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According to this article, it just might be. But it’s working its way up. In all honesty, I’m not sure whether to feel a little patronized by the article or encouraged. Or maybe both.
I think, at this point, it’s safe to say that hard reading, read: literary reading, is boring and not done by the masses. If that weren’t the case, The DaVinci Code wouldn’t be an international bestseller and teens would still be clamoring for Hemingway. But the truth of the matter is, most people, when they read a book, want to be entertained. Ruminations on a person’s inner struggle in life are not entertaining. Unless that guy’s a spy who’s lost his memory and he has people shooting at him. If the dude’s just sitting on the train, who cares?
The important part of the article is that it’s focus is young adult. Adults are tapping into the “guilty pleasure” zone of YA in place of their adult reads because they provide something much more exciting than they could get in their normal novels. But why is this a guilty pleasure? It’s not like the books are any lesser than those on the shelves in the rest of the stores. It’s not like they’re any easier to write (and if anyone says it is, punch them for me). I mean, naval gazing and literary masturbation is easy. Writing to engage a teenager who spends all their time on the computer is not. See what I mean?
While there are some books in the YA world that are guilty pleasures regardless of where they may be shelved, there are just as intellectually stimulating ones, heart-racing ones and spooktacular ones. So they can’t stop open bank vault doors. It just means you can read more in the same amount of time it would take to read a “regular” book.
The thing with YA is that, yes, you need to get over the embarrassment of going to pick one out. Libraries and book stores are not going to re-shelve the YA section to make it adult-friendly. It’s YA. You need to suck it up, endure the funny looks, and head over into that section yourself. And that can take some balls. If you’re like me, you don’t give a shit who sees you because the numbers support the fact that more adults are buying YA than the teens themselves. Plus it helps that I still look like an older teen. Bonus points there. But for many, they don’t really want to be caught in the “kids” section.
To that I say get over it. If you want a book that’ll thoroughly entertain you without all the fat that those contemporary books have, you’ll head over to the YA section and damn the people that look at you funny. Hey, Twimoms have no shame. Or tact. Or class. Or much of sanity. And they don’t mind.
But there is nothing wrong with it. Don’t think of it as a guilty pleasure. Unless it’s Twilight. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying plot. I have to disagree with that article that says our lives are plotless. Our lives are one giant plot with a bunch of subplots thrown in. We are certainly with plot. It’s the literary that wanted to take that away. And most YA books don’t come full circle and end all nice and neatly. Except Twilight. Just like life, one issue ends but there are still a bunch of others that are in existence.
Plot is awesome. Plot is fun. It allows me to escape from the real world and enjoy myself. Yes, how embarrassed I must be for keeping my imagination alive.
Narnia . . where owls are wise, where some of the giants like to snack on humans, where a prince is put under an evil spell . . . and where the adventure begins.
Eustace and Jill escape from the bullies at school through a strange door in the wall, which, for once, is unlocked. It leads to the open moor . . . or does it? Once again Aslan has a task for the children, and Narnia needs them. Through dangers untold and caverns deep and dark, they pursue the quest that brings them face to face with the evil Witch. She must be defeated if Prince Rillian is to be saved.
Redemption! Yeah, this one was good. Still not as good as THAHB but definitely much better than PC and VotDT combined. Aslan kept himself to a minimum and the children were thoroughly tortured by the elements, giants, another witch and a slew of other things. Fun!
My inner feminist reared her ugly head at the whole “witch is the snake that corrupts man” homage but I just kept thinking that it was of the times. Biblical references. Calm down. Still, the insinuation irked me. As is Lewis’s ability to let women stand by and let men do all the fighting. *breathe*
Anyway, this fairy tale was much more fleshed out, no deus ex machina that I can remember and I really enjoyed it. I saw the issue with the giants at the first mention of “they’d love to have you for the Autumn Harvest” but that’s really the only thing I saw in advance. I’m not one of those perceptive people that sees things like that. At least, I don’t actively look. So if I see something like that, I think I’m being beaten over the head with it. But that’s just me.
The thing with reviewing series, unless there’s a big dip in writing style or some drastic change, the reviews start to get redundant unless I focus on the story itself and even then it’s either I liked it or I didn’t. So, I’m pretty short on things to say aside from “go read nao.” Oh, I cried at the end. Very sad. I was hoping the old friends would see each other one last time. And the very end, back at the school, a little strange and a touch contrived but it was so minor I really didn’t mind. Loved the underground world. That was probably my favorite part.
