The Internet exists to teach us that we are never as obsessed as we think we are. There is always a more fanatical collector or expert on obscure 16mm film reels or paperback young adult novels, to show us we are but mere enthusiasts. On a recommendation from the YALSA listserv, I visited The Dairi Burger to read about the reissue of the execrable teen series Sweet Valley High. Witty and smart readers visit the site and demonstrate a remarkable memory of plots and characters that overwhelms my own. But we all have similar stories. Most of us read compulsively, sometimes under bedsheets with flashlights, and devoured books like cakes then and now. Some of those books were destructive to our impressionable psyches, but when we’re all grown up we hope they form a generational bond, a laugh, a deep roll of the eye or maybe even some critical analysis.
While the SV canon—and it is canonical, though sometimes flexible with fact and reality, with hundreds of titles and series within series—may seem benign and forgettable to most, Francine Pascal’s covert mission of normalizing repulsive, greedy, shallow, and extraordinarily sexist behavior has helped to socially condition most of her vulnerable young readers. At the outset of each book, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, our heroic twins are always described in their perfect size six, tanned, sun-streaked blond glory, with eyes the color of the Pacific Ocean, even! What is intended to read variously as virtue, vivaciousness, ambition, magnanimity in the twins is really callowness, condescension, ruthlessness, self-righteousness. And what of the fat or single, LGBT folks, people of color, the poor? If they even exist in this world, they are tragically doomed or soon forgotten and they function as catalysts for the primary characters, eliciting pity and contempt.

This reissue is completely irresponsible and unnecessary. And the only reported edit is that Jessica and Elizabeth are now a perfect size four. I know that none of this is new, that we are all familiar with the evils of media for young people. Most likely children and teens today will not be interested in hoary Sweet Valley when they have young adult books like Gossip Girl, The A List, The Clique. The new offerings are mordantly self aware and cheeky and seem sometimes to have a hint of parody, even while they exist primarily to prop up the most garish and exclusive brands. In the SV books, characters are often kidnapped, raped, beaten, and tragically killed, but maintain a glazed innocence and mostly abstain from drinking, drugs, and sex, except for when it kills them to prevent others from indulging. At least the new naughty YA books aren’t pretenders.

And for illustrative purposes here are some choice quotations:

“There are a dozen fairy-tale princesses, Rose thought, and they’re going to make me a fairy-tale princess too.”

“He responded by turning his face to hers and kissing her hard, his arms crushing her against him, his mouth demanding what his body wanted to take.”

Lila, upon seeing Manuel: “I don’t know how she can date him. He’s so ethnic and working class.”

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