The scourge of the literary world
After Twilight, a new trend in the publishing industry flooded bookshelves, imbuing a sense of horror in the avid reader and writer. I speak of the scourge of the literary world: young adult paranormal romance.
These books are only fantasy insofar as they are fantasies; that is, the fantasies of the writer. In some cases, the paranormal elements are superficial and play no importance in the plot, save for marketing ploys. They function as guilty pleasures or light reads, but are often confused for good stories deserving of awards, large fan bases, movie contracts, and praise. Most are rife with lack of character development (thus, creating a cast of cardboard characters or stereotypes), poor world-building and cliché, carbon-copy plots.
The prose is often in first-person, present-tense stream-of-consciousness, which comes off as self-centered and sloppy. It is often a nauseating mix of purple prose (overly descriptive, adverb-happy, thesaurus-abusing nonsense) and slang-ridden, cheesy writing straight from a bad chick-lit novel. Name/brand dropping runs rampant in these novels, i.e. comparing a character to a celebrity, or mentioning brands of clothes, names of stores, and so on. The consequences are disturbing, and in the case of thousands of young women, addicting.
One can expect to find this kind of fiction in only the darkest realms of fanfiction.net or fictionpress.com. In these pieces, the author creates a self-insert who is like herself, only more beautiful and special (i.e., a Mary Sue). She makes the boy of her affections (real or imagined) into the love interest. Yet, the authors of these stories are not emotionally immature teenagers, but full-grown, college degree-earning women who should know better.
The female main character is written as an empty vessel for the reader: she has few desires or personality traits of her own, but she personifies everything desired by the audience. She often has a unique, sometimes flower-related, clever name (i.e. Bella Swan, Rose Hathaway, Ever Bloom, and need I go on?). Sometimes, we are told she is an outcast, yet there is never any reason why she should have no friends. A tragic past does not justify antisocial behavior, and many of these protagonists constantly bemoan their lack of ability to fit in, while doing nothing to help the situation. We are told that the protagonist is normal in every sense of the word, and yet she has limpid, sapphire portals for eyes and smooth, porcelain skin -- not to mention more than a few competing love interests, inciting the jealousy of female peers (whom we in turn see as villains). Examples include Ever from Evermore and Bella from Twilight, and most any female protagonist character from the genre.
Let us focus on this male love interest. Although he is almost always a paranormal creature, he attends high school. He is never portrayed as an actual, multi-dimensional character, but a caricature of teenage female desire. He is beautiful, mysterious, immortal, talented, strong, unobtainable, and in every sense, perfect. He is often described as statuesque or looking just like a model off the runway with eyes like heavily fringed ebony-black orbs. The exact details of his appearance are never quite explained, but readers are told he is “sexy”, “gorgeous” and “hot". One example includes Damen from "Evermore," who is "so gorgeous, so sexy, so smoldering, so palpable." He is friends with everyone from Da Vinci to Einstein to the Beatles, and also happens to be a super model. Another example includes Edward Cullen from "Twilight," who has a "livid, glorious face" that is "perfect and beautiful to an excruciating degree" and happens to look like a "runaway model". Violent and stalker tendencies do not a likable character make. It is still beyond me why an immortal creature would seek the company of high schoolers. But then again, if he did not, then how could the author fulfill her fantasies?
Nevertheless, the protagonist tends to be interested in one thing, and one thing only: boys, and occasionally critiquing the appearance of others and being angsty. If you live in a world with vampires, werewolves, fairies, and immortals, the last thing on your mind should be the cute guy in your Biology class.
Young adult paranormal romance novels are wish-fulfillment for the author. They are no different than a Harlequin romance with fictional creatures, marketed to a teenage audience. Wish-fulfillment and fantasies do not make good stories, and do not belong on bookshelves next to decent writers. Yet, despite all of this, authors continue to write high school dramas with slight paranormal elements and think that they have written masterpieces. The only successful work of this genre would be "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". The difference? Joss Whedon is a genius, and "Buffy" makes brilliant satire. Case and point.