Paperback Crush by Gabrielle Moss Book Review

As a tween and teenager, I devoured Sweet Valley and Baby-Sitters Club books. I just couldn't get enough! I was constantly at my library and I remember being very jealous a friend of mine got one of the Unicorn Club books out of the library before I had checked it out. I still love Sweet Valley stuff, I recently bought copies of Elizabeth and Jessica's Secret Diaries and the Double Love podcast is one of my favourites. So when I discovered Paperback Crush, I felt that same excitement I felt when seeing new Sweet Valley books: I just couldn't wait to get my hands on it!

Paperback Crush was an interesting look at 80s and 90s teen fiction, with some mentions to YA in the decades before then and how cultural changes in the 80s changed YA novels from that time. It is packed with nostalgia, full of series and covers of books popular from that time. As someone born in the late 80s, I wasn't familiar with a lot of the series but it was still fun to see the covers and learn about them. I was mainly familiar with Sweet Valley books, BSC, Point Horror and Fear Street but this book reminded me of the Anastasia Krupnik series by Lois Lowry (yes, she of The Giver fame!), I remember reading some of the Anastasia series. And THANK YOU for reminding me of those Isla Fisher books! Completely forgot they existed.

Favourite parts

-Nostalgia through the roof
-Seeing some of the ridiculous covers and laughing at them
-Interviews with authors, cover models, ghost writers
-The design is perfect, beautiful and I liked how the book was split into different chapters like Love, Friendship, Jobs etc
-Calls out the lack of diversity in these novels, how they often centred around white, rich middle class kids
-A list at the end for the publisher and cover art designer for each cover shown in the book. Which was great as I couldn't BELIEVE how similar the Dream Girls series by Rosemary Joyce looked compared to Sweet Valley ones, only to discover they were both done by the same artist James Mathewuse.

Jealous Lies was published first, then Anything to Win (both 1986). Miss Teen Sweet Valley  was in 1991, which looks like it in turn was influenced by Anything to Win. They have the same font Full circle!

Dislikes

-The books tries to balance between looking critically at these books and being snarky and funny and made it fall flat in places. I think I would have preferred it to poke fun more at how ridiculous these books could be.
-I felt it ended abruptly, there was no conclusion or wrap up. Once the Terror chapter ended, that was it, except for a list of Extra Reading and the credits cover art used in the book.
-At one point the All That Glitter series by Kristi Andrews is mentioned 'All That Glitters …. eponymous six book series' yet the cover shown on that page is for Award Night, which is book 8 (and you can clearly see it on the cover). My copy is an ARC from NetGalley so I thought it might be corrected, but a friend sent me a picture of her finished copy and it also says 6. It makes me wonder if there are other slips like that

If you grew up reading these books or want to know about the trends and history of YA books in the 80s and 90s, this is a good place to start. If you want something snarkier, there's plenty of blogs and podcasts that will have you covered.