Young Adult Fiction

In this post I will be examining a genre that I tend to read a lot: Young Adult Fiction (YAF). As a self proclaimed expert of this genre, I have noticed some trends in these types of books and would love to share them with you, so as to enlighten you all. Basically, what I've notice is that there are really two types of young-adult fiction nowadays. The first of which includes some sort of forsaken society where a young hero discovers that only have the power to save the world. The other story would be the simple romance, where a troubled guy meets a troubled girl, he charms her and they fall in love. Now sometimes, the best writers can ash up these two ideas and create an action-romance novel, which teens seem to just adore(i.e. Twilight, Hunger Games, etc.)

The simple romance story has been around for a while, dating back to back to the 16th century, when William Shakespeare wrote the famous story of star-crossed lovers: Romeo and Juliet. Now that may be a play, not a "young adult fiction novel, but it is literature nonetheless. romeo an Juliet is the classic tale of star crossed lovers, copied hundreds, maybe even thousands, of times in history. What happens is we see  story we like, but there is a detail that we think isn't quite right, so we rewrite the story  to our own liking. This seems to be a common theme: copying old works and making them new and fresh. For example, Disney put lions into centuries-old Hamlet and made a blockbuster hit: the Lion King. That's all writing is, I believe, is taking old stories and tailoring them to fit our beliefs. Another fine example of how history repeats itself.

The other type of writing in YAF has been around much longer than romance. Dating back to 700 BC, the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey of Ancient Greece tell similar stories to those we see today. "Unsuspecting Hero saves the world" is very popular, almost as popular as the story of the underdog, Cinderella, or the dark horse. We saw it in Ancient Greece and we see t now, as recently as in 2011 when the Harry Potter "Era" came to an end. But there's one thing: the era is not over. Believe it or not, there will be another Harry Potter, because there always is. He might not be the unsuspecting boy-wizard in glasses with the lighting bolt scar, but he (or she) will have their own attribute that make them special and lovable. We will have more heroes to look forward to until readers stop reading and writers stop writing.

Columnist Research: LEGOS!

It is a well-known fact that Legos are very popular among children, and even some young adults. In her article titled, "Locking into the Magic of Legos", Krista Ramsey goes deep inside to discover what ignites this fascination with building blocks. I have provided a link so you too, can discover what i shall soon discuss:  

Locking into the Magic of Legos

My favorite line in the piece is, "They're in a world beyond learning objectives and select soccer, safely out of reach of arranged play dates and online language programs," basically what she says in this sentence is that the kids, when they play with Legos, are in a world of their own, free from distraction, and focused on one thing only: building. When a child first builds a set of Legos, there is little creativity involved, but it is the possibilities after it is built that truly make legos the creative tools they are. In her article, you can tell that Ramsey truly believes in what she is writing, and you can see this in the way she writes the piece. She most likely does this because she knows she must seem credible to her audience, which she does, to me at least. If a columnist wasn't credible, no one would read them.

Ramsey's writing style, in a word, is confident. As I said before, she stands by what she writes and she probably loves what she does. She goes into depth by incorporating not only a few details, but many. this can be seen in the second paragraph of her article, when she says, "Some sit cross-legged on the floor, doing homework. Some talk quietly to a friend or have a snack. Others check their mothers' watches somewhat compulsively. Many have been waiting with their parents for as long as two hours." She obviously did her research and attended this event to figure out what exactly she needed to say to describe the scene.

If I had the chance to ask this master of the pen a few questions, I would first ask her about how she became the columnist she is today. "How did you get the point you are in your life today?" the next question I would ask her would be, "Are you happy with your life as a columnist?" because if you're doing something, in my opinion, you should love it every day.  The third and final question I would have for Krista would be how to develop a signature writing style? I feel like the way I write things is pretty generic and would like to possibly make some changes, which I have been experimenting lately, as you avid readers of this blog may have noticed lately, with the way I write these posts, but I'm still not quite satisfied, so I would ask her how to change that.

Divergent Text to Text Connections

Since I have started reading Divergent  by Veronica Roth, I have noticed some striking similarities between this and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, so I have decided to make some text to text connections.

 First off, Dystopia! Who would have thought that dystopian society would be such a popular subject for young adults? Perhaps it is the idea that 'things get better even in the worst of times' or 'Everyone can contribute to society' or maybe even 'Girls run the world',but i think we just enjoy the disaster and destruction of it all, an seeing they cope with issues clearly bigger than our own of,"Oh no, I forgot to do my Homework!"

This brings me to another area of similarity; Girls. Why girls? Generally in fiction, the male takes the hero role, while a girl may be a secondary friend of he hero, they are never THE hero. Just think of Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, and you know this to be the truth. Despite this, as of late, the girls have been dominating he bookshelves everywhere as the heroes, or heroine as they call it(which is spelled very similarly to a certain fatal drug, I've noticed). Perhaps his is a feminist movement, after all both books were written by women, but then again, so was Harry Potter (JK Rowling). I'm not trying to sexist or anything here, but I justfind it interesting, and I can't help but wonder what has cause this...

 A final trend I have noticed within these young adult novels is that there must be a romance. Even despite the killing and destruction, there is always a guy that the girl doesn't think she deserves, for Katniss it's Peeta (and Gale) and for Tris, it's Four. This could be one of the reasons that young women in particular are setting aside Nicholas Sparks to read these books. They would be missing the romance if it weren't for these moments, and it is most likely the authors way of appealing to broader audience. The author may also be appealing to that same audience by having a female main character, showing that girls can do the same thing a male character can.

Below is a link to the Washington Post's comparison of the two novels, as well as the films.
Divergent Hunger Games Comparison