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The Age
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Sweet Valley High taught me all about love – except for one key detail
Before I discovered teen romance novels in the early 1980s, I wrote my own version of unrequited love in my red vinyl-covered diary about an older boy who went to the private school up the road. While I was still wearing skinny jeans and a pale pink Esprit jumper to primary school, he had graduated to grey flannel shorts, a pale grey shirt and a grey blazer with the arms pushed up. You'd think dressing entirely in grey would have dampened his look, but somehow it didn't. With golden curls and a flashing smile that I'd only witnessed from a distance, he was perfect teen magazine material. He never spoke to me directly, but his brother and I had been friends when we were little, and his mother had named her prize cow after me, a fact I found both strangely flattering and deeply embarrassing. Around the time I developed my crush, I discovered the Sweet Dreams book series. If it was the sealed monthly Dolly Doctor column that taught me all I needed to know about sex, it was Sweet Dreams and later, Sweet Valley High that taught me all I needed to know about love. Sure, it was the sort of love that only 16-year-old American girls with flawless skin, perfect hair and eyes that sparkled ever experienced, but I was happy to pretend. And pretend I did. Writing about all the ways my crush would save me when the horse I was riding in the bush bucked me off. The fact that I didn't own a horse, or ever ride alone in the bush, didn't deter my fantasy life. The first Sweet Dreams book was published in 1981, and I found it a year or so later in the mobile library van. Called P.S. I Love You, it's the only title in the 233-book series without a happy ending, making it my favourite. Romance was one thing, but sobbing over the impossibility of romance was even better. The story of 16-year-old Mariah, who is dragged unwillingly to Palm Springs for the summer with her single mother and younger sister, was a heady read for a 12-year-old. Mariah is openly scathing of the rich families in Palm Springs until she meets the boy next door, who happens to be loaded, lovely and dying. This book cemented my obsession with romance, while also making me terrified that the boy of my dreams would discover a cancerous lump in his neck, too. The Sweet Dreams books were mostly standalone romances, written by different American authors. The covers used portrait photographs of teenage girls who I wanted to look like but never did, including Courteney Cox on the cover of The Last Word. The protagonists were always beautiful, and the teenage boys they fell for equally so. And if the girls didn't start out that way, then they quickly transformed, losing any necessary weight and overcoming their shyness. These worlds excluded anyone who wasn't the right size, race or look. By the time the Sweet Valley High series appeared two years later, I'd moved onto another crush. One who actually knew my name. We were in the same class and I used his library card when I wanted to borrow more romance books than I was allowed. We didn't really talk, but I did practise writing his name over and over again in my best bubble writing. Written by Francine Pascal and her army of ghostwriters, the Sweet Valley High series became a sort of bible for my generation. Sure, the protagonists were 'perfect size six' identical twins with 'sun-streaked blonde hair' and 'blue-green eyes the colour of the ocean' who shared a Jeep and lived in a mansion, but we still managed to see ourselves in Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield. Jessica was the impulsive and reckless twin, who frequently made questionable choices, while Elizabeth was older (by four minutes) wiser, more reserved and born with a conscience. Where the Sweet Dreams series was almost entirely focused on finding love, Sweet Valley High attempted something slightly different. Crushes, boys and romance were still at the centre, but the books also delved into the minutiae of high school life. And while Sweet Valley High School was nothing like my outer-suburban school, we did share many of the same concerns. We gossiped over break-ups, traded crushes, drank underage at parties, fought and made up with friends and talked about love like there was nothing else to talk about. Nothing was out of bounds for the writers of Sweet Valley High. Conceived like a soap opera, the books tackled everything from kidnapping to cults, cocaine deaths to comas, paralysis to underage drinking, and I loved it all. Sadly, none of the boys I had crushes on while I was reading Sweet Dreams or Sweet Valley High seemed to feel the same. Or if they did, their feelings remained as buried as mine. But the books gave me company while I was trying to work out how to behave and how to feel, at a time when hormones were wreaking havoc. Remembering what reading romance books meant to me when I was 12 and 13, I decided to write my own version of a romantic comedy for younger readers. I've published many books for readers aged 11-plus, but mostly they have been stories tinged with sadness, and I wanted to write something hopeful and gentle. For research, I reread some of the titles in both series. P.S. I Love You no longer made me cry, but the horror of Elizabeth's diary being stolen by a boy at school and used against her in The Stolen Diary did make me check my teenage diary was still hidden away. The books haven't aged particularly well – it was the height of diet culture in the 1980s, after all. But what they did do, and what I suspect I, and millions of others responded to, was to centre the importance of taking a teenager's emotions seriously. So often we dismiss the young as having foolish crushes or feelings that aren't worthy of conversation, but I still remember how I felt about that boy in his grey school uniform and how I longed for him to see me. Loading My new book is not angst-ridden like a Sweet Dream s romance, or soapie like a Sweet Valley High. It is the story of dual protagonists, Sonny and Tess, both nearly 14, who meet outside a fish and chip shop, and develop a mutual crush. It was important to me to write both perspectives, in a way to counter the absence of a boy's voice in the books that educated me as a teen. I want my young readers to see that we all have messy and confusing feelings when love strikes, and that it's not up to a boy to rescue a girl when her horse bucks her off in the bush, but that the girl can do rescuing too.
