Review: Sweet Valley Twins Best Friends: The Graphic Novel by Nicole Andelfinger & Claudia Aguirre

Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield are back ... again. In yet another attempt to revive the bestselling Sweet Valley series, the first book in the middle-grade Sweet Valley Twins series has been reimagined as a graphic novel. Set in present day, the story opens with Elizabeth and Jessica starting sixth grade at Sweet Valley Middle School. The pair, who dress alike, and who do everything together (including sharing a phone,) begin to realise that they are developing different interests. Jessica is becoming interested in fashion and hanging out with a clique of popular mean girls, while Elizabeth hangs out with the less popular girls and is interested in starting up a sixth grade newspaper. Both twins struggle with, and embrace, what these differences mean, before eventually reaching a place of acceptance.

The reimagining of this classic title from the original series is interesting enough but something about its existence feels very unnecessary. Certainly, Sweet Valley titles were best sellers back in their day and there is a wealth of podcasts, blogs and social media devoted to the series from people who grew up with the books. Just the sight of some of the old covers is enough to cause a huge wave of nostalgia amongst the generation(s) who grew up with them. Unfortunately, that has not translated to a great deal of success stories when it comes to resurrecting the brand. If anything, it has been a detractor as fans seem to remember many key details and characters better than the creator. There is also the problem that the books are tied so closely to a particular era.

This reimagining tries to address some of the more problematic issues in the originals, such as diversity and the portrayal of certain one-dimensional side characters such as Lois Waller. The illustrations are cute and in particular I love the hippie vibe that I get from Alice Wakefield. The story itself feels very superficial, though it is entertaining in places. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more

Who Else Writes Like V.C. Andrews?

Image
Are there any other authors out there who write similar novels to V.C. Andrews? This is a question I see asked frequently in excellent fan run V.C. Andrews Facebook groups like Attic Secrets and The Dolls Club. In times gone by, The Complete V.C. Andrews webpage (which is no more, but the best bits are archived by Lorraine at the Attic Secrets blog,) had a comprehensive list. Today, I thought I would put forward a few of my own thoughts and recommendations. (Note: This will focus mainly on the series and novels written by the actual V.C. Andrews and not ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman, who has a distinctive writing style of his own.) The Classics This is probably the best place to start, as it is likely that some of these novels influenced V.C. Andrews herself. Andrews was a fan of Charles Dickens, mentioning the author in the prologue of her most famous novel Flowers in the Attic. I have yet to read all of Dickens novels (I've read about half,) but I can feel a slight V.C. Andrews vi
Read more