Why is the manic pixie dreamgirl such a mainstay in youth adult literature, and what does that say about our attitudes on mental health and young women?
Will we ever shake the manic pixie dream girl?
Tag: YA
Stop writing YA for adults
I am, as we know, a voracious reader of young adult fiction. I find it deeply enjoyable. My collection of young adult at this point outstrips my adult shelves, and we haven’t even gotten into my growing assortment of middle grade books. I love books for young readers. I love reading about them, I love […]
Is the YA Takeover About Stress?
Reams and reams and reams have been written about the alleged YA takeover; honestly, it’s a good thing that print media is dying (allegedly) because otherwise entire continents would have been denuded of forests to accommodate the rage against the dying of the adult novel. If we are to believe the naysayers, adult YA readers […]
Why the Pushback on YA?
Every other week, it seems, I’m reading an article attacking young adult literature. It’s trashy, it’s too dark, it’s not dark enough, it’s juvenile, it’s too sexy, it focuses too much on girls…the list seems endless, as Aja Romano pointed out at the Daily Dot earlier this year. In response to every ludicrous opinion piece […]
What Makes an Issue Book Work?
‘Oh,’ I said to a public relations representative the other day. ‘I usually avoid issue books, but I’ll check it out if you really feel strongly about it.’ Of course she does–it’s her job to sell books, and to get me interested in promoting them for her. I have a great relationship with the PR […]
Dystopians for an Unstable World
I love talking to booksellers about what is trending and getting their thoughts on it, because they often have incisive commentary based on their years of experience in the trade and interactions with customers. It’s not just that I’m interested in the industry as a whole and I like to know what’s trending and to […]
Everyone Clutch Your Pearls: There are Books About Young People Having Sex!
The latest bizarre and largely fictional ‘trend’ the media has identified in young adult literature is the ‘steamy,’ which seems to have sprung to life full-formed out of the heads of journos in the form of a handful of articles decrying this new and terrible subgenre. Steamies, you see, well: Welcome to the world of […]
YA Is Not A Guidebook to Self-Harm, Teen Sex, or Anything Else
Discussing the slew of concerntrolling editorials about how YA is destroying the world, a radio producer recently asked me if I thought YA acts like a user guide to self-harm and other potentially destructive, harmful, or socially undesirable behaviours. It’s a point that gets brought up a lot in these op-eds, and my response, as […]
And Then She Was Pretty, the End
Certain tropes tend to come up again and again in young adult fiction, and there’s one in particular that makes me positively aflame with irritation: the heroine who must become beautiful as part of her journey and transformation into a fully realised character. Beauty, in this setting and framing, becomes an essential part of what […]
Teens Will Read What Teens Will Read
In evaluating the exploding teen paranormal romance genre, a lot of adults are making the mistake of writing it off as garbage, and believing that anyone who reads it isn’t educated or isn’t seriously interested in books or reading. The assumption is that all books in the genre are identical, that it represents a cookie-cutter […]