Fiction Friday (138)

 

I recently picked up a new(ish) YA novel to read, one that seemed to have some positive buzz, and one that had a premise that intrigued me. It was also a debut novel, and I've been trying to read a few more of those these days, attempting to see what this new generation of writers has to say. 

Some Kind of Animal by Maria Romasco-Moore

(Delecorte, 2020)

Fifteen old Jolene lives in a dead mining town in the southern Ohio mountains, just waiting for the day she can escape with her twin sister, a sister nobody knows exists except for her. It turns out there are a lot of things that people in this nowhere town don't know, though it doesn't stop them from believing they do. One night, Jo's sister makes herself known, unraveling the threads of Jo's double life and shattering both of their worlds. 

This debut novel's strength is the ability to pull the reader into the world of it's woods, making something that is very real feel very fantastical. Because the setting and constant threat of danger, the reader is pulled into to the story which, when you step back, is completely implausible. 

I enjoyed reading this, and the imagination of it certainly occupied my thoughts, but I did have problems with it. There was a tendency for the main character to consistently repeat her thoughts on a number of subjects, thoughts that never changed and therefore did not bear repeating. The characters were also pretty unlikable, with the exception of the wild child. There was also no attempt to disguise the hatred of males that weaves throughout the book, which I'm sort of okay with because men are generally horrible. One of the male characters (one who actually does nothing wrong) is actually murdered, a murder that is totally brushed aside. 

This is one of those books that I think the author did their job, but the editor did not.

Fiction Friday (106)

I've been working on creating annotated bibliographies of sorts on imaginary worlds and their extensions...places like Wonderland and Oz and Star Wars. It was by pure coincidence that I started reading this YA book at this time, but it sure helped motivate me to work on my project. I'm going to be switching away from YA for a bit, but this was a nice place to leave off.

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro
(Katherine Tegen Books, 2016)

Jamie Watson has always romanticized his family's story and their history with the Holmses. He spent his childhood daydreaming about solving mysteries with Charlotte Holmes (Sherlock's brilliant great-great-whatever granddaughter). But when he's sent from his home in London to the same Connecticut private boarding school that she attends, the prospect of actually meeting her is a bit unnerving, and quite uncomfortable. Then a murder happens, pulling the two of them together to solve the mystery, just as it always did in the stories he loved.

This Watson and Holmes duo is honestly one of the most fun pair of YA characters that I've encountered in a long time. They were flawed characters, but not broken, and the touching way in which they end up making each other stronger, better people is fantastically written.  And a great mystery to boot!

A clever and extremely well-crafted extension of the Sherlock legacy.

Fiction Friday (101)

So, it's happened again...another event that is requiring me to dive into reading a bunch of contemporary YA fiction. In the past, I've mentioned that my love of YA, which used to be so strong, and still is for the right book, has soured a bit over the years as YA becomes less and less about Literature and more and more about celebrating pop fiction. I'm find with that. I mean, pop fiction is popular, it's in the name. But what I'm not a fan of is how it's come to be celebrated as literature when it's not. So many of these books will be forgotten, not only by the world, but by the people who read them and "love" them, and that's sad. But anyway, I can always find something redeeming in a story.

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia
(Greenwillow, 2017)

Eliza is famous, at least she would be if anyone knew her online identity. Though she's anonymously famous online for creating one of the most popular webcomics in the world, in real life she's like any other teenager with self-esteem issues just trying to survive her last year of high school. If she could finish the year, finish her comic, and escape to college, everything would be just fine. Unfortunately, things in real life tend to get more complicated than that.  

I found this book to be very slow through the first half, and also quite formulaic, albeit with some quirky elements mixed in. However, those elements didn't feel genuine. They came off as add-ons, things to make it different from every other teen girl-meets-boy-and-her-world-comes-undone story, of which there are thousands. There were also more than a few non-plausible elements in the story that kind of turned me off. However, with all of that said, I did enjoy the story and I really liked Eliza. She was a great character whose problems felt real.

My favorite part of this story was one of the subplots, one which involved the crippling creative pressure that can come with success and the relationship between artist and fan. These aspects of the book were incredibly well done and redeemed the story in my eyes, allowing me to forgive some of the parts that I felt were weaker. 

A Title For My New Novel

After months of searching for the right title for my new novel, it finally has one. Part of the problem with titling this book for me was that it's such a special novel. It's brimming over with the best imagery I've written to date and is such a powerful and heartfelt story that I felt the title needed to convey the mood of the book. With the help of my wonderful editor and publisher, I think it now does:

Life Is But A Dream

It evokes the character's state of mind as she struggles with reality, but also captures the sense of wonder that she has toward life. It's also a play on the Lewis Carroll quote that opens the story...."Is all our life, then, but a dream / Seen faintly in the golden gleam."

The book will be out some time next year. I will of course be more specific once I know the release date.

Young Adults Keep Getting Older Too...

The other day, I talked about how books published for teenagers, and their audience, was skewing younger. But there's another shift that has taken place in the world of teen literature over the past several years -- adults are now reading these books in record numbers. We can thank a certain wizard for making the Children's and Teen sections of the book store a must-stop for most readers. I'm grateful, not only for the increased sales, but also because it makes me look a little less creepy for trolling around the chapter book section.

With adult readers comes adult bloggers and influence. Influence in the publishing world translates into buying power, then into sales, and from there into editorial. On the surface, it would appear the adult presence would counter the trending toward younger books, but it doesn't always. Because the one thing I've noticed frequently is that most adult readers of YA fiction tend to get angry when the characters behave...well, like teenagers.

