What I Want from YA: Fun, not Twisted Morals

I'm a lifelong reader--of young adult books in particular. I started with Lord of the Rings as a bedtime story, fell in love with Anne of Green Gables, graduated to Jack Weyland novels some time around fourth grade, and never looked back.

Why do I read YA?

• It's exciting, like my journal entries from that age. Everything means something, and when I wrote those journal pages, I had the time and compulsion to record every detail along with what I thought it meant. Whether my date led me into the dance by the hand or by the small of my back, or he walked five feet in front of me the entire evening--I had just learned the skills to decipher this behavior. I eagerly tried my hand at amateur psychology, detailing my first dates, first boyfriends, and myriad groundings and lectures.  

• Novelty. Even though it was a time of angst, it was also a time of wonder. Everything was new back then. If I went on a date, chances are that something happened I had never experienced before, sometimes things I never expected to happen. This wasn't always good, but it was always an education. 

• Nostalgia. I like to read YA now, in part because it's like reading my journal, without the embarrassment. I get to discover the world with somebody else, reliving his or her mistakes instead of my own. 

• I enjoy the unique voice of each book, meeting new friends and getting to know them one Truth or Dare at a time. 

• And I LOVE fantastic elements that aren't full-blown high fantasy, which sometimes feels too much like a history class for me to enjoy. YA fantasy tends to be shorter, bringing out only as much of the world as is relevant to the main character's journey. It's a moving, enticing way to enter another world. Through the character, the magical world stays with me long after I close the back cover. 

But what I want from YA is the same as it has ever been, and it's fairly simple to deliver.

Listen up, YA writers.

• I want vicarious living, not high morals. (That goes for both ends of the moral spectrum.)
• I want an active main character who thinks and acts like a teenager (which isn't far from what adults think and act like, but with flourish and attitude). 
• I want quirky character flaws, not full-on sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll delinquency. More on this...

The latter may be okay for one book in twenty, but lately I'm finding book after book filled with somebody else's idea of an acceptable coming of age. It's disturbing. I read on the writerly blogosphere that edgy YA is somehow more realistic--and therefore more desirable. I don't believe either claim. It is no more realistic than the story of a sweet girl who can't play sports to save her life and is suddenly forced to play the most brutal of them all: dodge ball.

These types of YA are worlds apart, and I'm more inclined to think of the edgier sort as an adult book dressed up as a seventeen-year-old. If you must write edgy YA out of a need to record or process your own edgy upbringing, so be it. But I wonder how many authors go to YA with the false conception that they must be edgy to compete. The truth is that not all teenagers are going to parties, getting hangovers, and having sex with everything on two legs. And the ones who don't are being washed with images of the ones who do, not only on television but also now in literature.

I can just imagine myself at fourteen picking up one of these edgy books. With my earnest desire to be cool, would I have experimented with alcohol after meeting some cool, aloof characters who know the difference between rum and schnaaps? Would I have felt antiquated and ridiculous for maintaining virgin status past the age of sixteen?

Hell yeah. Before you write, please ask yourself if you're writing something edgy just to please a twisted market, or if you're writing it because it's really the story in your soul that begs to be told. If you're doing it to fit in, stop. Teens get enough peer pressure at school. They don't need it from the twenty- and thirty-somethings writing YA purely for shock value. In truth, edgy YA is just as preachy as spiritual YA. It's preaching from the other end of the spectrum.

If you write the F-word every other sentence and have your characters in and out of beds, back seats, and basements, I may accidentally buy your book--referred by some misguided friend who doesn't know how much I deplore the charade. But I'm not going to keep it in the house for my sons to stumble upon.

Not any more than I'll leave the butcher knife down low where they can reach it.

*Note: I'm sure many people disagree with my sentiments, and that's fine. But what I'd really like to see in the comments (if you have them) are book recommendations for a mom who is tired of the F-word.

PERFECT CHEMISTRY by Simone Elkeles: My Review

Blurb from the cover:  

When Brittany Ellis walks into chemistry class on the first day of senior year, she has no clue that her carefully created “perfect” life is about to unravel before her eyes. Forced to be lab partners with Alex Fuentes, a gang member from the other side of town, Brittany finds herself having to protect everything she’s worked so hard for – her flawless reputation, her relationship with her boyfriend and, most importantly, the secret that her home life is anything but perfect. Alex is a bad boy and he knows it. So when he makes a bet with his friends to lure Brittany into his life, he thinks nothing of it. But the closer Alex and Brittany get to each other the more they realise that sometimes appearances can be deceptive and that you have to look beneath the surface to discover the truth.

