Monday, April 26, 2010

Young adult girls are starting to annoy me

Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception
Maggie Stiefvater

Okay, I admit it, I think I'm getting old.
1) Why are fictional YA female characters so stupid?! I don't care how much you are awed by a hot body and perfect blond hair (I'm not too old to appreciate that, though I prefer brown hair) you should not be following around a mysterious guy who openly admits he is dangerous and you think might be trying to kill you! Seriously?! Mysterious is one thing, maybe he's just brooding or misunderstood. Potential first-degree murder - especially your own - is completely unacceptable.
2) Did the male population suddenly massively outnumber the female population? ALL of these girls have two guys fighting over them?! Completely unrealistic.
3) And where do these parents come from? Based on the parental units I have read about in YA lately you would think that all parents are emotionally abusive, neglectful, and flat-out uninterested in their children's lives.
4) And who builds these houses that the families live in? Why can these parents, in their bedroom across the hall from their children, not hear teenage boys sneaking in and out at all hours of the night?! I thought about sneaking a guy into my parents house once and my dad told me to just try it, he had freshly cleaned his shot-gun...and I was 26 YEARS OLD!

Maybe I'm being unfair. In the defense of YA, I have read two books by Stiefvater back-to-back and both of them angered me so perhaps it's just this author I don't care for and am being jaded by the freshness of the reading. The only thing that earned this star-crossed lovers tween drama 2 stars is that I liked the concept of the fey, other than that, the summary of this book would read like a MadLibs:

Socially inept teenage girl (insert original, two syllable name here) is struggling though high school; only her exceptional gift at (insert a music, art, or writing skill here) and her male best friend (insert average, one syllable name here) who is (insert any word that is a synonym for "beautiful"). The best male friend is of course popular, gorgeous, charming, and completely in love with lead-female even though she is (insert one of the following: oblivious, scared, stupid) to this. Then, a new bad-boy (insert a male name that is either foreign or old-school) comes to town who happens to be (insert any mythical character here). Lead-female and mythical bad-boy fall (inset overly-sappy adjective) in love, which sets up a love triangle between lead-girl, male-bf (who, by the way, is perfect for her), and mythical bad-boy. The story progresses as (insert mythical character's people) try to kill the lead-girl - all the while lead-girl and mythical bad-boy kiss (insert adverb here) while always finding the non-existent tween will-power to not go farther - ending in a mini-battle that is as anti-climatic as the love story and lead-girl ends up with mythical bad-boy but always in his world and on his terms.

I need a break from YA and am picking up the 1,500 page autobiography of Harry Truman next. It may bore me to tears but at least it will be based on semi-realistic assumptions

1 comment:

  1. What you really mean is, "Get off my lawn!"

    hehe. =)

    I find YA books in general to be hit or miss. Sometimes they work and other times, you can't wait for the book to be over.

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