I see it all the time; a review by an adult reader that thinks such and such character behaves stupidly, or that such and such character drove them crazy. Perhaps that's because a real teenager would drive them crazy. The truth is, the life a teenager can be frustrating and confusing, and that's what realistic teen fiction tries to present. An adult reader doesn't necessarily want to dwell on those difficult times. And as I get older, it's remarkable how easily most adults forget completely what it was like to be a teen. Therefore, what is presented as realistic teen fiction today is kind of far from the reality of most teens.

So basically, where does that leave us? You have the more fantasy, fairy tale publishing for the younger readers (and some of the older readers too) and the more Chicklit Lite for the older readers (and some of the younger ones too). And to be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with this. Readers enjoy it. They can be enjoyable books. However, what there seems to be lacking is a real sense of books for teenage readers of literature, not simply fiction. There's not much out there for that 15-17 year old who wants to read about their lives. And what is out there is poorly stocked in stores and hidden among the paranormal romance picks of the month.

Basically, the readers who brought the genre back from the brink a decade ago are being shut out once again. Which is really saddening. On the other hand, it's kind of nice to see that YA has become a genre as diverse as adult fiction. It's not simply problem-novels and Sweet Valley High anymore. There's a world of publishing from fantasy to romance. I just hope it doesn't devour itself with too much of the same old, same old.

Young Adults Keep Getting Younger...

In the ten years since I wrote my first YA novel Pure Sunshine, the landscape for the genre has changed drastically. So much so, that I question if that book, a semi-cult classic, would ever get published today. Probably not.

At that time, the "teen" tag was a kiss of death for a book. However, the publication of a few high profile books started to renew the genre. Smack (or Junk as it's known in the UK), Speak, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower brought booksellers tenuously back into the fold. These new books were being written for that 15-20 year old reader, writing about their experiences. And guess what? It worked. Those readers gravitated to the books. Then a funny thing happened...

With the success of books like Twilight, the genre rapidly started to skew younger. The 11-13 year old girl became the target audience. Given that they read a lot more, it was natural that their tastes would soon dominate the YA shelves in book stores. In response, the more successful books in the teen category became safer and cleaner. I understand that. Publishers have an obligation to respond to a changing market...the question is, does the writer?

The answer is tricky because writing with an audience in mind can be dangerous. It's always better to tell a story the way it needs to be told and then find an audience for it. However, as a writer of fiction for children, there is a level of responsibility that comes with that. There's also a bit of savvy that comes with being a professional writer that requires you to know the market if you have a hope of being read. AND TRUST ME, all writers want to be read regardless of what they might say.

So what does one do?

I can only speak from my own experience and I know that when my first few novels came out, the majority of fan mail came from teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17. Then I noticed a trend. The letters started coming from younger and younger teens. When I got my first email from an eleven year old reader of Zombie Blondes, I have to admit I was a little surprised. Though definitely younger than some of my books, there's definitely some difficult and troubling scenes in there. I imagined an 11 year old reading the scene in Hannah's zombie boyfriend's bedroom. It certainly gave me pause to think.

I wouldn't say that I really changed anything drastically. I haven't changed the way I write and I don't sugar coat because of a younger reader. I trust that if they've decided to read it, they are mature enough to. What I have done though is to bring down the age of my characters. Instead of writing about 17 years old characters, I'm writing about 13 and 14 years old characters. That probably doesn't sound so significant, but it is. These characters see the world through a different lens. I haven't compromised anything. I believe I'm still giving an honest view of the world, I'm simply exploring from a different starting point that is more relevant to the audience.

One day, I hope there is room on the shelves again for edgier fiction. I have plenty of ideas still in the tank. But for now, I'm more than happy writing about the issues facing the actual readers.

You Will Buy This...

It's gotten to the point where people who have never read a single piece of young adult literature snicker at the fact that the genre is now the "vampire" section of the bookstore and has been for years now. What they don't know is that it's also the section of handbooks to train girls into mindless, bitter, shopping dolls so that they grow up to be the kind of women adored on Real Housewives. These guides are disguised as fiction. They hide behind the "these are teens and it's fun" mantra, or the rather poor excuse that "this is how teens really are" as if teenagers can be withered down to the lowest common denominator.

What really bugs me about this type of book is that it's the kind that seems favored on a lot of the book review blogs that focus on young adult books. It should be noted that most of these blogs are run and reviewed by adults who read YA, not by teens themselves. So it begs the question, why are you recommending this trifle crap to teenagers? There are so many good and worthy YA books out there that deal with romance in a mature way and not like the plot of some bitchy movie. Of course, marketing departments have cleverly skewed these books as some sort of female empowerment, but is it really? I can't imagine the new goal of feminism is for a girl to grow up and be like someone off the set of The Hills or Sex in the City?

So why then do we have these trends that always seem to swallow up a genre? Easy money. People buy them and companies strive to give the people what they want. But when marketing is geared to children or teenagers, can that mantra really be a guiding principal? All you need to do is look at junk food advertising over the past fifteen years and see what it has done to the overweight generation.

I'm not suggesting there isn't a place for these books. Escapist fun is a relevant genre to be sure. And vampires have always been a popular subject, one I also enjoyed when I was young (Lost Boys RULES). But it would be nice if the flood of publishing into trends could at least, at the very least, have some redeeming quality as written pieces of fiction. Don't publish a book because it's about vampires and vampires are popular...publishing it because it's a good story.

American publishers are aiming their products at the mental equivalent of the armpit...Perhaps these publishers secretly admire their ruthless philistinism, their mastery of the ugliest sales conference jargon, the lack of the faintest glimmer of literate sensibility. Sales are what counts...

-J.G. Ballard