One of the features I like best about Gmail is its ability to capture all related e-mails in a single thread. It is this capability that has encouraged me to keep conversations in my Inbox for months after they've ended, including the following one I had with Isabel last April that started with one simple comment about strip club etiquette and turned into the most detailed Sweet Valley High dialogue the blogosphere has ever seen.
Frema's stellar comment:
Pat's wife is shoving dollar bills down another woman's panties and he's complaining about her technique?
Just proof that nothing is EVER good enough for men.
Hola, Isabel wrote:
No, she leaves them on the stage in front of her. Which also bugs him. But I didn't know how to work that into the post. I was dying when The King was telling me about this last night. Because seriously, how can you complain about anything when your wife will go with you to a strip club!?
I finished Deceived last night. And it's going to be so hard to save the last 2 books for the hospital!!
Isabel
Frema to Hola:
Well, imperfect wife though she may be, she still goes to strip clubs. Pat has a reason to praise God every day of his life.
I kept checking your site this morning, wondering if there would be an Amalah-style "we're off to the hospital!" e-mail! You will let us know before you leave, won't you? :)
I'm reading Out of Control right now, which focuses on Aaron Dallas's rage problem due to his parents' divorce. I love how they'll drop hints of the next book's topic in the last 10 pages of the previous one. For example, in Too Much in Love, we see Aaron yell at someone for stepping on his foot at a party on the second to last page. By page six of the next book, Aaron is already described as unlikable and (wait for it) out of control. Fabulous.
Hola to Frema:
I know EXACTLY what you mean. Because in Deceived, Steven's sick girlfriend, Tricia, ends up in the hospital in the last few pages and we wonder if she'll live. Oh my gosh...will she live? I can't wait to read about it. Actually, I can wait. Because I don't have that book.
Frema to Hola:
Tricia does die. But by number 24, Steven tucks her away in a special part of his heart and goes after Cara Walker, one of Jessica's friends. I like Cara better. Tricia (what little we saw of her) was too much of a goodie-goodie.
Also, I have ALL of my SVH books from childhood still stashed in my parents' basement. So I'm sure that ninety percent of the books I bought at Half-Price Books are ones I already own. But who cares? Also also, Luke would kill me if I brought any more Sweet Valley stuff into our apartment. Since our wedding shower, we've been bursting at the seams. A happy problem, to be sure. :)
Hola to Frema:
Oh the goodness that is SHOWERS!! I'm glad you've received tons of stuff. You totally deserve it!! Hooray for weddings!
Steven and Cara? I had no idea. I thought Cara was sort of a skank, like Jessica?!
Didn't they make a SVH TV show? I never saw it (because it came out when I was too old for that stuff). Did you see it? (Have we talked about this?!)
Frema to Hola:
She starts out skanky but undergoes a personal transformation after her parents' divorce. She ends up being a pretty good mix of fun but friendly.
Yes, they did make a show, but I was kind of old for it, too, and I thought the actors they chose to portray the characters were terrible. However, I continued to read the books well into college, just because I was that addicted to the storyline. I remember the supersized number 100, A Night to Remember, when Jessica and Elizabeth were both running for prom queen, and Jessica spiked Liz's punch to make her lose face. Turns out that Liz and Sam, Jessica's first and last long-term boyfriend (that I know of), got into a car together, with Liz behind the wheel. There was a horrible crash, and Sam was killed. It took Jessica a few books before she would confess to spiking the punch. In the meantime, Elizabeth was facing murder charges and Jessica dated Todd.
I know WAY more about Sweet Valley than any human should. But I am not ashamed!
Hola to Frema:
Yes you do.
I never got past maybe number 18. And I didn't know Jessica had a real boyfriend.
Okay...so did they EVER talk about SEX?
