Sweet Valley Hive

This week, we learn an eerily timely lesson in the dangers of what happens when we outsource empathy by having someone—or some thing —handle our communications for us.  When Jess and Liz open an anonymous letter-writing service, they think it will be an easy way to make a quick buck. But they forget one important thing: as the eponymous Maria of the song “Take a Letter, Maria” knows all too well:...

This week, Todd is minding his business, shooting basketball….s, when a shadowy figure from his past returns and threatens everything Todd holds dear. Kevin (whom we DON’T need to talk about) charms Todd’s family and friends and frames him for a string of muggings, leaving Todd feeling gaslit and us wondering “Was this earned?”  Meanwhile, we ponder how many good summers we have left, stumble upon...

This week, Liz resists fascist censorship to force a necessary discussion of sexual harassment at Sweet Valley High. The surprisingly rich text touches both our hosts, drawing tears and stories of our own high school free speech crusades.  Join us for a discussion of plain-looking girls (they’re smarter than you think), zines (they’re like renegade newspapers!), and the power of feminine rage, in...

This week, it’s a battle of the sexes in Sweet Valley when resident rich jerk Bruce—in a transparent bid for more screen time—creates a mysterious, exclusive, boys-only club that is wreaking havoc on the school with their pranks. Naturally Jessica challenges Bruce and his patent Title IX violation, starting a dangerous dare-war and a (devastatingly timely) conversation about sexual politics at Swe...

This week, we have a departure from form as we attempt to recreate an episode we already recorded that was accidentally deleted by our very very very handsome main character figure. Meanwhile, Jess and Liz have scored coveted roles on a soap opera! While Jess gets caught up in the Hollywood life and an inappropriately aged suitor, Liz is inspired to conduct an ethnography of television production...

This week, a stolen diary causes a modicum of drama in Sweet Valley and a near nervous breakdown for Pardo, who finds the disconnect between the book’s title, cover, taglines, and plot unmooring and highly stressful. Robert, on the other hand, loves the book and has come prepared with “textual reasons” to back it up.  Join us for a discussion of stalkers, Sherlock Holmes, and the simple pleasures...

This week, we have a study in the terror of the domestic. When her mom gets transferred to London for a new job, it seems Cara’s only option is to elope with her corpse boyfriend Steven. But as the date grows nearer, Cara becomes acquainted with the grim realities of what the performative act of marriage entails: negligee, whiny children, and—the most horrific of all—gay husbands.  Meanwhile, Pard...

This week’s text tackles the subject of High Art vs. Commerce, with Olivia (for reasons never explained) forced to choose between a life of responsibility—severe buns, suits, and working at a department store–and an artist’s life—onion-smelling loft apartments, funky hairdos, and drinking tea. These choices are represented by her two love interests, a retail nepo baby who only talks about veal med...

This week, Jessica gets involved with a group called the Good Friends, a local commune that is run by the incredibly hot Adam Marvel and is very clearly a cult.  Meanwhile, Robert and Becky discuss performative sexy depression, reminisce fondly on their own brushes with cults, and scroll the rolodex of cult documentaries that have shaped their lives in “Gaslight, Gatekeep, Cultboss” (Sweet Valley...

This week, we have some nuanced discussion of ethno-racial identity and some even more nuanced discussion of ejaculate-guzzling (and that’s just linguistics). Chicana student Rose (nee Rosa) wants to join the PBA sorority to prove that she can fit in with the other thin, rich, beautiful girls in Sweet Valley. Rosa is white-passing and believes she has to hide aspects of her Mexican identity and he...

Note: We had some audio issues this week which will be fixed in the next episode. Thank you for your patience!  This week, we have a book that is ostensibly about a romantic rivalry between two boys (“they”) over the affections of a girl, but is actually about a homoerotic relationship between two boys who really, really, love their dirt bikes.  Outside of Sweet Valley, there’s a new character sto...

*Note: Due to circumstances that are definitely nobody’s fault, the audio is a little messed up for this episode. Don’t worry, we fix it soon (the episode after next).  This week, there’s a new girl in town, and she has a brother (who is neither long nor lost)! But her story is so uncompelling that Robert and Pardo spend most of the episode distinguishing between Brandies (Glanville and Melville),...

This week, (previously former second-string) quarterback Scott Trost can’t get a date, so he does what any sixteen year-old boy would do: writes identical love letters to two girls he doesn’t know and then gets them to compete in a Bachelor-style contest for his attention.  Robert and Pardo get into a heated debate about the book’s perspective and the culture at large, made more fraught by the fra...

