YA Epidemics #11 - Insta-Love

Ah, yes.  Insta-love, the bane of romance lovers everywhere.  Girl meets boy, boy is gorgeous and has a tendency to go around shirtless, girl falls madly in love within a chapter or two.  Strip a romance bare of all the romantic build-up and commence with the kissing!

The thing about this one is that writing a believable, slow-burn love story is hard.  It's so difficult for an author to create the kind of chemistry I love to read about, I won't deny that for a second.  But come on.  Writing a slow-building romance that doesn't sizzle is understandable, but to make your two characters fall in love with next to no build-up, sometimes in as few as one or two days?

YA Epidemics #10 - Reverse Week: Why I Love YA

YA Epidemics is an original feature in which I rant about discuss a different one of the
numerous trends and cliches plaguing the YA genre. The Epidemics are posted most Saturdays.

Comments and discussions are encouraged!

This is my tenth YA Epidemics post, which seriously amazes me because I had no idea I could keep coming up with so many relevant topics to discuss.  So it's kind of a big deal for me to have these posts officially number in the double digits now.

I've been wanting to write a reverse Epidemics post for quite some time, highlight what I love about YA instead of list things that annoy me.  What better time to do this Reverse Week than for the tenth post?  So here it is, YA Epidemics #10; Reverse Week - Why I Love YA.

You know....

 

YA Epidemics #9 - They're All White

YA Epidemics is an original feature in which I rant about discuss a different one of the
numerous trends and cliches plaguing the YA genre. The Epidemics are posted most Saturdays.

Comments and discussions are encouraged!

The world we live in is a beautiful mosaic of origins, races, ethnicities, colors and orientations.  We all wear some mark of our ancestry and history on our skin, and each and every one of us should be proud of this.  My country and the setting of most popular YA books I read, America, is known as the melting pot because of how we embrace different cultures and swallow them up into the whole that makes our nation.

Or so we like to claim.  But taking a look at most major media will tell you differently.  A vast majority of the most popular movies, music, and of course books feature prominantly middle-class white people.  In fact, it's a standing joke when you see the one African-American character in a movie that he's the "token black guy".  And nearly every single book I pick up features a white protagonist, with mostly white friends and a white love interest.  There's even a whole section of books called "urban books" that are written for the black community.  And this isn't a form of segregation, how...?

YA Epidemics #8 - Everyone Loves An Average Girl

YA Epidemics is an original feature in which I rant about discuss a different one of the
numerous trends and cliches plaguing the YA genre. The Epidemics are posted most Saturdays.

Comments and discussions are encouraged!

 

Brown hair.  5'5.  Neither skinny nor fat, curvy nor flat.  I have one best friend, she's so much prettier and more charismatic than I am.  I am average Jane Doe, Everywoman.  Never even been on a date.  I am destined to live my life on the sidelines, alone.

300 pages later....

Every cute guy in my school is in love with me.  Huh.  Must be the new shampoo.

YA Epidemics #7 - Bio-Partner Romance

YA Epidemics is an original feature in which I rant about discuss a different one of the
numerous trends and cliches plaguing the YA genre. The Epidemics are posted most Saturdays.

Comments and discussions are encouraged!

Ah, the smell of antiseptic disinfectant.  The squeaky floors and shiny lab tables, posters of vital organs and cages of dead frogs waiting to be cut open with a scalpel.  Is there anything more romantic than a high school biology class?  It's fate, really, that puts these strangers together.  Pair them up and watch their love bloom.

YA Epidemics #5 - Plot-Device Boyfriend

 

YA Epidemics is an original feature in which I rant about discuss a different one of the

numerous trends and cliches plaguing the YA genre. The Epidemics are posted most Saturdays.

Comments and discussions are encouraged!

 



He's cute, but not sexy.  He's a good kisser, but he doesn't make her forget how to breathe properly.  His conversations are just interesting enough to keep her present, but nothing she'll think about for the rest of the night, not like when she talks to him, the one she really wants.  He's good, but not great.  Fun, but forgettable.

He's the plot-device boyfriend.

YA Epidemics #4 - Immortal Hottie Falls For High School Girl

John Green said it best in his vlogbrothers review of Twilight; “I want to explain why it’s wrong for adults to have relationships with teenagers; It’s not because we look old.  It’s because we are old.” (click here for this must-see video) 

And yet, one of the hottest YA trends out right now is one or another type of immortal being getting the feeling in the pants for high school girls. (My nerdfighter is showing.  Can you see it?)  It's gross and disgusting for a twenty-five year old to fall for a sixteen year old, but a ninety year old can as long as his face says teenager?  Oooo-kaaaay....

