This year marked the 30th anniversary of the start of the Sweet Valley High book series, which for me personally means that I spent 36 hours in mid-August plowing through the six novellas comprising the new Sweet Life series. The characters are now, like me, at the start of their thirties and finding that some of them have grown and matured as people while others are perpetually stuck in the high school mentality. It’s not great literature, but along with some frozen margaritas it made for a fun couple of summer nights.
While Sweet Valley is certainly over the top, like all popular stories they exhibit certain universal aspects and emotions that help connect to the readers. Most SVH readers growing up wouldn’t have had the money and expensive cars that the characters had, but many would be able to identify with the lack of attention Lila received from her father, the rivalries and competition between Jessica and her friends (and siblings), the overpowering feelings of young love and, ultimately, of betrayal when that love changes or is rejected. Sure, the majority of readers wouldn’t have first hand experience with their twin sister stealing and eventually marrying their boyfriend, like Elizabeth did, but plenty could know what it was like to lose a love to someone they thought was a friend. The town gossip might not be texting them links to the latest rumors she wrote about them on her blog (which, on a side note, how does Caroline have everyone’s private email and cell phone numbers? That part never made sense to me), but nearly everyone knows certain acquaintances who share more than they should about anything that might be juicy. They might not ever date a movie star boyfriend like Jessica, but quite a few can understand the fear of having an obsessive and controlling significant other and trying to find a way to break out of the cycle of abuse.
The greatest appeal, though, is that in the end, there is usually a happy ending. Elizabeth forgives Jessica. Bruce’s name is cleared from the false charges against him. Todd arrives in the nick of time to stop Liam’s attack on Jessica, leading to a tearful reaffirmation of their love (sweet, even though I still feel Todd Wilkins is an asshole). Real life doesn’t usually get this many happy endings, or at the very least not on this grand a scale.
And it’s nice to feel like though these characters we related to in our adolescent years haven’t changed drastically by the time they hit this milestone year. Jessica’s priorities may have changed since having a kid, but she’s still ambitious and driven to get what she wants. Elizabeth is a little more assertive, though still naive in a lot of ways (her ending was hard to feel sorry for as a result. I was actually yelling “Oh, PLEASE!” at my Kindle). But there’s a comfort in that sameness. We don’t like to think we aren’t as spontaneous or attractive as we once were – at age thirty we want to feel as young and free as we did at fifteen or twenty. Thirty is where we start to realize we really are getting older and things aren’t the same as they were before.
Earlier tonight, while working on a writing project, I decided to open up the Pandora’s Box of all my old journals and diaries in search of something. I didn’t find what I set out for, but I found some new perspective on a vexing problem. I also discovered some interesting things in the diaries that 30-year-old me has no memories of but that appear to be of the utmost importance to my 15-year-old self. In one, I wrote about a dream that convinced me I was going to marry my friend Tom one day. There was also a year-long period in late ’98-99 where I wrote frequently of my vile hatred of a girl named Sara, who 30-year-old me has absolutely no memory of (the only context I found was she was somebody my friend Josh liked but everyone else thought was stuck up). I couldn’t even find evidence I personally met this girl, but there were some colorful descriptions in there that my 30-year-old self applauds my 15-year-old self for coming up with, even if they do appear to be completely irrational.
Bottom line: some of the things they can’t tell you in high school is that you never really grow up. You get older, and hopefully wiser with experience, but like our Sweet Valley friends, you are still you.
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