When I first thought of the idea for 'Sweet Valley High,' I loved the idea of high school as microcosm of the real world. And what I really liked was how it moved things on from 'Sleeping Beauty'-esque romance novels where the girl had to wait for the hero. This would be girl-driven, very different, I decided - and indeed it is.

I always had a fascination with twins.

Humiliation, by the way, is a truly terrible emotion. It's at the bottom of the pile.

No matter when you were born or where, puberty is the same. It's the same for your parents as it is for you - what's happening in your body dictates everything.

She needed to get out of there. Her brains, thankfully, were still safely in her skull, but her emotions were splattered on the pavement.

I am seventeen. The good things about seventeen is that you’re not sixteen. Sixteen goes with the word sweet, and I am so far from sweet.

As pathetic as it was, she'd rather hold on to the possibility of something perfect than be hit with the reality of nothing much.