Don't get me wrong, I've fallen victim to this double-standard plenty of times - Cole in Everneath, Stanton in Daughters Of The Moon, um...uh...well actually that's about all I can think of, but I'm sure there are other examples.  But come on, just because I've found myself enjoying this trend occasionally doesn't mean I'm not going to poke fun at it.  My readers know me better than that by now.  I know I'm being a hypocrite, but every now and then, I'll step back from the ledge of book-hottie -fueled hormones and acknowledge the pedophilia aspect of the relationship.

Isn't it kind of twisted?  Really, now.  Great-great-grandpa gets a boner for the head cheerleader. (Yeah, thinking about it in those terms isn't as sexy anymore, is it?  You're welcome.)  Head cheerleader is confused by the wrinkle-less face and Channing Tatum abs and brings Geezer home to Mommy and Daddy.  Who are also duped by youthful appearances.  Cheerleader and greats-grandpa kiss a lot before greats-grandpa gets a different kind of pang, one of the conscience variety.  He tells cheerleader "Uh, hey.  Remember how I told you I'm seventeen?  HAHA APRIL FOOL'S!  Yeah, I'm really ninety."

 

  No, wait, I mean,

 

Forgot how cute you were for a minute, my bad

 



But even if these immortals existed in real life, the relationships portrayed would never work. Disregarding both the He's-still-ninety thing and the I'll-never-age-but-you'll-be-wrinkly-in-a-few-decades thing, there's a huge maturity gap between Immortal Exhibit A and High School Student Exhibit B. Living for several decades is going to give you a seriously different perspective than any teenager alive, and there is no bridging that gap. The only reason an immortal guy would want a young girl in any way that isn't paternal or sibling-al (whatever) would be for...well...you know. The sex. And that would make him not a hottie hot powerful hot guy, but a hottie hot superhuman creep.

But I do understand. All those "hot" adjectives have the power to make all of us girls forget the teensy little "creep" noun. I get it. (No. I definitely don't. Hence the post.)

But aside from the gross-out factor of the age difference, what I just can't understand is why an author would choose to make her protagonist seventeen when she could make her eighteen.  Still gross, but at least eighteen is legal.  And it's only one year.  Unless there is a reason integral to the plot for your MC to be seventeen falling in love with a ninety year old, for God's sake, make her eighteen!  It does absolutely nothing to your story, but spares our very western, modernized sensibilites.  Because, for some reason, that one year really does make a difference to well over half of us.

Now I'm going to go bury my face in a thesauras to remind myself that there are more adjectives to describe an attractive man than "hot" while you show me some comment love. (Pretty please?)

How often do you feel that nagging sense of wrongness in the back of your head when you read one of these relationships?  Do you at all?  If so, how likely are you to ignore it if the story is well-written?  If not, is it because you don't mind it or because you've never given it much thought?  Would having a legal adult for the protagonist make a difference?

And a quick reminder; Follow PaperFantasies through bloglovin to have your YA Epidemic posts available right at the click of a button. Because who needs Google Reader, anyway?

YA Epidemics #3 - Cliffhanger Endings

I crawl out from beneath the car, the sound of gunshots still ringing in my ears. I know one of those bullets must have pierced flesh, but knowing abstractly and seeing it confirmed are two entirely different things. When I step in the red, sticky puddle pooling near my feet, when my eyes travel to the pale, lifeless body it’s flowing from, I scream.

Not him, please not him, is the mantra that plays over and over in my head.

The End



Harry Potter fangirl here, expect more of these

That's not the ending to any real book, just something generic I wrote to prove a point, but if you're a fan of modern-day YA, especially fantasy/dystopian, you know exactly what point I'm trying to prove with this. If you're as big of a book addict as me, your heart has been cut from your chest, stomped on, thrown back in, then left in a gaping hole for a year before the sequel that sows you back up and makes you whole again.
 

Well, you know. Unless that one ends on a cliffhanger, too. *cough* Days Of Blood And Starlight, Everbound, Catching Fire *cough* (I love those books, but they wreaked havoc on my innards.)

