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According to Young Adult fiction, the only way to be interesting is to have either 1) both my parents, mom, or best friend die 2) have some sort of disorder, i.e. eating, skitzo, 3) be the awkward "different" kid 5) be "cursed" with some awesome power like heat vision or flying 6) complain a lot ... Oh and being/dating a vampire helps. amirite?
You're interesting because you forgot the number 4! :D
you forgot 4 lol ;p
What's wrong with awkward kids in a book? I've read YA books with relatively normal teenagers, both parents, no magic, no futuristic society and no mental disorder(other than normal stress) and they were pretty good. And EVERYONE complains, how do you expect to avoid THAT?
Please, please (imagine that italicized) tell me where these books are hiding. To me it seems like instead of writing stories for the sake of the art, most writers are trying to be the "Next Harry Potter" or "Twilight." Every book feels like a ploy to make money by using overused plots, the most common being vampires.
Well, your milage may vary, but Angus Thongs and Fullfrontal Snogging and The Boyfriend list and The confessional, had not unpopular main characters and they were okay. Then there's Pretty Little Liars. Those are some I know of where the main characters weren't loserish, but a lot of the ones I read actually do have an unpopular main character. Not "oh, I have no friends. Time for me to angst." type losers, just slightly unpopular. Looking For Alaska was excellent, but the main character was kind of a loser. If it REALLY bothers you to have an unpopular main character, don't worry, he's not that lame, but who knows, he might still bug you.
In The Boyfriend List (unless there's another book with the same name or something) the person's not exactly normal, she goes to a therapist... Then again, apart from that she does seem quite normal... Though she has crazy parents. ...Actually, there's a chance that I'm thinking of stuff that happened in the sequel, but oh well.
Yah, and Pretty Little Liars isn’t exactly a normal life. They aren’t losers, but with all the murders, suicides, attempt murders, secrets, drama, threats, eating disabilities and mystery I wouldn’t say their lives are normal.
True, but completely normal people are boring.
Yah, that’s completely true. So does that make this post right or wrong? I mean, it’s true that’s what all the books are about these days, but is it something to complain about? The only thing wrong with YA books today is that they are completely unoriginal.
There's really no such thing as a completely origional story. People say there were only seven origional stories ever told and everything alse was taken from them. I'm not sure what they are, because i heard this from a college literature teacher. It's not that bad though, because a certain book will emphasise a morale, philosophical idea, or lesson the author is trying to get across and the ideas are all unique in their own way. They have to have substance, to be any good though.
schizo*
If not knowing how to count was number 4, you'd be in.
It's mostly because it's what they can relate to or want to be. I would love to see a book just once where everything is normal.
and being gay.
Sooo many books about gay kids ..
sarcastic?
No, not at all. Well, there isn't as many about gays as there is about vampires, but it seems like there's so many.
This is so true!!! I guess I'm not interesting! My self-esteem has just been lowered. :( jk!!!! You'd think people would get sick of reading the same story idea over and over! Well, I guess if you alternate all those ideas in every story you read, it won't be as boring!!!
Well are you surprised? With the millions of books out there I'm not surprised people are running out of ideas.
Also, I wouldn't want to read a story about your average teenager. That's kind of boring...so yes, all of those topics do make a person quite interesting.
I actually read a book about a person who didn't fit any of those categories... It was the most boring thing EVER. I had kept reading to see if it would ever get interesting, but NO. It sucked. It's not like it was even based on a true story or anything like that, so I don't know how it even got published...
(It was about a girl, and the book was about like a few months of her life, and nothing interesting happened at all. Wait, the girl was dyslexic... But that doesn't count, it was still BORING.)
Nobody wants to read a book about someone completely "normal", if nothing "normal" happens. If Edward wasn't a vampire, or Harry wasn't a wizard, or Percy wasn't a demi-god or Mia wasn't a princess, none of those books would have sold.
Really? Well then I guess I'm going to have to burn my 546.7 page novel titled "One Morning I Woke Up and Had Ceral, But My Favorite Type was Gone, Sad Face". Bummer.
what happened to 4??
Yah, books that have normal characters with normal plots can get really boring, and so we find that adding a twist makes it much more interesting. But really, books are starting to have all the same ideas. I haven’t read an original YA book in a while. Let me know if you find one.
Yeah actually I do, I wouldn't know if this was your cup or tea but Crank by Ellen Hopkins is one o the best books, frankly I ever read. It's kind of gritty though, it's written in verse which is the reason it's so long. Also, above someone else gave me a couple of books they liked
Yah, all of my friends have read it, but I just haven't gotten around to it.
Any book by John Green is good, (although the main character in all his books are practically the same person, the plots are very different.); The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl and it's sequel Goth Girl Rising; The Mortal Instruments series; Evolution, Me & Other Freaks f Nature; The Confessional, by J.L. Powers; Deadline by Chris Crutcher; Frozen Fire.
Actually there's a website where you can search a book you liked and it will give recomendation for books similair to what you just read. It's called, yournextread.com (I think). If your looking for originality though, I guess book similair to what you've already read is something you want to avoid.
Well thank you. I'll look at that later, when I get a chance. :P
I know a LOT of good books that are none of the listed ones.
Care to share?
Wait, a second, what else woudl the books be about?
Donkt like all these new books being the same?
Read the old books, you will find out they are still rather similar.
Go for different genres, steer clear of books for teenagers and go to adult books. So rare a teen book is good if it is popular, it is just an easy read.
Um you forgot the number 4 plus I don't exactly understand the joke :}
Um you forgot the number 4 plus I don't exactly understand the joke :}
Four is evil, I hate that number! (Actually, this was my first ever post - and I have performance anxiety) Basically, I'm just saying that all the YA novels right now are kind of carbon copies of the same stupid genre
tl;dr
Haha that's kinda ironic, since the post is about books... :P
haha yeah it's pretty sad how nearly every "young adult" only reads that sort of crap... Guilty of reading, but not of liking.
how the hell did this make homepage with 14 votes? it's not even funny.