My thoughts:

Definitely rated Edgy YA for swearing, sex, and violence. But that's kind of a no-brainer since this book is about what happens when a gangbanger falls for a pom squad captain. The story is well-written and believable, and--though I had to put the book down to get some sleep--the characters were still fresh in my mind the next morning. I couldn't wait to find out what would happen to them, mostly Alex Fuentes. Brittany was a little too perfect for my liking. The cracks in her picture-perfect image only serve to make her sweeter, more self-less, and more likable. That's fine, but it made her seem a little unrealistic to me, too. Her only flaw was her obsession with image. What about real flaws, like being too judgmental or having a chip on her shoulder? Alex was a very well-rounded character, however, and brought a gritty sense of reality to their love story.

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!

Other reviewers have called the ending overly saccharine, but I thought it was perfect. Then again, I've always been a sucker for sweet and sappy romances. 

ALL DONE WITH SPOILERS. YOU CAN LOOK NOW:

I loved the quirky, funny moments in the book, especially with Paco, Alex's BFF. The bathroom scene at the wedding is hilarious. If they ever make this into a movie, that's the scene to watch for.

Things I loved about the book:

• Gangs are not glorified
• Promiscuity is not glorified (in fact, it's seen as rather pathetic)
• The author's faithfulness to the good, bad, and ugly in gang life
• The themes of loyalty to family, to love, to self
• The theme of progress: you create your own future, no matter how stuck you feel
• The theme that you can't control everything
• A truthful and compassionate look at life with special needs (love Shelley!)

Overall, a worthwhile read. As a mom, I wouldn't want my kids to read this until they are at least 16, which I think is probably a pretty standard caveat for edgy YA with high school seniors as the MCs. But for adults who can take the nearly constant swearing, you might enjoy this emotional love story, and learn something about gang culture in the process.

I applaud Simone Elkeles for taking on such difficult subjects and maintaining truth and compassion throughout.

Next Read: EVERMORE by Alyson Noel. Read along with me and join the discussion next week!

IF I STAY by Gayle Forman: My review

Wow.

It was a random tweet that sent me seeking out IF I STAY at my local amazon.com. If somebody had presented me with this book last week and told me, "You will cry at the end of every other scene," I would have raised a quizzical brow. No book could sustain that kind of emotion without sending readers off clamoring for a break.

It was masterfully done.

From the very first chapter, I was disturbed (and I can't recommend this book to anyone under sixteen, on principle--I wouldn't recommend a great R-rated movie to such a tender age-group either). But the way this book disturbed me was not grotesque and showy. It was by realism and raw emotion.

"Please, Mia. Don't make me write a song," was only one line that brought the torrential tears. But the poignant passages are interspersed with flashbacks on (mostly) happier times. This was enough comic relief and character development to keep me reading nonstop. Since there are no chapters, per se, there's no good stopping place. If you pick up this book, plan on reading for several hours. :-)

But there is a feeling of chapters with the one-two motion of present-tense action and thought, then past-tense stories and memories. Now-flashback-now-flashback-now is the way it goes. You'd think it would be distracting, but it flows smoothly. This is the first book I've read that utilizes first-person present-tense (I know, I know, where have I been, right?), so it was distracting to me for the first few pages. But the story and the characters quickly eclipse any thought of the format.

Several times, I paused to think how much I loved a certain character. They are all too bizarre to be fiction. They are real people. It makes you mourn those who pass on, and grieve with those who remain. This is how every fifth paragraph brings you to tears. You've been warned.

I'm not the first to say--and I surely won't be the last--THIS STORY IS PHENOMENALLY TOUCHING AND PROFOUND.

There were things I could have done without, as a Christian YA reader (preferring fantastic escapism to gritty realism, so take these thoughts accordingly).

-Language: Way too much swearing for my liking. I realize we are talking about punk rockers and dire straits here, but, as someone unaccustomed to that vocabulary, it pulled me out of the story.

-Sex: Yeah. I'm all about sexual tension in YA, but this was a bit too edgy for me. As in, it crossed over the edge into actually depicting sex. This may be okay with some YA advocates/readers. It's on my don't-like list of literary attributes.

That was it. Not an exhaustive list. Just two things that caused some dissonance for me, personally.

Otherwise, I have to give this book a glowing review and declare its author a practiced and brilliant story-teller. Thank you, Gayle Forman for a touching, beautiful story. Any reader can tell that you poured your heart and experience into this novel, and the world is better for it.

P.S. As always, I welcome your comments and discussion. That's why I write, people.

Also, check out the book website: http://www.ifistay.com/ and movie gossip: GOOGLE: if i stay movie summit  (Catherine Hardwicke directing, Summit producing, Dakota Fanning as Mia)