History Literature / SweetValleyHigh

** In the University books, Enid/Alex Rollins became one (surprisingly, because in high school she had a bland personality and hated the popular cliques).
** Allison Quinn, Janet Howell and Ellen Riteman int the "Twins" (middle school) books

* AlphaBitch: Lila Fowler, Amy Sutton and Cara Walker. Later, Enid/Alex Rollins and Allison Quinn (SVU), Janet Howell and Ellen Riteman (Twins) Kimberly Haver (Unicorn Club), Lacey Frells (Junior High), and Melissa Fox (Senior Year).[[note]]And this doesn't even go into secondary characters such as Heather Mallone, Tamera Chase, Rachel Grant, etc.[[/note]] And of course, Jessica herself, with ''Wrong Kind of Girl'' being just one of the ''earliest'' examples of her general bitchiness. Let's just be happy this series ''doesn't'' take place in a coherent timeline, meaning most of these girls have never met each other.

* PerspectiveFlip: The first ''Saga'' novel is about Alice's lineage. The second is about Ned's and every interaction that his and Alice's ancestors had in the first book is now shown from his predecessor's point of view, literally and figuratively. Right down to Ned himself.

** ''A Night To Remember'' (the prequel to the Evil Twin Novel): [[spoiler: the big prom that Elizabeth planned, to the point of going all Captain Ahabian, goes horribly horribly wrong when a rival school crashes the prom and a full-scale riot breaks out with Todd leading the charge. Furthermore, the violence of the riot causes Lila (mentally unstable from being nearly raped[[note]]by the counselor she was seeing to recover from a ''previous'' rape attempt, no less.[[/note]]) to have a nervous breakdown and attack a guidance counselor who she thinks is trying to rape her, and she basically has to be placed in a mental institution that very night. And Elizabeth, after Jessica spikes her drink, drives home with Jessica's boyfriend (the only one who was actually good to her) and kills him dead.]]

** ''A Night To Remember'' (the prequel to the Evil Twin Novel): [[spoiler: the big prom that Elizabeth planned, to the point of going all Captain Ahabian, goes horribly horribly wrong when a rival school crashes the prom and a full-scale riot breaks out with Todd leading the charge. Furthermore, the violence of the riot causes Lila (mentally unstable from being nearly raped) to have a nervous breakdown and attack a guidance counselor who she thinks is trying to rape her, and she basically has to be placed in a mental institution that very night. And Elizabeth, after Jessica spikes her drink, drives home with Jessica's boyfriend (the only one who was actually good to her) and kills him dead.]]

* AlphaBitch: Lila Fowler, Amy Sutton and Cara Walker. Later, Enid/Alex Rollins and Allison Quinn (SVU), Janet Howell and Ellen Riteman (Twins) Kimberly Haver (Unicorn Club), Lacey Frells (Junior High), and Melissa Fox (Senior Year).[[note]]And this doesn't even go into secondary characters such as Heather Mallone, Tamera Chase, Rachel Grant, etc.[[/note]] And of course, Jessica herself, with ''Wrong Kind of Girl'' being just one of the ''earliest'' examples of her general bitchiness. Let's just be happy this series ''doesn't'' take place in a coherent timeline.

* AlphaBitch: Lila Fowler, Amy Sutton and Cara Walker. Later, Enid/Alex Rollins and Allison Quinn (SVU), Janet Howell and Ellen Riteman (Twins) Kimberly Haver (Unicorn Club), Lacey Frells (Junior High), and Melissa Fox (Senior Year).[[note]]And this doesn't even go into secondary characters such as Heather Mallone, Tamera Chase, Rachel Grant, etc.[[/note]] Jessica has her moments too, the best example being ''Wrong Kind of Girl.''

* AlphaBitch: Lila Fowler, Amy Sutton and Cara Walker. Later, Enid/Alex Rollins and Allison Quinn (SVU), Janet Howell and Ellen Riteman (Twins) Kimberly Haver (Unicorn Club), Lacey Frells (Junior High), and Melissa Fox (Senior Year). Jessica has her moments too, the best example being ''Wrong Kind of Girl.''

* AlphaBitch: Lila Fowler and Amy. Later, Enid/Alex Rollins (SVU), Janet Howell (Twins) and Kimberly (Unicorn Club). Jessica has her moments too, the best example being ''Wrong Kind of Girl.''

* FatGirl: Lois Waller.

** Elizabeth gets abducted a man who works at the hospital she volunteers at.

* DeadPersonImpersonation: Gia Allen in the ''Sweet Valley University'' series, who assumed the identity of a popular sorority girl at her old university in order to continue stalking a guy who had taken out a restraining order against her.

* DrugsAreBad: When Bruce breaks Regina's heart, she befriends a guy who takes her to a drug party. [[spoiler: She dies as a direct result.]]

* KarmaHoudini:
** Jessica Wakefield. She spikes Elizabeth's punch at the prom and lets her drive off with Sam. [[spoiler: Sam was killed as a result of the crash]] and Elizabeth was arrested and put on trial for manslaughter. During this whole ordeal, Jessica does not speak up and completely abandons her twin. In fact, she even blamed Elizabeth for killing Sam, and to get revenge, she hooks up with Todd. Meanwhile, Elizabeth has to deal with the guilt of "killing" Sam, being an outcast at school and possibly being sent to prison.
** In book 100, ''The Evil Twin'', Elizabeth realizes that Jessica spiked the punch. She never really confronts her about it, but after [[spoiler: Margo "dies"]] she forgives Jessica.

