generalisations about contemporary American YA fiction
Look more closely - you're missing
the mystery. My behaviour
is not more my story
than a chalk outline of a pavement
-- from Sandpiper by Ellen Wittlinger
In which I make generalisations about contemporary American YA fiction, and discuss a few examples I've read lately: The One I Want, A Midsummer's Nightmare, Sandpiper, and Out of Sight, Out of Time.
Growing up, I didn't read a lot of contemporary American children's or young adult fiction, if you exclude all the horse books I devoured as a kid, which I do (as much as I loved them at the time). I read everything I could find by Katherine Paterson, and The Princess Diaries, and a novel or two by Judy Blume. (The only one of hers I liked was Tiger Eyes.) And if I went through my reading record, I would presumably a few other examples.
This preamble is by way of explaining that I've read a lot more American YA in the last few years, and I've noticed some things about this, er, subgenre? And I'm probably going to make some wild generalisations as I try to articulate what that is.
So there's a type of book I have mentally dubbed "contemporary American YA" or "Sarah Dessen-ish".
The sort of first-person YA novel about a teenage girl who lives in a nondescript American town. She's interesting, with her own quirks and flaws and strengths - but not so original that she can't be an every-girl. She has a few issues - perhaps a dysfunctional family, or self-esteem or trust issues, or conflict with her friends. But while the novel will recognise that these are serious issues, everything will really be okay by the end of the book. There will also be a cute, caring boy who the girl will end up with. The end.
Such as, for example, Jennifer Echols' The One I Want. It's about Gemma and her so-called best friend, Addison, who have both just gotten places on their school's Majorette team, and who meet a couple of football players from another high school.
Addison manipulates things so that she's going out with Max and Gemma's stuck with Max's monosyllabic best friend... even though Max and Gemma clearly have a lot more in common - and a lot more to say to each other. Oh no! What will they do? On the home front, Gemma has an emotionally absent mother who keeps trying to feed Gemma cobbler even though Gemma's trying to lose weight, and a physically absent father.
For all the serious issues - Gemma and Addison's dysfunctional friendship, and the painful, teen miscommunication, it's romantic-comedy lighthearted. Also, it was different to read about a dysfunctional friendship.
And the majorettes! I hadn't ever heard of them before. (It was a bit of a wow-America-is-a-foreign-country moment. I don't have so many of those any more.)
I would neither bother to recommend it, or not recommend it, if that makes sense?
If I sound critical, I don't really mean to be. I liked the Sarah Dessen books I read. There's a place for this sort of story! Especially for looking at the issues (Am I over-using this word today?) teenagers face, without being all bleak and depressing and hopeless.
It's just that... these stories don't remind me of the YA I read when I was growing up.
Kody Keplinger's A Midsummer's Nightmare falls firmly in this category of Sarah Dessen-ish YA. It's less about Whitley's new stepbrother turning out to be someone she slept with, and more about how her father no longer seems to have time for her. And how her partying ways are attracting a lot of derogatory commentary on Facebook.
It was interesting and gritty, without being too messed up. Not entirely my cup-of-tea, but I rather enjoyed reading about a protagonist who was so angry and with good reason. Although I kept being angry with everyone longer than Whitley did (a failure of the novel to convince me that it was time for Whitley to let others in?), and thought the cyber-bullying could have been... I don't know, better integrated somehow?
The next book I read, Sandpiper by Ellen Wittlinger, turned out to have a certain number of similarities to A Midsummer's Nightmare. Both are about a teenage girl dealing with a new step-family, difficulty talking to her father, and a reputation for being promiscuous. They both also feature characters called Nathan.
The first thing I noticed about Sandpiper was the writing. (I don't really notice the writing of Sarah-Dessen-ish YA; in those books it's largely functional, but invisible.) A strong, unique sense of voice which reminded me of the YA I read growing up... but without seeming unoriginal, as if I had read this book before.
The second thing I noticed was Piper's poetry. Each chapter ends with one of her poems - which reflect on what she's going through, and often retell (parody?) other peoms. I loved Sandpiper's poetry. It's convincing as the poetry of an almost-16 year old, without being terrible Teen Angst "I am alone and no one understands my pain" poems.
