Just a gentle request. The Bear is triggering for a lot of people in the restaurant world. Many of my industry friends and especially recovering industry friends don’t watch it because it brings back unhappy kitchen memories. So, keep that in mind as you recap.
So happy to see the unhinged world of SVH on DWB! For (yikes) 7 whole years now I’ve co-hosted a podcast called Double Love in which we recap the entire series in order - with the various summer/winter/thriller/family saga specials thrown in at regular intervals. I can confirm that the books get more deranged as they go on (by listener demand, our episodes have got longer to fit in all the ridiculousness) but all the family sagas are definitely worth reading. Lila Fowler’s family escape the French Revolution! Someone’s ancestor loses their virginity while buried under a hotel in the San Francisco earthquake! There are old timey gangsters and rootin’ tootin’ cowboys! We learn all the characters who get a saga are descended from rebellious aristocrats not boring peasants like the rest of us! The sagas are wildly entertaining and if you ever stumble across one, do pick it up.
Also, most of the regular series are available to buy as e-books though annoyingly not the specials which is why I’ve occasionally, for the podcast’s sake, had to spend nearly twenty quid on books with titles like Deadly Christmas (the last in a godawful miniseries in which Jessica has a relationship a grown man who of course turns out to be a scammer as well as a perv. The highlight of the series was the amazing moment where Jessica throws his fiancé’s wedding dress under a truck in a fit of jealous rage.).
Anna!!!! Someone here in Fug Nation pointed me to your podcast just a handful of episodes in, and I've been a listener ever since. My husband refers to you and Karen as "my giggly Irish friends." Thank you for so much enjoyment.
Aww that is so lovely to hear - thank YOU for listening to our nonsense! I think we owe our relative popularity in north America - we’re regularly in the top 100 book podcasts in the US, which is absolutely mad for a very niche Irish podcast - to members of Fug Nation recommending us in the GFY comments back in the early days. Which as a long time fan of Jessica and Heather’s work since the MBTV/TWOP days, made me very happy!
I think I got pointed to it from the same comment on GFY - somewhere around Playing With Fire so very early indeed - and I have been evangelizing it ever since. It’s SO good you guys!
I need to listen to this! For years I was on an improv team that did shows based on SVH and it was a lot of fun. The source material was endlessly entertaining, of course. I will admit that going back and re-reading them wasn’t always as much fun as I expected — at times, both Jessica and Elizabeth were such a-holes. But I need to listen to this podcast!
For some reason, the only thing I remember from the summer special European bike ride one is, aside from thinking how painful all that bike riding had to be for one’s lady area, there’s a part where Elizabeth and Todd are dancing to a Jackson 5 song. Maybe it was too real world in a series with a band called The Droids.
Oh my GOD I wish I could have seen your shows! What an absolutely amazing concept. And as someone who’s read/reread well over 150 of the books over the last seven years, I strongly agree that in them both twins are indeed giant a-holes on a regular basis).
I’ve been listening to your podcast all afternoon! You are both incredibly funny. When you describe Bruce and Jessica at the dance contest in Playing With Fire, I guffawed.
If you ever come to NYC, maybe my improv team will reunite! It was a lot of fun while it lasted. One of my favorite shows involved Bruce Patman losing both his penis and all of his money in a tragic accident, and was then rushed to the Sweet Valley Penis Rehabilitation Clinic where it was reattached with rubber cement due to his lack of health insurance.
Of COURSE you're a Broad!! I just finished listening to the latest Death Valley recap last night! Wow, two worlds collide!
Jessica, I really loved the historical sagas of their families. They reminded me of those Sunfire books. One of them is about the French resistance during World War II: very people-having-romantical-problems -during-wartime
Ha, I am indeed a Broad! And a paid subscriber too - this is my fave Substack and I’m always delighted to see a new one pop up in the app. Hope you’ve recovered from the Death Valley ordeal - I haven’t read the next book yet (in fact I’ve never read it - I do like it when we reach a totally new-to-me book) but I suspect it will have fewer eagles stealing Bruce Patman’s gold and more regular school stuff. Which will be a nice change after the Death Valley madness!
The absolutely unhinged SVH about a London werewolf murder mystery produced some podcast episodes that gave me fantastic listening during a family member's cross-country move. Driving a rented moving van has never been so good! I never really read SVH but I think I enjoy the Double Love recaps more than I would have ever enjoyed reading the books themselves. Thank you, Anna, and thanks to Karyn, too!
I read Three Bags Full a long time ago and really enjoyed it, but I should probably reread it now. I'm delighted by the idea of a live-action movie and can't wait to read stories about the production (what breed of sheep do they go with? how are they trained? do they have like three sheep playing Miss Maple? where do they shoot it? where did the sheep actors come from? can I see them in person? COULD WE BUY THEIR YARN?).
Ah, the werewolf era! I think that was when things got so bananas that we had to start splitting each of the books into two episodes - each of the werewolf eps was so RIDICULOUSLY long! So I’m very glad they kept you entertained on a cross country road trip. We generally assume people listen to the long eps in instalments but I can see how they would work on long journeys!
