Over at Racialicious, there's a post up about the rereleases of Sweet Valley High. Now, while I was never particularly inclined to read Sweet Valley High (I'm going to guess I wasn't the target market, there), I'm pretty sure my sister did. I may ask her about it.
But, the thing that actually really caught my attention was comment number one: My idea of "brainless" reading was Christopher Pike... which in retrospect probably can be torn down as much as SVH.
I looooved Christopher Pike!
And, yeah... I'm going to guess that there are probably some problems in the old Pike books. As I recall, they were very white and very heterocentric. The Final Friends series are the only books I can remember of his that strongly featured any characters who weren't... well... white. And of course they (Nick and Maria, I think?) end up dating. Who else would they date?
Still, I'm tempted to go find my copies and reread them. It's possible that they're better than I suspect. But I doubt it. Looking back, I seem to recall that a most of the characters were sort of annoying stereotypes. There were, as I recall, a whole lot of upper-middle class white girls obsessed with being popular and pretty, and guys who were into sports, or were outcast nerds. Probably a lot like Saved By the Bell meets Nightmare on Elm Street. Or something.
I make no promises, but if I find a Pike book while I'm packing... I may give it a quick read.
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5 comments:
I looooved me some Pike back in the day. The "Remember Me" trilogy has been at the top of my charts since I was a kid.
I'm going to guess Pike never used the phrase "perfect size 6."
Which has since been changed to a perfect 4. Gag.
Heh, I read Christopher Pike back in the day - and yeah, Saved By The Bell meets Nightmare on Elm Street sounds about right to me. I liked Bruce Coville better, even if the only books I remember in connection to his name featured a demon-haunted amulet and the title Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher (which may or may not actually be Coville's work, it's just something that I always think of whenever I think of Coville).
Also of interest: the word verification thingy I have to type in today is "ulyplz". ULY PLZ? Is the internet playing a joke on me?
I could have SWORN I'd read Christopher Pike when I was a kid but none of the titles are familiar to me. I remember checking some piece of trashy lit out of the library (which I thought was Pike but I guess not) and I think that was the first time I consciously realized that a book was both a) engaging and b) absolutely worthless, "nutritionally" speaking.
There were a whole slew of trashy thriller novels aimed at pre-teen girls that I read in late elementary and early middle school: Wait Till Helen Comes, The Dollhouse Murders, not to mention bizarre crap I ordered out of a Scholastic catalog.
Good times. :)
Shameful confession here: I did actually read a Sweet Valley Twins book once. It was some kind of special edition that traced the family tree back 100 years and there were blond twins in every generation or something. I hope it was much better than a normal SVT book, as it probably wasn't too much worse than some other paperback historical romances I have read (I'm like a garbage disposal for books, I consume almost everything I come into contact with). Probably made slightly better than some as I don't recall there being a rape.
I never read Christopher Pike, but I did read V.C. Andrews when I was young. I think just as many girls read Flowers in the Attic as Sweet Valley High and the content has got be at least as bad , if not even more troubling, than Pike's works.
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