Girl says "go." Boy says "no."

I want to start off this post by saying everyone's life choices are theirs and I recognize that and don't expect people to live my standards because they're mine and not everyone's.

Ok. Everyone agree on that? Yes?
Good.

I finished reading a book last night. Toward the end of the book, our heroine and hero have no choice but to share a hotel room. The boy decides to sleep on the floor. Our heroine says, "Oh hey. You should come sleep in the bed. Without your clothes on." *eyebrow wiggle* Boy denies. Girl protests. Their arguments goes round in circles, but in the end, our young brave hero does not give in (even though he's probably already slept with a girl) because this girl is different and he loves her, so he won't sleep with her. Our heroine gets all huffy and angsty and wonders if he won't sleep with her because she has small breasts.

I'm wondering if you can place this book with just this information or if you've seen this often enough in YA books that a few are running through your mind. Granted, it isn't as common as a love triangle, but I can think of quite a few YA books that have this kind of scenario. Did it phase me the first time? No, not really. But for some reason, this past book it did. Because I've read this so many times now, I'm starting to worry about this scene getting repeated so often.

Now, here's the thing. I don't think that reading a situation once will normalize it for a reader. So if one book has a character making a decision that I wouldn't want my younger cousin to make, usually I won't get up-in-arms about it. But the situation above alarms me because I worry it's becoming normalized.

I mean, hey, in this situation, they don't sleep with each other. So why get so alarmed about it? Well, who is this kind of book targeted to? Teenage girls. The heroine of the story wants to get down, and a lot of the time, with a boy who's been "bad" before. I get the authors, in this scenario, are probably trying to show how our bad boy has changed, or how the hero's love for the girl is pure. But for me, it also kind of hints that the man is in control of when the couple takes that step. I can think of one book right now (and maybe my memory's fuzzy and I'm only remembering one right now) in which the girl says "No, it's not the time" to her love interest--the one who she really does love, not the bad boyfriend kind of character. Other than that, it's always been the boy who stops it. Which makes me wonder, will teenage girls think that they can trust their partner? That once they get those urges, it's okay to bring it up and try to get him to sleep with her, expecting the boy to know if they're ready or it's okay for them to go ahead? If so, this is a VERY bad idea. Because the boy they have may not be as idealized as the one in the book. He's just as stupid with hormones as the girl is. And this could be very bad.

Like I said in the opening: people have different standards. That's everyone's choice and I don't mean to waggle my finger at anyone who's making different choices than me. BUT. Every person should make a responsible choice. And in these YA book moments, they're never ready, they've never thought about the consequences, they aren't responsible at all. And ultimately that's what worries me. That authors are so caught up in making it dramatic that it's setting a bad example for the teens who read it.

Tell me if you agree or if I'm being an over-dramatic prude.  

High School Misconceptions

In June, it will be two years from the time I graduated high school. I'm not far out of the loop when it comes to how high school is like now. Sometimes when I read or watch movies and TV set in a high school, I find myself getting disjointed, perhaps because it's been a while since the writer was in high school or they fall back on stereotypes. These are some of my high school misconceptions:

• "Everyone (except perhaps for that one rebel) wants to be popular." This is very much false. "Popular" is a very subjective term nowadays. I found that overall, people are content with whatever level of "popularity" they have. The people who don't have a lot are fine with that. The only ones who freak out about becoming "popular" are already "popular." And the kicker? Most of the people who aren't "popular" hate the people who are. They don't want to hang out with people they don't like, so they don't want to be popular. Do teens want to be included and have fun? Yeah, but they do that with their friends. For a high school student, friends=contentment. As long as people aren't bullying them or making fun of them, they're fine. Honest to goodness, fine.
• "People hate nerds/"jocks are bullying idiots"/"cheerleaders are mean, shallow, and popular." Nerds can be well-liked and even embraced for how nerdy they are (I should clarify that I took honors and AP classes in high school, so maybe my vision was clouded). Jocks don't bully nerds just for being nerds. Jocks aren't even idiots. Sometimes, jocks are nerds, too. Cheerleaders aren't witches with a b, or supermodels. They're girls who like to cheer. They can be witches with b's, and they can be nice, although not that ambiguous "popular." Add some grey, people.  
• "All teens want sex, except for that one Christian girl (who will be seduced and get pregnant anyway)." Um, actually, no. Whenever I read/watch something where every single teen is plotting to get laid, it's just like...no. Not really. Some people aren't interested in opening up that part of their life yet. And they don't even have to be the born again Christian. Of course some teens do have sex, but it's rarely the horny sex-fest some works present it to be.

Have you found things in books/movies/TV shows that misrepresent high school or teens in general?