Double Love is the best!! I think the only podcast that has made me laugh out loud when listening by myself. I saw the cover of Spring Break in the post and immediately thought of you two wanting to travel during lockdown. Also, thanks for the tip that Return of the Evil Twin is on Internet Archive. I was going through a difficult moment when the episode came out, and I heard that and curled up in bed and read it. It was as good a distraction as any.
I am thrilled to discover that there are so many fans of the Sweet Valley Saga books! I read them every year when we drove from the Chicago suburbs to my grandparents in Ohio for the Fourth of July. They were such perfect books to read on long car rides!
I was previously unfamiliar with Sixteen and Perfect Forever and Double Love, but I'm looking forward to diving into both! This post and the comments are really making me want to find all of the books that had the other set of evil twins that kept dyeing their hair blonde and trying to take over Jessica and Elizabeth's lives :)
So Margo, the first evil twin, makes her debut in the book The Morning After, the first of a mini series that climaxes in the iconic The Evil Twin. And then her secret twin Nora turns up in the even more unhinged special edition The Evil Twin! Which can actually be read via the Internet Archive.
The family sagas are EPIC and amazing, and I cannot advocate enough for the one with the Wakefield who was the lynchpin of the French resistance in WW2 (...sure). Amazing. No notes. Worth your time, Jessica!
Count me as another devotee of the Sagas; I read them multiple times growing up and this thread is making me want to dig them out the next time I'm at my parents' house. My favorite thing about them was how it was almost always ancestors from the same two families meeting, having romantical problems, and being tragically torn apart over and over again until their descendants finally manage to avoid dying in a tragic circus accident or whatever and get together for good.
This is interesting, because I love Sweet Valley High, but I much prefer the winter Special Editions to the summer ones. I'm kind of anti-summer in general as an adult (it's SO HOT and I sunburn very easily) so maybe that's why? But also I have read Special Christmas a bunch of times because a) I owned it as a kid and b) I too enjoy Suzanne and her nuttiness. (Though she's the daughter of an old friend of Ned's, not their cousin, just FYI.) Also I love the sagas; I prefer Ned's family, but they're both delightful to me. (Death/paralyzation by circus act! Illegitimate birth! Family heirlooms passed down through multiple generations! Alice being engaged to someone bonkers! Etc.)
COMPLETELY unhinged and they bring me great joy. For a while in my early 20s, I was embarrassed by my love of SVH. But then as I have gotten older, I have realized: reading doesn't always have to be Serious. There is room in my heart for everything.
I ALSO loved the Christmas ones, and have pretty distinct memories of re-reading the damn things MULTIPLE times when they were freshly published while at my grandparents' for Christmas, despite the fact that I always traveled with a stack of books.
Interesting! I saw enough for someone to be like “NOT a typo, they’re both Burns,” but didn’t see that they were RELATED Burnses! That is important intel. -H
My heart leapt with unhinged delight when I read about “Three bags full,” the sheep murder mystery. But where you typed “Hugh Jackman,” I read “Benedict Cumberbatch.” So I imagined the world’s most cerebral and intense shepherd reading French existentialist police procedural to his sheep as his unearthly cheekbones glimmer in the moonlight.
At one point in high school, four of us Allisons (and variations) were all in the same history class together (I graduated in 2005). Two of us went by Allie/Ally and the other two didn't. I'm pretty sure that teacher hated all of us just because it was confusing and he couldn't do anything to make it less so. I think some of us had the same last initials too.
All through grades 7 to 11 there was only one other Donna in my school, then I moved towns and switched schools in grade 12 and there were FIVE of us in the same homeroom. Blew my mind.
As a kid in the early 80s, being named Helen was the worst! Everyone's first reaction was "that's my grandmother's name!". Mine too, both of them. Why couldn't I be a Jennifer, a Heather, or a Hilary? Now, I'm so glad to have a name that is common enough that everyone can spell it but uncommon enough that I'm usually, but not always, the only one in the room with it.
Frances here, saying SAAAAAAME! I have come to very much appreciate my name (and that I was named after very beloved grandparents), but when I was a kid not so much.
I actually did not know how common my name was growing up. I went to Catholic school from 1st-7th grade where most of the parents still used saint names or were more conservative in their choices. I know I had one friend named Karen there, you would have fit right in. It wasn't until I moved out of state and started going to public school that I encountered other Amandas, and then Jennifers.
Also, I just remembered that if I had been born a boy, my name would have been "Michael Andrew", after an uncle and grandfather on my mother's side who both passed before I was born. There are currently 5 Michaels on my dad's side of the family (all born or married into the family after my arrival), so that would have ended up being a disaster.
Both my sister and I married people named Matt. It's very confusing for our toddler, who refers to his dad as Uncle Matt for a while after every visit.
I live in an Irish neighborhood, there are so many Mikes and Johns they go by last names or nicknames (I have a friend we call Ronan because as a baby faced 20 something he looked like Ronan Tynan). Still lots of little Mikeys and Johnnys running around too.
