*Blog Linky Love* on Friday!

Just like everyone else who has their own blog plus their own lives and jobs, kids, etc. I find it hard to leave comments on all the blog posts that I read through the week. So I want to start a thing on Fridays where I basically pile-up my shout-outs to great blog posts I've read through the week. To share them with you and showcase the blogs I love.

Before I get into that for this week, I really have to tell you about the Sweet Valley High Re-Boot that's going on!

I had not read any SVH books growing up, I just missed them, until Katie from Read What You Know and I read the first book in the series together and shared an awesomely funny review and chat about the story, a few months back. So I'm kind of a fangirl now about SVH, with that one book read under my belt, and I'm kind of loving the idea of a re-boot. Here are the deets:

According to St. Martin’s, Sweet Valley High’s Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield – the identical twins with blonde hair, eyes the color of the Pacific Ocean and “perfect size six” figures – will return to bookstores, possibly as soon as early next year, in Sweet Valley Confidential, a book chronicling their lives as twenty-somethings.

Rumors have swirled for years that SVH creator Francine Pascal was working on a book focusing on the twins and their friends several years out of high school. Late last month, the SVH world went into a frenzy when an editorial assistant at St. Martin’s confirmed the existence of the novel, giving Shannon’s Sweet Valley Blog a tentative publishing date of February 2011. While there is no word yet on what characters will appear in the book, there is a plethora to choose from. I think it’s safe to say that Lila Fowler, Jessica’s rich frenemy and my personal favorite, will make an appearance, as will Porsche-driving Bruce Patman and Elizabeth’s moody on-again off-again boyfriend Todd Wilkins. Continuity has never been one of Sweet Valley’s strong points, so I won’t really mind if the book pretends Sweet Valley Senior Year and Sweet Valley University never happened, focuses on just SVH characters, and retains the same fabulous campy quality as the original series.

My question is whether Francine Pascal will personally be writing them or will she have a ghost writer for the re-boot? You know, I'm calling it a re-boot but it's not. It's a continuation of the SVH "mythos" if you will--and why wouldn't you? :)
Anyway, Pascal didn't write all of her novels, will she write the new books? I am glad to hear that a fabulous campy quality will continue in the new series. Although a small part of me wonders if SVH Confidential will turn out to be like the last 3 seasons of Beverly Hills 90210: kind of used up.

If anything, I love this news because it introduced me to Shannon's Sweet Valley High Blog! Did you know about this? This lady has read every SVH book out there and reviewed them on her blog, including those special editions. She's gone through all of the books, now, but you can read through her back logs. What a feat. I'd love to see a "Julie and Julia" -type movie done for Shannon's life as she reads and blogs about SVH books, cut to scenes from Francine's life writing about the Wakefield Twins, tentatively titled "Francine and Shannon". :) Listen to THAT, Diablo Cody (aside: Have you seen United States of Tara? Created by Cody, it is really great. I'm just getting into it).

*****

Fabulous things I've found online this week:

Create a Word Cloud for your blog, here! It's really fun and you can pick through different styles. Incidentally when I popped in the name of my blog, the hugest words on my cloud were Damon and Eyebrows. Frankie and Donna I blame you completely! :)
Word Cloud link first mentioned on Pete Hautman's blog.

This week also, Simply Books wrote a review for Because I Am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas. I have a copy of the book at home and now really look forward to reading it.

YA Vampire Books, a blog I totally love, had a post this week on a little TV series called Kindred: The Embraced. It's about a pack of vampires living in the city, based on the world-view of the role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade...and it's created by Aaron Spelling. Are you kidding me? That guy was everywhere! (I will also not confirm or deny that I have any intimate knowledge of this role-playing game...it was cool at the time). I kinda watched the first episode and it was alright. Click through the link to see where you can watch it all on Youtube.

Shannon Hale held a contest to make your own Rapunzel's Revenge book trailer and she's posted the videos for you to vote on. They are a lot of fun so check them out. Rapunzel's Revenge is a cool little graphic novel that came out last year with fantastic illustrations.

vvb32 Reads is gearing up for a Valentine's Day book weekend, which I'll be reading along with. I love the blog header: the focus is on zombies, vampires, steampunk, Japanese and Jane Austen in YA books and the art reflects all of these things. Awesome.

Tales of Whimsy has a great review of Animal Farm, complete with a gallery of alternate cover art over the years. "But at times the porky hypocrisy had me ready to scream at the other animals"--Juju. Love it!

And that's it for this week. What great blog posts have you found this week? Leave 'em in the comments for me to check out.

Mandy