Teen Reads

Since we’re talking books, here’s another one…

Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High

…Which were all the rage in my teen years. My friends and I were constantly sharing and swapping these with each other, devouring as many as these as we could.

Novels were banned at our school back in those days, but we got away with it by wrapping the covers with paper so we could sneak a read at recess, between classes, and sometimes during class if we happened to be right in the middle of a really exciting chapter.

Flipping through a couple of old these old novels, I couldn’t help thinking how cliché the plots and storylines were. The reading list soon expanded to Nancy Drew, R.L. Stine, Christopher Pike and the like. But every reader has to start somewhere I guess.

Looking back, I think it was quite unreasonable to have a rule banning these novels at school. Granted they were not classical works of literature, but at least we were reading. It would make more sense to have a rule against reading novels in class or something like that.

A smart teacher would have taken advantage of the craze with these novels… maybe even integrate them into English class, Moral Studies (a compulsory subject in the Malaysian school system) to shake things up.

So are were you a closet teen novel reader? Don’t be afraid to own up… you are not alone.