It's for the Kids

I don't know about you, but I've been following news for The Hunger Games movie since...well, since it was announced that it was opted for film. And I've loved seeing big news companies covering the story. I always get really excited and read through the articles and the comments, too. And, amongst all of the hyped-up fans, I've always noticed a different kind of comment: "This is just Battle Royale for kids." Followed by more snark about how it isn't violent enough and it's toned-down and dumb.

Ok, even if I wasn't Peeta-crazy, say what now?!

I am very much aware of the similarities between Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, although I haven't ever read the former. But I really think this is just one of those ideas that gets used a lot, so there's no way to really say the idea was "stolen."

However my main beef with these types of comments is the dismissal of it being "for kids" in such a condescending way. I'm 19, so maybe I get riled up at this comment because I'm in limbo between childhood and adulthood and get in the defense about that part of me still in kid mode. But I'd hope anyone would look at these comments in a similar way that I do. And that's "well, why shouldn't there be a version of this for kids?"


There are concepts, themes, and ideas in The Hunger Games that kids should learn and be exposed to. I admire Suzanne Collins' skill, because while she does portray the horror of the situation, she doesn't do it in a way to alienate a majority of the YA audience with vast depictions of violence (depending on the kid, I'd think anywhere from ages 12-14 they could read this book). If she had created another Battle Royale, then I don't think the book would have reached as many kids (or adults), even with the same themes and storyline.

I feel the same way with Speak. It took me a long time to read Speak because before I thought, "Ew, rape. It's going to be so graphic!" But I finally decided to read it, and Laurie Halse Anderson is able to talk about rape in a way that doesn't mask the troubles and terrors that come with rape, but she also doesn't make it into a big scene that scarred me with too many details.

I know some people have a much more relaxed view of what kids should be exposed to. And I know some people are stiff-necked about it. I fall in the middle. Laurie Halse Anderson explained in a note at the end of my copy of Speak that, "America's teens are desperate for responsible, trustworthy adults to create situations in which they can discuss the issues that are of high concern for them." I don't believe in making an overly-graphic novel for a YA audience (and I don't consider The Hunger Games to be overly-graphic, so I wouldn't exactly say I'm a prude about it), but I don't believe in covering up subjects, either. It all comes down to the "responsible, trustworthy" part. Kids are expecting truth, but they're expecting it in a form they can become comfortable with the issues. And that's where books like The Hunger Games and Speak come in. Two different genres, two different subjects, but both targeting to YA and their needs.

So, to those negative commentors, yes, The Hunger Games can be seen as a Battle Royale for kids, but I don't think that makes it worse. I think it makes it even better.

My first book club!

I'm so excited because tomorrow I'll be going to my first book club meeting. Hooray! I've never had a book club before, so usually I turn to the internet to talk about books I've read and adored (or disliked...but let's focus on adored). I'll always turn online to get more opinions, but I'm really excited to have a whole group of people to talk books with.

This all started a few weeks ago at the English Society opening social. Amongst the English Society, you can break off into interest groups. They had a table of already-existing groups and blank sheets to start your own, if it could gather enough interest. I was looking around at the groups, and some of them were subjects such as Shakespeare, Poe, C.S. Lewis, poetry, all things that make you think of classics.

Now, I love Shakespeare and C.S. Lewis, and Poe and poetry are things I can enjoy, too. But that's the stuff I read and talk about in my classes. I spend homework analyzing all of that. If I was going to spend my free time in a club, I wanted it to be something I read outside of a class.

So, amongst the Shakespeares and poetry, I took a blank sheet and made the group, Young Adult. Bam. I'll admit, I was anxious people would just want to show off and be smart and not join my group, but they did.  The initial interest sheet was filled, and there are probably at least 15 people still interested in it. I'm pretty happy with myself.

It's taken the English Society a while to get us all organized, but I met with a girl I'll be co-leading the group with today and I'm so excited for this. It's gonna be totally awesome!

Have you ever been in a book club? Ever start one? And, do you have any suggestions for what we should read this upcoming year?

Tired of Trends

I got this flair back in 2009 on my Facebook. Because up until this past year, that seemed to be the only books I could find on the YA shelf--vampires. Now, however, I think it would read "Dystopia Books: Or the section formerly known as Young Adult."

I'm not the only one sick of trends, am I? I know that trends are part of the business (especially in YA) and something that really, none of use can change, but still, as someone who likes multiple genres and focuses, I don't know why everything has to be about the same subject. First, in 2008 vampires came to the scene after the Twilight movie came out. Now that The Hunger Games is big, publishers assume we only want to read dystopia. Ok, I'm not so big on vampires because of a nightmare I had when I was little (a vampire came to eat me in front of my ENTIRE family. He said someone could take my place and he would let me go, but no one did and so he killed me). But I do love paranormal, and I love dystopia, and fantasy and historical and mystery and pretty much everything but contemporary.

