Building a YA Library, Part II
Alright, so presumably by now you’ve had time to read all the classic YA books I listed in the first part of this blog post series. I mean, it’s been a while, right? No? You didn’t? It’s okay. There’s a lot of YA out there. In fact, this is a seriously prolific genre. It’s not the romance genre, but there’s still a TON of great literature targeted at young adults, and it’s been like that since the advent of Twilight and Harry Potter.
So let’s suppose you at least skimmed through my post on Classic YA novels, and you want to move on. Well, good news! YA blew up in the early 2000s, right around the time the Harry Potter films were coming out, and we have much to move on to.
But let’s talk about Harry Potter for a second. It’s not YA. Not really. It’s a middle grade book whose protagonist is eleven years old when we meet him. Still, the series spans Harry’s teenage years, and you could argue that Harry Potter changed everything for young adult literature because it changed the makeup of the readers. Until Harry Potter, the idea of an adult legitimately enjoying a book written for a young teen was anathema. Okay, fine. Maybe it wasn’t THAT bad. But if an adult was reading a book written for a kid, that was probably because they had kids or they were writers themselves or they were revisiting an old favorite. They weren’t standing in line at a Barnes & Noble at midnight, dying to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and talking about how much they loved Professor Snape. They weren’t dressing up like a wizard and painting a lightning bolt on their forehead to go watch a movie staring a bunch of thirteen-year-old actors.
After Harry Potter, everything was different. Now, you had a whole group of grown ups who wanted more Harry Potter, even after they read all seven books, and were not afraid to be seen looking for it in the section of the bookstore reserved for kids. These were young-ish adults who wanted genre fiction that would tickle their imaginations without requiring them to wade through a true sci-fi/fantasy series. So the 2000s was the perfect time for a field of literature to emerge that was made for that audience.
The Age of Dystopia
The three books listed below came out in 2005, 2008, and 2011 respectively, and each spawned a series that blew up and were fueled by the Harry Potter diaspora. Like the classics, these books incorporate core themes of young adult literature: overcoming adversity, falling in love for the first time, societal struggle, and a total lack of parental supervision. But now we add something interesting: the heroes of YA are often young women, and in these books, the young women are more than “special.” They are saviors for broken societies. They are beacons of hope and light for worlds that need a complete overhaul. They are warriors (mostly), or at least they want to be warriors. Think more Jonas from The Giver and a lot less Anne of Green Gables. And these books later got a lot of criticism, but they also got praise for raising a whole generation to believe they could be the true badass heroes of their own stories.
But let’s dig deeper into these three series. In order of publication, I give you:
1. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Core themes: girl who thinks she's nothing special actually has super special talents, instalove with a bad boy, vampires, broken family, love triangle
Bella Swan is not dying to move to Forks, Washington with her dad to allow her mom to travel with her new husband. Bella thinks Forks is dreary, and she doesn't feel she fits in, but right away she meets Edward Cullen, a vegan vampire who sparkles in sunlight. (Sort of. Edwards is part of an idealistic family of vampires who refuse to drink human blood. Also, they play supernatural baseball. Which is amazing and amazingly corny all at the same time.) Bella falls in love with Edward but draws the attention of another vampire who tries to kill Bella.
Of course, Edward rescues her, and Bella wants him to "turn her." He says no, and here is where the series sort of takes off in a real way after the first book. Also, here is where we are introduced to one of the more interesting and disturbing bits of the Twilight series: Edward's desire to "protect" (read: "control") Bella's body. The Twilight series goes on for three more very thick books, and in those books, Edward is constantly telling Bella that even though all the other vampires in the world want to kill her and even though she's ready to love him forever, it's just really short-sighted on her part to want to become a supernaturally strong vampire instead of go to college.
No, he's not just going to turn her! Not unless he absolutely has to. What's more, he'll even break up with her for a whole book to protect her, thus throwing Bella into the warm arms of her significantly more tolerant male best friend, Jacob. Who also happens to be in love with her. And a werewolf (#TeamJacob). Obviously, Bella eventually gets back together with Edward. He is her true love, after all, something she knows even though she met him in high school at a time when she didn't have enough confidence to make other friends. But then, even after Edward and Bella get back together, he still refuses to have sex with her until they get married.
Spoiler alert: Bella ultimately marries Edward. She's eighteen by then, and he's been sneaking into her bedroom, and it's 2010, and she wants to have sex with him! I mean, come on?! What's she supposed to do? Break up with him and move on to some guy who won't try so hard to control her body? (Teens reading this: the correct answer is "yes, she should break up with him.") But unfortunately, Edward's concerns are validated on their honeymoon when they have absolutely terrifying sex that he thinks might kill her. (Because vampire sex is apparently that intense?)
