|
''Sweet Valley High'' is a novel series created by Francine Pascal, who presided over a team of ghostwriters for the duration of the series. The books chronicle the lives of identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, who live in Sweet Valley, California. The twins and their friends attend Sweet Valley High. The series began in 1983 and ceased publication twenty years later with over 152 books to its name. Over the years, the books were written by many ghostwriters. The books are generally classified as young-adult or kids' fiction and mostly belonged to the genre of soap opera, romance novel or fantasy-adventure. The series quickly gained popularity and spawned several spin-off series, including ''Sweet Valley Senior Year'' and ''Sweet Valley University''. The novels ''Sweet Valley Confidential'' and ''The Sweet Life'', which follow the characters as adults, were released in 2011 and 2012. ==Characters== Ned and Alice Wakefield are the parents of a son, Steven, and identical twin daughters, Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield. Lawyer Ned Wakefield met interior-designer Alice Robertson while they were at college and flower-child Alice was engaged to conservative Henry Patman. After meeting Ned, Alice realize that she didn't love Henry and broke off their engagement; she wed Ned soon after. As they were said to have been married for 20 years when the series began, they would have married in 1963. They named their first child, Steven, after Ned's late college friend. Shortly after Steven's birth, Ned became a partner at his law firm. Two years later Alice gave birth to Elizabeth and Jessica, whom she named after her ancestors Elisabeth and Jessamyn. They were the third set of identical twin girls in her family in six generations. Their children grew into spitting images of their parents. Blonde, youthful Alice is often mistaken for the twins' older sister. Ned is a general-practice lawyer and the head of a prominent Sweet Valley firm. Alice works as an interior designer at one of Sweet Valley's major design firms. Although they are quite comfortable, they are not wealthy and have no intention of becoming so. However, they are close friends of heiress Lila Fowler's family, having become better acquainted with them when the Fowlers hosted the Wakefields after a massive earthquake ripped apart Sweet Valley. Alice has two sister: Nancy, who has daughters named Robin and Stacey; and Laura, who has a daughter named Kelly and is divorced from Kelly's violent, abusive father Greg Bates. Ned's parents live in Michigan and he has an older half-brother, Louis. *Steven Wakefield, the twins' older brother, is tall and dark-haired like his father Ned. Although he loves both sisters equally, he's partial to Elizabeth. He teases Jessica a lot, but ultimately he understands her more than any other member of their family. In the beginning of the series he dates Tricia Martin, whose family didn't have the best reputation. After Tricia dies of leukaemia he dates Cara Walker and they plan to marry until she decides to move to London. During the university books, Steven has moved in with Billie. In ''Sweet Valley Confidential'', he becomes an attorney like his father and is married to Cara Walker, but he realizes that he's gay and in love with the twins' schoolmate, Aaron Dallas. He cheats and Cara, they divorce, and for a while he doesn't speak to Jessica, who had told Cara that he was gay. *Todd Wilkins, Elizabeth's on/off boyfriend, is tall, popular, handsome, and captain of the basketball team (as well as wide-receiver for the football team in the revised edition) and fraternity member. He has dark-brown hair and eyes. Todd is initially romantically pursued by both Elizabeth and Jessica, but is always more interested in Elizabeth, and they begin steadily dating in "Double Love". He shares many of Liz's intellectual interests and pursuits. He is a scholar and an athlete. He often plays the role of protective older brother to the sisters. Although he's often patient with his friends, he tends to have a short temper when there's danger and goes mad-hulk in dire circumstances. He also has a speech impediment. He even shares Liz's passion for creative writing—he starts falling so deeply into it that he begins to neglect basketball, much to his father's chagrin. He is a notably bad cook—making a mess of every meal he attempts, even when following a recipe. Todd and Liz break up when Todd's family moves to Vermont and Todd eventually becomes romantically involved with the terminally-ill Suzanne. On Todd's return to Sweet Valley, Todd and Elizabeth reunite. They break up again over Elizabeth's infidelity and later involvement with Devon Whitelaw at the end of Sweet Valley High, but reunite at the beginning of Sweet Valley University, only to break up again when Elizabeth won't sleep with him. He then loses his virginity to Elizabeth's good friend Enid while they're at the college looking for sanctuary and companionship. The two are constantly breaking up and getting back together as well as committing infidelity. Liz cheats on Todd numerous times (as does Todd on her, once even with a supermodel) and is later horrified to find out Todd's been having a recurring affair with Jess--and she discovers it only after having planned most of her and Todd's wedding! According to ''Sweet Valley Confidential'', Todd eventually marries Jessica and they have a son, Jake. He eventually gets a successful job as a sports journalist and his column is picked up by several papers. *Enid Rollins is Elizabeth's best friend when they meet in a creative-writing class pre-series, until they grow apart in senior year. Enid is described as pretty, with curly brown hair and big green eyes. As a young teenager, Enid was a problem user of drugs and alcohol until she was involved in a bad accident; she has reformed and become a model student: quiet, sweet, and straitlaced. She is a member of the Pi Beta sorority, but joined only to lend Elizabeth moral support. In college, Enid reinvents herself and begins to use her middle name, 'Alexandra'. She immediately joins an elitist sorority and enters into a high-profile romance with big-shot college basketball player Mark Gathers. Life in the fast lane proves too much for Enid/Alex and she eventually suffers a re-occurrence of her substance dependence. She also has an affair with Todd Wilkins, even falling for him and becoming dependent on him when Mark abandons her. She does patch things up with Elizabeth, but never again are they close friends. In ''Sweet Valley Confidential'', she becomes extremely self-centered and arrogant, becomes a well-respected OB/GYN, and has plans to run for City