Cliche Confessions: Nostalgia is alive and well

My coworkers half complain half mock my nostalgia.  I am a child of the 90s and anything that reminds me of those simpler times of neon and muppets and legends of the hidden temple, nickelodeon, and some real unique literature options, has my eyes drifting to the distance to stare dreamily waiting for the world to do the hazy tv cinematic trick that signaled day dreams or back in time during said 90s tv shows.  I smile wistfully as I think of better times.  Kids now day don't remember the sweet dulcet tones (static pings) of AOL connecting.  They don't understand that if your mom picked up the phone you would instantly be kicked out of the chatroom you should not have been in because chances are you were talking a sexual predator.  They don't understand what an answering machine or the chicken pox.  These fools will never even have the chicken pox!  

But I digress.  I'm showing my age.  this is about a book.  Have I written this tangent to distract you from what I actually read because I'm so embarrassed? Unequivocally yes.  I read Sweet Valley Confidential.  Do you know what this book is or why I dared to read it?  Sweet Valley High was YA before YA was real. It followed twin sisters Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield through their adventures in Sweet Valley, California.  Elizabeth was the good and always conscientious sister. She was goody-goody.  Jessica was selfish and scheming and they would both literally die for each other.  And during the special mystery editions, they often almost did! They had romances.  There were friendships and breakups and make ups, and gossips (I'm looking at you Carolyn Pearce).  There was the kids version about the girls when they were 10 and there were the mystery editions and then Sweet Valley University.  It was intense and scandalous for its time.  

When I read about this book in Bad Feminist, I had to pick it up.  Despite the fax that Gay said it was pretty awful writing, I needed the calming feeling that flows through your body like the first drag on a cigarette.  I needed a fix.  Where was Jess and Lizzie and Bruce and that bitch Lila? Was Prince Albert the dog still alive? If they were almost killed every mystery special edition then these two were probably going to experience the biggest dramas ever.

I was not disappointed! Jessica had fallen in love with her sister's fiance, and it was... Todd Wilkins! And she was in love! omg! This is what nostalgia was made for.  Yes, the writing sucked but the drama. Oh the petty teenage drama. The memories hit me like a good game of knock-em-sock-em robots.  It was on.  And as I read this, I realized something I felt guilty about as a little girl but am totally ok with as an adult woman.  I don't like the good characters.  They're boring.  I like the complicated and messy. They're real, they're fun, they are experiencing life not mousily walking away.  

Of course Jessica is a schemer she admits this.  But she is also extremely vulnerable and uses her behaviors to hide that.  She clearly loves her sister but why deny herself the biggest happiness to keep her sister in a relationship with someone who clearly doesn't love her.  It was done in a shitty way, yes, but she still followed her heart.  She's intelligent and that is something no one acknowledges.  Elizabeth comes across as a passenger on the road of life, petty and set on revenge but not even good revenge!  Show some sasss!  I like the confused.  Also, the characters that we grew up loving because they were good (Enid and Winston) are jerks.  Enid became an obnoxious doctor and Winston got a lot of money, became an asshole and died.  Things are getting real at Sweet Valley.  So good guys become jerks and the seemingly jerks are actually the happiest.  See being the bad girl and a nasty woman do come in handy.  Being complicated can be more fun!