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Now this is actually awesome: a fameball turning on itself in such convolution that the snake eats its own tail. Remember Sweet Valley High, the 80s young-teen series about a pair of California twins named Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield? They went to Sweet Vally High, and although they looked exactly the same, their personalities were actually quite different! (Jessica was the slutty one, and Elizabeth liked to read and write.) Well, Random House is releasing them with new designs in April, and the book's cover gal, posing as both Elizabeth and Jessica, is our favorite seventeen-year-old All My Children actress/Julia Allison boyfriend-stealer, Leven Rambin! The old and new covers of Double Love and Secret, which we remember all too well, follow.
While Leven models as both Elizabeth and Jessica on the SVH covers, you'll remember that on All My Children she plays both the autistic Lily Montgomery and her older half-sister, Ava. It's this sort of thing that will get you nominated for a Daytime Emmy!
Comments
Unfortunately, Jessica still always ALMOST gets date-raped.
Is that the same Sweet Valley High: Double Love I tried to watch at the Ramada Inn in Shreveport? Because there were some issues with the audio quality that were not resolved to my satisfaction.
That's kind of really neat. I still have Sweet Valley High books I stole from the library in my room.
They're right next to my inflated sense of self and pure awesomeness.
@KarenUhOh: That wasn't the audio quality - double love often results in high-pitched squeals.
Re-release The Babysitters Club's first installment, the spectacular Kristy's Great Idea, and I'll be a happy camper.
While we're at it, let's get some Christopher Pike up in here!!! Fall Into Darkness?! Hello, only the greatest book ever written about pushing a teenage girl off a cliff like EVER.
Why is this on Gawker? I am disappointed its not on Jezebel first.
@CodePink: Remember Me was like, totally deep when I was 12.
Now that is some quality passive aggressiveness. Leven had to get the spotlight back from her sister Mary, who made news yesterday with her "never going to happen" reality show with JA. Mary will name drop everyone but her actress sister, so it seems that Leven likes Mary about as much as Mary likes JA.
Two Gawker mentions in one day? Freaking Team Leven. Which sounds like bread.
I can't recall actual celebrities ever doing book covers. Oh. Wait. Nicole Richie put her mug on her 'The Truth About Diamonds' bomb.
Let's see: All My Children and third-rate fifth string 'social' promotion parties. TIME TO GET A NEW AGENT
What happened to the blond boobielicious twins who played them on the tv show?
yawn, call me when they start redoing nancy drew/hardy boys covers.
@BettyCrocker: one of them, cynthia (or brittany) daniel is on the CW show "the game"
Is my memory whacked, or was it Sweet Valley Twins first - middle school style?
Oh gosh did I love these books. I was so worried about Elizabeth when she got into that motorcycle accident! And then woke up from a coma and had turned into a turbo-charged Jessica! Todd Wilkins! Enid! Enid? Enid and George? Am I remembering about Enid and George correctly? And the rich prick, Bruce Patman. Right? I believe it was from Sweet Valley High that I learned the phrase, "To the victor go the spoils" (which Bruce said to Jessica after she let him beat her at tennis)(oh, my God I can't believe I remember that). Someone confirm whether or not I am right or just imagining things, like the time the gang visited Bosnia under a rain of sniper-fire.
@BettyCrocker: One is dating a Wayans brother, I think.
@RachelSklar:
We must be close to the same age. I could have written that paragraph verbatim. Yes, all of that was true and more. Enid was Elizabeth's best friend, yes?
You have not misspoken. Not sure what that does to your human status.
This series is still the reason I'll always refuse cocaine.
Also, for some of you 'Tween Gawker types, I was reading these books when you actually had to wait a month for the next one to come out. I remember I was excited because they were "created" by Francine Pascal who, as everyone knows, wrote "Hangin' Out With Cici." Also awesome. Oh, and "Love & Betrayal & Hold The Mayo!" I am laughing just remembering that book. That book was awesome. They had to doff their hats! Anyone remember this? Yes, whoever said this was a Jezebel-type post was right. I am not confident that this is a safe space for these reminiscences, but oh well.
A new "Sweet Valley High: Secrets" cover? But the original is definitive. You can't trust anyone to leave well-enough alone anymore. For Christ's sake Time Magazine seems to change their cover almost every week. The subject, I assure you, of many heated gin-fueled late night brawls between me and Mr Luce.
@karion: And remember the girl who was overweight and then went on a diet and was totally hot? Bruce Patman brought her to the dance and was mean to her? Was her name Robin and did she eventually cheat with George on Enid? Wow, I am revealing too much.
@BettyCrocker: One stopped acting and the other lost way too much weight and was in Club Dread and It's Always Sunny as a tranny.
@RachelSklar: I was way too obsessed with these books - It was like Laguna Beach or the Hills - without the blank stares and boys with two first names. I had all the books and the game. And sadly no one ever wanted to be Enid.
Comment on New Sweet Valley High Cover Girl? Leven Rambin! I remember my sisters and I had the SVH board game and I was always bummed when I had to play the "Enid Rollins" gamepiece. If you don't remember, Enid was Elizabeth's trollish, nerdier friend. But according to her wikipedia bio, she was probably the coolest of them all! Bennies, recreational drug use, plane crashes, "goth" alter egos, and a torrid love affair with a boy named George Warren... you go girrrrl. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enid_Rollins _________________________________________________________________ Test your Star IQ http://club.live.com/red_carpet_reveal.aspx?icid=redcarpet_HMTAGMAR
My absolute favorite cover was for #5 "All Night Long" where Jessica hangs out with a college boy and on the cover he has a moustache. I remember being horrified to think that when I got to college I might be surrounded by men with moustaches.
