10/30/08 - Blast off - 1st Blog for Cliquey Pizza

Hi , there! Peachalulu here wanting to share my love of the 80's
, especially teen book series with anyone who gets nostalgic over a
Sweet Valley High cover or a pair of vintage jellies. Why Cliquey Pizza?
Well for me , 80's series fiction did not exactly strive for Newberry awards , in fact they were little more than brain junk food and what was more popular in the 80's than pizza! As for Cliquey , the 80's were a very cliquey generation , you weren't just in or out - even the out's had labels ( not very nice ones mind you but if you were a dork you could console yourself that you weren't just a dork but a computer nerd , Atari freak , or an apple polisher - a whole resume of geekdom.)

I've been collecting series books for several years ever since I came across a book in a flea market and did a double take - was there a spin-off of Sweet Valley High that had somehow escaped me?! Nope , just a bit of mistaken identity - for a moment I thought the fake triplet Jennifer ( from Sweet Valley Twins #6 ) had been transformed into a real character. The series was the Dream Girls and the cover artist James Matheuse also did the covers for Sweet Valley High giving the characters an eerie similarity between the two series. The villain of Dream Girls conniving Arlene McVie is almost the spitting image of flirty , Jessica Wakefield while the good girl of the series Linda Ellis looks like a Jean West , Susan Stewart morph. Wondering exactly how many series had come out in the 80's , I started combing through used book stores , thrift stores , fleamarkets anywhere I could find the paperbacks for cheap. I couldn't believe how many were out there - over a hundred! Eventually it turned into a scavenger hunt - I'm still looking for the last book to fill in my Fabulous Five series - #29 - Melanie Edwards , Super Kisser and the harder to hunt down Roommates. Occationally I resort to Ebay and Abe books but unless it's a bulk lot I don't bother , I hate paying for shipping! Fortunately I still had my old books packed away so I didn't have to start , completely , from scratch. All in all , I have hundreds and hundreds of books, a dozen or so complete series and most series are nearly complete but still have hundreds left to find.

Reading these books is like a blast from the past , my own Delorian trip back to the 80's - when cell phones were a fantasy , the internet nonexistent and acid washed ( everything ) made laundry blunders look cool! My plan is to discuss the books and how pop culture might have and , or did , influence them.