Sydney Morning Herald
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
The books I loved as a teen have dated, but they got one thing right
Before I discovered teen romance novels in the early 1980s, I wrote my own version of unrequited love in my red vinyl-covered diary about an older boy who went to the private school up the road. While I was still wearing skinny jeans and a pale pink Esprit jumper to primary school, he had graduated to grey flannel shorts, a pale grey shirt and a grey blazer with the arms pushed up. You'd think dressing entirely in grey would have dampened his look, but somehow it didn't. With golden curls and a flashing smile that I'd only witnessed from a distance, he was perfect teen magazine material. He never spoke to me directly, but his brother and I had been friends when we were little, and his mother had named her prize cow after me, a fact I found both strangely flattering and deeply embarrassing. Around the time I developed my crush, I discovered the Sweet Dreams book series. If it was the sealed monthly Dolly Doctor column that taught me all I needed to know about sex, it was Sweet Dreams and later, Sweet Valley High that taught me all I needed to know about love. Sure, it was the sort of love that only 16-year-old American girls with flawless skin, perfect hair and eyes that sparkled ever experienced, but I was happy to pretend. And pretend I did. Writing about all the ways my crush would save me when the horse I was riding in the bush bucked me off. The fact that I didn't own a horse, or ever ride alone in the bush, didn't deter my fantasy life. The first Sweet Dreams book was published in 1981, and I found it a year or so later in the mobile library van. Called P.S. I Love You, it's the only title in the 233-book series without a happy ending, making it my favourite. Romance was one thing, but sobbing over the impossibility of romance was even better. The story of 16-year-old Mariah, who is dragged unwillingly to Palm Springs for the summer with her single mother and younger sister, was a heady read for a 12-year-old. Mariah is openly scathing of the rich families in Palm Springs until she meets the boy next door, who happens to be loaded, lovely and dying. This book cemented my obsession with romance, while also making me terrified that the boy of my dreams would discover a cancerous lump in his neck, too. The Sweet Dreams books were mostly standalone romances, written by different American authors. The covers used portrait photographs of teenage girls who I wanted to look like but never did, including Courteney Cox on the cover of The Last Word. The protagonists were always beautiful, and the teenage boys they fell for equally so. And if the girls didn't start out that way, then they quickly transformed, losing any necessary weight and overcoming their shyness. These worlds excluded anyone who wasn't the right size, race or look. By the time the Sweet Valley High series appeared two years later, I'd moved onto another crush. One who actually knew my name. We were in the same class and I used his library card when I wanted to borrow more romance books than I was allowed. We didn't really talk, but I did practise writing his name over and over again in my best bubble writing. Written by Francine Pascal and her army of ghostwriters, the Sweet Valley High series became a sort of bible for my generation. Sure, the protagonists were 'perfect size six' identical twins with 'sun-streaked blonde hair' and 'blue-green eyes the colour of the ocean' who shared a Jeep and lived in a mansion, but we still managed to see ourselves in Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield. Jessica was the impulsive and reckless twin, who frequently made questionable choices, while Elizabeth was older (by four minutes) wiser, more reserved and born with a conscience. Where the Sweet Dreams series was almost entirely focused on finding love, Sweet Valley High attempted something slightly different. Crushes, boys and romance were still at the centre, but the books also delved into the minutiae of high school life. And while Sweet Valley High School was nothing like my outer-suburban school, we did share many of the same concerns. We gossiped over break-ups, traded crushes, drank underage at parties, fought and made up with friends and talked about love like there was nothing else to talk about. Nothing was out of bounds for the writers of Sweet Valley High. Conceived like a soap opera, the books tackled everything from kidnapping to cults, cocaine deaths to comas, paralysis to underage drinking, and I loved it all. Sadly, none of the boys I had crushes on while I was reading Sweet Dreams or Sweet Valley High seemed to feel the same. Or if they did, their feelings remained as buried as mine. But the books gave me company while I was trying to work out how to behave and how to feel, at a time when hormones were wreaking havoc. Remembering what reading romance books meant to me when I was 12 and 13, I decided to write my own version of a romantic comedy for younger readers. I've published many books for readers aged 11-plus, but mostly they have been stories tinged with sadness, and I wanted to write something hopeful and gentle. For research, I reread some of the titles in both series. P.S. I Love You no longer made me cry, but the horror of Elizabeth's diary being stolen by a boy at school and used against her in The Stolen Diary did make me check my teenage diary was still hidden away. The books haven't aged particularly well – it was the height of diet culture in the 1980s, after all. But what they did do, and