I was supposed to be a Jennifer but then my aunt got mad because my mom had apparently PROMISED to name her first daughter after her and my mom relented. Thus, I am Robin, not Jennifer. Which worked out for me, as I would've been 1 of 4 Jennifers on my street growing up, and my husband's ex-wife's name is Jennifer, and that would've been weird.
I'm the only one of my siblings our dad got to name. My middle name is his grandmother's name and he chose a first name that went with it. I'm thankful that he chose to honor his grandmother with a better name and that he did not decide to saddle me with his mother's name. I am definitely not a June or Elva June if we used her legal name nor have I ever been a Lois.
I found out as an adult that if my mother was the one who named me that I would have been named after (I guess) favorite character from Days of Our Lives--Hope Williams Brady.
See my tiny little independent elementary and middle school has a Jennifer the year ahead of me but not one in my class. Then again, there were probably 12 girls total in our grade through pre-K to 8th.
Believe it or not, I was the only Stephanie until my last two years of high school when there was another Stephanie a grade behind me. (We're still friends!)
I did however have 3 Michaels and 4 Stevens/Stephens in ONE CLASS.
We had no Stephanies, but did have two Amandas, three Jackies and a Jessica (me, whose name is always mistaken for Jennifer - I blame the J-E-double consonant-I). C/O 1999
I don't think I graduated with a Stephanie, I might have and just don't remember. I really didn't hang out with my high school classmates after school. I hung out with my church youth group where I was friends with a Jennifer and her sister Stephanie. We all attended the same university where I met their other friends some from their high school plus others. Said group had 2 Jennifers, 2 Stephanies, and sometimes 2 Amandas. We all ranged from class of 95-98.
I’m an elder millennial so we didn’t have nearly as many Jennifers, but we had a ton of Jessicas. My legal name is mostly used as a nickname for Jessica, so everyone not related to me always assumes it’s short for Jessica until I correct them. I used to literally stamp my little foot and say very indignantly, “My name is not Jessica!!!!!”
I don’t even want to get into all the Williams and Marys on both sides of my family. Before a bunch of the Williams died family events were very confusing.
I typed an entire comment and it disappeared into the ether... ah well. I re-read Spring Fever a few years ago in a fit of nostalgia brought on by the Double Love podcast (hi Anna!) and had a thoroughly good time. Annie-Sue the villain! Jessica's previously unmentioned horseriding skills (Wakefields and their surprise talents strike again)! The fake carnie twins! As entertaining and silly as the cover promises, which doesn't always happen with SVH. Also, with the ridiculous amount of doppelgangers doing the rounds in Sweet Valley, I'm surprised they never had one for Poor Dead Regina Morrow.
That is SUCH a good point about Regina! Tricia Martin gets like five doubles including the girl who inadvertently led Steven Wakefield to hang glide into a cliff and poor old Regina doesn’t even get one?
Justice for Poor Dead Regina! This girl not only got held hostage, but suffered through making Bruce a somewhat tolerable member of society, doesn't she deserve a secret twin? Oh, but stupid Nicholas would probably make it all about him and be insufferable.
Not only does poor Regina not get a secret twin, she gets totally forgotten about when Bruce decides that randomer Pamela is “the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen!” Although we’ve now seen how long THAT lasted…
My brother once commented that he was never tempted to use cocaine because of Len Bias, which I think is common among men around my age (42), but for the women it's 100% Regina Morrow.
I don't believe I would have ever tried cocaine to begin with but Poor Dead Regina Morrow definitely scared me of even thinking of the possibility so that book did its job for sure!
I know I read a few of the SVH books, but I was truly obsessed with the Babysitters Club Super Specials. The one where Stacy and her mom get stuck in the car during a snowstorm because Stacy HAD to go to the mall but Stacy doesn't have any crackers in her purse for her diabetes?? The one where they go on a cruise and little Karen sneaks off for a manicure and charges it to her dad's room?? Sensational.
How about the one where they split a modest lottery jackpot and all go to California? And Mallory gets a makeover, dying her hair blonde? Man, good times.
The first BSC super special on the cruise ship/Disney World was amazing. We got new perspectives from Karen, one of the triplets--it was eye opening! Mary Anne meets a pathological liar! Watson locks the mini bar and takes the keys because he knows what Claudia is like! Even though he could clearly afford to pay for her habit!
I was very into the BSC Super Special when they were camp counselors, probably because I always dreamed of going to summer camp (very much not a thing where I grew up).
I loved the one where Claudia and Dawn did some sailing race with a bunch of little kids and wound up shipwrecked on an island for like a week. So dramatic!
As the Xennial here I’m really sad the SVH books were not in my reading range by the time I was in middle school! I did do a number of BSC books but not these.
I - an elder millenial - also got into BSC but not SVH. I think by the time my generation got there, they had started publishing the Sweet Valley Junior High books, and I remember reading some of those. The comments are bringing back memories of characters and their arcs even though I don't remember specific storylines.
