Las gemelas de Sweet Valley’ is a landmark of 90’s television: in fact, its success was such in Spain that it was broadcast at the same time on TVE and Antena 3. What not everyone knows is that its adventures come from a literary saga that transcends the 88 television chapters to extend over more than 600 issues between main novels, spin-offs, adult sagas and secret clubs. Taking advantage of the book day, let’s take a look at a never-ending saga that you could never, ever read in its entirety (unless you dedicate yourself exclusively to it): ‘Sweet Valley’.
Books at go-go
Francine Pascal has been behind the lives of Jessica and Elizabeth for forty years, two twins who started out in high school and whose lives have taken a few twists and turns since October 1983 when it all began with ‘Double Love’, a novel in which the two sisters fight over the same boy, Todd Wilkins, who would later become Liz’s boyfriend. The author’s original idea was to make a soap opera in book format for teenagers, and boy, did she succeed. At least in length.
Originally, Pascal wanted to tell her story as a television series, but, when her dream came true, she ended up hating the end result. Not that ‘her’ story is entirely hers either: under the name Francine Pascal lurks a host of ghostwriters who have added chapters to the story over the decades at a lightning pace. From October 1983 to July 1998 there was a ‘Sweet Valley Twins’ book every month, for a total of 143 packed with love affairs, double dates, rants, whispers and even dead boyfriends returning in spirit form. Suck it, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’.
In addition to the original saga books, a special novel called ‘Super Edition’ was published once a year: there were twelve issues in which love affairs were put aside to focus on earthquakes, avalanches, trips to Cannes, forest fires and online stalkers. In addition, there were nine issues of ‘Super Thrillers’, packed with murder, Witness Protection, politics and kidnapping: the Sweet Valley twins weren’t bored, no.
Spin-offs a cascoporro
And here the madness begins: the ‘Magna Editions’ told things we had already seen but from a different point of view (the pig gets everything) and ‘Super Stars’ were stories about the secondary characters (Lila, Bruce, Enid, Olivia and Todd) that joined those of ‘Sweet Valley Twins’, a saga of 118 books that was published at the same time as the original and that took place a few years before (the continuity thing is going to be a mess, we’re going to warn you). The plots ranged from finding the secret ingredient to make cookies to girls suffering from cancer or teachers playing the Nazi Holocaust with them. Almost nothing.
This spin-off had, in turn, fourteen ‘Super Editions’, with stories like “twins go to an amusement park but don’t talk to each other”, “Jessica lives the same day over and over again until she finds her Christmas spirit” or “twins go to Paris and think their caretaker is a murderer“. Oh yes, and nine ‘Super Chillers’ featuring ghosts, magic pens and cursed masks (in a plot absurdly plagiarized from ‘Nightmares’). Also three ‘Magna Editions’, 23 novels of ‘The Unicorn Club’ and two of ‘Team Sweet Valley’, where the twins do gymnastics and volleyball.
And you’ll say “Well, that’s it, isn’t it?”. Of course not. From 1990 onwards, 70 more ‘Sweet Valley Kids’ books were published, featuring the characters as children, with seven ‘Super Snooper’ and five ‘Super Special Editions’ included. And when the original saga ended in 1998 with the twins’ graduation, another one began: ‘Sweet Valley Junior High’, which told stories of both the year before it all began: 30 more books in the bag and more chronological teasers.
But as well as going backwards, the saga also continued forwards: ‘Sweet Valley Senior Year’ had 48 novels since 1999, but six years earlier, in 1993, they had already begun their college adventures in ‘Sweet Valley University‘, which had 63 titles, including 18 ‘Thriller Editions’. After college, in 2001, ‘Elizabeth’ followed for six novels one of the twins running away to London and falling in love with a millionaire while clearing up the reasons for the breakup with her sister.
Ten years later, in 2011, Francines Pascal released ‘Sweet Valley Confidential’, which took place, coincidentally, a decade later. Finally, the author decided to put an end (for now) with a six-book saga, ‘The Sweet Life’, which told the story of the twins in their thirties: marriages, children, reality stars and much more to culminate these 604 books (we repeat: 604!) that many did not even guess when, in 1994, the TV series premiered. Don’t you feel less lazy now to start with this nine-part macro-saga of adventures? You’re welcome.
