Several years behind the BSC, the Sweet Valley Twins finally get their own graphic novel! The second book, Teacher's Pet, is coming, too, so I hope the series continues. And Nora Mercandy better look gothy in book three or else...
The art style is interesting. I'm used to seeing the beautiful cover art from the books so the girls look a lot younger here and it takes some getting used to.
The story has been updated, but only minorly. The Hairnet has a tablet Jessica has to swipe and the girls have to share one cell phone. I don't think anything else has changed much.
Best Friends is the one where the girls still dress alike at the beginning and the main plot is Elizabeth struggling with Jessica having different interests. Liz starts the paper and Jess joins the Unicorns. Liz tries to join, too, but refuses to do the pledge task of putting shaving cream on Lois's sundae, so Jess pretends to be her and does the task. Liz gets pissed and Lois gets revenge later. Both girls realize they can look different and have different friends and different interests and still be each other's best friend.
I mostly enjoyed this, but I do have some criticisms.
First, people aren't named. In a new graphic adaptation, you have to expect there will be a lot of race changes, because back in the mid-80s, most of these characters were white. Updating them is great, but if the character no longer looks like the book description, it doesn't hurt to actually put names in the dialogue to identify them. I'll list a few of the differences.
Bruce Patman is now a tan blond. At least he was named right away.
Amy has a red bob and glasses. This works for her. She's also named right away so there was no confusion.
Julie Porter is black. She wasn't named in conversation, but a few pages before the lunch scene, Elizabeth tells Amy she'll talk to her and Julie at lunch, so you know that's Julie. She seems to have a bigger personality than in the books, which is nice.
Caroline Pearce went from preppy redhead to a curvy, tall, brown girl with big curly hair, a lot of jewelry and sass. I really like the new Caroline. She isn't named right away, but her name is mentioned later so you know it's her, but if you know SVT at all, you know the gossip is Caroline.
Lila is identifiable not because she's named right away, but because she looks classier than the others and has more jewelry. There was a mention of her when Jess was talking early on and she's shown in a sketch, but the colors were off so she looked more like a paler redhead there. She's tan with dark brown hair. She's always got her hair in a ponytail though, which doesn't seem very Lila.
Janet is now black. She's taller than the other Unicorns shown, and she tends to do some of the authoritative talking, but those are the only clues that she's Janet. Also, I'm pretty sure she never once wears purple, despite having a line that says, "Like this year, we decided purple was our thing, so we all went shopping." And she is not wearing a lick of purple as she says it. Janet and Lila looked alike in the books and now they don't look alike at all, which is totally fine because cousins can certainly be very different, but they really should have name-dropped Janet to make it clear that was her.
There are two other Unicorns shown a lot. One has a white-blonde bob with very pale blue eyes. She always wears overalls, which I think is a Choice on the part of the artist. These girls are supposed to be the most fashionable in the school, so why is this one constantly in overalls? Have overalls ever once been fashionable? I'm pretty sure this is Ellen, because she shows up quite a bit and is in class with Lila and Jessica, but she is never IDed. The second girl is Asian and I have zero idea who she is. She gets a few throwaway lines.
For a club which Janet explicity stated has 12 members, you only ever see 5 of them and that includes Jessica.
Tamara Chase is never "on screen" but she's mentioned by Janet with a little sketch of her by the speech bubble so we know what she looks like.
There is a band-aid on "Ellen's" knee on page 50. How is that Unicorn-esque? Did this artist even read the series?
Winston is now black but clearly called Winston, so no confusion there.
Near the end when Lois gets her revenge, there is a sixth Unicorn: a brown girl with very short hair. No idea who she is.
The fashion is my first major problem with this artist. The Unicorns are FASHIONABLE. Ellen would not wear overalls every single day. And they barely wear purple. That's such a huge thing in the books. Why even have Janet say anything about purple if they're not going to do that?
My second major problem involves the Wakefields. The girls look a little too young, in my opinion. Ned looks pretty hot. Good job there. And Steven is really cute, too. He makes some great faces. But Alice. Oh, Alice, they did you dirty. Her hair is a constant mess. She wears frumpy clothes. She has glasses now, which would be fine if she was fashionable at all, but she isn't. She looks like the eccentric scientist mom or maybe the quirky teacher. She does not look like Alice Wakefield, young-looking enough to be called the girls' older sister and interior designer to the stars. Yeah, my biggest issue with this adaptation is the de-glamorizing of Alice.
Nitpicks aside, I enjoyed this. I always love me some SVT and plan to get back to my reread after I finish plowing through my dark Disney stuff.
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