Council. *Maria Slater In late-series, Maria shares the title of Elizabeth's best friend with Enid. She is a beautiful former child actress and star reporter for the Oracle. Senior year sees her friendship with Elizabeth unravel as Liz makes new friends from the school merger but they eventually mend their relationship. Maria holds the distinction of class valedictorian, snatching it out from under both Liz Wakefield and Winston Egbert, who were each considered a shoo-in for the honor. *Lila Fowler, Jessica's best friend and arch-rival. She and Bruce Patman are bitter rivals, as her family (her father George owns a computer company) wants to modernize Sweet Valley; while Bruce's family wants to maintain the history of the town, from when canning was the main industry. One of the wealthiest people in town, she is a "poor little rich girl" stereotype. The Fowlers and the Wakefields are close friends and even Elizabeth, who usually doesn't move in the wealthier circles, is often friendly towards Lila. At first Lila is very snobbish and devious, but an attempted rape by John Pfeifer, plus her parents' remarriage, helped make her more sympathetic. In ''Sweet Valley Confidential'', she is married to Ken Matthews and they're expecting. *Winston Egbert, the class clown, had a major crush on Jessica, mainly during the first few books. He dates a girl named Mandy Farmer, who later moves away, and then begins dating Maria Santelli, a popular cheerleader. In college he starts going by the name of "Winnie" and clerical error leads to his placement in an all women's dorm, where he meets popular sorority girl Denise Waters, arguably the love of his life. Unfortunately, life after university sees Winston transform from a goofy, cheerful oddball into a mean, resentful businessman whose wealth from the dotcom boom can't cure his loneliness. After a night of drunken debauchery, he falls from a balcony to an untimely death. *Nora Dalton is a French teacher who once dated Lila's father, George Fowler. Later a romance bloomed between her and English teacher Roger Collins. *Roger Collins is an English teacher who serves as advisor to the school newspaper, ''The Oracle'', and is one of Elizabeth's favorite teachers. *Mr. Cooper, Sweet Valley's somewhat stuffy Principal, nicknamed Chrome Dome because of his bald head. *Bob Russo, The sternest teacher at SVH, he teaches chemistry. *Bruce Patman is a rich, handsome snob. Considered to be a rival of the nouveau-riche Fowler family, as he and his old-money family want to preserve the town as it was when canning was the main industry. He once dated Jessica, which ended badly and made them bitter rivals. Later he dated Regina Morrow, who helped him become a bit more sincere, but after her death he fell back into his arrogant routine. Later he dated Pamela Robertson. Despite his arrogance, family means much to him and he becomes very caring toward his orphaned cousin Roger (once he gets used to this formerly-poor nobody actually being his own blood). His parents' deaths softened him and made him more sincere, and according to ''Sweet Valley Confidential'', this leads to an eventual romance with his one true love, Elizabeth Wakefield. They move in together and things work out initially--until he professes to being in love with someone else. *Olivia Davidson is the arts editor of the ''Oracle'' and one of Elizabeth's best friends. She dies in the earthquake that hit Sweet Valley. *Nicholas and Regina Morrow, wealthy but down-to-earth siblings and close friends of Elizabeth. Elizabeth did not normally move in the wealthier circles of Sweet Valley, but the Morrows' down-to-earth nature won her over. Regina was deaf, but had radical surgery to restore her hearing; she dated Bruce seriously and helped change his personality for the better. Regina got in with the wrong crowd following her breakup with Bruce and experimented with drugs; she died after snorting a small amount of cocaine, which aggravated a rare heart condition. Nicholas once had romantic feelings toward Liz, but nothing came of it as she had a steady boyfriend, and they chose to remain friends. Liz helped Nicholas cope when his sister died. *Amy Sutton, Elizabeth's best friend in the ''Sweet Valley Twins'' books and then Jessica's good friend in ''Sweet Valley High''. Amy returns in the ''Sweet Valley High'' books as a completely different character. Whilst she once shared interests with Elizabeth, such as working on the school newspaper, she returned much more like Jessica, a boy-crazy gossip. Later, she mellows and becomes enamored of Barry Rork. *Jeffrey French is Elizabeth's "preppy" ex-boyfriend, the handsome blond star of Sweet Valley High's soccer team who disappeared from the series following their breakup. They begin a serious relationship after Todd moves to Vermont, but break up shortly after Todd's return. *Cara Walker is Jessica's close friend. Early in the series she was a notorious snob and gossip, but her parents' split (in which she was separated from her brother) made her more mature and attracted Elizabeth's warm concern. She dated Steven Wakefield for a time and almost ran away to get married so they wouldn't be separated when her family moved to London, but they realized it wasn't practical. Years later they are reunited married, though unhappily. Cara bakes constantly, eating to hide her feelings of hurt at Steven's rejection as rumors of his cheating run rampant in Sweet Valley - and worse when the truth is revealed that he's actually involved with another man, former SVH soccer star Aaron Dallas. *Ken Matthews is a star quarterback and dater of several Sweet Valley ladies during the course of the series. In the first few books, he is called "Kenny" by his friends and teachers, though that nickname soon disappears. He is Jessica's steady boyfriend for part of junior year, and also secretly dates Elizabeth after Todd moves away. In ''Sweet Valley Confidential'', he is a famous football player, husband of Lila Fowler, and - as he learns at the end of the sixth book - a father-to-be. *AJ Morgan is Jessica's first serious boyfriend. Jessica is instantly smitten with the redhead when he moves to Sweet Valley and becomes shy and demure when he is around, acting more like Elizabeth. Eventually she relaxes enough around him to be herself, and finds that he much prefers her fun-loving, outgoing personality. *Sam Woodruff is Jessica's second long-term steady boyfriend and a dirt-bike rider. Sam is killed in a car accident while riding as Elizabeth's passenger after Jessica spikes their drinks with alcohol. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sweet Valley High」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|