Starting today with two disclaimers I am: (And I’m talking like Yoda already which isn’t a good sign.) Firstly I need to state flat outright that I love YA fiction and have never stopped reading it. My first taste was Judy Blume when I was 8. From that point on I’ve read at least one YA book a year, sometimes many more than that. Secondly I need to state that I know many of the people who read this blog write YA fiction. Good YA fiction, the stuff of theirs that I’ve read. (Yoda again. WTHeck?)
Now that we got “some of my best friends are black/Jewish/gay” out of the way, I suppose it’s time for me to be book-racist.
Young Adult is the hot trend in fiction these days. Fans of The Hunger Games and its fast-paced, streamlined storytelling have been spending years looking to repeat that experience. Chasing that particular dragon is understandable; a YA novel well-told is something akin to pure heroin. There is no extra detail cluttering the pages; the story goes straight through, uncut by the baking soda and talc of long exposition, backstory, world-building detail. There is an economy of words in most YA writing that makes it very appealing to busy readers. You can get the whole story pretty quickly.
That is starting to be a problem for some books. Or perhaps it’s a problem with readers. I’m not sure where the blame lays.
I’ve been reading several long books–not unusual for me–that are recent chart-toppers. I decided to read Shadow Of Night because when the reviews came out so many people mentioned that there was too much time spent on historical detail. The novel is written by a woman who holds advanced degrees in History. I figured one reader’s trash is another’s treasure and I dove into the series. I’m a third of the way through the second book and went looking for spoilery reviews of that story because I cannot stand not knowing certain things.* All of the reviews I found went into great detail about how much they hate the book. Every single one of those reviews–eight by my last count–mentioned that there was way too much time spent on boring things like historical detail and conversations between characters. Every single one of those reviews also mentioned that they normally read YA books but read this series because it was marketed as “Twilight For Adults”.
This is where my book-racism comes in. Because some of us (eg. me) enjoy stories that take some time in the world the author took us to. We like looking around, hanging out in the castle for Christmas feast with the family. That is part of the richness of escapism. There is nothing wrong with YA fiction in general. But I’m concerned that readers are developing a sort of fictive attention disorder that keeps them from being able to enjoy a story set in a different type of book.
Then again, perhaps I shouldn’t characterize it as a disorder. I don’t like Russian fiction because I have a distaste for bleak books. Each person likes what she likes. I guess my concern is that we’ll get fewer richly-detailed books as more and more mainstream readers insist upon a fast-moving story. It’s not just general fiction titles that are suffering from the YA-minded reviews. Rachel Hartman’s beautifully-imagined, hauntingly wonderful Seraphina suffers the same fate. The book takes place in a fantasy world, and the beginning is an evocative introduction to the characters and setting. There isn’t a lot of action in the first section, simply because the reader needs to understand where she is. The entire book is more compelling because of that set-up. By understanding the characters and the world they live in, the reader has a stronger investment in the events of the story. Yet many of the book’s reviewers complain about the “slow” beginning.
I love YA. Some of my best friends are YA titles. I am, however, getting tired of all fiction being held hostage to YA expectations.
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* For example, I can’t enjoy a book if there is an animal or child in potential jeopardy unless I know for sure the animal/child lives or dies by the end of the book. As long as I know what’s coming, it’s ok.
I think it is a circuitous problem. Chicken or the egg syndrome. People are busy and want to read but not everyone has time or patience for A Song of Fire and Ice (not YA… but you get my comparison.)
I loved The Hunger Games (almost as much as Firefly – if such a thing were possible!) Part of the reason I loved it was for that “cut to the chase” story. I mean… I think it’s less than 50 pages in and we are at the Reaping and I’m sobbing. My heart is pounding for them as they go up into the tubes to the Arena and I’m turning pages faster and faster to find out what happens next.
I had the same experience with Divergent. I read that in one sitting and thought it was fantastic. Because that main character came from a different class than Katniss, she was more politically and socially self-aware. There is more of that history and political conflict that we don’t see in The Hunger Games intermingled with the struggle of being a 16 year old girl. Part of me, as an adult woman, identifies with those struggles but then again I don’t because at 16, I pretty much had a “f-you” attitude and that if you didn’t like me, I really didn’t care. So the whole moping/emo/hipster phase… I missed that (not really.)