That feels right about the SVJH books! We (and the Gen Xers) didn’t have the wealth of YA books outside of SV/BSC or Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew. 14 year old me wanted nothing to do with HP when it first dropped.
I didn’t love Judy Blume, but I did as a 2-4th grader read a bunch of Beverly Cleary. The only child in me didn’t know what else to do after those but BSC.
I liked the Jr High series ok and still read them but like the senior year series it seemed a little more realistic. I was born 1987 and I felt like most of my friends were way more into BSC than Sweet Valley though I had friends borrow a few from me in 5th grade.
Fellow Xennial here, I don’t think I ever read the SVH books, I was all about the BSC. I did read a bunch of Sweet Valley Twins books, which I think are set when they’re in elementary school. I remember the one where their frenemy Lila was revealed to be a secret bed wetter and they had to be nice to her about it.
Sweet Valley Twins was 6th grade, Elizabeth wrote for the Sixers, but Jessica was in Unicorn Club with 7th and 8th graders so I think they all had the same lunch period. Sweet Valley Kids was set in 2nd grade but when I found the whole series in first grade I had very little interest in them and only read a few. I felt the same way about Baby Sitters little sister series about Karen when she was 6 and I read maybe 5 of them.
I read ALL of those, because my SVH love dovetailed nicely with my "I must collect all items in a set" personality. Although the special editions were a problem in that sense because they messed up the number scheme.
Side note that I'm just now realizing, did Malin Akerman travel back in time to pose for the covers?
I was OBSESSED with Sweet Valley Saga! If I remember correctly each generation’s girls names were a variation on Jessica and Elizabeth. I believe that was the summer I, a 1980 Jessica, dreamed of being called Jessamine.
I was also obsessed with Sweet Valley Saga. I barely remember the plot to all of the SVH and SVT, but parts of SVS are imprinted on my brain like the bareback riding and the San Francisco Earthquake.
I absolutely read Spring Fever as a preteen and years later when I started listening to Riot Grrl music the song Carnival by Bikini Kill always made me remember that book….. not very punk rock of me but I too contain multitudes.
I didn't read many SVH books, I think because I found them extremely hard to relate to, but I did stumble across a couple that felt quite dark and salacious and gave those a go. There was one where Elizabeth was kidnapped (titled, hilariously, Kidnapped!) and one where Jessica crash-landed on a desert island (Lost At Sea). Neither was quite what I wanted them to be (not salacious enough, I guess??) but they clearly made an impression b/c I was 10 when I read them and remember them quite well, and that was nearly 35 years ago! I also read the one where Jessica dyes her hair black and *~rEbeLLs~*... And was disappointed because her rebellion wasn't especially rebellious. (She tries to be a model?) I defintely approved of her darker hair on the cover, however. (The New Jessica)
The (usually absolutely bonkers) show 911 had a plot this season about a character meeting a doppelgänger of his dead ex! While he was eventually walked in on with said doppelgänger by his child (with said deceased ex) and his girlfriend it was not nearly bonkers enough for what I generally expect from a show with a tsunami in LA and whose spinoff included a volcano in Austin, Texas.
I would actually be sort of surprised if they were trying to get rid of Christopher for good, since he's such a linchpin of Eddie's story/ character. I assumed it was just soapy hijinks to create drama around him that didn't involve putting him in some kind of life-ending peril. But the doppelganger wife was a REALLY wild choice. I'm guessing the producers must have really liked the actress??
100% down with recapping The Bear, a drama. :) Would love to hear your takes.
Just a gentle request. The Bear is triggering for a lot of people in the restaurant world. Many of my industry friends and especially recovering industry friends don’t watch it because it brings back unhappy kitchen memories. So, keep that in mind as you recap.
So happy to see the unhinged world of SVH on DWB! For (yikes) 7 whole years now I’ve co-hosted a podcast called Double Love in which we recap the entire series in order - with the various summer/winter/thriller/family saga specials thrown in at regular intervals. I can confirm that the books get more deranged as they go on (by listener demand, our episodes have got longer to fit in all the ridiculousness) but all the family sagas are definitely worth reading. Lila Fowler’s family escape the French Revolution! Someone’s ancestor loses their virginity while buried under a hotel in the San Francisco earthquake! There are old timey gangsters and rootin’ tootin’ cowboys! We learn all the characters who get a saga are descended from rebellious aristocrats not boring peasants like the rest of us! The sagas are wildly entertaining and if you ever stumble across one, do pick it up.
Also, most of the regular series are available to buy as e-books though annoyingly not the specials which is why I’ve occasionally, for the podcast’s sake, had to spend nearly twenty quid on books with titles like Deadly Christmas (the last in a godawful miniseries in which Jessica has a relationship a grown man who of course turns out to be a scammer as well as a perv. The highlight of the series was the amazing moment where Jessica throws his fiancé’s wedding dress under a truck in a fit of jealous rage.).