-------I don't know why I never answered Isabel's urgent question. Probably because she went and had herself a baby. However, now I will say that yes, dear friend, they did talk about sex. In Steven's Bride, number 83, Cara's mother takes a job in London and she and Steven decide to get engaged. Jessica throws Cara a bridal shower and gives her tons of trashy lingerie, and Cara blushes at the thought of doing the horizontal tango with the boyfriend who's never so much as unbuttoned her blouse. And FYI, they do not get married. Cara moves to London with her mom, and Steven mourns the loss of another girlfriend. Don't worry about him, though: he eventually goes with his female college roommate. I'm sure Ned and Alice loved that.
Tell us we're not the only dorks who love the Wakefield twins and the matching lavalier necklaces they received from their white-bread, stylishly middle-class parents. Also, there were people besides my sister and me who played the board game, right? RIGHT?
Oh you aren't the only ones who loved them... but I don't think that I was as into them as you guys. I did however, buy my BFF's blonde 9 year old twin daughters a couple of the Sweet Valley Twin books... because I had to. I had to!!!!
Did you ever read the Sunset Beach series? LOVED IT!
Posted by: Carrisa | April 03, 2007 at 01:05 PM
Never read the books, never played the game. Sorry. But I am thinking that some British dude got totally lucky with Cara and all her trashy lingerie.
Posted by: Silly Hily aka The Hilarazzi | April 03, 2007 at 01:23 PM
I love that you saved these e-mails....wow, we wrote them about this time last year. Holy cow.
I never even saw that game. But believe you me, I would have played it. And loved it. Did it have trivia questions like "who started the slam book?" Or was it more like "Jessica cheated on a test, move back 2 spaces"?
(I love that you STILL HAVE THE GAME!)
Posted by: Isabel | April 03, 2007 at 01:29 PM
Dude!!! I loved Sweet Valley High!! I used to read them too, but I never read all of them. I do remember than in every book they described the twins and looking exactly alike down to the dimple in their right cheeks.
Posted by: Rachel | April 03, 2007 at 01:31 PM
Isabel: Girl, I wish I still had the game. I found that picture online! We played it all the time, though. Nobody wanted to be Enid, whose name we always pronounced with a short "e" sound. I had no idea that was wrong until I saw the TV show. One of the worst names EVER.
Posted by: Frema | April 03, 2007 at 01:35 PM
I think I would have loved them, but I was too old when they came out. I was all about the teen romance novel, but somehow they weren't in series' at the time.
I still remember sobbing hysterically because my mom wouldn't let me finish the last 10 pages of some sad misunderstood teen romance novel before coming down for dinner. It was 7th or 8th grade.
Posted by: Liza | April 03, 2007 at 01:38 PM
I know for a fact that I read every SVH book in our library... and before that, I read the Sweet Valley Twins series. And although I was possibly also too old for the TV series, I still totally watched it. And loved it.
The only books that even come close to SVH in my early years was RL Stine... my only regret is that I was born before "Goosebumps" came out.
Posted by: Pink Herring | April 03, 2007 at 02:21 PM
I never had the SVH game, but I WAS the proud owner of the Babysitter's Club game...in fact, I think it's at my parents' house somewhere...so sad!! :)
Posted by: Jessi | April 03, 2007 at 03:09 PM
I never played the board game, but I did love me some SVH...although clearly not as much as you did.
I know I'm a grown up now and everything, but I'm kind of wanting to read them again.
Posted by: Bethiclaus | April 03, 2007 at 04:03 PM
I didn't have time for Sweet Valley High, I was too busy reading all about the Babysitters Club. They had it all - vacations, mysteries, and even the line of books for the little sister!
Posted by: Christine McNelis | April 03, 2007 at 04:09 PM
I was also more of a babysitter's club fan. My teenaged manuscript was a serial like those books.
I love that the conversation implies that Isabel's first name is Hola! I think mine might say Art. hehehe
Posted by: Art Nerd | April 03, 2007 at 04:45 PM
Hey, Christine, lil' Frema found the time to read the BSC, too, and Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine and the Nancy Drew Files. So there is NO EXCUSE.