I also loved Piper's growing friendship with 'Walker', an enigmatic teenage boy who walks around town and who is even more messed up than Sandpiper is (Enigmatic is much more interesting than cute, any day), and how important Piper's relationships with her family are to the story.
Sandpiper full of real complications and genuine emotions and conclusions which are not reached easily. I realise these are nebulous qualities I'm struggling to define and describe, just I struggled to categorise what I meant by Sarah-Dessen-ish.
But I thought, as I read this - yes, yes, this is what I want my contemporary American YA to be. There are a remarkable number of similarities to A Midsummer's Nightmare but in depth and quality, it reminded me more of Judy Blume's Tiger Eyes.
The Love Song of Piper H. Ragsdale
(with apologises to T.S. Eliot)
Let us go then, you and I,
When the morning mist is our ally,
And leave our parents, dead, divorced,
Or endlessly depressed, behind us.
Let us go with the intent
Of disallowing accidental blows
To make us life's no-shows.
I will not ask, 'Do you?'
It matters only that I do.
In the room where doctors come and go,
Talking of scars and vertigo.
* * *
It's been a while, or so it seems, since the last Gallagher Girls book. In Out of Sight, Out of Time, Cammie returns to the school for girl spies that is her home after an absence of several months - several months she can't remember.
For a book about a girl with amnesia, whose friends are furious that she went somewhere without them, and whose mother and aunt are possibly keeping secrets from her... this story is more action than character-and-relationship development.
I could not put it down. Literally. There are not many books which keep me up, unwillingly, into the early hours of the morning, but this book did.
I missed the relationship development you got in the earlier books, but Cammie and her friends continue to be awesome, and I think Cammie grew enormously. I was just too busy reading this as fast as I possibly could to really notice...
And, for the first time, I think this book answered more questions than it asked! Even if those answers were not what one was hoping for.
I should probably reread this sometime before the next one - the final one? - comes out.
the mystery. My behaviour
is not more my story
than a chalk outline of a pavement
-- from Sandpiper by Ellen Wittlinger
In which I make generalisations about contemporary American YA fiction, and discuss a few examples I've read lately: The One I Want, A Midsummer's Nightmare, Sandpiper, and Out of Sight, Out of Time.
Growing up, I didn't read a lot of contemporary American children's or young adult fiction, if you exclude all the horse books I devoured as a kid, which I do (as much as I loved them at the time). I read everything I could find by Katherine Paterson, and The Princess Diaries, and a novel or two by Judy Blume. (The only one of hers I liked was Tiger Eyes.) And if I went through my reading record, I would presumably a few other examples.
This preamble is by way of explaining that I've read a lot more American YA in the last few years, and I've noticed some things about this, er, subgenre? And I'm probably going to make some wild generalisations as I try to articulate what that is.
So there's a type of book I have mentally dubbed "contemporary American YA" or "Sarah Dessen-ish".
The sort of first-person YA novel about a teenage girl who lives in a nondescript American town. She's interesting, with her own quirks and flaws and strengths - but not so original that she can't be an every-girl. She has a few issues - perhaps a dysfunctional family, or self-esteem or trust issues, or conflict with her friends. But while the novel will recognise that these are serious issues, everything will really be okay by the end of the book. There will also be a cute, caring boy who the girl will end up with. The end.
Such as, for example, Jennifer Echols' The One I Want. It's about Gemma and her so-called best friend, Addison, who have both just gotten places on their school's Majorette team, and who meet a couple of football players from another high school.
Addison manipulates things so that she's going out with Max and Gemma's stuck with Max's monosyllabic best friend... even though Max and Gemma clearly have a lot more in common - and a lot more to say to each other. Oh no! What will they do? On the home front, Gemma has an emotionally absent mother who keeps trying to feed Gemma cobbler even though Gemma's trying to lose weight, and a physically absent father.
