Carolina Alumni Review - July/August 2011

the way former fans defend or bash the new books, especially the twins’ drop from a small-enough size six to an improbable four.

And just after Pattee’s publication, Pascal released Sweet Valley Confidential, a sequel in which the twin heroines are adults. Pattee suggested a look at the reviews. They run the gamut from praise to rage. It is, as Pattee says, a touchstone worthy of attention.

— Susan Simone

What’s the Attraction?

Romance fiction can take its fans in many directions. For Amy Pattee ’04 (PhD), fascination with the genre began at age 9 with the series Sweet Valley High by Francine Pascal, the story of twin sisters, their friends and their crushes. That eventually led Pascal to attend UNC for a joint doctorate/ cultural studies certificate and another look at teen romances.

“I was already thinking in terms of Sweet Valley High as
my dissertation topic,” Pattee says, in part to figure out why
she and others like her might be attracted to such stories.
“As an older teenager, I definitely didn’t fit in with any pop-
ular crowd. In fact, I kind of resented those folks and that
whole system. Why, I wondered, would I find such pleasure
This year Pattee — an associate professor and co-director
of the Dual Degree Program in LIS/Children’s Literature in
the Graduate School of Library and
Information Science at Simmons College
in Boston — published the results of her
research, Reading the Adolescent Romance:
Sweet Valley High and the Popular Young
Adult Romance Novel. The answer to the
question that inspired her research is that
“Sweet Valley High has become a kind of
touchstone around which adult and
young readers assume interpretive posi-
tions,” Pattee writes.

The clash of romance, nostalgia and hindsight got even more interesting in the past decade when Pascal issued revised versions of the romances. Pattee writes about

COURTESY SIMMONS COLLEGE AND AMY PATTEE

“These romances about adolescents are
the teenage world you wish you were in,”
Pattee says, and that’s the attraction for the
9- and 10-year-olds who first pick up the
books. “It gives young readers something
to think about as they are growing toward
becoming adolescent.”
As readers grow older, the books
become more problematic. Their world
seems limited, a conservative world in
which all romance is heterosexual, fami-
lies are nuclear and the heroines are pret-
ty. Yet, the story still has a hold.
“I have the Sweet Valley High
board game,” Pattee says. “I
brought it to a party where I
didn’t know people. Women
came up and played. We had a
common interest and under-
standing, and, yes, an element

Professor researches why young romance fiction appeals to readers

For Amy Pattee ’04 (PhD), the fascination with romance novels began at age 9 with Sweet Valley High, the one that hooks many romance devotees.

Pattee says she decided to focus her dissertation on Sweet Valley High because “as an older teenager, I definitely didn’t fit in with any popular crowd. ... Why, I wondered, would I find such pleasure in stories about this clique?”