 

 

Have you noticed the differences between today's Young Adult books and those of ten years ago? YA is dominating the book world, it seems, reeling in more and more reluctant readers with fantastical worlds, swoony romance, and accessibility. Trends are being capitalized on and overdone (hence this weekly feature), and in doing so, they're changing the very face of YA. One of the most annoying, sometimes agonizing trends is the dreaded cliffhanger ending.

 

 

Remember the days of Hogwarts? Magic wands, Voldemort, Quidditch and gentle half-giants? Those books ended nicely and satisfyingly - for the most part - yet had teens and adults alike raiding stores on every release day since The Chamber Of Secrets. So why do writers today seem to think they need to torture their readers with incomplete endings to get them to come back for more? Shouldn't quality of the writing and story be enough? I can't tell you how many times I've read a book that came to a very satisfying conclusion while still leaving me wanting more, only to continue on with one extra chapter or epilogue that shatters any sense of resolution and leaves me in a state of shock and impatient waiting for months, if not longer.

 

 

To those authors, I have one simple, burning question; Why?

 

 

It's not like I won't continue with the series if my heart hasn't been indefinitely lodged in my throat with the ending, not if I love the books. And I also won't continue a series I don't love just because of a cliffhanger ending. I haven't met a single person who does base their series continuance on a cliffhanger, and several who are just so sick of it by now they refuse to read the next book after a bad enough hanger just for principle's sake, so what's the point?

 

 

But that's not even what has me so aggravated with this trend that I'm calling it an epidemic. It's not the regular cliffhangers that have me stomping around like an angry ogre. It's the extra-strength, screw-you cliffies that have that result. The books that don't simply leave something big open; the books that leave everything open. The ones that, whatever they like to tell themselves and their readers, do not end. 

 

I won't name-drop any series' (serieses? Seri? O.o), but I have been plagued with these books lately! It's gotten to the point where I'm afraid to start a new series before all the books have been released, because I'm just too sick of getting invested in a story that ends mid-scene and makes me wait a whole year to find out if one of my favorite characters really did die, or if the hot guy really is in cahoots with the man bad dude. I don't even understand how that's good marketing, to be honest, because instead of drawing in new readers, they're pushing us away.

 

I could rant about this for pages, but no one wants to read all that, so I'll end this with a simple reminder of what a book is; A book is a complete story arc, which means it has a beginning, middle, and end. There can be a larger issue left unresolved for later books in the series, but not the whole damn story.

 

 

Are you as fed up with the new screw-you brand of cliffhanger as I am? What are some recent reads that kept you riveted, but left you hanging mercilessly at the end? Let me know in the comments! <3

YA Epidemics #2 - Abusive Boyfriends

It’s a story as old as time; Girl meets boy, boy has great hair and finds excuses to show off his great abs, girl blushes and giggles, boy notices her and turns stalker/domineering douche/violently possessive…girl falls madly in love with him?

What?

The sponge gets it

It’s not nearly as common as last week’s YA Epidemic (thank god), but everyone who claims to be a fan of the genre has read at least one of these romanticized abusive boyfriends.



Let’s get serious with this one; is this really the kind of relationship we want to be glorifying for the YA demographic?  Do we really want our twelve year old daughters and sisters and nieces to think it’s romantic for a guy to watch her sleep?  To tell her who she’s allowed to see?  To decide not to go with the original plan of killing her because he’s suddenly into her?  I don’t even have any daughters or sisters or nieces, and I can answer that with a loud, resounding no.  Just because he doesn’t put bruises on her body does not mean it isn’t abuse.

The root of these abusive boyfriends comes from the tried-and-true good-girl/bad-boy romance.  Who doesn’t love a guy who’s a little rough around the edges?  When the loner biker boy looks at you with adoration in his eyes, it’s probably going to mean more to you than when the emo boy with a journal full of poetry professes his undying love, because you know the biker boy doesn’t look at every girl that way.   It’s the girl’s equivalent of the chase, and damned if it isn’t titillating to fantasize about.  But the minute that biker boy tries to tell you what you can and can’t do, the minute you wake up to see him staring at you at night, it’s time to get outta there.  Because that’s when the bad-boy becomes abusive, and that’s when it stops being romantic.