However, get too much of a good thing and it goes stale. Which is bumming me out because a lot of dystopias sound so good and interesting, but it is getting to that point where it's just like...another one? Seriously?

There are still a few dystopian novels that I want to read and look forward to, but overall, unless for some reason it's compelling, I'm no longer interested in that genre for now.
How do you feel about trends?

Book Review: Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

To make sure I keep up on reading in my busy life, I've decided that on Saturdays, I'll be posting a book review. And this is my first:

 Title: Paranormalcy
Author: Kiersten White
Publisher: HarperTeen
Genre: Young Adult (paranormal)
Rating: 4/5 stars
Why I read it/how I found it: A friend in one of my classes said it was written by an alumni of her high school, and that it was really good and unique in terms of the paranormal YA genre.
Description: Evie’s always thought of herself as a normal teenager, even though she works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she’s falling for a shape-shifter, and she’s the only person who can see through paranormals’ glamours.
But Evie’s about to realize that she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.
So much for normal.
Review:
Well, I for one had read enough on vampires/werewolves/fairies to last me a while. But when my friend said that this book was unique, I decided to give it a try, because I really do like paranormal. And I loved this book. White's writing as Evie was very teenage-esque, without (for the most part) being over-bearing at trying to sound  "hip" or whatever some authors think teens sound like now. Evie had little quirks about her that were so very teenage girl without being stereotypical that I could identify with a lot of her, but she was still unique enough to stand as a well-rounded character. The story was fresh, I was always wondering what was really going on, and I predicted almost nothing as to the mystery in the story of what was killing these paranormals and why. It was definitely not a plotline I could easily trace out ahead of time. And the creatures were not just limited to vampires, werewolves, and fairies, there were also mermaids, hags, water spirits, and a creature that I'm not entirely sure is even traditional paranormal. And ah, of course, the love interests! What YA book doesn't have them now? But the nice thing about Evie is that she realized her ex-boyfriend Reth was PSYCHO and wasn't turned on by his uber creepiness like some characters in other paranormal books, and yet he still had some type of crazy power that drew her into him, even though she hated it. Reth's characterization is awesome, too, I had shivers down my spine whenever he came in the scene. And Evie's development with Lend was great. Started out with just wanting to flirt since she never had the chance to like a real teen, then grew into friendship, and then she liked him. Unfortunately, some of the romance was cliche (the whole "we kissed and it was great and I have no idea how long it was, it might have been a short time, it might have been a long time, I don't know it was just that great" [obviously paraphrasing there, it was worded better, but still cliche]). Other than some of those types of phrases, though, I enjoyed watching the developing relationship between Evie and Lend.
Recommendation: Read.
Should I buy it?: If you like YA and you like paranormal, YES. If it still sounds interesting to you but you aren't sure if it's your thing or you're like me and kinda tired of paranormal, then try to find a copy at your library or borrow one from a friend. But I did buy it and I'm not regretting it.
Other information: This is a series! It is the first of the Paranormalcy series. The next book Supernaturally comes out on August 30, and the third book (yet to have a title) will come out in Fall of 2012. You can find out more about Paranormalcy and Kiersten White at her website here.

I hope you all enjoyed my first book review! I have about four or five books lined up to read next, but if you have any suggestions as to what I should read, please let me know.

The kids in books grown up

Ok, so my posts are very geared toward plotting and writing out a first draft of a book right now because, well, that's the stage I'm in with my writing, I have a WIP. When it's done and I start revising, you'll probably see a shift in subject.

So what else has kind of been floating around in my mind is this:

Not the movie. Well, okay, I am super excited about that and it has been floating around in my mind. But what I've been thinking about is if in books for the younger crowd having the characters grow up, get married, and have kids, is something they want to see.

Now, I'm fine when I read a book and I get an epilogue that shows the characters in the future. But, for some reason, I also think that authors get backlash from the young fans of the series (a good portion readers of children's books are also adults) if they do this.

Harry Potter. We get an epilogue. I've heard complaints about it. Although, I don't think it's because it shows the kids as adults, married, with their children. I think for Harry Potter, it was more of the fact that everything seemed overly cheerful, perhaps, after such a dark journey.

However, there are definitely two YA novels that have gotten some backlash from fans in this sense. Breaking Dawn and Mockingjay.

Breaking Dawn does not have an epilogue, but the fact that Bella and Edward have a baby was definitely a turn-off for some Twilight fans. Maybe it's because two thirds of the book dealt with this child in some form, readers were overdosed with it, opposed to another series which will mention children for a few pages at the end. But I did notice in my days of Twilight craze (yes, I admit that I was once obsessed with this series) most of the people who had problems with this plotline were teens. Bella and Edward suddenly had a disconnect from them. They were parents. I'm not sure what they're saying about teen pregnancy these days, but I'd wager most of the teens who read Twilight were not teen mothers. The older fans, it didn't bother them as much as, say, the absence of an epic battle at the end. But the older fans were generally mothers or close to motherhood and thinking about it more (sorry if you're a Twiguy and I'm leaving you out with most of these "how fans react thing" by referring to them all as female). Anyway, point: pregnancy and babies seem to estrange readers in the YA range when they are heavily dived into. Marriage...at least in Breaking Dawn, I don't think as much.

