It is not romantic to have someone trying to make you feel like your basic self is bad and wrong...A good romantic partner does not use your uncertainty about yourself and your life as a free pass to tear you down while making no effort to deal with any of his/her own personality issues, all of which are "charming quirks" compared to your essential suckitude.
It's amazing how much better my life got once I started sorting the list of people I spent time with according to whether I liked myself more or less when I was around them. Turns out the former group makes life better than the latter! Who knew?
Her newest Wexford book is especially interesting in the way it shows the social problem it deals with (genital mutilation)--far from presenting a pat answer, it shows the many sides of the problem. I totally admire her writing. Also love her Barbara Vine books.
Have you ever read So Much to Tell You by John Marsden? Broken teenage girl in an environment where people respect her boundaries and are kind and supportive. No romantic interest. It's probably unique in the annals of broken girl stories, and quite good.
For China, I don't know any books on mythology specifically, but Moss Roberts' Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies is a good collection of traditional stories, although not as over-the-top fantastic as I like. I grew up reading the Giant Little Golden book of Chinese Fairy Tales, which is full of dragons and giant talking sea tortises and vanishing palaces and ghost sailors, and is gaudily illustrated. God knows what the provenance of those stories is, but I love that book. (http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Fairy-Tales-Marie-Ponsot/dp/B000RC0CK4/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226974597&sr=1-14)
You know: the thing where the teenage girl is Broken and it's okay that her boyfriend is being a complete jerk with no consideration or respect for her personal boundaries, because he is Fixing Her.
Out of curiosity, can you think of any books where this happens but with the gender roles reversed?
Well...I can't think of any examples, but we all know the girl-perspective fantasized narrative where He's A Bad Boy But Her Love Turns Him Good. (Ew.) And Other People Don't Understand Him Like She Does. (Ew.)
But I really can't think of any boy-perspective YAs where he gets a girlfriend and she fixes his life.
The male version seems to be, I got a good woman's love and she cured me of all that. (the angel of the house thing)
Yeah, not toxic at all. And I love Clint Eastwood forever for deconstructing it in Unforgiven by tacking on the coda: "and then she died and I became a monster again."
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It's amazing how much better my life got once I started sorting the list of people I spent time with according to whether I liked myself more or less when I was around them. Turns out the former group makes life better than the latter! Who knew?
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For China, I don't know any books on mythology specifically, but Moss Roberts' Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies is a good collection of traditional stories, although not as over-the-top fantastic as I like. I grew up reading the Giant Little Golden book of Chinese Fairy Tales, which is full of dragons and giant talking sea tortises and vanishing palaces and ghost sailors, and is gaudily illustrated. God knows what the provenance of those stories is, but I love that book.
(http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Fairy-Tales-Marie-Ponsot/dp/B000RC0CK4/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226974597&sr=1-14)
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I hadn't read that Marsden, but the library has it, so now it's on the list.
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Out of curiosity, can you think of any books where this happens but with the gender roles reversed?
Reply
Well...I can't think of any examples, but we all know the girl-perspective fantasized narrative where He's A Bad Boy But Her Love Turns Him Good. (Ew.) And Other People Don't Understand Him Like She Does. (Ew.)
But I really can't think of any boy-perspective YAs where he gets a girlfriend and she fixes his life.
Reply
Yeah, not toxic at all. And I love Clint Eastwood forever for deconstructing it in Unforgiven by tacking on the coda: "and then she died and I became a monster again."
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