If you read the Sweet Valley High books as a youngster, you will want to know what happens in the recent follow-up.

I know I am a van of sweeping generalisations, but I have come to this conclusion through the rigorous research method of asking everyone I know if they read the SVH books, and if they are interested in the follow-up. It’s no secret that I loved the Sweet Valley High books as a teenager. And ever since I found out there was an update available, catching up with Jessica and Elizabeth ten years after their adventures were last recorded, I’ve wanted to get my hands on a copy.

Not that it would have been difficult, you understand. But I am too much of a book snob, and too easily embarrassed into a fetching shade of pillarbox, to just buy a copy and read it on the train. So when a kindly benefactor bought me a copy for my birthday, I wolfed it down. And here’s the thing. It is terrible. Terrible. But fun. The book equivalent, if you like, of a giant bag of fizzy sweets. So to save you from having to experience the literary equivalent of tooth decay and indigestion I have read it for you and am willing to share the secrets contained within.  

This is the week it becomes clear any notion of a New Year resolution is probably not happening. Or because by Friday you aren’t fluent in another language/a stone lighter/a CEO it feels that way. If it already feels like 2012 is a bit of a write off I urge you to concentrate on readying yourself for 2013.

2011 was the year Scrabble decided to settle various pub based arguments and accept the following words (not in alphabetical order for dramatic effect):

I was given a promotional copy of the first couple of chapters of One Day as part of a marketing giveaway last year. It’s only recently that I’ve read the full book and realised what an ingenious ploy that giveaway really was – the first and last chapters being pretty good.

This book was EVERYWHERE this summer. So many people on my train to work were reading it that the cover became more familiar to me than the pattern on my duvet cover. So that you can join in the inevitable conversation about this novel (or the film adaptation, which I haven’t seen but I hear is pretty much the same) without reading it, I did it for you.

If you do want to read this book then beware – there are massive spoilers ahead. But really, don’t bother.

How to be a Woman is one of my picks for the top book of 2011. If you were trekking through Siberia all summer and missed it, this is Caitlin Moran’s feminist memoir – each chapter detailing a different stage of her life. The focus shifts from losing weight to abortion, sexism at work to masturbating to Chevy Chase.

A quick disclaimer: I’ve been a massive fan of Moran’s writing for years. I was excited to read this book before it even came out. But I wasn’t disappointed: it blew me away.

There is quite possibly more to disagree with in the book than I noticed either time I read it; I was swept away by the sheer, air-punching, laugh-on-the-train joy of reading it. At last, feminist jokes about feminism. It’s a refreshing change to reading boring tirades that pillory “humourless feminists”.