Anna!!!! Someone here in Fug Nation pointed me to your podcast just a handful of episodes in, and I've been a listener ever since. My husband refers to you and Karen as "my giggly Irish friends." Thank you for so much enjoyment.
Aww that is so lovely to hear - thank YOU for listening to our nonsense! I think we owe our relative popularity in north America - we’re regularly in the top 100 book podcasts in the US, which is absolutely mad for a very niche Irish podcast - to members of Fug Nation recommending us in the GFY comments back in the early days. Which as a long time fan of Jessica and Heather’s work since the MBTV/TWOP days, made me very happy!
That makes me ridiculously happy.
I think I got pointed to it from the same comment on GFY - somewhere around Playing With Fire so very early indeed - and I have been evangelizing it ever since. It’s SO good you guys!
Ah thanks so much! We very much appreciate everyone who’s ever spread the word about the podcast. ❤️
I was just coming here to plug Double Love and delighted to see Anna got here first!! Love when my favorite things cross over!
Ha, you know you’re among kindred spirits at DWB!
I need to listen to this! For years I was on an improv team that did shows based on SVH and it was a lot of fun. The source material was endlessly entertaining, of course. I will admit that going back and re-reading them wasn’t always as much fun as I expected — at times, both Jessica and Elizabeth were such a-holes. But I need to listen to this podcast!
For some reason, the only thing I remember from the summer special European bike ride one is, aside from thinking how painful all that bike riding had to be for one’s lady area, there’s a part where Elizabeth and Todd are dancing to a Jackson 5 song. Maybe it was too real world in a series with a band called The Droids.
Oh my GOD I wish I could have seen your shows! What an absolutely amazing concept. And as someone who’s read/reread well over 150 of the books over the last seven years, I strongly agree that in them both twins are indeed giant a-holes on a regular basis).
I’ve been listening to your podcast all afternoon! You are both incredibly funny. When you describe Bruce and Jessica at the dance contest in Playing With Fire, I guffawed.
If you ever come to NYC, maybe my improv team will reunite! It was a lot of fun while it lasted. One of my favorite shows involved Bruce Patman losing both his penis and all of his money in a tragic accident, and was then rushed to the Sweet Valley Penis Rehabilitation Clinic where it was reattached with rubber cement due to his lack of health insurance.
Of COURSE you're a Broad!! I just finished listening to the latest Death Valley recap last night! Wow, two worlds collide!
Jessica, I really loved the historical sagas of their families. They reminded me of those Sunfire books. One of them is about the French resistance during World War II: very people-having-romantical-problems -during-wartime
Ha, I am indeed a Broad! And a paid subscriber too - this is my fave Substack and I’m always delighted to see a new one pop up in the app. Hope you’ve recovered from the Death Valley ordeal - I haven’t read the next book yet (in fact I’ve never read it - I do like it when we reach a totally new-to-me book) but I suspect it will have fewer eagles stealing Bruce Patman’s gold and more regular school stuff. Which will be a nice change after the Death Valley madness!
When those Sunfire books hit right, they REALLY hit right, when I was a tween!
The absolutely unhinged SVH about a London werewolf murder mystery produced some podcast episodes that gave me fantastic listening during a family member's cross-country move. Driving a rented moving van has never been so good! I never really read SVH but I think I enjoy the Double Love recaps more than I would have ever enjoyed reading the books themselves. Thank you, Anna, and thanks to Karyn, too!
I read Three Bags Full a long time ago and really enjoyed it, but I should probably reread it now. I'm delighted by the idea of a live-action movie and can't wait to read stories about the production (what breed of sheep do they go with? how are they trained? do they have like three sheep playing Miss Maple? where do they shoot it? where did the sheep actors come from? can I see them in person? COULD WE BUY THEIR YARN?).
Ah, the werewolf era! I think that was when things got so bananas that we had to start splitting each of the books into two episodes - each of the werewolf eps was so RIDICULOUSLY long! So I’m very glad they kept you entertained on a cross country road trip. We generally assume people listen to the long eps in instalments but I can see how they would work on long journeys!
I LOVED the family saga books.
Double Love is the best!! I think the only podcast that has made me laugh out loud when listening by myself. I saw the cover of Spring Break in the post and immediately thought of you two wanting to travel during lockdown. Also, thanks for the tip that Return of the Evil Twin is on Internet Archive. I was going through a difficult moment when the episode came out, and I heard that and curled up in bed and read it. It was as good a distraction as any.
Ah thank you! V happy to be of service. And yes, that cover reminds me of our lockdown travel dreams. Just looking at a map of France and screaming!
I am thrilled to discover that there are so many fans of the Sweet Valley Saga books! I read them every year when we drove from the Chicago suburbs to my grandparents in Ohio for the Fourth of July. They were such perfect books to read on long car rides!