what I suspect I, and millions of others responded to, was to centre the importance of taking a teenager's emotions seriously. So often we dismiss the young as having foolish crushes or feelings that aren't worthy of conversation, but I still remember how I felt about that boy in his grey school uniform and how I longed for him to see me. Loading My new book is not angst-ridden like a Sweet Dream s romance, or soapie like a Sweet Valley High. It is the story of dual protagonists, Sonny and Tess, both nearly 14, who meet outside a fish and chip shop, and develop a mutual crush. It was important to me to write both perspectives, in a way to counter the absence of a boy's voice in the books that educated me as a teen. I want my young readers to see that we all have messy and confusing feelings when love strikes, and that it's not up to a boy to rescue a girl when her horse bucks her off in the bush, but that the girl can do rescuing too.
The Age
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
The books I loved as a teen have dated, but they got one thing right
Before I discovered teen romance novels in the early 1980s, I wrote my own version of unrequited love in my red vinyl-covered diary about an older boy who went to the private school up the road. While I was still wearing skinny jeans and a pale pink Esprit jumper to primary school, he had graduated to grey flannel shorts, a pale grey shirt and a grey blazer with the arms pushed up. You'd think dressing entirely in grey would have dampened his look, but somehow it didn't. With golden curls and a flashing smile that I'd only witnessed from a distance, he was perfect teen magazine material. He never spoke to me directly, but his brother and I had been friends when we were little, and his mother had named her prize cow after me, a fact I found both strangely flattering and deeply embarrassing. Around the time I developed my crush, I discovered the Sweet Dreams book series. If it was the sealed monthly Dolly Doctor column that taught me all I needed to know about sex, it was Sweet Dreams and later, Sweet Valley High that taught me all I needed to know about love. Sure, it was the sort of love that only 16-year-old American girls with flawless skin, perfect hair and eyes that sparkled ever experienced, but I was happy to pretend. And pretend I did. Writing about all the ways my crush would save me when the horse I was riding in the bush bucked me off. The fact that I didn't own a horse, or ever ride alone in the bush, didn't deter my fantasy life. The first Sweet Dreams book was published in 1981, and I found it a year or so later in the mobile library van. Called P.S. I Love You, it's the only title in the 233-book series without a happy ending, making it my favourite. Romance was one thing, but sobbing over the impossibility of romance was even better. The story of 16-year-old Mariah, who is dragged unwillingly to Palm Springs for the summer with her single mother and younger sister, was a heady read for a 12-year-old. Mariah is openly scathing of the rich families in Palm Springs until she meets the boy next door, who happens to be loaded, lovely and dying. This book cemented my obsession with romance, while also making me terrified that the boy of my dreams would discover a cancerous lump in his neck, too. The Sweet Dreams books were mostly standalone romances, written by different American authors. The covers used portrait photographs of teenage girls who I wanted to look like but never did, including Courteney Cox on the cover of The Last Word. The protagonists were always beautiful, and the teenage boys they fell for equally so. And if the girls didn't start out that way, then they quickly transformed, losing any necessary weight and overcoming their shyness. These worlds excluded anyone who wasn't the right size, race or look. By the time the Sweet Valley High series appeared two years later, I'd moved onto another crush. One who actually knew my name. We were in the same class and I used his library card when I wanted to borrow more romance books than I was allowed. We didn't really talk, but I did practise writing his name over and over again in my best bubble writing. Written by Francine Pascal and her army of ghostwriters, the Sweet Valley High series became a sort of bible for my generation. Sure, the protagonists were 'perfect size six' identical twins with 'sun-streaked blonde hair' and 'blue-green eyes the colour of the ocean' who shared a Jeep and lived in a mansion, but we still managed to see ourselves in Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield. Jessica was the impulsive and reckless twin, who frequently made questionable choices, while Elizabeth was older (by four minutes) wiser, more reserved and born with a conscience. Where the Sweet Dreams series was almost entirely focused on finding love, Sweet Valley High attempted something slightly different. Crushes, boys and romance were still at the centre, but the books also delved into the minutiae of high school life. And while Sweet Valley High School was nothing like my outer-suburban school, we did share many of the same concerns. We gossiped over break-ups, traded crushes, drank underage at parties, fought and made up with friends and talked about love like there was nothing else to talk about. Nothing was out of bounds for the writers of Sweet Valley High. Conceived like a soap opera, the books tackled everything from kidnapping to cults, cocaine deaths to comas, paralysis to underage drinking, and I loved it all. Sadly, none of the boys I had crushes on while I was reading Sweet Dreams or Sweet