This week, a doping scandal hits Sweet Valley when a character we don’t care about starts taking “magic vitamins” to help his track performance. As Tony becomes roidier and roidier, Robert and Pardo get into a Talmudic debate regarding whether he actually fits the legal requirements to be guilty of the crime.   Join us as we discuss basil clapping, task management software, and what happens when y...

This week, it’s sister vs. sister ( 🎵ow OW OW!! 🎶) when the Miss Teen Sweet Valley pageant comes to town. Jess has entered the pageant and is working her little tuchus off with dance teacher Mr. Krazinsky—who is, sorry, absolutely serving shtetl vibes. Meanwhile, Liz is staging a feminist protest to preserve a little thing called the dignity of Sweet Valley womanhood.  Meanwhile, Robert and Pard...

GAY! GAY? GAY. G-G-GAAAAAAYYYYY!  🎶 We’ve got our first named gay character/ We’ve got the most important book of our lives/ Did I cry this morning/ Absolutely I did!/ I cried reading about gay teenagers! 🎶  This week, the arrival of a handsome stranger from SAN FRANCISCO (no homo…er, yes homo) sends shockwaves through both Sweet Valley and our world.  Along the way we touch on Tim Horton’s sexu...

*Content warning: eating disorders* Well, apparently President Bill Clinton has recently put out a PSA about eating disorders, so we have another book about the importance of getting skinny, this time with an important clarification: don’t get too skinny! You could faint or something! In the B-plot, the cheerleaders are once again tasked with the inequitable burden of athletics department fundrais...

It’s a party this week as Robert and Pardo are physically co-present for only the second time in hive history! To celebrate, we experiment with the form, playing a deceptively straightforward drinking game that descends into chaos almost immediately.  In Sweet Valley, a new addictive drug has hit the streets: photography. When Liz inherits her beloved dead friend Regina’s camera, she almost immedi...

This week, there’s a new girl in town and she’s shrouded in mystery: is she the live-in girlfriend of a man old enough to be her father, or is she the live-in daughter of a man old enough to be her father? Oh, and not for nothing: the man is a ROCK STAR! Join us for a discussion of marimbas, angel hair pasta in the 90s, and—despite Robert’s adamant protestations—shrinkage, in “Is She His Girlfrien...

This week, the demotic turn has hit Sweet Valley as we take a decidedly modern look at reality television. Jessica is auditioning to appear on a national talk show, Lila is recruiting (shirtless, droplet-covered) Bruce to plot against her, and Liz is trying to deal with the most difficult question every young person must answer: am I a writer...or a ranger? Join us for a good old-fashioned twin sw...

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Sweet Valley, and the ghost of boyfriends past (ahem…Jeffrey French) and terrible dads have come to teach Enid a thing or two about love, family, and marijuana.  We also learn about the shocking power of Christmas cookies, the warning signs for parental manipulation, and the chokehold that mistletoe had on Sweet Valley teens in the 80s in “Books Are M...

This week, we have the ultimate battle for quarterback supremacy as newly no-longer-blind Ken Matthews faces off against (gasp) GIRL Claire Middleton. Can SVH handle a woman on the football team? Can Jessica and the cheerleaders bully Claire into dropping out and restoring the status quo? Can anyone rhyme “score” with something other than “more”? Join us as we answer these questions, plus discuss...

**Content warning: graphic racial violence** This week, we have a complicated book and a roller coaster of an episode.  Our text follows Neil, a White teenager who develops increasingly racist perspectives and gradually turns against his Black friend Andy until things reach a head in a highly upsetting climax. Meanwhile, Sweet Valley High is having a broader reckoning about inequality when the res...

Just for fun, try this quick thought experiment. Soccer boy meets rocker girl. Soccer boy and rocker girl bond over classic cinema. Soccer boy and rocker girl fall in love, playing right into the hands of the liberal democratic agenda to produce acquiescent subjects serving the needs of the state under the guise of that which is perceived as the most authentic of experiences…romantic love. (But we...

Blonde twins scheming to romantically entrap their parents? We know what you’re thinking, but this is completely different. In The Parent PLOT (yes, PLOT!), Jess’s and Liz’s plots are at odds with each other–Liz trying to get their parents back together, and Jess working to set them up with new partners! Along the way, we discuss family guilt, Robert’s new hobby (you guessed it–sexing mice), and t...