Criticism
The series has come under much negative criticism from readers and reviewers, who described Sweet Valley as an unrealistic, almost Utopian setting, and its characters as unlikable and one-dimensional. Criticisms include:
- The twins and a majority of their high school peers being unrealistically beautiful, and physically perfect, without suffering from greasy hair, body odor, weight issues, acne and other typical teenage problems. Robin Wilson was fat. Peter De Haven was described as having acne, and Betsy Martin definitely had greasy hair.
- The implication that happiness cannot exist in a single parent family, as evidence with Lila Fowler, whose father emotionally neglects her.
- Alice Wakefield being mistaken for the twins' sister, despite her children being in college and high school, making her at least into her mid- to late-forties.
- Sweet Valley High constantly holding dances and proms throughout the school year.
- Jessica deliberately spiking her own sister's drink simply to ensure Elizabeth will not be voted prom queen.
- An obvious lack of ethnic groups in Sweet Valley, as a large amount of the characters are white.
- The murderess Margo Black looking like Elizabeth to the point where Alice Wakefield cannot tell the difference between her own daughter and another girl.
- Olivia Davidson died in the earthquake that ended Sweet Valley High - yet she is at the Christmas Dance when the twins are at university. (However, #8 Home for Christmas - the Sweet Valley University book in which Olivia Davidson is briefly mentioned was published before the "Earthquake" Sweet Valley High mini-series.
Read more about this topic: Sweet Valley High
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“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)
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—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
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—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)