Morbid dead-girl lit is okay, but I find it full of hypocrisy and half cocked plans. I need a protagonist that follows their plan/ethos to the end. I don't need that protagonist to be female. As long as they do something or have some admirable quality, it doesn't matter. They have to be unwavering, and absolute. Ahaha I aim to be that, I come off abit harsh but if I believe it, no if and or buts. It applies to all, and no exceptions.
As a YA, I have to say I advoid the YA section like the plague. It has nothing to offer me, even when I was 14 I stayed away. A pretty cover is nice, but I needed something with more substance. The most memorable book for me during hs was 1984 by Orwell. OH lets not forget T.S Eliot, it defined me. However we all need to start somewhere, I read babysitters club in grade 2 and my brother read Franklin and Captain underpants.
@ohayou_kun: you're missing out on some quality lit if you're avoiding YA entirely. You should check out The Hunger Games, The Graveyard Book, Shiver...so many more. It's a total myth that current YA is only for kids.
as a former cog in the commercial YA machine, i can safely say that the "at least they're reading" argument is bunk. utter bunk. avid readers of drivel grow up to view reading as frivolous entertainment, not an enriching, challenging or artistic experience. which is fine. however, in this case, content outweighs form. i would vastly prefer my teenage cousin derive her media-created images of high school from watching buffy or veronica mars than reading gossip girl or the clique. the act of printing and binding is not redemptive to inferior content. i support purely escapist reading, but only when balanced by actual literature.
@norapelizzari: I used to feel this way big-time. Then I taught 7th grade and had the joy of watching girls in my class who had trouble with reading trade the Clique books back and forth and try to get away with reading them during class.
It finally dawned on me that reading--turning symbols on a page into words that mean something--is a skill like any other, and doesn't come easily to everyone. I'm really on-board with whatever motivates reluctant readers to _practice_ that skill.
Plus, once they'd gotten over the feeling that reading was boring and hard, I had a lot easier time convincing them to read books I liked.
Because I work for one of the companies mentioned in the article, I have to throw this thought out there ... A corporation has one and only one goal. To make money. To make money, you have to sell things that people want. No matter how wacky, crappy, kitschy, generic, lame, etc. If you put out this fantastic work that your audience has no interest in, you won't make any money. So instead, you figure out what your demographic likes, and you make more of that. If sales slow, you make some adjustments until you find what new thing works, and then you keep making that. So on and so forth. We might not like it, but that's how it works.
@dj_chick: But that doesn't mean we can't critique it.
Besides which, I don't have a problem holding businesses to higher standards than "making money." I think that the auto industry should hold itself to a higher standard in terms of the environmental impact of their factories and products, just like all factories that are currently fucking up the planet.
More importantly, businesses that produce things like books and movies aren't just making a product--they are making the culture that absorbs that product, as well. When you make a book, it isn't going into a vacuum, it's responding to a marketing need while creating said need. Before Twilight, people weren't sitting around like, "God I wish I could read a mediocre book about whiny girls and the sparkly vampires they love." It wasn't until that product became available that there was a need for the product. The publishers of Twilight are responsible for the cultural response to the book--because without them, it could not have happened.
But then, since I hate capitalism and all the horrors it has wrought upon humanity, I've never found "but that's how capitalism works!" to be an adequate response to criticism of sketchy business practices. Just like I don't think Photoshopping models on magazine covers is ethical or appropriate, because it feeds into a system that makes women hate themselves, even though it sells more magazines to have a pretty thin woman on the cover than a fat person.
@Cimorene: True enough. I don't work in publishing, and I'm constantly coming to the defense of my industry (and my company). People think we're in cahoots with the record industry, which is so far from the truth. Anyways ... you're right, in a perfect world, money wouldn't determine what material was published. (Though I do love me a sparkly vampire.)
Okay, I'm going out on a limb here: I don't really have a problem with serialized books being written by committee.
