YA Tries to Have it Both Ways, and So Do I

Here is a thing that happens a lot:  some clod who clearly knows nothing about young adult fiction writes some dumb thing about how some big-name author has deigned to write young adult fiction for the first time, and the author of the book and/or the author of the article make a bunch of ignorant generalizations about YA, and then YA Twitter goes nuts for a few hours.  (Note: sometimes the article is not about a writer trying YA for the first time, and is more like, "I read 3 YA books, and here's my think piece about the problems with YA").

This will happen again soon. And I have two thoughts.  Thought one: who cares what some ignoramus says? If you're going to run around the internet reacting every time someone you've never heard of says something ill-informed and offensive, you're never going to have time to do anything else.  Also, you keep linking to these things and provoking lots of hate reads, and editors don't care if those are hate reads or not; they're just thrilled to get all those eyeballs on their page, and so not ignoring this kind of stupidity ensures that it's going to keep happening. 

Thought two: if you really crave the "respectability" that the larger culture confers, you're going to have to start saying something is crap when it's crap. YA has a reputation for being a supportive community, and for the most part it is, unless you piss off certain cliques of either authors or bloggers, and then THEY ARE COMING FOR YOU. I've seen many bloggers say they only want to review books they like, and authors generally don't want to say anything bad about another author's book because what if you meet them at a conference or something. And I think a lot of people feel protective of YA books, like to point out their shortcomings is to agree with the people who unfairly dismiss the entire category.

But there are certain things you've gotta put up with if you're going to read a lot of YA, just like if you read a lot of epic fantasy, you're gonna read a lot of stupid names.  To wit:

Didacticism. I think a lot of authors and/or editors underestimate the YA audience, and so there's very often a part where the first-person narrator applies the sledgehammer and tells you exactly what you're supposed to make of the story. I have to tell my beginning writing students to stop doing this all the time. Trust your writing, I tell them. Trust your audience. A lot of YA authors have trouble with this.

Mary Sue/Gary Stu-ism. For those not familiar with the terminology, this is when the main character is the author's painfully obvious wish-fulfillment fantasy.  This comes out in the romance a lot. So the mini-Lizzie Bennets, all sarcasm and bookishness, always find their mini-Darcys, with great hair and abs, troubled enough to be attractive, not troubled enough to be actually dangerous.  And the geeky, always-ready-with-a-quip boy main characters seem to wind up with assertive, improbably-hot girls who are inexplicably drawn to geekiness and sarcasm. (I am totally implicating myself here, BTW. No need to go through my catalog and point out all the examples of this.  Actually, what I mean is, I am totally above this! Go ahead and buy and read all my books and try to prove me wrong!)  I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say those of us who are good at making up stories in our head were not exactly killin' it on the romantic front in high school. But maybe we can put this one to bed.

Clunky exposition. Gawd, this one drives me nuts.  It may be because the convention in YA fiction is to have a first-person narrator, but the first ten or fifteen pages of a YA novel are often a struggle for me, because the narrator explains EVERYTHING.  "There's my popular best friend. She keeps saying I'm too much of a bookworm, that I should get out more. But ever since Mom died, I just don't have patience for going to parties and talking about stuff that doesn't matter. Although I do get tired of taking care of my little brother, what with dad's drinking and all."  This kind of thing is endemic.

And they show up not only in the work of also-rans like me, but also in the works of the titans of the category, the people whose books we shove at people and say, "Oh, if you think YA is crap, try this!"

Now, to be sure, people regularly mock YA tropes. I am by no means the first, or even thousandth, person to mention these things.  But it's usually "in the family" kind of stuff. It's affectionate mockery by fans for fans, but if someone outside the community raises these issues, we circle the wagons. 

I'm torn here. As a writer, I want people to show unreserved enthusiasm for my books, to cheerlead for them, to press them into people's hands and say "you HAVE to read this!"

 But as a reader, I want people to say, "I really enjoyed this book, but the exposition is clunky," or "we've seen this kind of romance before." I just feel like authors--especially those authors who are Big Names are not being held to a high enough standard. It's not treasonous to point out the shortcomings in a book you liked. It's not disloyal to point out that your favorite author appears to be repeating her/himself. 

But, then again, chasing respectability will only break your heart. I see this happen with science fiction and fantasy all the time: if people who aren't fans find themselves enjoying a book in those genres, they either insist the author isn't really a science fiction writer (Margaret Atwood), or the book "transcends its genre." (Too many books to name.)

Welp. I've written myself into a corner here, so I guess it's time to sign off.  I guess I'll just end by saying I wrote a YA novel that could really use some unreserved enthusiasm, and the ebook is currently on sale on a pay-what-you-want (including nothing!) only on this particular site. Or if you prefer hard copies, you can snag one cheap here.