** Elizabeth gets abducted a man who who works at the hospital she volunteers at.

* SlutShaming: The plot of ''Wrong Kind of Girl'' involves Jessica and her friends bullying Annie Whitman (nicknamed "Easy") because they worry that her reputation for promiscuity will make the cheerleading squad look bad. After she [[spoiler:[[DrivenToSuicide makes a suicide attempt]] because of this]], they learn to stop being so judgmental.
** Elizabeth frequently does this to Jessica as well, [[{{Hypocrite}} conveniently forgetting that she herself often cheats on her boyfriends]]

** There's also the book where Lila is trying to get her divorced parents back together. Title: [[spoiler: ''The Wedding'']].
* StalkerWithACrush: Both twins have at least one during the series. Elizabeth gets abducted by hers; Jessica's pursues her relentlessly and finally kidnaps Elizabeth by mistake.
* SuddenlySexuality: Steven comes out as gay in ''Sweet Valley Confidential'', despite having supposedly been heterosexual for the whole of the original series, being married to Cara at the start of the book, getting engaged to Billie in ''Sweet Valley University'', and having a nervous breakdown over the death of ''another'' girlfriend (Tricia Martin - see IdenticalStranger above). His eventual boyfriend [[spoiler: (husband in The Sweet Life)]] is Aaron Dallas, whose case of the trope is even more pronounced as it is stated that he "became" gay simply by living in San Francisco.

* ThereAreNoTherapists: You would think that everything the twins have gone though (trials for manslaughter, abductions, attempts on their lives, being stalked by identical impersonators) would qualify them for months and months of therapy. Nope, doesn't happen.
** Steve also clearly needs one. Anyone so hung up on the memories of a long dead girlfriend that he can't bring himself to enter a new relationship is need of help.
** This is played with in Lila's case. Following her near date rape, she goes to therapy at Project Youth (at first just going to get her dad to stop worrying about her), but [[spoiler: becomes attached to the therapist there and accuses him of assaulting her when the fight breaks out at the Jungle Prom]].

** For that matter, neither do the Wakefield parents during their marital problems.

* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: Sam, Jessica's boyfriend who dies in a drunk driving accident. Unlike a lot of men Jessica dates, Sam is pretty much a nice guy who brings out the best in Jessica and makes her want to be a better person. So naturally he ends up dead. This also applies to:

* TwinSwitch

** New girl in town Margo looks ''exactly'' like twins Elizabeth and Jessica. And later she turns out to have a twin (Nora) herself too, resulting in ''four'' identically-looking girls.

* BlackBestFriend: Maria Slater to Elizabeth in ''Senior Year'' and Nina Harper to Elizabeth again in SVU. Danny to Tom Watts in SVU.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: A perfect example in the book "Too Good To Be True", when the visiting Suzanne Devlin initially appears to be a classic MarySue, then turns out to be a lying, conniving bitch of the highest order--she secretly has nothing but contempt for everyone and she lies that Mr. Collins tried to rape her after he rebuffs her advances.

* KarmaHoudini: Jessica Wakefield. She spikes Elizabeth's punch at the prom and lets her drive off with Sam. [[spoiler: Sam was killed as a result of the crash]] and Elizabeth was arrested and put on trial for manslaughter. During this whole ordeal, Jessica does not speak up and completely abandons her twin. In fact, she even blamed Elizabeth for killing Sam, and to get revenge, she hooks up with Todd. Meanwhile, Elizabeth has to deal with the guilt of "killing" Sam, being an outcast at school and possibly being sent to prison.

* IdenticalStranger [=/=] ReplacementGoldfish: Margo and Nora. Also:
** Surfer Bill Chase fell in love with Elizabeth because she resembled (in looks and personality) his late girlfriend.
** Elizabeth became infatuated with a guy who looks like Todd until she discovers he's a jerk.
** The twins' brother Steve repeatedly dumped girlfriend Cara to pursue girls who resembled his dead girlfriend Tricia. Adding insult to injury, he refused to see any of the girls as their own person and instead tried to mold them to his memories of Tricia, including the way they wore their hair ("Don't put your hair up, Tricia always wore it down."), the things they did ("Let's go to the aquarium! Tricia loved the aquarium!"), things they were interested in ("You like science? Just like Tricia! She wanted to be a doctor!"), and even the food they ate ("Vanilla? But Tricia always had ''chocolate'' ice cream!"), making them feel bad when they wouldn't comply, all the while insisting "She's just like Tricia!" Only when one of the girls finally blasts him for this and declares that she deserves better than being used as a substitute does he realize how unhealthy his behavior is.
** One of the books in the ''Twins'' series had Mary, a classmate of the girls', constantly coming over to spend time with them. It soon became obvious that her motive was to spend time with the girls' mother. Even Elizabeth eventually got irritated with this, until it was finally revealed that Alice Wakefield bore a strong resemblance to Mary's mother, whom she hadn't seen since she was a little girl. (In an especially dark plotline for this genre, it was revealed that Mary had been abducted by a friend of her mother's, then eventually abandoned and shipped from one foster home to another.)

* JerkJock: Bruce Patman.

* RetCon: The Secret Diaries - interspersed with clips from prior books, these diaries each tell how, while those events were happening, one twin was hooking up with the other's boyfriend.

* RichBitch: Lila Fowler
* RoomFullOfCrazy: Margo
* RunawayBride: In the first "Saga" book, Alice (the twins' mother) ditches her fiance Hank Patman (who would later become Bruce's father) at the altar, partly because she's suddenly realized he isn't the man for her, but mostly because she's fallen in LoveAtFirstSight with Ned Wakefield--and as you recall from the book, their ancestors have missed numerous chances to get together in the past.

** Jessica falsely accuses Todd of sexually assaulting her when he completely ignores her during their date (he's in love with Elizabeth)