Sweet Valley Diaries

Regina Morrow and Bruce Patman, in love? But…that would only work if Bruce had a total pod-person level personality shift! Marissa and her guest, CJ Hoke, discuss Bruce Patman’s pod-person level personality shift and (because this is a 33-year-old work of soap opera fiction) squirm their way into, and then out of, some uncomfortable “believe women” territory. Also: The need for a good therapist in...

Marissa and guest Jeremy talk about the diverse lessons of LOVE LETTERS, from "be yourself," to "once you have a boyfriend everything will be okay," to "San Francisco is a cesspool." To top it off, Marissa reads a love letter of her own...kind of.   Info about the Transcontinental Railroad in California 1989 Bay Area Earthquake KGO TV News Report (This is several years afte...

My Dearest Caroline, Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel —Being—who?   Your fake boyfriend, that's who!   Maybe don't carry this particular letter around in your purse or show it to the mean girls. Probably you should just toss it.   xoxoxo, Adam (& Ro...

Guest Mike Yarksy returns for a little bit of sensitive discussion of how we portray disability...and a little bit of ragging on Lila's stupid flat face. Stay tuned till the end for a word from our new sponsor, THE BOSTON SHOP! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Fate has forced Roger Barrett to trade his mother's life for a fancy new last name, a fancy new mansion, and a fancy pile of money. Meanwhile, his girlfriend (frizzy haired Olivia Davidson) is feeling SO NOT money, and Jessica is giving Machiavelli a run for his money. Marissa and her guest, Mike Yarsky, count the many ways this is totally effed up.   Links: Mike on Instagram: @yarskyguitarsky...

"What you put on paper can be very personal and revealing...that's what art is all about. It's a way of communicating." When Jason made this innocuous statement to Betsy in Sweet Valley High #15, PROMISES, he had no idea that over 30 years later two moody Pisces artists would record a podcast bonus episode unpacking the sentence. Surprise! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.c...

Cancer, death, secrets, Luke Skywalker, alcoholism, teen drug use, threesomes at Miller's Point...and that's just Chapter One! Marissa is joined by guest Kali Baker-Johnson to unpack what PROMISES to be the greatest SVH book yet...or at the very least, Jessica's worst. * * *  Download Issue #1 of ZAHRA: THE SHADOW FLAME Sweet Valley High TV Theme Song , "Kind of an ear worm!" r...

Speaking of DECEPTIONS: When is telling a dude you don't want to date him secretly a coded message that you DO want to date him? And is it NEVER? Marissa and guest Elizabeth Yarwood consider and fail to answer this question, then read a delightful letter about a young girl tricking her parents into buying her books. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

After several weeks of non-stop crisis in Sweet Valley, Marissa returns to the relatively placid territory of bad decisions and new boy problems (Nicholas Morrow, to be exact). But as guest Elizabeth Yarwood can attest, sometimes it’s the seemingly placid ones that really get you yelling into the microphone. Ladies and gentlefolk, DECEPTIONS.   Links: Watch the trailer for LA PICKER on Seed&Sp...

Marissa and guest Mischa Stanton eavesdrop on an upsetting conversation between Jessica Wakefield and Cara Walker, then travel in their mental time machines back to the days before cell phone ubiquity.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Q: What happens when you’ve just published a book about impending girlfriend death and every fiber of your writerly being says, “Can we go darker?” A: “KIDNAPPED!” Marissa is joined by accomplished podcast producer Mischa Stanton (in Mischa's recording booth!) and together they try and explain what the hell happened here. Check out some of Mischa’s other shows: The Far Meridian — New Season Pr...

Katie LaDue joins Marissa once again, this time to examine WHEN LOVE DIES (and a few of the Sweet Valley boys therein) through a new lens. All I can say is SPOILERS SPOILERS SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL SPOILERS! BEWARE! Marissa's Initial Take on SVC (from back in 2011) Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

This is what it sounds like...when love dies. Sweet Valley High goes full soap opera and Marissa talks through the pain with teen television drama aficionado Katie LaDue. Oh, and file this one under "Very Special Episodes" because the topic of facing one's own mortality made us accidentally get a little real. Oops! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Are modern day teens woke enough to laugh at Suzanne Devlin? Were 12-year-old readers in the '80s indoctrinated into the grand tradition of victim-blaming and rape culture? Does Jessica Wakefield know what sex is? Marissa and guests William J. Stribling and Sinead Persaud answer none of these hard-hitting questions in this bonus episode. Instead, we stand in awe of the highly problematic, high...

