Grab the Lapels

Sweet Valley High: Power Play by Francine Pascal

*This is the 8th book in the 13 Books of Fall.

While bullying isn’t new, the way we handle it changes, especially if the medium of bullying changes. Back in the 90s, I heard of people who set up GeoCities websites dedicated to how much they hated a classmate. Now, bullying is pervasive on social media, although the means for reporting bullying have also improved thanks to school-related apps on which students can request help.

But back in the 1980s, at least in Francine Pascal’s world, bullying is a form of confirming one’s social status. You don’t want some human lint to stick to your superior reputation. In Power Play, book #4 in the Sweet Valley High series, I highlighted nineteen fat slurs against Robin, a teen girl who wants to join the high school sorority Pi Beta Alpha. Robin thinks Jessica Wakefield, the popular cheerleader, is her best friend because Jessica includes Robin in activities, like asking Robin to get her dry cleaning. Elizabeth Wakefield, Jessica’s identical twin, sees the abuse her sister metes out and actually tries to help Robin get into the sorority. Elizabeth is a Pi Beta, but she thinks they’re ridiculous and only pledged because her twin begged for it. As a member, Elizabeth can sponsor Robin’s request to join. Jessica. Is. Furious.

Nineteen fat slurs in one short little novella, dear readers.

Eventually, Elizabeth schemes just as hard to get Robin in the sorority as Jessica does to keep Robin out. Elizabeth’s schemes unintentionally conclude in Robin being humiliated at a school dance (“Discomarathon had become Discodisaster!”) and leaving high school. I assumed she had attempted suicide and was sent away, but Francine Pascal doesn’t go that serious with her young readers. Instead, Robin lives with her aunt a few weeks and comes back thin. Interestingly, if you watch 1980s movies, the “fat girl” is always slightly bigger than her peers, and that’s what I expect happened here. I’ve read and watched stories in which a woman (it was always a woman until recently) bemoaned something like five to twenty pounds as keeping her from being a hottie.

Robin comes back and not only makes Pi Beta Alpha, but she joins the cheer squad, too — not just as a regular member, but as co-captain with Jessica. How Robin went from outcast to flexible gymnast is beyond me, but Francine Pascal designed a happy, vengeful ending for her poor, bullied character. As a character, Robin is forgotten when in the last few pages Jessica decides a high school sorority is really quite babyish (Jessica is sixteen) and college students is where it’s at, leading us into a cliffhanger urging us to buy the next novel.

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Published by Grab the Lapels

I'm a graduate of the MFA fiction writing program at the University of Notre Dame, which inspired me to follow along with trends in teaching, publishing, and reviewing. I also have an MA and BS from Central Michigan University. I used to teach composition, creative writing, and literature in higher education, then did a brief stint at a civic theater, followed by two years at a references desk at a public library. I'm now working toward my ASL Interpreter license.

18 comments

  1. US ‘English’ is a foreign language.

    What is ‘cheerleader’? What is ‘sorority’? – I mean, I know its literal meaning but what is a ‘Pi Beta Alpha’?

    Interestingly, I mostly read British boys boarding school books, and I still don’t know what the ‘lower fifth’ is.

    It’s a bit sad that the moral of the story is get thin and you’ll be popular (and flexible!).

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    • Cheerleaders were always girls (now some boys are involved) who used to literally just cheer on whatever sport (typically football) that is playing. As time went on, cheerleaders became more sexy and included gymnastics. Now, you have to be really athletic (at most schools) to be a cheerleader. It’s actually one of the most dangerous sports in America, even over football.

      Sororities are for women, fraternities are for me. Typically, they form and are connected to colleges, so I always thought it was weird that in Sweet Valley High School there is a sorority instead of a club. Either way, sororities and fraternities are “Greek life,” and each one has a focus: business, music, volunteering, and, the most popular, SOCIAL. Those are the party/drunk groups. In the high school setting in Pascal’s novel, the sorority seems to function largely as a club to decide who is a worthy human being.

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  2. Oh lordy. It’s like all the bespectacled nerdy girl needs is contacts, cleavage and a new tight short skirt and she’s suddenly gorgeous and all the hot guys want to go out with her. If Robin was only gone a few weeks, her aunt, who was probably a former champion cheerleader, must have starved Robin and whipped her into shape?

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    • I’m sure whatever happened to Robin was horrifying. Then again, back in the 1980s, the “really fat girl” probably weighed as much as Bridget Jones. That is to say, 15 pounds heavier than is deemed acceptable by the mean girls.

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  3. And so Jessica, the bully, doesn’t learn anything? What happens to Elizabeth? Oh dear Melanie, it doesn’t feel like there’s much at all to recommend this story.

    Unlike Bill I do know about the sorority system but I did think it snd the fraternity were only college things. I had no idea they were in high schools too. As an Australian I find the whole idea of sanctioned exclusiveness that lies behind them concerning?

    Like Bill and his English books I didn’t know what the “lower fifth” was either! Seems like we are very simple in all things high school down here!!!

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    • Ha, Jessica and Elizabeth never learn anything. One is selfish, the other is a perpetual victim, and sometimes one of them comes around to be more likeable. That’s what kept teens reading when these books were popular. You would flip flop which one you identify with. Veeeeery dramatic.

      I’ve never heard of Greek life in a high school, so I wondered where Pascal got the idea. We have clubs in public schools, and they are always sponsored by a teacher, so they don’t function just to be exclusionary.

      The books always end on a cliffhanger so you want to go out and buy the next juicy story.

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      • Ah so the sororities was probably just fictional which of course is fine … it’s fiction. Says something though that so I’ve like me who knows a bit about the system immediately assumed they must also occur in high schools. Not that it matters but it just reminds us that we must read fiction as fiction!

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  5. Although the secondary school I went to was not a particularly nice place, every time you review one of these I am freshly grateful that I did not grow up in a novel in the 1980s! I didn’t read these, but every now and then I am tempted to reread some of the Babysitters Club books and see how they held up – I did really love those when I was about ten.

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    • I believe the Baby-sitters Club (hahaha, that’s how they write it out) books hold up well. They are about fairness and friendship and aimed at an audience the same age as the girls. Sweet Valley High, however, aimed at an audience of girls around 6th grade (age 11-12) by writing about what high school would be like (and that desire to grow up).

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  6. Are high school sororities even a thing? They don’t really exist here, even in universities, so all I know about them is from bad movies and they always seem awful. The fat-shaming here sounds consistent with all the media that we grew up with though.

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  8. Wow, 19. How sad. At least I can say for certain (even though I’ve read very few middle grade and YA fiction lately) that most authors are much more aware of how harmful this can be, and are very intentional about creating diverse characters in body types, religion, culture, etc. Picture books have always excelled at this I find, but I think it’s getting better. Even Disney is improving LOL

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