Now, it’s easy to define the parameters of a healthy relationship when it comes to contemporary characters, but what happens when you give the loner biker boy superhuman attributes?  What if he’s a vampire or a vengeful angel or an immortal being fighting his natural instincts every day he spends on earth among humans?  Wandering high school hallways?  How can he not have some of these so-called abusive characteristics when they’re part of what makes him who he is?  Suddenly our bad-boy becomes a little dangerous.  A little danger spices up the romance.  A little danger ratchets up the passion.  But that’s where the lines seem to get crossed, because what happens when we push a little danger…a little too far?

What if you were best friends with Bella, and she told you about how she caught Edward – the vampire who wants to eat her – spying on her at her most vulnerable?  Would you be cool with that, giggling behind your hand and gushing about how romantic that is?  Or would you be telling her to barricade those windows, set alarms, keep pepper spray under her pillow and have 911 on speed-dial?  (Yes, another Twilight reference, but you try writing a YA Epidemic feature without the creator of clichés as a repeated example.)  The fact of the matter is, if these things were to happen in real life, we’d be appalled and disgusted, but because it’s inside the safety of a book, it’s spicy entertainment.  Until the impressionable girl looks for her Edward and ends up with marks on her body.  Or the sweet boy thinks he’s got to fight anyone who looks at his girlfriend to be thought of as “sexy”.  Twilight may have been the harbinger of the popularized stalker boyfriend in YA, but there have been far too many examples coming out in recent years.  Hell, I know of a certain fallen angel who makes Edward look like a saint.

I’m not saying it’s not okay to get secret crushes on YA’s most dangerously sexy boys, but I am saying that it’s not okay to glorify abuse, to mainstream some of these behaviors.  I’m saying that if enough of us book bloggers and avid readers say enough is enough, maybe writers and publishers will realize that this particular YA epidemic isn’t just annoying; it’s also dangerous.  We should be painting healthy relationships for girls who probably haven’t even had their first kiss yet, not these trending pseudo-stalker whirlwind romances.

Have you encountered many of these abusive book boyfriends?  Is it harmless entertainment, or another way to desensitize us to the dangers around us?  I’d love to hear your opinions on this one in the comments!

YA Epidemics #1 - Love Triangles

YA Epidemics*

Love Triangles



Probably the most obvious of the YA epidemics plaguing so many books on the shelves right now, love-triangles have been running rampant since Bella met Edward…and then kissed Jacob.  How many of us have flown through pages of a new book, engrossed in the story and the romance, until that one chapter throws a new romantic interest into the mix?  There was a time when I would arch an eyebrow, assess the newcomer, then welcome him into my circle of fictional crushes with open arms.

Fast-forward a couple of hundred love-triangles later to rolling eyes, exasperated sighs, and a circle of fictional crushes barricaded and locked up inside arms that are now crossed tight.
 

Have you noticed the theme to these love-triangles yet?  It’s always girl-boy-boy; god forbid we see a boy pining over two girls.  For some reason, it’s perfectly acceptable for our female heroines to be tragically torn between two lovers, but reverse the dynamics and our guy is a "playa" who doesn’t deserve either of the girls he’s leading on by a string.  Are we actually buying this?  Bella put scars on that poor werewolf that were only healed when he got in touch with his inner pedo, and who can forget how Rose ruthlessly tore out the heart of one very sweet, vulnerable, troubled Moroi before stomping on it and tossing it into the dirt?

 We also so often see the sweet boy, pining away in the corner of the friend zone while his crush meets and falls for some paranormal bad-boy before finally realizing, “Oh, hey.  I’m totes in love with the new guy, but all of the sudden I’m seeing my bff’s smile and feeling butterflies where there were no butterflies before.  Huh, how about that.”

Why do publishes do this?  They find a popular trend and monetize on it by throwing it in our faces like water on a fire…with the same extinguishing effect to many of us avid readers.  It’s gone from slightly annoying to irritating as hell to sitting firmly in the number one spot of YA Epidemics.  I won’t deny the initial appeal to the love-triangle – why only have one hot guy when you can have two? – but when it’s done so often that it’s nothing but a plot device to lure in new readers in half of these books, you’ve got to ask yourself if maybe it’s time to retire the triangle and rediscover the uncomplicated pleasures of a nice, drama-free line.

 

So, what’s your take on this particular YA epidemic?  Is there still magic in the love triangle, or are you in the same wearied boat as I am?  Let me know in the comments!



*Literary Epidemics is a potentially new weekly feature for Paper Fantasies. Each week's post will address one of those pesky little YA trends that seem to have snuck their way into...more books than they should have.  I'd love to know what you think!