For the entire month of April, we'll be participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Our theme for the month? CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS IN YA. Check out the link above for other awesome blogs participating.
Kissy face = the disgusting couple that you see on the street that can't keep their hands off of each other. You watch them, with your lip curled, wondering: really? Do they truly love each other that much?? Sometimes, the same goes for YA novels. When me and Pam read a book and notice at the beginning of chapter two that the protag and the hero/heroine are in love, we often say: HUH? How did it happen that quickly? Is it realistic? There are some adults who feel like the romance in YA novels can get a little too intense. But, if you know teens, you know they DO sometimes fall hard and sometimes they fall fast. The question then is, are books like the following accurately portraying teens in love?
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (sans the vampire, of course)
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (again, sans the werewolf)
Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce
This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
While doing this post we noticed the books that feature teens falling hard and fast are mainly paranormal. Can you think of more contemporary YA fiction that showcases "kissy face" behavior? How do you feel about the way dating is portrayed in YA novels?
7 comments:
I LOOOOOVE This Lullaby. I also really like Someone Like You, which no one ever seems to like, by Sarah Dessen. I think Macon is one of her more realistic guys in the fact that he wants to have sex and does a little bit of pressuring but then backs off. I also like that they don't end up together (even though I want Hailey and him too...I know I'm twisted lol). I appreciate Hailey's growth in the novel as well as her realisation that she doesn't want Macon anymore.
And lol I hate the phrase "kissy face" :-P
I think insta-love can work, so long as the characters have enough depth that we understand why they fell so fast. Insta-love due to hotness? Not so much.
I think I may be the only person in this world who's not a fan of the Twilight books. I just couldn't get into them. Honestly, Bella annoyed me. Lol.
And some of the insta-love story lines in any book (I'm a fan of romance, too) seem unrealistic. I agree about the depth, tho.
I freaking HATE insta-love, be the book YA or adult. I roll my eyes when a couple announces they love one another after they've known one another for all of five minutes or five days. Even if you feel lust or a strange attraction you can't explain that soon, real love can't come that quickly.
That old fraud "Dr." Beatrice Sparks is especially bad at this in her horribly-written books (which are all like an exercise in how NOT to write YA!). Even though most teens feel everything so intensely and tend to romanticize relationships, even before they're serious, they still don't talk or act like they're going to be together forever and have some special bond that was formed before they were born, after all of three days! Yet another glaring clue that she and not real teens wrote those books.
Great discussions so far, ladies! And Rae, don't worry--you are NOT the only person who didn't like Twilight. In fact, I think there are more anti-Twilight sites than fansites--which is kind of sad to me.
I like how Rebecca is the optimist. :) Pass that on to me and Quita please! I guess since we weren't "head over heels" in love with anyone when we were in high school, we sometimes find those stories hard to believe.
I always laugh over "kissy face" relationships in YA, mostly because I remember being a teen and how stupid and erratic I was. I think the depictions of teen's deep and wild emotions are mostly true, but in those cases it would possibly more accurate show how quickly those relationships fall apart.
Yeah, insta-love is not my thing either. I like to see it more 'hard-won' than that! But then maybe I'm just a mean person, wanting everyone to suffer a bit for their love! :P
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