@RachelSklar: yeah but after bruce was mean to robin (who became a cheerleader AND an anorexic later on), he started dating and fell in love with regina the deaf girl who died of a coke overdose after totally changing him into a nice sensitive guy so KARMA.
@Artful Slinger: you mean this one
[i134.photobucket.com]
that guy is so not ok
@EdnasEdibles: Mustaches are hot.
@RachelSklar:
I totally remember her - I loved that character. She lost weight by running around the tracks - so simple and yet metaphorical. I also hated Lila Fowler, who, all of a sudden, I am completely imagining as Mary Rambin!
I know you'll all just DIE from the shock of this revelation but... I worshiped SVH as a kid. there used to be a commenter here who went by lila fowler and hi? best username ever! giggle hiccup giggle.
@LadybirdRamone: HOLY CRAP! I've brought that up to SO MANY WOMEN my age, and no one knows what I'm talking about! The chick who was a good girl but she wanted to flirt with being bad so she did ONE LINE of coke and instantly had a heart attack and died? And this was after she used to be deaf but had a surgery to make her not deaf anymore?
uh, that hasn't kept me from the blow, though.
@EdnasEdibles: that terrified me as a kid.
@karion: LILA FOWLER!! That bitch.
@allyzay: next time click on the right post you're replying to.
was anyone else here sad enough to have read the sweet valley saga which was the really long one that went back in time through different periods and apparently revealed that every generation in sweet valley had its own liz and jessica wakefield?? why is that one sticking out to me so much?
She looks like the slutty one as Jessica AND as Elizabeth.
Ugh I fucking hated Lila. Remember in the 80's when all the rich bitches were brunettes?? I always thought of her as the bitch from "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". On the SVH TV show, she was played down.
And speaking of the Daniels sisters and tween fun, anyone out there remember "Swan's Crossing"????
@allyzay: YESSSSSSSSSSSS
@Rosie4Prez: fabio was often painted for the covers of romance novels. 4 realz
@LadybirdRamone: @amy amnesia: ME TOO! Her name was Regina, right? Bruce Patman's ex. And Winston Egbert's something or other (sister? cousin?). She fell in with a rough crowd and did one line of coke and died because of a previously undiagnosed heart condition. I still get chills when I remember the memorial service scene. Totally the reason why I never do coke--I cite it all the time.
Ugh. I totally got in trouble for reading these!
@allyzay: Oh gosh I think by then I had stopped reading. I do sort of remember though. By then I had learned all about cocaine from Jackie Collins.
@Artful Slinger:
I kind of liked that time in brunette history. Lila was so cool. Didn't she marry royalty in Sweet Valley High the college years?
Also during the college years: Liz gains 15 pounds and buys some dock martins, enid and todd hook up and Jessica gets married to some motorcycle riding drop-out.
@kpsquare: she did two lines and died! either way it is very unrealistic. her mother was a model, like they didn't have coke around all the time? i kind of expect more truth from a series that taught me that is totally possible to steal someone's entire face with a face transplant, years before nicolas cage did.
not to just dump links here, but these are great:
[thedairiburger.wordpress.com]
[claudiasroom.blogspot.com] (which has all sorts of important observations like kristy was totally a future lesbian and stacey was just a selfish bitch)
not that i spend all day reading the internet or anything...
@Rosie4Prez: She wasn't famous yet, but here is one.
[gofugyourself.typepad.com]
@RachelSklar:
Yeah, defnitely the same age. I don't remember the cocaine scene either, and I too learned all about it from Jakcie Collins. Also, that afterschool special when Helen Hunt leapt out of the window, high on angel dust? Highly effective at eliminating my curiosity of LSD.
So that must make JA Caroline, the misunderstood school gossip.
I distinctly remember Lori Loughlin's face from a bunch of books I read in that era...but am still looking for them online.
The memories.
@allyzay: *pensively fingering my lavaliere necklace [identical, given to us by our parents on our 16th birthday] trying to remember the face transplant incident*
I LOVED these books, I must have had over 50.
Ahhh, Ken Matthew, Lila Fowler, Bruce Patman, Steven Wakefield.
I miss them.
1BRUCE1
why, why, why do i remember that was his license plate?
OMG, Red Fiat Spyder car - I wanted one!
Oh my God, never have I loved Gawker so much, or felt less like a loser for owning every single Sweet Valley High, Sweet Valley Senior Year, Sweet Valley University, and, yes, even "Elizabeth," the final six part series in which Lizzie finally gives it up. I think I've found my happy place.
And don't feel so bad for Enid, she got so much ass in college it's a wonder she could walk.
umm....and Jennifer Connelly. There's one more that I'm having trouble remembering...
She's like the Olsen twins, but only ONE PERSON! It's like magic. This bitch is going places.
@Artful Slinger: YES. Lila Fowler = Natalie Sands. Although for some reason my mental picture of Lila was actually more aligned with Shannen Doherty's preteen character Maggie from GJWHF.
The Sweet Valley Twins #2, in which Jessica and Elizabeth duke it out for the lead in Swan Lake, STILL has me convinced I know a lot about ballet.
@RachelSklar: You are forgetting Lila Fowler!
@Gloppy: It was Copelia! And Any Sutton played a doll.
@allyzay: Totally. And what about the one with the evil, murderous third girl who looked just like Elizabeth and Jessica and was traveling the country killing people. I am ALL about a super special.
@CodePink: I have been trying to remember the name of that Christopher Pike book for months. And another that involves some horribly burned vindictive girl killing off the people who left her in the fire. OMG, it was a movie. With Jonathan Brandis.