virgoreader

When I was writing my about page I had to think about what really got me into reading, and a huge part of my childhood was Sweet Valley books. My local library had them all on big spinning carts, and they didn't have due dates, I guess because they were kind of flimsy cheap paperbacks? So I would check out an entire stack at a time.

I didn't watch TV so these books were my form of high school soapy dramas - they were my Dawson's Creek, 90210, Felicity, One Tree Hill, The OC... (Side note: I just found out The CW is planning a Sweet Valley High reboot??)

The whole Sweet Valley universe is centered around twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield. Elizabeth is the smart and sensible one, Jessica is girly, boy crazy, and popular. I remember reading every series - Sweet Valley Kids, Sweet Valley Junior High, Sweet Valley High School - but my favorite was definitely Sweet Valley High: Senior Year. 

The original Sweet Valley High series was published 1983-1998 and ended with an earthquake that destroyed the other high school in town, so the high schools had to be combined for the twins senior year, which introduced a whole new cast of characters. Enter Senior Year, a 48 book series published from 1999-2003. 

I remember the Senior Year books as feeling much more grown up than the old high school series. 

• The covers featured actual models, not painting. You can argue these didn't hold up as well as readers today probably prefer the aesthetic of the painted covers, but in the very early 2000's this felt so fresh. 
• There are diary entries where each of the characters has a different "handwriting" - I remember one character, Tia, wrote in all caps and I thought it was so cool I tried to do that before my mom was like "...what are you doing, stop."
• And the content felt more mature - there was alcohol and repercussion of alcoholism, drugs, overdoses, attempted suicide, and at least one character came out as gay. 

The same night I was writing that about page and reminiscing on the Sweet Valley books I decided to order all 48 online... because I'm a little impulsive when it comes to books. 

After hodge-podging several eBay lots and a large order from Thriftbooks and 1 from Etsy, I was able to find all of them. 

So many of the books are old library copies, covered in the clear tape I remember from copies at my own library, to increase the longevity of the book. Many are stamped with a library's name, some have library stickers and barcodes, a few had a "10 cent" sticker on the cover, probably from an old library sale.

But the real gems to me are the sweepstakes proclaimed on the cover, like a contest to go to the set of That 70s Show, or the chance to win a cassette disk. PRICELESS.

Check out my TikTok "introduction episode" to rereading the series! I gave some backstory and set up and I'm so excited to see how they hold up.