Valley High seemed to feel the same. Or if they did, their feelings remained as buried as mine. But the books gave me company while I was trying to work out how to behave and how to feel, at a time when hormones were wreaking havoc. Remembering what reading romance books meant to me when I was 12 and 13, I decided to write my own version of a romantic comedy for younger readers. I've published many books for readers aged 11-plus, but mostly they have been stories tinged with sadness, and I wanted to write something hopeful and gentle. For research, I reread some of the titles in both series. P.S. I Love You no longer made me cry, but the horror of Elizabeth's diary being stolen by a boy at school and used against her in The Stolen Diary did make me check my teenage diary was still hidden away. The books haven't aged particularly well – it was the height of diet culture in the 1980s, after all. But what they did do, and what I suspect I, and millions of others responded to, was to centre the importance of taking a teenager's emotions seriously. So often we dismiss the young as having foolish crushes or feelings that aren't worthy of conversation, but I still remember how I felt about that boy in his grey school uniform and how I longed for him to see me. Loading My new book is not angst-ridden like a Sweet Dream s romance, or soapie like a Sweet Valley High. It is the story of dual protagonists, Sonny and Tess, both nearly 14, who meet outside a fish and chip shop, and develop a mutual crush. It was important to me to write both perspectives, in a way to counter the absence of a boy's voice in the books that educated me as a teen. I want my young readers to see that we all have messy and confusing feelings when love strikes, and that it's not up to a boy to rescue a girl when her horse bucks her off in the bush, but that the girl can do rescuing too.
Time of India
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Jeffrey Dean Morgan says he has auditioned "zero times" since playing Denny Duquette in 'Grey's Anatomy'
Actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan is best known for playing Negan, the unpredictable, foul-mouthed, bat-wielding showman of the apocalypse in 'The Walking Dead' universe, reported People. Actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan is best known for playing Negan, the unpredictable, foul-mouthed, bat-wielding showman of the apocalypse in 'The Walking Dead' universe, reported People. "That show honestly gave me a career. I was doing that, Weeds and Supernatural simultaneously... I've auditioned zero times since playing Denny Duquette," said Morgan. Jeffrey won over fans 19 years ago on the ABC medical drama as the dreamy heart transplant patient who appears in seasons 2 and 3 and who proposes to Katherine Heigl's Dr. Izzie Stevens on his deathbed. Morgan credits the breakthrough performance with launching his career in his 40s after years of failed pilots and guest star spots, reported People. "I'd been kicking around Hollywood for a long time, but nobody certainly knew who I was," said Morgan. "My whole career launched out of that character." "P.S. I Love You I got because of that show," Morgan said while discussing his role in the 2007 rom-com opposite Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler. "Director Zack Snyder told me that he cast me in Watchmen because he saw me as Denny. How you watch Denny and go, 'Well, that's the nihilistic comedian right there,' is beyond me," Morgan shared of his 2009 comic-book film character. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Dermatologist: Just Add 1 Drop Of This Household Item To Any Dark Spot And Wait 3 Minutes Undo In 2015, Morgan revealed at PasCon that he was offered the coveted role of The Walking Dead villain, a part he was all too eager to accept despite initially receiving very few details. However, Morgan recently decided to step outside of his comfort zone and become the TV host for NBC's competition series Destination X. "I'm still not actually completely sure how the hell this happened," he said, adding, "I am not like a typical host. I'm not Ryan Seacrest -- who I love, and I think he's excellent at his job -- but that's not me. I'm a bit on the crass side, and I've got a very sarcastic sense of humour, and I didn't picture it, reported People. Producers knew they had their man, but Morgan needed more convincing. "It was my wife [Hilarie Burton Morgan] who said, 'You know what?' She came from this world. She came from the world of hosting," he said, referring to her gig on MTV's Total Request Live in the early 2000s. "She said -- in a very nice way, but much more diplomatic than I'm going to make it seem now -- 'You're not getting any younger. You've got this thing about you that it would be fun for you to be able to share that with the world, and you may have an opportunity to do that [by] hosting a show like this. '" Based on a Belgian competition series, the reality show follows players travelling across Europe on a blacked-out bus and attempting to find their location each week through various challenges. The contestant whose guess is farthest from their destination gets the boot. "I spent a month and a half in Europe being a weird, fun host, and it was great," Morgan says. "I had so much fun being the ringmaster of the circus." He added, "It's an opportunity to do something new, and I sort of relish in that still, at the ripe old age of whatever I may be," he says. "I had a great time. It was really fun, reported People. Destination X airs Tuesdays on NBC. Episodes stream the next day on Peacock.
