Young Adult Revisited

Today marks something of a milestone for the blog. According to Blogger, YA Revisited hit 100,000 pageviews today! When I started the blog back in 2009, I didn't know if I would ever see any pageviews except for my own. I told my family and friends about it, but I was pretty surprised when other people started reading it. I even had a quote from the blog wind up on another site! Originally, I wanted to blog about Christopher Pike, Sweet Valley High, Fear Street, and the Point Thriller series, which were the books I read as a teenager. I started including The Baby-Sitters Club just because I found a few at a thrift store, and it reminded me of how much I loved those books. Then, I added Sweet Valley Twins, and eventually, I started blogging about books that I never read like Sweet Valley Kids and Goosebumps. The most popular posts (or most read posts) are: - The Babysitter - Twins (Caroline B. Cooney) - Fear Street Cheerleaders: The FirstEvil - Fear Street...

Ah-ha! Julie didn’t die back in middle school! She comes back here because Elizabeth is still playing the recorder and they practice duets sometimes. When she isn’t sucking up to a Wakefield twin, she worries about her best friend Josh because he’s pledging a fraternity and Bruce is being pretty hard on him. Elizabeth thinks it’s sad because when Todd was in the frat, they never, ever did anything like this. Josh really doesn’t have to do a lot of bad stuff. He mainly dresses up like a girl and lame stuff like that. Elizabeth and Julie run into him while taking an ice cream break at Casey’s, and he mentions that he has to meet some brothers there. Bruce shows up with a bunch of guys and they order a ton of food. They barely eat half of it before handing it over to Josh and demanding that he finish it. He eats about half of it before turning yellow and running away. Bruce talks to Julie about it the next day and tells her that he didn’t realize it would be so bad becau...

Janet breaks up with Denny because he told her he had to meet with his science teacher and then she saw him playing basketball. She becomes outspoken against liars, and she demands that the rest of the club sign a pledge to stop people from lying. They want the principal to make people wear a really ugly shirt if they get caught lying. Jessica doesn’t really want to sign it because she constantly tells lies, but she eventually gives into peer pressure. Since it’s now the fifteenth summer break, the school is getting ready for a huge picnic celebration. A bunch of the Unicorns get dates, and Janet tells Lila and Jessica that since they don’t have dates, they have to spend the whole day with her. They make a bet that whoever gets a date first will get the day off, while the other has to hang around queen Janet. Jessica is sure that Aaron will ask her, but he starts dragging his feet. She does beg her parents to give them extra money for a special picnic outfit, and they...

Jessica is playing with her hair trying to make herself look more mature when Elizabeth walks in with a big smile on her face. After hinting around for a few minutes, she finally says that she started her period, and because they’re twins, she knows that Jessica started too. Jessica seems a little quiet, and she wonders if her twin is having problems adjusting. They head downstairs to tell their mom, and she’s so excited that she agrees to make anything they want. Over spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, and cream puffs, she and Ned gush over how group up they are. The next day, Jessica tells Elizabeth that they should ask their parents to go to San Diego and visit their cousin Robin. Her family spent a year living in France, and their parents wouldn’t let them see her before she left because they were too young. Jessica keeps dropping hints at dinner and kicking Elizabeth to get her attention until Ned finally announces that they already talked things over and decided to...

Lights Out starts with a letter from “Me” telling someone named Chief that he/she will get even with the people at Camp Nightwing. Then it jumps to Holly, who recently broke up with her boyfriend and got suckered into helping her Uncle Bill run his summer camp. Something terribly happened the year before and he desperately needs help, though I’m not sure why given that he has a whole bunch of counselors. After meeting up with her friend Thea, she learns that this girl Geri is at camp. They were once good friends until Geri wanted her to cover for her while she went out with an older guy her parents didn’t like. She didn’t lie very well, the parents found at the truth, she got grounded, and she blamed Holly. While hanging out, they hear someone crying for help and find Bill buried underneath a pile of sports equipment. He tells them that the wall cabinet fell over despite being screwed into the wall, and he got trapped under all the crap that fell out. They help him up,...

It’s time again for the Bridgewater Ball, which actually means nothing because I think it only gets mentioned three times in the entire series. Jessica complains that it’s a bunch of stuckup people, but when pressed, she admits that she would go if someone invited her. Lila wants to go too, and she’s pretty annoyed that no one has asked her yet. She also finds out that big time director Jackson Croft is coming to town to cast his next movie. Jessica thinks that it’s her chance to become a star. Elizabeth reads about how his son was killed by a drunk driver who hit his family, and she wants to interview him for the paper. She thinks that it will get kids interested in learning more about SADD. The real story though is Susan Stewart. She’s a beautiful and popular girl who always dresses well, but no one knows where she came from. Her Aunt Helen is her guardian and the woman kept her mother a big secret. The rumor is that her mom was some heiress or model who couldn’t kee...

Alice has some big news for the twins: Kelly is coming to spend a few days with them before Thanksgiving. They don’t think it’s strange that she’s coming early even though her mom has to make a special 4-hour roundtrip to bring her down before they come down a few days early. That is until people at school bring it up. When Kelly gets there, they have fun playing and dressing like each other. On the first night though, Kelly has a nightmare and wakes up crying. Alice comforts her and tells the family that Laura and Greg are having some problems and might get a divorce. She asks them not to tell anyone and to keep it a secret from people at school because it will just upset her. The next day, they all dress up in matching blue tee shirts and jeans, and everyone at school oohs and ahs over how much they look alike. Everyone seems to like Kelly, but Lila wants to know why she came early. Kelly doesn’t have an answer so Jessica blurts out that her parents might get divorc...