Mockingjay is very, very, very, very different from Twilight. But, it too got some backlash from fans and part of that was the (in my humble opinion) brilliantly beautiful epilogue. Katniss ends up with Peeta, and they have two children. Right as soon as I discussed the book with other fans, the epilogue was slammed as being horrible and unnecessary, and oh my gosh Suzanne Collins, you shouldn't have even written it! There were children. How could Katniss possibly have children? I think part of it may have been the fact that through the series, Katniss thinks she's not going to have children. Period. End of story. And then at the end, we find out Peeta's talked her into having kids. Now, I dug it because to me the kids showed how much their world had changed, that Katniss felt safe enough to have children. But some people didn't like it. And, again, I feel most of those people were teenagers and I think most of those people in general did not want children in the first place, so a point that they connected with Katniss had been severed.

So, my conclusion: Young adult readers can handle epilogues with their characters married and with children, just don't make it sappy. However, teens do not always bode well with reading extensively about life changes that they are not familiar with, like children. As for marriage, I'm not as sure how much a YA audience could handle. Generally, if a character gets married, it's at the end of the book and it's just the wedding. I've yet to see YA that delves into the realm of marriage in and of itself (Breaking Dawn mostly focuses on Renesmee). And, finally, readers don't like to see huge character changes in epilogues, even if they're amazing and make perfect sense (I mean really, I don't think Suzanne Collins could have done the epilogue better, I don't understand why some people don't get it. If you can't tell I love Mockingjay's epilogue).

As to where this leaves me...well, I don't know. Once I finish my WIP I'll still have two more books until I get up to this point and make a decision.

YA romance and the question of "what is too much?"

Let's face it, YA is riddled with romance and triangles right now. Seriously, pull out a book in the YA section now and what's the chance that there isn't a romance in it? Maybe 5%? And half of the books seem to have triangles in them. Certainly all of the successful ones (Twilight, The Hunger Games, Mortal Instruments, and Matched just to name a few) have some form of a love triangle.

My WIP right now does have a romantic storyline to it. Half of the plot is a romance. But, I'm not going with a love triangle. In fact, when I called Jasmine to tell her about the idea, I said, "Well...I have this idea...but it is heavily romantic." She stopped me and asked, "Is there a love triangle?" When I told her there wasn't one in the traditional sense and further explained the plot, she breathed a sigh of relief. She told me that triangles are far too overdone now. So I'm wondering...will people get sick of love triangles? Part of the way I molded my story is in the fact that I was sick of seeing them, even though there are books which just sucked me in that had triangles. Jasmine was sick of seeing it, and I often come across comments on an upcoming YA book, "Oh no, not another triangle!"

But love triangles have been around forever. Twilight certainly wasn't the first book to come up with it, and I doubt that we'll see the end anytime soon. And so what I now judge the plotline of love triangles is whether it actually adds anything to the story, or is just another shiny thing to distract the reader with, as well as how well it's constructed and if it's believable.

Another question I have been posing due to my WIP is when are there too many guys into a girl. I promise that there is no triangle action in this WIP, I did not lie to you or to Jasmine. Because in order for there to be a triangle, the girl (or guy, but it's usually a girl) has to in some way feel for both of the guys. No, my heroine is clearly only into her love interest. But, guys will like girls who don't reciprocate their feelings.

And so my question is: how many guys can fall for a girl without her becoming a Mary Sue or the entire idea just being unbelievable? I'm going to take a look at Twilight right now. In the first book, Bella has Erik, Mike, and Tyler all ask her to prom. Then of course she falls for Edward, and even in the first book Jacob showed a clear interest in her. In the later books Erik and Tyler's hormones don't pull toward Bella, but Edward, Jacob, and Mike are all still interested in her. Too much? A lot of people think so. It didn't phase me as a fourteen year old reading a book targeted toward older YA for the first time, but now I definitely see the problem. And then again, you have heroines like Scarlett O'Hara who gets married three times and has several other men competing for her. And look at Gone with the Wind. It's a celebrated classic. And, one of my roommates has some issues with too many guys being into her. She isn't a Scarlett O'Hara, she doesn't expect guys to fall at her feet, they just do because she's such a fun person. It's not like there aren't girls out there who do just have a lot of guys interested in them.

I wish I had an answer to all of this. It would make it easier as I try to shape the plot of my WIP. But, in the end, I suppose everything is relative as to how the story is created.