Lamest Stock Character
“Class Clown” Winston Egbert. EVERYTHING about Winston was predictable, annoying, and annoyingly predictable. He never broke out of the “class clown” typecast… except in typecast “class clown breaking out of his class clown role” ways.

Best Villain
Lila Fowler. I dig Lila. Other SVH characters/villains/ “bad” people – like Cara Walker and Caroline Pierce and Bruce Patman – were all so one-dimensional, despite attempts to make them more. But even when she started off as just a foil for Jessica (along with Cara), Lila always had more depths and complexities than the other villains… even more than Jessica. Readers found out more about Lila’s home life and troubles and insecurities. She was great fun for a high-school psych student to analyze!

Most Unconvincing Character Turn-Around
A toss-up between Bruce Patman and Betsy Martin. I’ll lean towards Bruce, though, because he has these melodramatic Good-Side-of-the-Force revelations about once every 10-15 books… usually because of a girl. Betsy’s is just stupid for the overwrought “I swear I’ll never touch drugs again!” hospital transformation… and BAM! Instant Good Girl who has artistic talent and wins an art scholarship and gets a nice, good boyfriend and has NO drug- or alcohol withdrawal or backslides or nuthin’. But at least we only had to deal with Betsy once or twice. Bruce, on the other hand….

Velly Honolable Sreet Varry Oliental y Señor Me-hi-cano de Dulce Valle.

Lamest Token Ethnic Character
Did the S in SVH stand for Stereotype? How do you choose between Manuel the Noble and Honorable Mexican Boy and Jade the Shy, Artistic, and Obedient Chinese Girl? (An amusing note: in the SV Senior Year books, Jade is now an edgy, rebellious, navel-pierced cheerleader with a single mom, not the first-generation daughter of traditional Chinese parents.)

Most Tiresome Dead Person
Tricia Martin. Yeah, I’m sure it’s traumatic to have your beautiful, sweet, fragile and innocent (hello, Victorian typecast much?) girlfriend die of leukemia and all… but why is it almost EVERY TIME there is a Steven-related plot, it’s him dealing with “getting over” Tricia’s death. I guess it’s more realistic that way… that it would take more than a book or two to wrap up a situation like that… but on the other hand, there are TWO different “Steven falls for a girl just because she looks EXACTLY like Tricia” plots, several Steven-and-Cara-break-ups because he can’t deal with his feelings of guilt about Tricia, and even one twist where Cara, writing Steven secret love letters to put the “spark” back in their relationship, awakens more ghosts of the past by using the same stationary Tricia used to use and freaking Steven out. And Elizabeth and Jessica, by comparison, get over their multitudes of dead boyfriends overnight.

Best Sweet Valley Boy
Bill Chase. Oh, the sensitive, shy, surfer boy whose girlfriend had died, leaving him desolate…. Heck, he even read Hemingway and liked drama! Yeah!

Most Out-of-Character Elizabeth Moment
Lizzie happily… mans the kissing booth at the big Sweet Valley Centennial Picnic… “selling kiss after kiss”…? One, wouldn’t someone as “nice” and “good” as Liz think it was kinda gross to kiss all those guys, even for a good cause? And two, wouldn’t she be offended that people were selling kisses…? The whore.

Most Out-of-Character Jessica Moment
Falling for AJ Morgan. Yeah, we’re supposed to believe Jess is acting like a lovesick puppy and blushing and stammering and being shy because this time IT’S THE REAL THING! But it just doesn’t ring true… especially taking into consideration the whole Secret Diary Revelation that Jessica is obsessed with Jeffrey French at the time.

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