Maintenance Monday
Why Must YA Have Romance?
While finishing up Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy, I ended up having several discussions about the romance in the books and whether or not it was necessary, let alone whether or not it actually worked. And it got me thinking about the necessity. In the discussions, Dreams & Speculation made the remark that the romance was just there because it's a YA novel.
It got me thinking, because this isn't the first time I've heard this accusation thrown at YA. I was going to do a survey of all the YA books I've reviewed, but when I started paging through said reviews, I realized two things:
1) Most of the books that I don't remember having romance are still a little fishy. Some have love stories but not romance, and that's a very different thing, you know? **
2) Some books I simply don't remember at all, despite having reviewed them.
Instead I decided to look at the most recent YA reads (since I've been reading a lot of YA due to surgery). That totals four books, and every single one of them features a romance as either plot or subplot.*
So I sat back to think about this: what are the commonalities here? For starters, all of the books are written by women and feature heroines. That reminds me of a snarky observation Pat's Fantasy Hotlist made in his Graceling review, that if YA is written by a female, it MUST have romance.
Which, based on my observations, seems to be true, but it's an unfair ground for dismissal because it smacks of sexism (and yes, that's a double-standard: if a woman says this, she's making an observation; if a man says this, he's sexist and it doesn't matter if he's right or not) and sometimes the romance isn't what you think, let alone the driving force of the book.
But let's look at that trend: if women authors are writing heroines who are falling in love (whether it's the main plot or the subplot), what does that say about society today? Not just publishing, though I'd say that plays a hand in it (any awkward romance you've read may be partially because the author felt obligated to include it to even be published), but just general society: are young teen girls going to bother with a book that doesn't, on some level, show that there's someone special out there for everyone?*** I'm not saying this is a conscious decision either, but rather a social goal: after all this time, after everything feminism has taught us, a woman's most important decision seems to be who she'll fall in love with (and by extension, who she'll marry).
I'm not bashing romance here as being anti-feminist. Or bashing romance period. I grew up watching soap operas, for goodness sake! I love me a good romance! But I am examining society as reflected in the fiction that's popular with teens. Even Malinda Lo's Ash is a love story, even though it features two girls instead of a girl and a guy, reinforcing my opinion that a girl's big adventure in life is to fall in love at least once with someone.
Of course, falling in love is part of the human condition, guy or girl. Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker features a hero instead of a heroine and doesn't have a love story, but you can bet that Nailer has the hots for the girl he rescued. And I'm betting that even though Scott Westerfeld's current Leviathan series doesn't start out with a romance or love story between Deryn and Alek, it's gonna happen before everything's wrapped up.
But these two books I cite for not having a romance are also two books that I believe are aimed towards boys, who are still, after all these years, expected to have adventures before falling in love. Again, this isn't to bash those two authors, because their female characters are kick-ass and Deryn definitely is having more fun in her adventures than Alek is, but when you look at who writes the book and then who the book's marketed to, it's no wonder there's a bias against women writing YA because a romance of some sort seems inevitable.
That's not to say the stories aren't worth reading. Zetta Elliot's A Wish After Midnight has more to say than simply its subplot of Genna's romance Judah: it's about racism in two different times and what it means to create your own identity when your identity is shaped by an oppressive society. And the best romances (subplot, not main plot) are those that play into whatever the author is saying in the book anyway, like with A Wish After Midnight. Judah is just another force trying to shape Genna's identity, and she's having to struggle with what she wants in the face of social pressures and personal pressures. That's powerful.
And then there's romances that force us to question the traditional view of love: Malinda Lo's Ash, where our heroine doesn't fall in love with Prince Charming, but rather his female hunter. Then there's Kristen Cashore's Graceling, where we have a heroine who acknowledges desire and the need for companionship without falling into the social trap of true love, marriage, and family. It's not to say she won't change her mind one day, but she's more a picture of what it means to be a modern woman, rather than, say Bella of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, who seems to exist to reinforce the traditional notions of falling in love and having a family.
Different strokes for different folks, that's for sure, but the danger is dismissing any kind of romance is that you don't know what, if anything it may teach you. Or whether or not it's part of a kick-ass story that wouldn't exist in the same way if not for the romance, like Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games (the first book, not the final two).
And then there's the bottom line: just because there's a romance doesn't mean it's done well. That doesn't mean you won't like a romance that's done badly and dislike a romance that's done well, but there you go.
In hindsight, I still haven't answered my own question, which really wasn't a question so much as it was a need to examine a trend and try to figure out why things are the way they are. So maybe I have stumbled upon answers, but I bet there's more to it. Romances sell better, for example (in adult fiction, Romance is the best selling genre in the US, especially when the economy went to hell). And I'll go back to one of my original statements: I think the publishers have something to do with it. They know romances sell better, so they're probably looking for YA stories that have them, because they want to sell as many books as possible.
Or maybe I just tend to be attracted to YA stories that inevitably have romances in them.
But those are my theories as to why it seems like so much YA has a featured romance. What are yours?
* = And when I say romance, I'm not just talking about the books that are Romance with a capital R and said Romance is the whole point of the plot. I'm talking about romantic relationships whether or not they're in the forefront or background of the book. Just because the book has romance doesn't mean it's a Romance. Clear as mud? :)
** = What would I call a love story instead of a romance? Markus Zusak's The Book Thief. No romance, but a love story nonetheless.
*** = I think the answer is yes. After all, Scott Leviathan's Leviathan was pretty darn popular, and it doesn't have a romance. That said, I'm basing my assumption on adult readers too, that's a slightly different audience with different needs.Book Club Selections
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Upcoming Reviews: Nightshade by Andrea Cremer, The Native Star by M.K. Hobson, Song of Scarabaeus by Sara Creasy
Currently Reading: Blameless by Gail Carriger
2010 Reading Total: 77 out of 100 (even if I hit 100, I doubt I'll up the goal to 125, because that's starting to get crazy).
2010 Comics Total: 281 out of 365. #282 will be tonight!