a kid. That wasn’t the only storyline that rocked my world with a difficult truth or tough reality.
And sure, some of those real-world storylines were handled in the most dramatic way possible, butthat didn’t make them any less compelling or effective– preteen and teen girls are, by our nature, dramatic. It’s something we embrace. They still impacted us, sometimes deeply. Like Tricia, other characters died, sometimes in sudden, shocking ways. For those used to books where nothing truly bad ever happened to the characters and everyone got a happy ending, theSweet Valley Highseries was a splash of cold, adult water.
An egg frying in a pan meant nothing compared to sweet, fictional Regina dying on us.
Most of us who read the books, for example,remember the horrifying storyline of when Elizabeth’s friend Regina fell in with the wrong crowd and overdosed and died after doing cocaine once.As writer Lizz Adam reminisces in herMediumpost, “This book achieved something no PSA could have at my age.” She wasn’t the only one. That was a storyline I remember hitting me and my friendshard. An egg frying in a pan meant nothing compared to sweet, fictional Regina dying on us.
Sweet Valley Was Soapy, But It Wasn’t Just A Soap Opera
It Was Fun And Frothy, Just Like We Wanted
I also lived for the scandalous drama ofSweet Valley High, which was easily as insane as anything you might see on daytime soap operas or Spanish telenovelas. In particular,Jessica and Elizabeth utilized the identical twin identity switch numerous times in the books, a convenient gimmick that made me desperately frustrated I myself did not have a twin to switch with. And it used other soap opera tropes with glee: kidnapping: check! Comas: check! One of the girls being pursued by a stalker who assumes her identity and almost takes her life: check! Francine Pascal’s soap opera writing background really came in clutch, what can I say?
That said, it wasn’t just a soap opera; it wasn’t all dramatic death and devastation in the pages. TheSweet Valley Highbooks were fun and frothy at their core, stories about boys and sibling bickering and friends and high school drama.Books were bought and passed round among my girlfriends like social currency, shared freely with one another (because, again, we were definitely Elizabeths and not Jessicas) as a bonding ritual. In the end, it created a shared language shared between not just me and my friends, but among so many of us of a certain era. With a little bit of a refresher, I’m sure we can all still speakSweet Valley High.