For all the serious issues - Gemma and Addison's dysfunctional friendship, and the painful, teen miscommunication, it's romantic-comedy lighthearted. Also, it was different to read about a dysfunctional friendship.
And the majorettes! I hadn't ever heard of them before. (It was a bit of a wow-America-is-a-foreign-country moment. I don't have so many of those any more.)
I would neither bother to recommend it, or not recommend it, if that makes sense?
If I sound critical, I don't really mean to be. I liked the Sarah Dessen books I read. There's a place for this sort of story! Especially for looking at the issues (Am I over-using this word today?) teenagers face, without being all bleak and depressing and hopeless.
It's just that... these stories don't remind me of the YA I read when I was growing up.
Kody Keplinger's A Midsummer's Nightmare falls firmly in this category of Sarah Dessen-ish YA. It's less about Whitley's new stepbrother turning out to be someone she slept with, and more about how her father no longer seems to have time for her. And how her partying ways are attracting a lot of derogatory commentary on Facebook.
It was interesting and gritty, without being too messed up. Not entirely my cup-of-tea, but I rather enjoyed reading about a protagonist who was so angry and with good reason. Although I kept being angry with everyone longer than Whitley did (a failure of the novel to convince me that it was time for Whitley to let others in?), and thought the cyber-bullying could have been... I don't know, better integrated somehow?
The next book I read, Sandpiper by Ellen Wittlinger, turned out to have a certain number of similarities to A Midsummer's Nightmare. Both are about a teenage girl dealing with a new step-family, difficulty talking to her father, and a reputation for being promiscuous. They both also feature characters called Nathan.
The first thing I noticed about Sandpiper was the writing. (I don't really notice the writing of Sarah-Dessen-ish YA; in those books it's largely functional, but invisible.) A strong, unique sense of voice which reminded me of the YA I read growing up... but without seeming unoriginal, as if I had read this book before.
The second thing I noticed was Piper's poetry. Each chapter ends with one of her poems - which reflect on what she's going through, and often retell (parody?) other peoms. I loved Sandpiper's poetry. It's convincing as the poetry of an almost-16 year old, without being terrible Teen Angst "I am alone and no one understands my pain" poems.
I also loved Piper's growing friendship with 'Walker', an enigmatic teenage boy who walks around town and who is even more messed up than Sandpiper is (Enigmatic is much more interesting than cute, any day), and how important Piper's relationships with her family are to the story.
Sandpiper full of real complications and genuine emotions and conclusions which are not reached easily. I realise these are nebulous qualities I'm struggling to define and describe, just I struggled to categorise what I meant by Sarah-Dessen-ish.
But I thought, as I read this - yes, yes, this is what I want my contemporary American YA to be. There are a remarkable number of similarities to A Midsummer's Nightmare but in depth and quality, it reminded me more of Judy Blume's Tiger Eyes.
The Love Song of Piper H. Ragsdale
(with apologises to T.S. Eliot)
Let us go then, you and I,
When the morning mist is our ally,
And leave our parents, dead, divorced,
Or endlessly depressed, behind us.
Let us go with the intent
Of disallowing accidental blows
To make us life's no-shows.
I will not ask, 'Do you?'
It matters only that I do.
In the room where doctors come and go,
Talking of scars and vertigo.
* * *
It's been a while, or so it seems, since the last Gallagher Girls book. In Out of Sight, Out of Time, Cammie returns to the school for girl spies that is her home after an absence of several months - several months she can't remember.
For a book about a girl with amnesia, whose friends are furious that she went somewhere without them, and whose mother and aunt are possibly keeping secrets from her... this story is more action than character-and-relationship development.
I could not put it down. Literally. There are not many books which keep me up, unwillingly, into the early hours of the morning, but this book did.
I missed the relationship development you got in the earlier books, but Cammie and her friends continue to be awesome, and I think Cammie grew enormously. I was just too busy reading this as fast as I possibly could to really notice...
And, for the first time, I think this book answered more questions than it asked! Even if those answers were not what one was hoping for.
I should probably reread this sometime before the next one - the final one? - comes out.