XVI, by Julia Karr

[rachelmanija]

I would never be a crazed sex-teen!Someone could write a good teen dystopia based on the screwed-up messages that modern American society sends to teenage girls: If you have sex with boys, you’re a slut. If you don’t, you’re a prude, a lesbian, or a reject. If you dress fashionably, you’re a slut. If you dress conservatively, you’re a prude. If you

Comments

[tool_of_satan]

Wow, that's even worse than I thought it would be!

Someone could write a good teen dystopia based on the screwed-up messages that modern American society sends to teenage girls

This book seems to reinforce those messages more than it critiques them. Maybe not the "doesn't have sex = prude" part, but it seems heavily invested in the rest of them. And you can't just remove one part that way.

[rachelmanija]

According to the afterword, the author thought that teenage girls were getting sent mixed messages. So, I guess she wanted to send the unmixed message that teen sex is bad and good girls don't do it.

Not actually an improvement, in my opinion.

[tool_of_satan]

Definitely not an improvement.

It's interesting to compare this and the other dystopias you've mentioned recently to Bujold's Beta Colony. Which is a society where the government controls or regulates lots of things (including the ability to have children), and teenage girls actually do have external markers that show they're able to have sex (I'm not sure if it was ever made clear if men and herms wear the coded earrings as well, or if they have some similar system).

[rachelmanija]

I'm not sure it was explicitly stated, but it seemed clear from context that people of all genders wore some kind of marker of preference/availability.

Beta Colony comes across very differently, partly because there are clear reasons for why it is the way it is, and partly because all the potentially dystopic elements have clearly explained positive and negative sides, so it doesn't seem so black-and-white. Plus, the government is comparatively hands-off - the earrings aren't mandated by anything but social pressure.

[holyschist]

(Donated!)

But it's hard being the only person who thinks like me. Sometimes I wish I could just be like everyone else my age and not think at all.

Wow, she's delightful.

Isn’t Nina charming? Wouldn’t you love to spend an entire book with her?

I am really admiring your fortitude in doing so for your readers/charity, believe me!

Sandy, unsurprisingly, is raped and murdered at the end.

Of course.

I am boggled, utterly boggled, that someone wrote this. Thank you for forcing your way through it and writing this review for our trainwrecky entertainment!

[rachelmanija]

Thank you!

I will say this for the book: it was at least entertainingly trainwrecky, rather than "claw my eyes out boring."

[holyschist]

Haha, I guess that's good. Entertaining enough that you would recommend it to a trainwreck addict?

[rachelmanija]

YES.

[genarti]

...WOW. I expected an incoherent mess, but not to quite that extent of incoherently problematic ridiculousness! Gracious.

[kateelliott]

[rachelmanija]

Discussion topic: which is the more conservative YA genre overall, dystopia or urban fantasy of the "paranormal romance" type?

[movingfinger]

This would be an excellent con panel topic, but you'd have to be sure you stacked it with people who had actually read a lot of both kinds of books, not people who "don't read romance" if you know what I mean.

By "conservative" are you meaning sex/gender roles or general American religious/social/political/hate-based conservatism? Defining that before starting is important...

[rachelmanija]

I was specifically thinking about attitudes toward sexuality and gender roles. A lot of dystopias are implicitly politically conservative (a strong central government is the worst thing ever) but I don't see that much in urban fantasy.

[rachelmanija]

I think readers tend to have lines they draw in the sand, and if a character steps over them it's straight into the Moral Event Horizon. Infidelity is a common one. Despising your own friends is one of mine. (Luckily, that comes up less than infidelity.)

Note that both share elements of hurting the ones you (supposedly) love, and of humiliation squick.

[kateelliott]