Bella is cool with the bruises Edward left behind, but Edward freaks out. He's sure if they have sex again he's going to accidentally kill her. Then, because a girl has to be punished for having sex, consequences are introduced. (Teens reading this: sex could have consequences. It probably won't kill you, but if you fail to use protection, it could get you pregnant or cause you to catch a gross STD. Also, if you don't respect your partner, communicate with them, and make sure you have consent, sex could really mess with both of you psychologically and might be a crime.) But back to the fiction world: luckily for Bella, Edward is STD-free, but oops. She gets pregnant! And that vampire-human hybrid baby is so dangerous that the labor just about kills Bella, finally forcing the Cullens family to make Bella a vampire to save her life.
At this point, it probably sounds like I'm bashing Twilight as if I hated the story. I didn't. I read it while I was in my twenties. I knew it wasn't a masterpiece, I knew it was kind of a cheesy story, and I loved it anyway. I cried so many tears over the breakup in Book 2. I was so with Bella. I felt I related to all her heartbreak, all her frustration, all her fears of not belonging, all her lack of self-confidence, all her desire to be "special" to someone who really was special himself...
Do you see the problem here? Twilight wasn't exactly literary, but it was a fantastic story that appealed to young women. It truly did. Just, it also happened to reinforce a lot of damaging ideas young women in that era already had about themselves. It also led to the Fifty Shades of Grey series, which was also a fantastic (if not terribly well-written) story that appealed to women of all ages and reinforced damaging ideas. Like, the idea that it's okay for a guy to stalk you. Or control your body. Or decide for you when you're mature enough for sex and vampirism.
Anyway, Stephenie Meyer gets a lot of flack for this series, but she wasn't writing ideas that were so strange for the time. I mean, back then, the Jonas Brothers still had purity rings, and no one was watching Jon Snow's butt on Game of Thrones. A lot has changed since then, and Twilight sort of lit a flame in YA. Ever since then, writers have been trying to give us the YA heroine they think we truly deserve. So, let's take this for what it is, and see what came next. Which is...
2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Core themes: girl who thinks she's nothing special actually has super special talents, dystopia, broken family/society, heroine fights with passion and grit, love triangle, reality television
Maybe Suzanne Collins read Twilight and decided Bella wasn't given a fair shake, because Katniss Everdeen, the hero of The Hunger Games is nothing like Bella. If Bella is whiny and prone to vampire love, Katniss is cold and almost incapable of love. If Bella thinks of herself as uncoordinated and ugly, Katniss thinks of herself as a girl who's on fire and who has a mean shot with a bow and arrow. Bella is ready to give up her mortal life from practically the minute she finds out Edward is a vampire, Katniss is ready to kill to survive from practically the minute she meets her soft baker-boy, Peeta. Katniss is a badass. She's playing for keeps. She's planning to win. She will sacrifice everything to get what she needs and no one is getting in her way.
The plot for book one is fascinating, too, so with The Hunger Games, we get a well-written and amazing story. In case you've been under a rock, basically, in the story we're in a post-apocalyptic era, the United States is now divided into twelve "districts," and the most powerful districts keep the others in check by demanding that every year, the districts sacrifice two of their children as "tribute" to play in the Hunger Games. Which is basically Survivor meets Naked and Afraid, and only one of the twenty-four tributes can come out alive. Katniss volunteers as tribute to save her sister, Primrose, from having to do it.
The Hunger Games is gritty and grown up. Kids die in the book. Little kids. Teens have to kill each other. Katniss's goal is survival, not love, and she's a strong, smart, strategic competitor. She'll put on a show romance with her fellow competitor, Peeta, if it means she gains favor from someone who might help her win the game. Her biggest weakness is her inability to connect with and trust other people, especially if she thinks she might eventually have to kill those other people. Katniss would wipe the floor with poor Bella if they ever met, and that's probably even after Bella turns vampire.
But that doesn't mean Katniss doesn't have a heart. She does. She is fiercely loyal to the people she loves, and even though she wants to survive, she's willing to stand up for what's right. At the end of the day, if you're one of hers, she'll die for you, and she'll make sure everyone sees it happen so that her sacrifice isn't meaningless. In short, The Hunger Games hit us a few years after Twilight, and it's the best thing ever. By the time you get to the end of the first book, you're dying for the second, which sees Katniss and Peeta entering the games for the second time and facing even more brutal challenges.