But, the other thing I loved about them was letting my adult imagination go and wander into what the authors didn’t put on paper. What was life like in the Capitol? Is Effie REALLY that self-absorbed or just clueless? What does Effie do the rest of the year? We only get Katniss’s perspective but is it that bad? Let’s think about the political structure – how does President Snow keep control? HOW ON EARTH do they think that rounding up these kids keeps the Districts in line? Why didn’t a revolution happen before now because I would be pretty pissed well before it got to the 74th Annual Hunger Games.
What would The Hunger Games look like if written from an adult POV? (and not just First Person) Or a more traditional novel full of world-building.
I’m kinda over the First Person books. It’s great because you really get to know one character but it is rather myopic. I think that is a symptom of our Facebook/twitter culture where everything is all about me and everyone must know what I think at all times. *cough* not guilty of that at all *cough*)
I completely understand liking what you like. I didn’t really care for Zadie Smith’s _White Teeth_ for instance, even though it was roundly acclaimed.
And I did find the first Hunger Games book very brisk and fun to read. I still have Divergent and Insurgent in my TBR folder, though. Because as fun as those books are I find that I need MORE after awhile. Just like how I enjoy h’ors d’oeurves at Christmas parties but then still crave Christmas dinner with all the trimmings.
My peeve right now–what is really bugging me–is not that people don’t like these longer books. It’s that they can’t tell the difference between What they don’t enjoy and A badly written book.
The reviews I read for _Shadow Of Night_ were what set me off. These women–grown women, women older than my 42 years–were just insisting that this book (and the preceding volume in the series,_A Discovery of Witches_) were BAD and TERRIBLE and DULL.
They are none of those things. They are well-written, with the exception of a lengthy section in the middle of _ADoW_ that dragged on and on as the author indulged her real-life passion for wine via her characters.
But the criticisms were things like “the sex is boring”, “too much history”, “this vampire is nothing like a real vampires (ie. Edward Cullen)”. It seems a certain class of readers wants Shades Of Twilight. Anything else is a BAD book, in their point of view.
That is such an egocentric worldview and it angers me. Because a thing can be something you dislike personally but is still objectively good. I don’t like raw sashimi-grade tuna. But I know that as far as cuts of fish go, that is a far better than a catfish filet. But I won’t insist that the sashimi is BAD.
Someone can really write “this vampire is nothing like a real vampire” with a straight face? I don’t know … are you sure that really wasn’t a really, really elaborate leg-pull? Because otherwise, I want pictures.
Oh, wait….
HAH!!!
yes. It is a common refrain among those who seem to have been introduced to Vampire mythos via Twilight.
Which is just, you know, weird.
Their idea of RealVamp(TM) is a sex-mad, obsessive and possessive lover. In this particular mythos the vampire is largely chaste. Well, not chaste. But the sex is romantic as opposed to erotic and there seems to be a high degree of disappointment with that.
I think, though, that part of the problem is that these particular books are transgenre. They use themes from paranormal romance, historical romance and historical thrillers. (By historical thriller I mean books like Dan Brown and that ilk. All that “find the hidden message from Galileo”/lost manuscript from Shakespeare stuff.)
However, neither of these books–book and a half so far–fits exactly in any one of those genres. So if you are an avid reader of paranormal romance and go into the experience thinking “witch and vampire in love” you may be really REALLY disappointed. And I’m guessing that’s what’s happened. The ladies complaining (eg. Not a real vampire) were all admitted devotees of YA / paranormal romance. So I gather all the bodice-ripping vagina spelunking that isn’t in these books is sorely missed.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
I don’t know which is funnier to me; the statement “this vampire is nothing like a real vampire,” or the notion that a “real vampire” is what is described in Twilight.
Those are the ones that sparkle, right? Or is that werewolves?
Yep, those are the sparkly vampires. The werewolves just run around all the time with hot bods and no shirts.
Fictive Attentive Disorder. FAD. Yes, lots of people have it. For the record, Joel is a non-writer (must qualify his opinion because it matters more if he’s just a reader, right?), and that was his biggest criticism of the Hunger Games. It was mostly in and out and on your way kind of storytelling for him.
I’m with you. I love lingering in a fictional world.
It’s weird. It’s not that it matters MORE if he’s just a reader. It’s just that readers are the purported audiences of books but writers who read are the actual bulk of book audiences I think.
My peeve with some writer-readers is similar to the peeve I have with these YAcentric readers. It’s that the only view that matters is theirs. Like “I write books so I can tell you that this book is not good!” It’s an attitude that…whoa. Brainstorm. I just realised that most of the people I’ve seen with that attitude write…YA fiction.
I’m really starting to think that maybe there is this ghetto surrounding YA where some folks don’t realise that books can be more, do more.
There’s no question that younger readers (and watchers, etc.) don’t enjoy a leisurely stroll through a world in as high a proportion as their elders. It’s awfully hard to figure out whether that is something permanent about them, or whether their attention span will expand as they get older. But you have put your finger on one of the things I don’t like about so much of YA fiction.
It’s too bad you had to miss Catherynne Valente at the SFB — there was a lot of discussion of the differences in writing YA and adult fiction, and she said that the greatest compliment she’s ever gotten from a young reader on the Fairyland books is “you treated us as if we’re just as smart as adults.”
I’m trying to not harsh on the Millenials because I’ve got this huge prejudice developing against them. It’s coming to a head over the last three weeks or so. I had figured that a lot of this trend in YA was aimed at the typical Millenial diet and so I was just biting my tongue. I don’t know how we can expect different attention spans from people we raised on the bright flash and quick-jump edits and 23-minute sitcom storylines.
But these particular reviews are coming from people in their late 30s-mid-50s. People old enough to have minds more developed by the old learning styles. It makes me sad.
Then again when the pendulum swings the other way and my lovely thick books hit the market we’ll all be rejoicing.
Well, see, this is the thing. I know that 15 years ago I was teaching 20-year-olds many of whom hated elaboration and extended narrative. It wasn’t that they couldn’t pay attention, or retain things; it’s just that they resented having to do so and couldn’t see why on earth anyone would ever find that compelling.* But some of them seem to have aged into people who enjoy that sort of thing now. So I think this isn’t a problem of the Millenials, or the Gen Y-ers, or any particular generation, but of young people, who haven’t yet learned the pleasures of patience.
*Ahem. I’m referring to some films I asked them to watch, not to the classes I led. One student even commented that he guessed people used to think that was arty, huh?
Person in her early twenties here, just chiming in to say that I read the first two books of C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy when I was about eleven, and I loved them to bits. Perelandra was almost my favourite book for a while. The Dune series is also among my favourites, and has been ever since I first read it as a teenager, and I also loved the Silmarillion since I first read it at the age of fifteen. I also attempted reading The Lord of the Rings when I was twelve, but I got confused partway through The Two Towers because I lost track of what was going on, not because I got bored of the world.
Mind you, people have also commented on the fact that I’m a remarkably patient person, but I do love it when a world comes to life and feels like, well, a *world*, rather than just a movie set. Organic and interacting with the plot as an equal player, rather than just being a premise with trees. Or buildings. Or whatever. I like to feel like I could live there, in the setting of the book I’m reading, just like I like to feel like the characters are so real that they could walk off the page and have a conversation with me.
Anyways. Just saying that not all young people have little patience for non-YA ways of doing things. And I’m not anywhere near the most patient reader I know who’s in their twenties. We may well be few, but we exist.
See, I KNOW this is me being prejudiced and cranky. Reading choices aren’t like baby teeth that stay with a person because of age.
I’ve just been exposed to a large number of a different style of reader and I’m being insufferably smurgy about it all. I’m trying very hard to figure out if this very obvious trend is age-related, lifestyle-related or TBD.
I just know that I’ve got my hackles up because I feel as though something I love is being threatened and treated poorly.
As for Tolkein–dude created an absolutely deep world. It is to my everlasting shame that I don’t enjoy it as much as I feel like I *ought* to.
See, the weird thing is (as someone on the border between Gen X and Millennial) I completely loved long books more as a child/teen/college student… I mean I read the complete unabridged version of Les Miserables while a freshman in college… But I find myself reading more YA now than I ever did then – partially due to my discovery of fantasy and SciFi (I was an all historical all the time girl up to about age 25) but partially due to time constraints… (but that still is different than not knowing the difference between a bad book and one that just isn’t your thing) but I do find my reversal in tastes pretty amusing…
My tastes ebb and flow in reading material. I think that is actually fairly common among avid readers. Not just genre-hopping, but with length of story as well.
I think once a person has nailed down the HABIT of reading, her choice in material will change depending on other life curcumstance. But the basic activity stays.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Oh, now I’m going to be even sicker. I would have loved to have heard that.
I don’t know. It depends on the book’s pacing, and how they set up the strolling. You can’t just have historical detail for the sake of detail. The details you use need to reveal aspects of plot and character, and they have to advance your book. Otherwise the reader will learn to tune it out.
Like you can have your main character lecture on wines, but it can’t just be a straight lecture, and it has to be proportional in length to what you want to reveal about the plot and characters. If you just want to how he’s high-class, simple anecdotes will do. If you want to have him lecture on it to show he’s also a bit pedantic, styles himself an epicure, sublimates his feelings about blood into wine, and is subtly educating the girl to take her place as the consort of a vampire lord, you can justify longer lengths. If the final battle is going to end up in one of his wineries, the vampire is captured there, or the girl will need to fake being high class to rescue him, go nuts. But even then there has to be back and forth, as the girl is like the reader: she is not sitting there as a dry sponge absorbing all the erudition. She would question, get annoyed, worry, make mistakes, etc,
Since I haven’t read the book, I can’t comment on how well the author does this. However, even when a book seems to stroll or amble, it’s leading you along a path and revealing things to you. I don’t think it can always be a result of the YA market conditioning readers to expect every paranormal romance to be short and to the point. There’s also how the pacing and detail is used.
“You can’t just have historical detail for the sake of detail. The details you use need to reveal aspects of plot and character, and they have to advance your book.” I totally disagree with this. If you want clinical, paint-by-number books, sure, make sure all the details “advance the story”. Otherwise, details are what they are–part of the landscape, even if unnecessary to the plot. This is a style choice, not a needful thing.
I have to completely agree with Jill on this. Part of the pleasure of reading for me is being taken into a place you can’t get to any other way.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
No, it’s pretty needful. The more time you spend on something, the more people will expect it to be relevant to the plot, or the characters. If they can completely skip the detailed scene and the book doesn’t suffer-they don’t miss anything about the character’s personality, ideas, plot moments, or what have you-then you have to ask why is it there?
I’m not saying be skimpy with detail, but it appears from the negative reviews she’s using a lot of detail for the love of it, and the readers are saying “We want more of the story!” Like a movie where you have long, slow pans over landscapes which show a lot of care and craft, but they’re stuck in the middle of a police procedural.
Looks like I’m going to have to read this book now to see if their reactions are correct.
Ive read them. And I say the detail is “necessary”. Why would your opinion carry more weight than mine?
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
I’m saying in general though.There’s enough back and forth between reviews to make me wonder whether or not she achieved this, and there is a measure of personal preference between readers. But I still hold what I said above as needful, and economy of detail can be a very powerful force. Even in YA fiction.
Katherine,
I couldn’t agree with you more, and the Hunger Games Trilogy is a prime example.
My adolescent daughters were in love with these books, so I watched the movie. I enjoyed the dystopic future, storyline, and characters so much that I read the books: all three in the series.
After reading the books, one thing I realized was how easily the writing style transfers to the silver screen, because there are almost no effluent words or thoughts, and, indeed, the movie was very close to the book, with just a few minor adjustments.
In taking the time to read these excellent stories, I was hoping for something more. I was hoping for the types of things that authors can bring to a page that always get left behind when the movie adaptation arrives.
I want the silly Song of Tom Bombadil. I want the drawn-out restoration of the Shire. I want to linger in that particular world called into existence by the author. I want to take all the time in the world. Instead I was hustled through and ended up feeling like I got the ‘nickel tour’.
Authors and film directors should exploit the strengths of their respective mediums; and they are different.
I’m trying SO HARD to not be down on visual media. I love movies. I love TV. I love art. But they have their place.
You hit the nail on the head. A lot of readers want books to be movies or tv. But they aren’t. They are books.
Except that a lot of books are short without film as a consideration. A Wizard of Earthsea for example. Out of the Silent Planet. Michael Moorcock’s Elric books. Or even if they are longer, they manage to tell a complete story in a single volume. There’s a specifically modern trend to doorstoppers, and a lot of YA book lengths actually used to be the lengths of many SF or Fantasy novels.
I can understand the desire to linger, but these days it seems like many books force you to tour their wonders on a moving sidewalk that goes three miles per hour.
I wonder how much Internet addiction is involved in Fictive Attentive Disorder. I know it’s done great evils to my own attention span–though as it turns out, I can still read Robert Jordan and Patrick Rothfuss, no problem.
Wait, Hartman’s Seraphina had a slow beginning? I totally missed that. The ending made me mad enough to spit nails, but the story was absolutely one of the most beautifully-worked YA fantasies I’ve read in quite some time. Maybe ever.
I have a friend who thinks The Hunger Games is bad, derivative, poorly-structured schlock. Can’t quite agree with him–mostly the violence just gave me a stomachache–but I do find that common YA tricks like present tense narrative and slangy, peppy first person voice and stripped down narrative make for a generally unmemorable reading experience.
And there are reasons I read Twilight but have avoided most of the knock-offs. I might be snickering at that “real vampire” quote for quite some time.
Lots to think about in this post, Katherine! Thanks.
I read that “real vampire” quote at 2:45am. It was all I could do to not wake up my husband and just download.
Your friend is kind of right. Hunger Games IS derivative. As is every other piece of fiction in existence. No matter what the story is, it has appeared somewhere else previously. That’s one of my peeves with some Serious Lit Critics. Whenever someone is archly dismissive of something popular it’s bad enough. But when they have to play “check out the big brain on Brett” and start trotting out obscure forerunners it’s just annoying. Yes. We realise this borrows from the Poetic Eddas and an obscure 18th Century novel by a drunk ex-Benedictine.
Sorry. Tangent.
I think you’re most definitely on to something with the tie-in to electronics and how our brain reacts. But I’m not entirely sure the retraining of our wetware is a bad thing. There are ways in which it can be good, but there just isn’t enough data to say for sure.
I just wholeheartedly object to the idea that anything outside that stripped down story style is _bad_.
Totally agree with you on all counts. It’ll be interesting to see what the data eventually does show on Internet brain retraining.
As far as I’m concerned, half the fun of fantasy is new spins on old concepts. But my friend’s one of an apparently significant crowd who thinks THG is basically a ripoff of a particularly bloody manga called Battle Royale. He has some very fair critical points about THG, but I’ve never been quite convinced of that one. I am, however, convinced that I won’t be reading Battle Royale anytime soon.
I haven’t read Battle Royale but did see the movie on Netflix. Comparing movie to movie, the similarities are in the broader story – kids killing each other in an arena at the government’s direction. The rationale behind the games was different.
Battle Royale, then, must be derivative of Greek Mythology.
Thanks for this post. I’m working on a series that I haven’t really designated as adult or YA, but this has really helped me in deciding what I do and don’t like about stories and how those things relate to YA, and I know my books will be stronger for it.
And… “real vampires”?!? I… I… How? *is constantly rendered speechless at how little the average person seems to know about fantasy/mythology*
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“I can’t enjoy a book if there is an animal or child in potential jeopardy unless I know for sure the animal/child lives or dies by the end of the book.”
ME TOO. I actually spoiled quite a big part of A Song of Ice and Fire trying to find out if all the direwolves would turn out OK.