Posted by: Frema | April 03, 2007 at 04:50 PM
I'm with Frema...I read BSC and RL Stine. It was all about the books (yeah, but I still seemed to have missed the Flowers in the Attic books).
Posted by: Isabel | April 03, 2007 at 08:24 PM
Dude, I totally just went to Youtube to watch the SVH videos they have on there. AWESOME.
Posted by: Isabel | April 03, 2007 at 08:33 PM
My sister and I played that game all the time too! But we said Enid with a long e sound. Neither of us wanted to be her either.
Crap, I should start reading those books again. I never got very far. I always remember them having to share their "red fiat spider". Spoiled, I say.
Posted by: Elizabeth | April 03, 2007 at 08:36 PM
I never really got into the books, but I LOVED the board game. I got all giddy when I saw the picture you posted of the game!!! Oh that takes me back. We'd always make fun of the person who had to be Enid, because no one wanted to be Enid. My sister and I would try to get my Dad to play the game and we would laugh and say "HAHAHA You can be EENNIIIDDD HAHAHAHA" I know, that's not even funny right? But it was SO funny.
Posted by: Lindsey | April 03, 2007 at 10:17 PM
No experience. None.
Now talk BSC, and I'm so on board. I spent my entire freshman year of high school perfecting Jessi's penmanship as my own, because I was a really huge dork. (But I also kissed a boy or two that year, so I was doing okay, right?)
:o)
Posted by: Molly | April 03, 2007 at 10:37 PM
I think I liked the ones I read, but my mom encouraged me not to read them. She didn't forbid it, but said that she'd rather that I read other stuff, on the grounds that they were inappropriate (or something).
Posted by: Katie | April 04, 2007 at 12:07 AM
Oh, Katie, that's such a shame, because even with all of their crazy schemes, these teenagers were the cleanest ones you'll ever meet. Never smoked, never kissed below the mouth, never experimented with drugs, never denounced God. And if they did have a problem, it was solved within two or three serials with a big finish. Imagine how shocked I was that my high school experience was nothing like SVH!
Posted by: Frema | April 04, 2007 at 11:11 AM
I love how Frema is all "they never kissed below the mouth or denounced God".
:-)
But did they ever kiss open mouthed and talk about God?? I don't remember them being Christian (not that it mattered to me at all). And I never noticed how pure the books were until I reread them last year. SO PURE!
Posted by: Isabel | April 04, 2007 at 01:12 PM
Squee! I lurved me some SVH, almost as much as I loved Christopher Pike. My mother had no idea about the kind of stuff I was reading. Yes, the Sweet Valley-verse was pretty tame, but you don't know my mother.
Didn't Steven end up dating some girl who looked just. like. Tricia? (Kinda creepy, now that I think about it.) I think she had "strawberry blonde" hair and everything.
Posted by: Fraulein N | April 04, 2007 at 02:10 PM
I am SO breaking out the SVH books tonight! My collection (minus book #1 - where is book #1?) sits in a box in my garage, just waiting to be discovered again. Mike is going to think I lost my mind when I dig out the SVH books. Oh well!
Posted by: Jackie | April 04, 2007 at 04:24 PM
I am so dense. Although you clearly mentioned that you were recounting e-mail correspondence, I somehow got it in my mind that Isabel was having another baby, By checking your links, I figured out my confusion. The baby that you mentioned is almost a year old? Wow
I am not sure that the Sweet Valley High girls were around in the 60's. I did read a few series books called The Bobbsey Twins , which I did not like, The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and The Boxcar Children . Of course, I read the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House on the Prairie books. I do not believe that these books have been immortalized with a fun game.
Posted by: mjd | April 04, 2007 at 05:52 PM
I loved SVH, still do, I just wish I owned more of the books.
I didn't even know they made a game, I would have played it if I had known about it. I wonder if I could find a copy....
I also got into Christopher Pike, Goosebumps, Babysitters Club, etc. Ahh, the good old days...
Posted by: Sera | July 06, 2007 at 11:09 AM