I was previously unfamiliar with Sixteen and Perfect Forever and Double Love, but I'm looking forward to diving into both! This post and the comments are really making me want to find all of the books that had the other set of evil twins that kept dyeing their hair blonde and trying to take over Jessica and Elizabeth's lives :)
So Margo, the first evil twin, makes her debut in the book The Morning After, the first of a mini series that climaxes in the iconic The Evil Twin. And then her secret twin Nora turns up in the even more unhinged special edition The Evil Twin! Which can actually be read via the Internet Archive.
Sorry, Nora and her pacific blue contact lenses appears in The Return of the Evil Twin! So easy to get all those evil twins mixed up…
Thank you for the info, Anna! I look forward to listening to those episodes of your podcast!!!
Enjoy!
The family sagas are EPIC and amazing, and I cannot advocate enough for the one with the Wakefield who was the lynchpin of the French resistance in WW2 (...sure). Amazing. No notes. Worth your time, Jessica!
One of the best parts of that preposterous story line is that French town where she lives is called… Douce Vallée!
The fact I can't reply to this with a gif of somebody in a beret doing a chef's kiss is a crime.
Count me as another devotee of the Sagas; I read them multiple times growing up and this thread is making me want to dig them out the next time I'm at my parents' house. My favorite thing about them was how it was almost always ancestors from the same two families meeting, having romantical problems, and being tragically torn apart over and over again until their descendants finally manage to avoid dying in a tragic circus accident or whatever and get together for good.
This is interesting, because I love Sweet Valley High, but I much prefer the winter Special Editions to the summer ones. I'm kind of anti-summer in general as an adult (it's SO HOT and I sunburn very easily) so maybe that's why? But also I have read Special Christmas a bunch of times because a) I owned it as a kid and b) I too enjoy Suzanne and her nuttiness. (Though she's the daughter of an old friend of Ned's, not their cousin, just FYI.) Also I love the sagas; I prefer Ned's family, but they're both delightful to me. (Death/paralyzation by circus act! Illegitimate birth! Family heirlooms passed down through multiple generations! Alice being engaged to someone bonkers! Etc.)
"Alice being engaged to someone bonkers!"--it was Bruce Patman's DAD!!!!! The Family Sagas are unhinged and I love them.
COMPLETELY unhinged and they bring me great joy. For a while in my early 20s, I was embarrassed by my love of SVH. But then as I have gotten older, I have realized: reading doesn't always have to be Serious. There is room in my heart for everything.
I ALSO loved the Christmas ones, and have pretty distinct memories of re-reading the damn things MULTIPLE times when they were freshly published while at my grandparents' for Christmas, despite the fact that I always traveled with a stack of books.
Would love a bear recap!
*
Christy & Kelly, 2 of the 3 Turlington sisters, are married to 2 of the Burns brothers! Kelly is married to Brian, Christy to Ed, obv.
Interesting! I saw enough for someone to be like “NOT a typo, they’re both Burns,” but didn’t see that they were RELATED Burnses! That is important intel. -H
My heart leapt with unhinged delight when I read about “Three bags full,” the sheep murder mystery. But where you typed “Hugh Jackman,” I read “Benedict Cumberbatch.” So I imagined the world’s most cerebral and intense shepherd reading French existentialist police procedural to his sheep as his unearthly cheekbones glimmer in the moonlight.
I think Hugh Jackman will do just fine, though.
I was good with the casting but now I'm sad. I never knew before now I wanted to see Benedict reading to sheep.
Just had to jump in after reading Footnote #1. If there was not a Jennifer in your class, then there was at least one Amanda or Stephanie.
And an Allison/Alison/Allyson/Alyson (I was one of seven in the class of ‘97 in my high school).
I think we had seven Jennifers! (Also class of '97.)
At one point in high school, four of us Allisons (and variations) were all in the same history class together (I graduated in 2005). Two of us went by Allie/Ally and the other two didn't. I'm pretty sure that teacher hated all of us just because it was confusing and he couldn't do anything to make it less so. I think some of us had the same last initials too.
I went by Alli, because I was the shortest.
All through grades 7 to 11 there was only one other Donna in my school, then I moved towns and switched schools in grade 12 and there were FIVE of us in the same homeroom. Blew my mind.
As a kid in the early 80s, being named Helen was the worst! Everyone's first reaction was "that's my grandmother's name!". Mine too, both of them. Why couldn't I be a Jennifer, a Heather, or a Hilary? Now, I'm so glad to have a name that is common enough that everyone can spell it but uncommon enough that I'm usually, but not always, the only one in the room with it.
Frances here, saying SAAAAAAME! I have come to very much appreciate my name (and that I was named after very beloved grandparents), but when I was a kid not so much.
I actually did not know how common my name was growing up. I went to Catholic school from 1st-7th grade where most of the parents still used saint names or were more conservative in their choices. I know I had one friend named Karen there, you would have fit right in. It wasn't until I moved out of state and started going to public school that I encountered other Amandas, and then Jennifers.
Also, I just remembered that if I had been born a boy, my name would have been "Michael Andrew", after an uncle and grandfather on my mother's side who both passed before I was born. There are currently 5 Michaels on my dad's side of the family (all born or married into the family after my arrival), so that would have ended up being a disaster.
