If Coke Zero has Coke’s taste, is it possible that someone out there has your face? That is the premise of Coke Zero’s newest promo – a Facebook tie in application. To join, you just have to go to this link to allow the application to access your photos on Facebook. Once they have enough faces in their database, they can start finding your twin. Currently the database is 22% filled up, so spread the word and ask the world to join in so that we can get this over with as soon as possible!
I was in fifth grade when I started reading the Sweet Valley Twins series and started wishing that I had a twin. I thought it would be cool to have someone to pull twin switches with. I realize now, though, that if I want to be Elizabeth, I would not want a Jessica for a twin sister.
For the uninformed, Sweet Valley Twins is a book series centering on the identical twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield who are sixth graders living in Sweet Valley, a fictitious place in sunny California. Though both have long sun-streaked blonde hair, eyes the color of the Pacific ocean and dimples on their left cheeks, the similarities end there.
Elizabeth was born 4 minutes ahead of Jessica and is considered the older twin who is also more serious and reliable. Liz loves to read mysteries, ride horses, write for the sixth grade newspaper and help get Jess out of trouble.
Jess loves gossip, fashion, and boys. She is a proud member of The Unicorns, the club composed of the prettiest and 
most popular girls in their school, and The Boosters, the school’s cheerleading squad.
The above description, with a few derivations, is always inserted in the first chapter of every SVT book. Probably the reason why I can still remember it until now. Yes, I wrote that from memory. I even remember that Elizabeth has a tiny mole on her right shoulder while Jessica doesn’t.
As I grew older, I started reading Sweet Valley High, Sweet Valley Senior Year, and Sweet Valley University. My favorite spin-off is Senior Year because it’s more realistic and the diary entry type pages are a really nice touch.
Actually, just a few months ago here in Singapore, I found the last book in said series, Sweet 18, in a rummage sale. It was doubled with Double Love, the book that started SVH, or the book that started it all. So I bought it and since I’m confessing anyway, might as well confess that I bought the two books before that as well.
How does it end? With their 18th birthday and their graduation. Elizabeth has a chance to study college in Oxford, but she decides to give it up and go to SVU with her twin because she realizes that she can’t give up Jessica just yet. Lame decision, if you ask me, but I suppose it needed to be done for continuity’s sake.
It’s also the reason why at the last chapter, Todd asks Liz out “for old time’s sake” and she says yes, even though she broke up with him at the beginning of senior year because she no longer wanted to be part of toddandelizabeth. You see, in the beginning of the SVU series, both twins are together in SVU and Liz is with Todd.
New York, NY (March 14, 2008)—Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, an imprint of the Random House Children’s Books division, announced today that it will reissue the popular and bestselling series SWEET VALLEY HIGH®. Created by Francine Pascal in 1983, the series, which follows the lives of Southern California identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, was an instant success that sold 60 million copies and spawned seven series spin-offs as well as a television series. Long before Gossip Girl and The A-List, SWEET VALLEY HIGH® dominated shelf space on all teen and tween readers’ shelves. Now it is poised to be embraced by a new generation of readers, and will feature a brand new cover look and revised material that today’s teens can relate to. The relaunch begins with the publication of Double Love and Secrets on April 8, 2008. Each title will carry a first printing of 50,000 copies and will retail for $5.99.
SWEET VALLEY HIGH® will appeal to new readers as well as those adults nostalgic for their past and looking to rekindle their relationship with the Wakefield twins. Updates to the text include the addition of cellular phones, e-mails, and blogs, things virtually unknown to readers twenty years ago. But the drama, action, and situations that Sweet Valley’s teenagers face remain the same as those felt by today’s teens.
Sometimes I think I owe who I am today to Sweet Valley. They were the first books without pictures that I ever read and got addicted to, and my idolizing Elizabeth made me decide to like the things that she liked – reading, writing, being a goody-two-shoes. If I hadn’t discovered Sweet Valley, what would I like now, I wonder?
Okay, maybe I’m overanalyzing. I could just as easily have chosen to like Jessica but I didn’t, which means deep down, I really do like the things that Elizabeth does.
hehehe. i liked Sweet Valley too. nabasa ko nga somewhere you sweet valley confidential but not the movie. niwei, the nancy drew and hardy boys mysteries (the hardbound ones) are also being re-released. Same covers pero not like the old one – ung parang cloth. i already have books 1-5 of each series. ang dami if isang bagsak e.
onga, diba i was supposed to lend you the book but di na tayo nakapagkita dito. tsktsk. <br />i loved nancy drew and hardy boys too. good thing these books are constantly being rereleased for new generations to enjoy. from what my mom told me, nancy drew was also what she used to read when she was still single.