It's the premiere of Season 2 of Sweet Valley Diaries! Let's celebrate by shipping Jessica to New York and getting beloved teacher Roger Collins fired for unspecified sex crimes! Don't panic, everyone. Marissa and her guests, William J. Stribling and Sinead Persaud (of Shipwrecked Comedy!) are here to hold your hand until this nightmare blows over. Welcome back to Sweet Valley. Adverti...

Technically summer doesn't start until next week, but here at the Diaries, summer break is in full effect...and it's PERFECT. In this special between-seasons episode Marissa and guest-friend Alex Bishop dig into the series' first SPECIAL EDITION novel. Are you ready to bike a major chunk of the California Coast with nothing more than a couple of saddle bags and a heap of moxie? No? Wel...

In this final episode of Season One, Marissa uses the power of the internet to call guest Mary Parker in Boston, and they BOTH use the power of imagination to invent several possible stage adaptations of the comitragic saga of Annie Whitman and Jessica Wakefield. THANKS FOR LISTENING and helping to make this first season so much fun! Get in touch! Leave a comment on sweetvalleydiaries.net , email...

It's the final main episode of Season 1, and we've come full circle. This is the tale of a wannabe cheerleader with a bad reputation that started Marissa's obsession with Sweet Valley High lo, those many years ago. Mary Parker was there to see that obsession take root. Now Mary and Marissa take a closer look at "Easy" Annie Whitman, diagnose Elizabeth Wakefield with Stockholm S...

Marissa is joined once again by her dad, Don Flaxbart, and she's steering him straight down Memory Lane. Was high school in the 1960s Southwestern US anything like that Sweet Valley High life? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

So you love Ned Wakefield's dad jokes? We'll do you one better: a real life dad! Marissa's own actual father, the wise and weird Don Flaxbart, joins shares his thoughts and insights on this, the first "teenage romance of any kind" that he's ever read. Will the lanky boy get the imperious-looking girl he's sweet on? Marissa discusses this absurd question, and even more a...

Outtakes, b-roll, and real talk about the actually important moral of HEART BREAKER. Marissa is joined once more by former youth body-surfing competitor Russ Nickel, who points out all the dad jokes in the book and reads some favorite passages.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Now that all that coma/personality swap/assault unpleasantness is behind us, let’s get back to what really matters in Sweet Valley: the beach, boys, and miscommunications involving suntan lotion. Marissa is joined by Russ Nickel, funny guy, writer, and former beach boy (not the singing kind…though he does sing in this episode). This is the book about Bill Chase giving Dee Dee Gordon surfing lesson...

We’ve read about fictional 1980s highschoolers, but what is it like to play one on TV?! Alex Jennings, who plays Carla on ABC’s The Goldbergs, is uniquely equipped to answer this question. But mostly we just talk about dry shampoo, what it would be like if Carla had a twin, and “enjoying the release of crying,” whatever that means. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In this tearful conclusion to the Sweet Valley High series, Elizabeth stays in a coma forever…PSYCH! But seriously, has Elizabeth awoken only to find that the events of DEAR SISTER are a fate worse than death? Actress Alex Jennings and Marissa give a wide-eyed play-by-play to a book that reads like the unholy lovechild of Freaky Friday and General Hospital.   Heads up: Due to forces beyond our con...

What's more dramatic than a dramatic reading? Just to keep us all on our toes, here's something new: an impromptu audio drama rendition of the final paragraphs of Book 6, DANGEROUS LOVE – the very paragraphs that lead up to our ultra gargantuan cliffhanger and the extremely extra, extremely dramatic Book 7, DEAR SISTER. Enjoy! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands