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.
 |
| Taken from 1.bp.blogspot.com |
Novels like the following feature teens involved directly with murder:
*The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting
*The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
*I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga
*Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves
Have you read any of these novels? Do you think the authors handled murder in a respectable manner? What about you--do any of your novels include a murder?
8 comments:
I read the Hunger Games series, and yes...I think murder was handled well. When I first heard that kids would be killing kids, I decided not to read them. But my 78-year-old neighbor was reading them and if she could handle it, I could too. I wasn't sorry.
I've only read The Hunger Games from this list and I think it was handled well. The real murders occurred between the more vicious characters. When Katniss murdered it was in defense of Rue and a mercy killing of Cato at the end. (well, attempted in the book).
I think as long as the reader can suspend fiction from reality and murder is not made to look cool then it's good. One of my dear friends father's was murdered when he was a teen and it greatly effected him for the rest of his life. I'm sure a book that followed a character's similar path would have been a boon to him.
Well *snickers* as you know, my WIP is very murderous so I am all for it in novels! ...Actually, the murders got cut in my revision. LOL. But I still like reading about creepy people and twisted things in my books. I have not read any of these - I know...I am so behind the times.
Although I loved the Hunger Game Series, I'm bothered by all of the young, 9-11 year old, kids that are reading these books. I guess kids aren't as innocent as they used to be.
Catch My Words
http://joycelansky.blogspot.com
I agree with what Joyce said. I love The Hunger Games, but I see it more as a teen aged book than one for 9-11-year-olds.
Yeah, it creeps me out also to think of a 9 year old reading such books. Then again, Rue was 12 so a kid around that age could probably relate. Might even make them stop & think, "Wow, somebody my age being murdered?" Also could be disturbing for them I guess. But they're not as kid-like as many people would like to think, at that age! or even earlier!
I've only read the Hunger Games from this list.
I've read (and loved) both The Hunger Games and The Body Finder and I do think the authors handled murder tastefully, infusing their stories with the proper amount of appropriate emotion.
Oh, and I'm dying to read I HUNT KILLERS!
I think the key is setting the rules for your world early on in a novel. If you are going to have violence, it should seem like violence is possible in your world. You can't write about candy cane hills and unicorns and then chop somebody up into big bloody hunks. If the world is a place where violence exists, and death and murder is possible, then the real conflicts become moral dilemmas between characters, and murder is just a given. That's what Divergent was like, by Veronica Roth. It never flinched about the realities of the world and so it worked.
Post a Comment