In Love With Teen Lit: Remembering The 'Paperback Crush' Of The '80s And '90s
As a preteen Gabrielle Moss devoured books in "The Baby-Sitters Club" and "Sweet Valley High" series. She recently reread them for "nostalgic stress relief" and ended up writing a book on the genre.
A couple years ago, author Gabrielle Moss was feeling "worn down by the world" and found herself impulse buying an entire crate of "Sweet Valley High" books on eBay for $25.
At first, Moss was binging these books — "Sweet Valley" and other series — as "nostalgic stress relief." Moss had devoured these pastel-colored paperbacks during her own preteen years — she estimates she read two per week.
"I started wondering ... what was the impact of reading all these books?" she says. She attempts to answer that question in a deep dive into teen lit of the '80s and '90s.
