Don’t even THINK about it, Lizzie!

Biggest Overuse of Wholesome Values
There’s No Place Like Home. Liz can’t POSSIBLY achieve her dreams of studying in Switzerland in a top creative writing program! Jess can’t POSSIBLY go to private school or Hollywood! The twins can’t POSSIBLY graduate early and go to SVU! Steven can’t POSSIBLY take a job on a cruise ship! Robin Wilson can’t POSSIBLY graduate early and go to Sarah Lawrence! Why? BECAUSE THEY CAN’T POSSIBLY LEAVE SWEET VALLEY AND THEIR FRIENDS AND FAMILY!

Lamest Foreshadowing
The entirety of the SV Sagas. See, if a couple is Meant to Be, they will have similar names or be part of the same families in the past. So Elizabeth’s great-great aunt Elisabeth goes with a boy named Tom Wilkins. And Jessica’s great-grandmother Jessamyn has a doomed relationship with Bruce Farber, a race-car driver, who she eventually chucks for her True Love. Uh huh. And in one book, Todd saves Elizabeth from drowning, which she realizes parallels her own parents’ meeting and is cosmic confirmation that Todd is her True Love. And then there’s all the Ned Wakefield’s Ancestors having romances with Alice Wakefield’s Ancestors but it never working out… for SIX FUCKING GENERATIONS!

Why Even Bother With That Foreshadowing?
The twins want to be Sweet Valley tour guides for the summer! Remember that? In SVH #5, All Night Long there’s all the trauma because Jess misses the tour guide test and Liz takes it for her…? And then a few books later, Mrs. Wakefield gives the twins the Fiat because they’ll need transportation for their tour guide jobs come summer. And then, when the first Super Edition book, Perfect Summer, comes out… suddenly the twins’re on a bicycle trip up the Pacific coast…? And in the next summer Super Edition, they’re nannies in Malibu…? And then interns in on the local paper… then correspondents in London… then models…. Wouldn’t the tour guide jobs’ve made a decent Super Edition, especially after all that work to build it up?

Runner up: Remember in the first few SVH books, there used to be those “bonus” sections at the end…? At the end of the aforementioned All Night Long, there were two blurbs about “some of the people you’ve met in Sweet Valley and would like to know better!” There was one about Bill Chase, detailing his tragic love affair with Julianne, who died; and then there was one about Lila Fowler, which included some earth-shaking information about Lila’s parentage. “During one of her mother’s infrequent visits, she admitted to Lila that George Fowler isn’t her real father. Mrs. Fowler was pregnant with Lila when she met him, but he agreed to marry her and give the baby his name.” Later in the same Bonus Section, we learn of Lila’s relationship with blueblood Ted Whitlock in Boston. Okay. Three books later, there was a whole major plot revolving around Bill and Dead Julianne and all that trauma… but We-the-Readers never hear another peep about Lila’s real father or Ted Whitlock again.

Most Tiresome Suspense Device
How many kidnappings/disappearances/hostage situations (Elizabeth, the Morrows, Jessica, Elizabeth again, Jessica again, then both the twins, then-) can one family deal with? In close second, how many dead boyfriends can two girls have between the two of them? (Jessica’s Sam, James, Chris, Elizabeth’s Luke-) Good Lord, enough already!

Most Tiresome Series Device
It seems like every series from the Bobbsey Twins to Ginnie and Geneva to the Babysitters’ Club to Sunset Beach and Freshman Dorm had to have the main characters turn into SUPER SLEUTH MYSTERY SOLVING AMATURE DETECTIVES! And it’s no more tedious when Liz and Jess go all Nancy Drew, witnessing murders, running from the mob, uncovering political scandals, discovering hidden treasures. Are We-the-Readers supposed to believe that the twins’ll be scarred for weeks after an acquaintance tries to commit suicide, but have no residual effects or nightmares or nuthin’ when they discover dead bodies in the woods and are kidnapped/held hostage at gun- or knife-point at least a dozen times?

Most Problematic Romantic Twist
Thanks to the Secret Diaries, as well as regular SVH plot twists, it turns out that Liz and Jessica have hooked up with EVERY SINGLE ONE OF EACH OTHER’S SERIOUS BOYFRIENDS at LEAST once! Liz and Todd? Of course, Jessica went after him first… had has a secret letter-fling with him when he’s in Vermont… and hooks up with him after Sam Woodruff dies. And Sam? Yeah, we find out he and Liz had a Secret Affair before he met Jessica. And Jessica had a Secret Affair with Jeffrey French, and Liz went out with AJ Morgan first, and was in love with Ken Matthews secretly before Jessica was, and Jessica gets together with Devon Whitelaw later and Liz hooks up with Jessica’s college ex-husband Mike and- “God help the sister that comes between me and my man” indeed!

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