*ducks*
Serialized TV is written by many people, often to great effect. In the case of a long running series of books, ie Nancy Drew and SVH, one person would (in my opinion), get burnt out after the first 10 or so books. And the stories of perpetual teenagers would likely get stale. A revolving staff of writers keeps the stories and characters fresh, allowing kids to keep enjoying them.
This isn't great literature, and it's not meant to be, but it can be a first step. I read SVH before I found Vonnegut, Ferlinghetti, Dorothy Parker, Hemingway, etc.
I think these books are more of a phase that girls go through, rather than something that will permanently shape them. I read a couple of the Gossip Girl books in middle school before getting bored and moving on to more literary stuff. I read the Twilight books a couple years ago, too. As long as you realize what you're reading is crap, I don't think there's any harm. And most teenage girls are smart enough to realize this.
oof, I hate this. There are SO MANY awesome YA novels, with really strong, kickass characters - Hunger Games, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, King Dork, etc. Teens! READ THESE BOOKS! Stop reading dreck written on spec by an army of publicists.
(Except, I loved the shit out of SVH and Nancy Drew when I was but a wee-thing. I think, though, that had more to do with the quantity, and not the quality - as an avaricious child reader, I was so glad to have so many books to read, back to back.)
@likepenguins: I will say this: much as I despise Twilight and am leery of the Alloy machine, it's a) getting more teens to read, hopefully serving as a gateway to better YA and adult books, and b) factors such as this are giving YA lit a legitimacy that it didn't have even five years ago. This can help awesome YA writers who AREN'T NYT best-sellers get published. (Including hopefully, one day, me.)
those books mentioned at the end, the victorian gossip girl books, are my biggest guilty pleasure. the details are so pretty and everything, but yeah horribly incorrect :D
@pmerrick: I am so embarrassed that as soon as I finish one of them, I line up the next on my library holds list. I admit the dress on the front drew me in the first time, but the gossip and scheming kept me coming back.
Oh, Alloy! The bane and blessing of all young adult librarians existence. Just when you're about to pull your hair out over the fact they treat books like they are the latest trend that can be packaged and sold to the masses with no soul or skill you have another 16 year old patron come up and check out 10 books and gush or another 15 year old girl tell you, "My friend said this book was so good!" and you melt a little inside.
Look, I defend 'quality literature' for teens every day, and I pitch it to teens non-stop, and I know that it exists, nay flourishes, in an unprecedented way right now. (I promise you, The Astonishing Life of Ocatvian Nothing is as nuanced, artful, complicated, and rich as ANY adult book published this year. Just for instance!) But teens should be able to read trash too, and God Bless Alloy for figuring out how, on occasion, to package books into products. It's good news for libraries and good news for teens!
@f_t_e: "But teens should be able to read trash too, and God Bless Alloy for figuring out how, on occasion, to package books into products. It's good news for libraries and good news for teens!"
totally agree. We all need a beach read, or a "my week sucked so let me escape" read.
Morbid dead girls are nothing new to those of us who had our own Midnight Societies where we read Scary Stories You Tell in the Dark and dreamed of being Wednesday Adams. But if this becomes (is?) the norm, where do the weird little girls turn?
@TransFat: Reminds me of the many nights me and the high school BFF would read scary stories, play on the Ouija board and try to see if we could record some EVP.
@lolabee: Exacto. I read those when I was eleven, and have managed not to get locked in an attic, eat doughnuts covered in arsenic or be raped by my brother.
If anyone's interested in learning more about the first book packaging/development company, I recommend Sisters, Schoolgirls, and Sleuths: Girls' Series Books in America. It goes into the history of the Stratemyer Syndicate (which L Frank Baum wrote for! Who knew!) and how the process first began. It's pretty fascinating if you like books.
Anyone else read the Vampire Diaries when they first came out in the early '90s? I know I read them in middle school, not that I can remember a damn thing about the plot. I wonder if the originals were marketed by Alloy as well. I didn't pick them up in a bookstore, a friend of mine was reading the books and she loaned them to me.
