I am crushing on this book and it totally deserves it. It is not only a nostalgia book of my childhood paperback collection, but an indepth look at the various things that made 80s and 90s YA tick. It is broken down into sections like romance, jobs, family, mystery and horror. And for each page i turned there was another books where i was screaming “I read that book”! Plus, while I managed to never read a Sweet Valley High book while I was a teenager, I now feel like I missed out on something, and will be scouring thrift stores looking for coveted entries in the series. The author has quotes from authors, and those influenced by the authors, and opened my eyes to all sorts of things I didn’t already know. For example, RL Stine wanted to write joke books, but also wrote some family/romance titles, or that Lois Duncan was a YA romance writer before she decided to scare the pants off her readers. I cannot say enough awesome things about this book. Even if you didn’t grow up in the era of the books they author is talking about, i am sure you will find something to interest you, or at least a ton of titles to add to your TBR.