teenagers?

Guess what I'm NOT forgetting to post about today?!

It's Tuesday (...right?), and I'm going to talk about YA. Or maybe teenagers.

I'm going to talk about myself as a teenager, and why some YA is lost on me.

There I am on the left {in blue}, at the tender age of 14. Here is what I remember thinking about back then:

~my friends.

~theatre.

~my beliefs.

~how to relate to people.

~differences.

~does anyone like me?

~do I fit in?

~my values.

~storytelling.

~helping others.

As I got older, the thoughts expanded to include:

~homework.

~college.

~boys.

Boys were low on the list. My heartbroken days wouldn't happen until college. But as a teen? It was about my friends. I had a ton of guy friends. They were my brothers. I cared about them. Sure, I had crushes, too, but they meant less in the grand scheme, even then. They existed for the sole purpose of being thought about, not talked to. And if a crush and a friend overlapped? I did what I thought was best. I tried to turn it off. I kept up the friendships. I devoted myself to what I valued most {God and theatre}.

I don't know why I was like this. I may have been prudish. Naive. I shrug off those accusations, though, because I was living the way I wanted to. I won't deny that I got emotional and overwhelmed and pined after the occasional boy who would never know my name. And I won't deny that I struggled majorly with social norms, and that I put way too much pressure on myself to be "good." Yet, somehow, I remember understanding my place in life a little better than I now realize is normal.

If normal is based on teenagers in books, that is. I often wonder what sixteen-year-old me would have done if any book premise had been real. What if I had been selected for The Hunger Games? The real me from 2001, and not some archetypal teenage figurehead. Sixteen-year-old Julie would have either screamed and panicked and tried to run away, or walked forward like a martyr, with absolutely no hope or expectation of surviving. Maybe a little of both. I was no Katniss.

What if seventeen-year-old Julie had found herself surrounded by, oh I don't know, werewolves or faeries or something? What would she have done? First, the reality would have taken a long time to sink in. There would have been mixed feelings of, "Is this entirely true? Am I completely losing it?" and, "I knew fantasy was real, I knew it I knew it I knew it." Also, "how can I work this into a college application? Because that would be awesome."

However!, if some hot werewolf boy had come forward and immediately pledged his undying love, replete with possessive undertones, I would have made this face:

or something equally offensive.

And perhaps that is why there is a chunk of YA that just does not connect with me. I was never that girl. I don't know how to relate to her. 

I'm tired of reading books about teenagers that propagate adult fantasies. You know? It's fine if you like that, and I'm not saying I don't enjoy the odd romp through such things, but what exactly are you trying to say?

A question: Are you writing about kids? Or adults in wish-fulfilling teenage bodies? Not saying one is better than the other, just saying we should stop fooling ourselves. You're going to make money either way. Maybe.

Wow. Snarkfest, out.

{{In other news, Article 5 winners to be announced tonight!}}