I do think I probably read more books featuring characters I could relate to when I was younger than I do now, but I also think if I found out any of the historical fiction I read was inaccurate, I would have been offended by the condescension.
10/12/09
As a YA, I have to say I advoid the YA section like the plague. It has nothing to offer me, even when I was 14 I stayed away. A pretty cover is nice, but I needed something with more substance. The most memorable book for me during hs was 1984 by Orwell. OH lets not forget T.S Eliot, it defined me. However we all need to start somewhere, I read babysitters club in grade 2 and my brother read Franklin and Captain underpants.
10/13/09
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10/13/09
It finally dawned on me that reading--turning symbols on a page into words that mean something--is a skill like any other, and doesn't come easily to everyone. I'm really on-board with whatever motivates reluctant readers to _practice_ that skill.
Plus, once they'd gotten over the feeling that reading was boring and hard, I had a lot easier time convincing them to read books I liked.
10/12/09
10/12/09
Besides which, I don't have a problem holding businesses to higher standards than "making money." I think that the auto industry should hold itself to a higher standard in terms of the environmental impact of their factories and products, just like all factories that are currently fucking up the planet.
More importantly, businesses that produce things like books and movies aren't just making a product--they are making the culture that absorbs that product, as well. When you make a book, it isn't going into a vacuum, it's responding to a marketing need while creating said need. Before Twilight, people weren't sitting around like, "God I wish I could read a mediocre book about whiny girls and the sparkly vampires they love." It wasn't until that product became available that there was a need for the product. The publishers of Twilight are responsible for the cultural response to the book--because without them, it could not have happened.
But then, since I hate capitalism and all the horrors it has wrought upon humanity, I've never found "but that's how capitalism works!" to be an adequate response to criticism of sketchy business practices. Just like I don't think Photoshopping models on magazine covers is ethical or appropriate, because it feeds into a system that makes women hate themselves, even though it sells more magazines to have a pretty thin woman on the cover than a fat person.
10/12/09
10/12/09
*ducks*
Serialized TV is written by many people, often to great effect. In the case of a long running series of books, ie Nancy Drew and SVH, one person would (in my opinion), get burnt out after the first 10 or so books. And the stories of perpetual teenagers would likely get stale. A revolving staff of writers keeps the stories and characters fresh, allowing kids to keep enjoying them.
This isn't great literature, and it's not meant to be, but it can be a first step. I read SVH before I found Vonnegut, Ferlinghetti, Dorothy Parker, Hemingway, etc.
10/12/09
10/12/09
(Except, I loved the shit out of SVH and Nancy Drew when I was but a wee-thing. I think, though, that had more to do with the quantity, and not the quality - as an avaricious child reader, I was so glad to have so many books to read, back to back.)
10/12/09
10/12/09
I'm overreacting, of course. Yesterday in the grocery store I saw an SAT vocab book about Twilight. I nearly vomited.
(Good luck on your book! I review YA books for a site so maybe someday I'll review yours!)
10/12/09
10/12/09
Anyone?
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10/12/09
I have no illusions about the purity of my art. Just put money in my bank account, please.
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10/12/09
Look, I defend 'quality literature' for teens every day, and I pitch it to teens non-stop, and I know that it exists, nay flourishes, in an unprecedented way right now. (I promise you, The Astonishing Life of Ocatvian Nothing is as nuanced, artful, complicated, and rich as ANY adult book published this year. Just for instance!) But teens should be able to read trash too, and God Bless Alloy for figuring out how, on occasion, to package books into products. It's good news for libraries and good news for teens!
10/12/09
totally agree. We all need a beach read, or a "my week sucked so let me escape" read.
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I do think I probably read more books featuring characters I could relate to when I was younger than I do now, but I also think if I found out any of the historical fiction I read was inaccurate, I would have been offended by the condescension.
07/01/09