Sweet Valley: Ten Years Later

I think I was in first or second grade when I was introduced to Sweet Valley Twins. Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, the perfectly beautiful 12year-old girls from California. It didn't hurt that they were slightly older (and at that age, don't we all want to be older?). Plus Elizabeth was a writer for the school paper! My dreams of being a writer found me obsessing over a lot of characters with a similar affliction (see also Green Gables, Anne of). In 5th grade, I discovered Sweet Valley High. This was great because I was starting to catch up to the girls in years so the advancement of the Wakefield twins to high school was perfect! And somewhere around my own middle school years, my interest in the Sweet Valley saga drifted off.

Still, I found myself intrigued when I read recently that there will be a new series - Sweet Valley: Ten Years Later. This one finds the twins around age 27, which is now perfect for me because I've reached the stage where you no longer fantasize about being older. Younger is where it's at! Plus, what would the girls be up to now?

For the low-low price of your dignity email address, you can sign up to read the first chapter at Sweet Valley Ten Years Later. I actually signed up and read it earlier in the week so I'm going to go ahead and give my spoilery-if-you-care thoughts here. I advise skipping the rest of the post if you want to read it for yourself. Really, I'd advise just not reading it. Ever.

Spoilery Bits:

Was the writing always this awful? I'm certainly not stuck-up about my taste in literature but it was terrible. An early line:

"That's okay," she managed, quickly ducking her face away from him, stealing a sliver of extra time as she put the doggie-bagged pork chop she was carrying carefully and more precisely than necessary down on the hall table.

Maybe back in middle school I was more forgiving of that kind of writing.

Which makes me wonder - who is their target audience for this? Do kids today still read the Sweet Valley books? Do they expect those of us who read them religiously as kids to pick this up and read it out of curiosity? The writing is so bad that I can't imagine they really want adults to read it.

Another fail if they're targeting long-time fans of the series is the storyline. Chapter One is told from Elizabeth's view. She is now 27, "self-exiled" in Manhattan after some horrible fall-out back home. She and Todd are no longer together, she contemplates sleeping with her boss at some d-list newspaper, and she refuses to speak to Jessica. The only person in California that she's still in contact with regularly is her new BFF (gag), Bruce Patman. Yeah, that Bruce Patman. The egotistical rich boy that kinda almost sorta raped her back in high school.

Wow, Elizabeth. And to think that one day I wanted to be you.

I'm not sure who their target market is for this. It appears to be only one book (the site isn't exactly clear) so maybe they will find a lot of people willing to buy the one-off for a quick read. For me, I think one chapter was more than enough.