Parenthetical.net

My YA lit professor in grad school, Amy Pattee, has an article in the new issue of Horn Book on Sweet Valley High and its triumphant (?) return to print. My favorite bit:

The new Double Love reads like a time-traveled transliteration of the original novel: the girls ride around in a Jeep Wrangler rather than the red Fiat convertible they drove in 1983; Elizabeth has a blog on the school website rather than a column in the newspaper; Jessica’s secret bad-boy date takes her to an illicit drag race rather than to a seedy bar; and the characters have expanded their vocabulary to include the intransitive vulgarity “that sucks” and the ubiquitous “whatever.”

I have this image of a committee of 80s dudes with big ’staches and chicks with even bigger shoulder pads going through the originals all, “Ok, we need to get one of those ‘blog’ things in here.” “Yes, and I’m told ‘texting’ is very popular!”

Amy ultimately concludes — and I think she’s right — that “Sweet Valley High… may be too naively optimistic for its contemporary audience.” Besides, it probably doesn’t name-drop expensive shoe brands nearly often enough.