Yeah, even when I was in elementary and middle school in the 1990s, I couldn't find much decent YA at all, let alone decent YA with a female protagonist - and a female protagonist who didn't much care about getting a boyfriend at the moment was about as common as unicorns. Part of my problem might have been that I was mostly getting books from used book stores and libraries with not-so-new collections, because somehow I missed out all Tamora Pierce books but one. So I ended up with a lot of "boy books" and adult sf/f. How hard can this be, honestly? Especially since there were a few, like The Girl With Silver Eyes from 1980, that showed it could be done. (No romance whatsoever, iirc. But I haven't read it since '96 or so.)
Some newer ones, like the Gallagher Girls series and The Agency: A Spy in the House (haven't gotten my hands on that one yet), have teenage girls being spies and getting involved in criminal conspiracies and such... but at least in Gallagher Girls, getting a boyfriend or accepting that you just can't endanger cute civilians like that is a major element. Which, fine. Dating is something a lot of teenagers think about, so some books will naturally cover it. But I don't recall the boy spies spending so much time on it! (One exception is Perry Moore's Hero, where the main character is keeping two big secrets from his dad: he has superpowers and has joined a team, and he's gay. And there is a mysterious and sexy but possibly untrustworthy guy around.) And you can't really argue that teenage boys are less interested in their preferred sex at that age, so what gives? Where are the girls who just do spy stuff without having to spend half their time handling the distraction of the cute-but-untrustworthy guy they've been forced to work with?
Where are the girls who just do spy stuff without having to spend half their time handling the distraction of the cute-but-untrustworthy guy they've been forced to work with?
That baffles me too. A lot of the guys in YA have girlfriends or boyfriends, but romance and sex aren't their whole focus. They have other stuff to do. But so many authors just focus on nothing but for teenaged girls. It's as if they really believe Byron's line about romance being a woman's whole existence. (It sure as hell wasn't mine when I was a teenager.)
Some newer ones, like the Gallagher Girls series and The Agency: A Spy in the House (haven't gotten my hands on that one yet), have teenage girls being spies and getting involved in criminal conspiracies and such... but at least in Gallagher Girls, getting a boyfriend or accepting that you just can't endanger cute civilians like that is a major element. Which, fine. Dating is something a lot of teenagers think about, so some books will naturally cover it. But I don't recall the boy spies spending so much time on it! (One exception is Perry Moore's Hero, where the main character is keeping two big secrets from his dad: he has superpowers and has joined a team, and he's gay. And there is a mysterious and sexy but possibly untrustworthy guy around.) And you can't really argue that teenage boys are less interested in their preferred sex at that age, so what gives? Where are the girls who just do spy stuff without having to spend half their time handling the distraction of the cute-but-untrustworthy guy they've been forced to work with?
So I like the sound of your YA story a lot :D
Reply
That baffles me too. A lot of the guys in YA have girlfriends or boyfriends, but romance and sex aren't their whole focus. They have other stuff to do. But so many authors just focus on nothing but for teenaged girls. It's as if they really believe Byron's line about romance being a woman's whole existence. (It sure as hell wasn't mine when I was a teenager.)
Reply
Leave a comment