We are down to Dear Sister and The Evil Twin. Funny how they are on the extreme ends of the series.
Now that we are down to the finals, I am going to announce my endorsement of Dear Sister, which is a faaaaar better book. There’s multiple personalities! Jessica gets a taste of her own medicine! Bruce Patman! Touching boobies! Todd gets emasculated! It’s got an actual story arc! There’s a pool party involved! Nalice is totally clueless about cyber-sexual Liz! Bad parenting!
Yes, this all does seem over the top, but if this is over the top, The Evil Twin is so over the top it comes from underneath. Ok, so a motorcycle accident is one thing, but a psycho who looks like the twins? Come on. That’s like when Melrose Place turned into a simple show about 20 somethings living in LA to Marcia Cross taking off her wig to reveal she had a lobotomy to make her crazy.
So, when you vote, make the RIGHT CHOICE. Vote for the BEST CHOICE. Vote DEAR SISTER.
First! Lol..
Man your site is pretty tops
Dear Sister is the one everyone remembers; the coma, hitting the head and all that gubbins. It’s certainly the definitive SVH book.
My vote goes out to The Evil Twin though. That’s when SVH started being all it could be. It stopped being polite and started being real. ###CURRENT REFERENCE###
Actually read Dear Sister whereas with Evil twin i was only able to experience it via your blog post. Yet… Evil twin does sound like it fulfilled the true horrendous potential of Sweet valley High. So I vote for the latter.
I was sorry to see “Kidnapped by the Cult” knocked off so early, so I had to go with “Dear Sister” … it’s early SVH, before you know how f’ed things are going to get. Which makes it all the crazier.
Evil Twin all the waaaaaay, if only for the fact it’s the first SVH book Ibought all on my own. Margo is queen!
DEAR SISTER ALL THE WAY! That’s actually the third SVH book I ever read- after ” Outcast” and ” On the Edge” and it was always one I read about 700 times- it’s a favorite of my sister and cousin, as well!!!
I still have never read The Evil Twin. I never knew about Margo until I started reading 1bruce1. The last thing I remember about SVH was right around the time Jade Wu came into the picture.
But I think I’d still be Team DS no matter what. I mean, it’s everything you say and more! It’s stupid and fantastic at the same time! Go Team DS!
I was going to vote for Dear Sister before your endorsement. It is classic SVH.
Ditto! Although IHW’s endorsement was persuasive…
Dear Sister, OBVIOUSLY. I remember reading it when I was about 9 or 10 and being SO scandalized by the fact that Bruce touched her boob. Though what I didn’t get was that he also totally planned to date rape her before she knocked her head on his table and all of a sudden was back to her old Bruce-hatin’ self.
That choice nearly killed me, but I finally had to go with Dear Sister. If only because this book was checked out of the library for six months solid before I had a chance to read it and I was so desperate to read the Elizabeth-in-a-coma drama. Boy, was I peeved when it turned out she woke up on like page 7.
Dear Sister was my vote. It’s the first SVH book I ever read, AND I wasn’t allowed to read SVH then. I got grounded when my mom found out I read it. To be fair to her, I was only 9 or 10 years old, and date rape was a little over my head (like I knew what that was)!
Dear Sister hands down. This is classic Sweet Valley and I think for us late 20 somethings to early 30 somethings, this is one of the defining books of the series. I remember tearing into it to find out what happened. I too was scandalized by the boob touch and never understood why this seemed to drop off so much after the first few books. Also one of the few books where Jessica seemed to get a taste of her own medicine…so satisfying at the time!
Like bookslide, I never even know about The Evil Twin until I started following the recap sites.
GO DEAR SISTER!!
I agree with those who say Dear Sister is classic SVH, so I voted for it. Yeah, The Evil Twin is sheer craziness and entertainment, but it’s not the SVH I know and love.
Sorry I couldn’t vote for Dear Sister. After reading Evil Twin, I was freaking out! It inspired me to write about a psycho. Dear Sister was meh.
I have a hand in the air waving wildly for Dear Sister – I loved this book!
If I may indulge in some literary criticism of SVH…Dear Sister was pure escapism and didn’t pretend to be anything else while The Evil Twin tried too hard to be arty and/or deep and – let’s be honest here – failed at exploring feelings of loss, grief, alienation, identity theft and crime when really, these SVH kids didn’t think beyond a sale at Lisette’s, their next Saturday night date, meddling, manipulation or in the really, really serious books, unrequited love.
I think it is far too much for Francine to expect us to relate to both when none of these kids’ lives resembled life as we knew it.
Go Dear Sister!
The Evil Twin was some hilarious crap, but I’m old skool, so it’s Dear Sister all the way. DS was old-skool SVH at its best. As much as I enjoy laughing at the later SVHs, it just wasn’t the same after they canned Jimmy and started doing the miniseries. And when they put the TV actors on the covers? SVH was dead to me. DEAD.
Erm, I meant TET was crack, not crap. Although that applies as well.
DS all the way!! My friends and I were all incredibly scandalised by the boob touching. Bear in mind that this was before any of us HAD boobs. *I must, I must, I must increase my bust!*
Even though I’ve read the Evil Twin more, and I do enjoy the buildup you get, I’ve gotta go for Dear Sister – there’s something almost gently nostalgic about it seeing how early in the series it was, and of course the actual madcap plot still endears…
I voted for Dear Sister, since I am also old school SVH, but it was never one of my favorites. However, I think I need to reread it from all of the descriptions. Also, the comparison to Melrose Place is good, although I don’t know if it necessarily works in this case. On MP, that show got a MILLION times better once it got crazy! Marcia Cross taking off the wig? That was brilliant. In SVH, I sort of prefer it when it’s just your standard YA cheesiness.
Dear Sister all the way!!!! I loved that book. Early SVH is classic. Campy yet still alot of fun to read. The later books just got a little TOO ridiculous. The Evil Twin was good too. But not as much fun to read.
But as much as I adore Dear Sister, I’m surprised it’s up against The Evil Twin as best SVH book. Neither of these books are as classic as: Playing with Fire, On the Edge, All Night Long, Don’t Go Home With John, Amy’s True Love, or POWER PLAY. On the Edge (Regina’s dies from cocaine), and Power Play(fat to skinny Robin Wilson) are especially the two books that come to mind when I think of SVH.
Let’s not mince words.
I held off as long as possible.
I debated.
I’ve already described my emotional turmoil in previous threads these past few weeks.
It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t pretty…
But finally, daring the wrath of Margo…:: coughVotedDearSistercough ::
ive on read the evil twin. that book was horrible and very unrealistic.
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