The Hunger Games is another turning point in YA. There are still glitches. Katniss, for example, seems to have to leave behind almost all her femininity to survive in her world. She's also part of a love triangle that really doesn't resolve in a way that seems satisfactory at all. But Katniss ushers in an era of super fierce fighter heroines who don't need to be rescued by anyone. If someone's going to do the rescuing here, it's going to be Katniss herself. If anything, she's too self-reliant. But it's still a great turn, and we got some real-life heroines out of this. Do you see Katniss Everdeen in Emma Gonzalez? How about in Greta Thunberg? I definitely see it.
Unfortunately, there is one big issue that The Hunger Games brings to YA that is illustrated even more vividly by the Divergent series. Both series start extremely strong, both have decent second books, and then something horrible happens. The third book in the trilogy is so upsetting that you leave the series feeling cheated out of the ending you deserved, and Divergent is even worse than The Hunger Games for this. But let's look at the stronger parts of Divergent before we rip apart the ending.
3. Divergent by Veronica Roth
Core themes: girl who thinks she's nothing special actually has a lot of talent, dystopia, broken family/society, heroine fights with passion and grit, seeing a parent/adult as fallible
Alright, so Divergent comes out a couple years after The Hunger Games, and it's the perfect new series for someone who loved The Hunger Games. Dystopian Society? Check. Girl who decides to leave that society to try to do something more radical? Check. Fighter training? Check. Real life stakes? Check. Death and destruction? Check check.
The Divergent world is divided into five different factions based mostly on the values the citizens of each faction have. A personality test helps teens decide which faction they belong in, and every year, there's a ceremony where that year's "class" of maturing teens gets to decide which faction they will ultimately live in. Our heroine, Tris, is born to Abnegation, a faction that values selflessness, but she chooses to transfer to Dauntless, a faction that values bravery, and then we basically get to see her adjusting to a faction that's a lot more brutal than the one she grew up in.
While training in Dauntless with other newbies, Tris discovers that she is small but mighty. She's a gritty fighter, and she gets beat up a few times, but she learns how to hold her own. She does this with the help of Four (Tobias), another ex-Abnegation teen, and, of course, Tris and Four fall for each other. Thankfully, there is no love triangle here. Their relationship is never complicated by the possibility that one person will cheat on the other, but throughout the series, Tris still manages to complicate her love for Four with psychological trauma and self-doubt.
Something else that's nice about the Divergent series is that the romantic relationship isn't over-emphasized. Tris also has interesting and complex relationships with her family, friends, and even enemies. And she herself is more complex than anyone knows. Despite the fact that she chose Dauntless, she was actually "Divergent," meaning that she could have fit into more than one faction. But the powers that be think this makes her especially dangerous. People try to kill her because she is Divergent, she meets other people who are Divergent, too, and a mass rebellion ensues and lasts through the end of the trilogy.
Tris and Katniss have a lot of the same traits. They're badass heroines who make hard, self-sacrificing choices. They're survivors. They fight for what's right. They often have trust issues and they aren't very good at being vulnerable, but they live in dystopian societies. It's easy to understand both those issues.
So let's get to that one big problem with both these series: the end. You see, while both The Hunger Games and the Divergent series come in with a bang, they both go out more like a whisper. In both cases, by the time you get to the third book and have uncovered all of the deep, dark secrets of the dystopian societies in these books, you're a little disappointed. You discover that the plots for these books were only half-baked. Great premise. Poorly thought out ending. And worst of all, neither Tris nor Katniss get a happy ending. The endings are so bad for both our heroines that you leave the third book of each trilogy feeling absolutely gutted. I think I was depressed over Divergent for a whole week. Seriously depressed. Was this an over-correction for the happy-but-weird-and-unrealistic ending Twilight gave us? I don't know, but it's not a good thing.
Do you recall that when we talked about the classics, I said that there's nothing more amazing about young adult literature than its willingness to take on very difficult subjects without resorting to black and white thinking and sugary happily ever after endings and yet give us hope that there is a way to improve the future? The Hunger Games and Divergent absolutely live up to that first part. They take on difficult subjects, and they do not give us perfect happily ever afters. But they fail to leave us with any hope at the end. We don't close those final books believing that things are truly going to get better.
What next?
Despite my issue with the endings of The Hunger Games and Divergent, I do feel that the trajectory of YA in the first two decades of the 2000s was positive. And the YA of the last five years or so is truly amazing. There is stunning, beautiful, thrilling stuff up ahead. So in Part III of this little blog series, I’m going to talk about what happened when YA became self-aware and give you just a few more books for your YA library.
But for now, what were your favorite YA books of the early 2000s? Did you love the three books I listed above or hate them? Comment on your favs below!
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