Since we were literally, in our town, on the wrong side of the tracks, I loved the class warfare aspects of the books, including this one. Otherwise, aside from poorly-interpreted fashion influences, I recall the books being fairly wholesome for the time, though rife with 80s teen story tropes such as standing up to snobs and bullies and finding-love-on-the-other-side-of-the-tracks drama. I’m praying I didn’t pair this with matching jelly shoes and bracelets, but to be honest, I probably did. I am absolutely, positively certain that this particular cover prompted my acquisition of a peasant blouse, which I may have worn with pride (during the one month it was warm) with a kind of faux-turquoise-trimmed cowboy belt and an acid-washed denim and eyelet lace skirt.
(Again to clarify - this is not the 1950s, sadly, but rather the 80s in the Upper Midwestern USA!) Most notably, since this was pre-Internet and pre-streaming TV and probably even pre-cable TV for us, I remember that the book covers of the series served as a fashion guide for we Midwestern girls who had little other recourse for information aside from the Penney’s catalog and the YM (Young Miss) and Seventeen magazines you might be able to score at the local Grove Drugs (which also had a diet soda shoppe called for a time, horrifyingly, The Slimmery). We read countless books in this series, but this particular one was Sweet Dreams #1 - the face that launched a thousand ships! (It wasn’t a nice attic, either - it was a cramped and precarious one, as depicted in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and entering and exiting involved climbing atop a washing machine to reach the three steps that dropped down from the trap door in the ceiling.) I distinctly remember my friend and I stealing these from her big sister and reading them up in the attic (where we also kept the Ouija Board) so that her very territorial sister wouldn’t find out and yell at us even more than usual. Oh, man - thanks to my GR friend Cassandra for reminding me of this Sweet Dreams series, which was a much-beloved resource in my coming of age!
0 kommentar(er)