Both my sister and I married people named Matt. It's very confusing for our toddler, who refers to his dad as Uncle Matt for a while after every visit.
I am somehow surrounded by Alexes and other Al-s.
At least my niece goes by a nickname from the middle of her name so it’s usually only my nephew and me turning our heads to Al.
I live in an Irish neighborhood, there are so many Mikes and Johns they go by last names or nicknames (I have a friend we call Ronan because as a baby faced 20 something he looked like Ronan Tynan). Still lots of little Mikeys and Johnnys running around too.
I went to school with a Helen for grades 8-10. She was by far one of the most popular kids!
I was supposed to be a Jennifer but then my aunt got mad because my mom had apparently PROMISED to name her first daughter after her and my mom relented. Thus, I am Robin, not Jennifer. Which worked out for me, as I would've been 1 of 4 Jennifers on my street growing up, and my husband's ex-wife's name is Jennifer, and that would've been weird.
I'm the only one of my siblings our dad got to name. My middle name is his grandmother's name and he chose a first name that went with it. I'm thankful that he chose to honor his grandmother with a better name and that he did not decide to saddle me with his mother's name. I am definitely not a June or Elva June if we used her legal name nor have I ever been a Lois.
I found out as an adult that if my mother was the one who named me that I would have been named after (I guess) favorite character from Days of Our Lives--Hope Williams Brady.
See my tiny little independent elementary and middle school has a Jennifer the year ahead of me but not one in my class. Then again, there were probably 12 girls total in our grade through pre-K to 8th.
I went to a small school too and at one point in my elementary years there were three of us named Wendy out of a class of 30!
Believe it or not, I was the only Stephanie until my last two years of high school when there was another Stephanie a grade behind me. (We're still friends!)
I did however have 3 Michaels and 4 Stevens/Stephens in ONE CLASS.
We had no Stephanies, but did have two Amandas, three Jackies and a Jessica (me, whose name is always mistaken for Jennifer - I blame the J-E-double consonant-I). C/O 1999
I don't think I graduated with a Stephanie, I might have and just don't remember. I really didn't hang out with my high school classmates after school. I hung out with my church youth group where I was friends with a Jennifer and her sister Stephanie. We all attended the same university where I met their other friends some from their high school plus others. Said group had 2 Jennifers, 2 Stephanies, and sometimes 2 Amandas. We all ranged from class of 95-98.
I've gotten called Jennifer SO MANY TIMES in my life - J
I’m an elder millennial so we didn’t have nearly as many Jennifers, but we had a ton of Jessicas. My legal name is mostly used as a nickname for Jessica, so everyone not related to me always assumes it’s short for Jessica until I correct them. I used to literally stamp my little foot and say very indignantly, “My name is not Jessica!!!!!”
I don’t even want to get into all the Williams and Marys on both sides of my family. Before a bunch of the Williams died family events were very confusing.
I was a Stephanie repeatedly called Jennifer because of my resemblance to a classmate :)
Remember when Nicholas Braun was accused of sending spicy DMs to underage girls? Good times. Good. Times.
Ugh, really? Groooosss...
I typed an entire comment and it disappeared into the ether... ah well. I re-read Spring Fever a few years ago in a fit of nostalgia brought on by the Double Love podcast (hi Anna!) and had a thoroughly good time. Annie-Sue the villain! Jessica's previously unmentioned horseriding skills (Wakefields and their surprise talents strike again)! The fake carnie twins! As entertaining and silly as the cover promises, which doesn't always happen with SVH. Also, with the ridiculous amount of doppelgangers doing the rounds in Sweet Valley, I'm surprised they never had one for Poor Dead Regina Morrow.
That is SUCH a good point about Regina! Tricia Martin gets like five doubles including the girl who inadvertently led Steven Wakefield to hang glide into a cliff and poor old Regina doesn’t even get one?
Justice for Poor Dead Regina! This girl not only got held hostage, but suffered through making Bruce a somewhat tolerable member of society, doesn't she deserve a secret twin? Oh, but stupid Nicholas would probably make it all about him and be insufferable.
Not only does poor Regina not get a secret twin, she gets totally forgotten about when Bruce decides that randomer Pamela is “the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen!” Although we’ve now seen how long THAT lasted…
Such disrespect! He truly deserved having an eagle steal his gold.
She also taught countless people IRL not to do cocaine!! -J
A noble service!
My brother once commented that he was never tempted to use cocaine because of Len Bias, which I think is common among men around my age (42), but for the women it's 100% Regina Morrow.
I don't believe I would have ever tried cocaine to begin with but Poor Dead Regina Morrow definitely scared me of even thinking of the possibility so that book did its job for sure!
I know I read a few of the SVH books, but I was truly obsessed with the Babysitters Club Super Specials. The one where Stacy and her mom get stuck in the car during a snowstorm because Stacy HAD to go to the mall but Stacy doesn't have any crackers in her purse for her diabetes?? The one where they go on a cruise and little Karen sneaks off for a manicure and charges it to her dad's room?? Sensational.