And just how many movies of the series have been made? I’ve only ever seen previews for LWW and PC but according to that cover, TSC’s been made and when I was looking for cover images, I saw movie stills as well. Is this what happens when you don’t have cable for years at a time?
I’m having issues finding a synopsis for just this book instead of the entire series and the book I have is a three-in-one so that’s not all that helpful either. So I’ll try and sum this one up for you.
Tal has bound himself to Milla, and vise versa, in order to get himself back to the castle. In exchange for his safe return, he must get Milla a sunstone in order for her to take it back to the Icecarls. Getting back into the castle, since Tal hasn’t heard of anyone actually doing it, proves much more difficult than climbing up a mountain. He’s pushed to the physical and mental limits that even he didn’t know he had, not to mention he starts to question his own standing in life. When Tal and Milla are captured by henchmen of Sushin, Tal’s mortal enemy for unknown reasons, he has to figure a way out of the mess he’s in and help Milla because it is his fault, after all, that she ended up trapped in his world and incarcerated in the Hall of Nightmares.
I have to say, this one is much better than the first, not only in writing style but in exposition as well. I think it had a lot to do with it shifting back and forth between Tal being someplace foreign and Milla being someplace foreign so there’s a lot more explanation going on which helps to develop the story in my head a little better. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its moments of ‘what is that?’ because it just gives you a name without a basis for comparison, but it’s quelled a lot.
From Amazon.com–
The undead can really screw up your senior year . . .
Marrying a vampire definitely doesn’t fit into Jessica Packwood’s senior year “get-a-life” plan. But then a bizarre (and incredibly hot) new exchange student named Lucius Vladescu shows up, claiming that Jessica is a Romanian vampire princess by birth—and he’s her long-lost fiancé. Armed with newfound confidence and a copy of Growing Up Undead: A Teen Vampire’s Guide to Dating, Health, and Emotions, Jessica makes a dramatic transition from average American teenager to glam European vampire princess. But when a devious cheerleader sets her sights on Lucius, Jess finds herself fighting to win back her wayward prince, stop a global vampire war—and save Lucius’s soul from eternal destruction
As I said in my last post, debut author of Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, Beth Fantaskey, was gracious enough to grant me an interview for my humble little blog. Yay! This is my first author interview and I have to say, my first pre-emptive anticipation for a book (Harry Potter doesn’t count, it was a pre-established series, not a debut author with a first novel, big difference!). I can’t say this’ll be a regular thing but it’s definitely a nice deviation from regular posting, not to mention debut authors deserve all the marketing and promotion they can get! I’m always willing to help.
So before I get to the interview, I just wanted to give a big thanks to Beth again for doing this for me. I really appreciate it! She has some other great interviews she’s given linked at her website so check it out for more information on this wonderful author! Now, without further ado–
Well, the books do, anyway. According to an article on Publisher’s Weekly, sales for children’s books (YA included) were up in the month of December. Also according to the article, it’s proving to be one of the most recession-proof markets in the industry. Yay! Kids is reding!
But seriously, why do you think that is? What is it about children’s books that makes that corner of the market push through a more broadly slumping industry? What I got from this article was that is was parents that were buying the books. Or at least adults (I’m assuming). Could it be the Christmas switch from frivolous toys to more practical and useful books during a tough economic time? Are the prices better on books as stocking stuffers than anything else?
I think it could be a number of things like the staying power that books have, not to mention the ability to reuse them (how often do toys break? how often do books break? plus you don’t swear up a storm when you step on a book). Toys can be too easily fads. What’s cool one day won’t be cool the next and they end up discarded in the toy chest (or under the parents’ foot). Sure, books can be fads too but it’ll always be a good read no matter when it’s read if you liked it to begin with.
Perhaps it has a lot to do with the economy and the want to shift from unneeded things to something more worthwhile, not to mention books are still one of the cheapest forms of entertainment. Or, perhaps, more and more parents are realizing the need to push reading more in children.
Whatever it is, I hope it sticks around because rising numbers in children’s literature sales means to much more than revenue.
