OMG: You Can Have Your Portrait Drawn As A 'Sweet Valley High' Cover
All of our childhood dreams have COME TRUE.
If you were a young adult of the 80s and 90s, you probably remember the Sweet Valley High book series. Written by author Francine Pascal, Sweet Valley High follows the story of twin sisters Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, who live in the fictional town of Sweet Valley, California. Together with their friends, they struggle through high school drama and learn important life lessons along the way.
One of the most iconic part about the series was not exactly the storyline (there were 181 volumes!), but the cover art. You remember those book covers — pastel colors and dramatic expressions on the characters that were supposed to reflect the plot of the book.
Photo: Mental Floss
Unlike today's Young Adult novels (raging from trilogies to 10 books), many 80s and 90s YA novels had hundreds of volumes in the series. You probably don't recall the specific plot of the book, but you probably remember what the covers looked like.
The artist responsible for many of these covers was James L. Mathewuse, who also illustrated book covers for Judy Blume novels, and Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys mystery novels.
Photo: lumiere.net.nz
Even though this book cover style is no longer a norm (now it's movie posters or symbolic items making it to the front covers of many YA novels), the memory of the covers stick out like a sore thumb in the memories of many fans.
And now, you can be immortalized in the same way.
Huffington Post discovered that the Sweet Valley High cover artist takes commissions. According to his website, Mathewuse will paint you in pastel colors, from head to shoulders, starting at $200. You can even call him up for a free consultation.
Photo: Twitter
So go ahead and give him a call. Immortalize yourself, 80s and 90s-style. Who knows what drama you're encountering or what mystery you're trying to solve; it will be a delight for future generations to figure out.