How about the one where they split a modest lottery jackpot and all go to California? And Mallory gets a makeover, dying her hair blonde? Man, good times.
The first BSC super special on the cruise ship/Disney World was amazing. We got new perspectives from Karen, one of the triplets--it was eye opening! Mary Anne meets a pathological liar! Watson locks the mini bar and takes the keys because he knows what Claudia is like! Even though he could clearly afford to pay for her habit!
I was very into the BSC Super Special when they were camp counselors, probably because I always dreamed of going to summer camp (very much not a thing where I grew up).
I loved the one where Claudia and Dawn did some sailing race with a bunch of little kids and wound up shipwrecked on an island for like a week. So dramatic!
As the Xennial here I’m really sad the SVH books were not in my reading range by the time I was in middle school! I did do a number of BSC books but not these.
I - an elder millenial - also got into BSC but not SVH. I think by the time my generation got there, they had started publishing the Sweet Valley Junior High books, and I remember reading some of those. The comments are bringing back memories of characters and their arcs even though I don't remember specific storylines.
That feels right about the SVJH books! We (and the Gen Xers) didn’t have the wealth of YA books outside of SV/BSC or Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew. 14 year old me wanted nothing to do with HP when it first dropped.
We had Judy Blume! What else did we need?
I didn’t love Judy Blume, but I did as a 2-4th grader read a bunch of Beverly Cleary. The only child in me didn’t know what else to do after those but BSC.
1978-born here - love BOTH Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary! Wanted to name my first kid Ramona but RHONY ruined that for me pretty quickly...
I’m on the other side in the early 80s but yeah I wouldn’t name my kid Ramona now!
I liked the Jr High series ok and still read them but like the senior year series it seemed a little more realistic. I was born 1987 and I felt like most of my friends were way more into BSC than Sweet Valley though I had friends borrow a few from me in 5th grade.
Fellow Xennial here, I don’t think I ever read the SVH books, I was all about the BSC. I did read a bunch of Sweet Valley Twins books, which I think are set when they’re in elementary school. I remember the one where their frenemy Lila was revealed to be a secret bed wetter and they had to be nice to her about it.
Sweet Valley Twins was 6th grade, Elizabeth wrote for the Sixers, but Jessica was in Unicorn Club with 7th and 8th graders so I think they all had the same lunch period. Sweet Valley Kids was set in 2nd grade but when I found the whole series in first grade I had very little interest in them and only read a few. I felt the same way about Baby Sitters little sister series about Karen when she was 6 and I read maybe 5 of them.
I read ALL of those, because my SVH love dovetailed nicely with my "I must collect all items in a set" personality. Although the special editions were a problem in that sense because they messed up the number scheme.
Side note that I'm just now realizing, did Malin Akerman travel back in time to pose for the covers?
I was OBSESSED with Sweet Valley Saga! If I remember correctly each generation’s girls names were a variation on Jessica and Elizabeth. I believe that was the summer I, a 1980 Jessica, dreamed of being called Jessamine.
I was also obsessed with Sweet Valley Saga. I barely remember the plot to all of the SVH and SVT, but parts of SVS are imprinted on my brain like the bareback riding and the San Francisco Earthquake.
I absolutely read Spring Fever as a preteen and years later when I started listening to Riot Grrl music the song Carnival by Bikini Kill always made me remember that book….. not very punk rock of me but I too contain multitudes.
I didn't read many SVH books, I think because I found them extremely hard to relate to, but I did stumble across a couple that felt quite dark and salacious and gave those a go. There was one where Elizabeth was kidnapped (titled, hilariously, Kidnapped!) and one where Jessica crash-landed on a desert island (Lost At Sea). Neither was quite what I wanted them to be (not salacious enough, I guess??) but they clearly made an impression b/c I was 10 when I read them and remember them quite well, and that was nearly 35 years ago! I also read the one where Jessica dyes her hair black and *~rEbeLLs~*... And was disappointed because her rebellion wasn't especially rebellious. (She tries to be a model?) I defintely approved of her darker hair on the cover, however. (The New Jessica)
The (usually absolutely bonkers) show 911 had a plot this season about a character meeting a doppelgänger of his dead ex! While he was eventually walked in on with said doppelgänger by his child (with said deceased ex) and his girlfriend it was not nearly bonkers enough for what I generally expect from a show with a tsunami in LA and whose spinoff included a volcano in Austin, Texas.
That’s in one of the footnotes! I think they must have decided they needed to get rid of Christopher and THAT is how they did it?!? -H
The one time I read directly in Gmail instead of in my browser!
I did enjoy that they apparently named the doppelgänger Kim after Kim Novak from Vertigo.
I would actually be sort of surprised if they were trying to get rid of Christopher for good, since he's such a linchpin of Eddie's story/ character. I assumed it was just soapy hijinks to create drama around him that didn't involve putting him in some kind of life-ending peril. But the doppelganger wife was a REALLY wild choice. I'm guessing the producers must have really liked the actress??