The Guardian
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The new Bridget Jones film shows the messy, funny, mistake-filled reality of widowhood
Bridget Jones is back and once again blazing a new path, this time as a widow. In Mad About the Boy, our eternally chaotic but lovable everywoman is navigating single parenthood, dating apps and grief. But unlike most widows in romcoms, she's not here to wither away in a beige cardigan, politely mourning until society deems it acceptable for her to love again. Instead, she's in bed with a 29-year-old park ranger named Roxster, proving that healing doesn't have to be quiet reflection – it can also look like great sex with a younger man. This is where Bridget breaks the mould. In most romantic comedies, women's grief is pitched as a problem to be solved. We must undergo a period of deep self-reflection before we are allowed back into the world of desire. We must heal, learn and then – maybe – we can be kissed under some twinkly lights at the end of the movie. Hilary Swank's character in P.S. I Love You waits for divine permission from her dead husband's letters before even thinking about dating again, whereas poor Demi Moore in Ghost is emotionally tied to Patrick Swayze for ever, choosing to simulate foreplay with a memory over intimacy with the living. But Bridget? She swipes right on Roxster before she's finished crying. She laughs through awkward sex. She's messy, unpredictable and refuses to follow the script. And yet, as I watched, I couldn't help but think: if this were a film about a male widower, none of this would be worth commenting on, only because the big screen mirrors back to us what we are taught in society. After the death of a spouse, men are seen as eligible, while women are seen as wounded. Men's grief in romcoms is framed as part of their allure. They are given an air of romance, their pain making them more attractive. Sleepless in Seattle opens with Tom Hanks's character having barely finished the eulogy before women are throwing themselves at him. In Love Actually, Liam Neeson's character gets a charmingly tragic backstory before he is seamlessly set up with Claudia Schiffer. And who can forget the reason why The Holiday is a firm Christmas favourite among women: Jude Law as 'hot single dad' who speaks about his feelings yet barely about his dead wife. His role was not to fumble through self-reinvention but to serve as the dream man who helps a woman believe in love again. Watching Bridget refuse to play that game felt oddly personal because I'm a widow, too. My husband Greg died of cancer in 2021 when I was 41, leaving me with two small daughters and a huge void. The scene of Bridget dancing and singing with her children in their house – a regular occurrence in ours – was particularly poignant. For me, it is a true depiction of being the solo parent left behind, trying to provide joy for your children despite being engulfed by grief. Also like Bridget, I have been bombarded with well-meaning but wildly conflicting advice about how I should be grieving while rebuilding my love life: 'You're still young, stay open to love, but don't rush into anything', 'Focus on yourself first', 'Don't you want to find someone new?' Grief doesn't come with a handbook, yet people seem convinced that if you don't follow a particular timeline – one that is slow, quiet, and palatable – you're doing it wrong. The idea that a widow could simply want connection, fun or even just good sex without it being framed as either self-destructive or groundbreaking remains strangely radical. That's what makes Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy so refreshing. Yes, she grieves. But she also does what so many of us actually do – she makes mistakes, she follows bad advice, she makes dodgy beauty choices. And crucially, she doesn't wait to be healed before living her life again. Healing is messy and contradictory; sometimes it means sex with a hot younger man simply because you want to. Of course, the film isn't perfect. There's still an element of the classic 'widow's journey' trope, where grief must ultimately lead to reinvention. By the end of the film, Bridget isn't just dating again – she has discovered new purpose and self-worth. But for all its predictability, Mad About the Boy still feels like a step forward. It dares to show a widow who isn't waiting for permission to be happy again. It acknowledges that grief isn't linear. And most importantly, it lets a woman be messy, funny and desirable after loss – without making it feel like a moral dilemma. Stacey Heale is the author of Now is Not the Time for Flowers: What No One Tells You About Life, Love and Loss. The paperback edition is out in April
