Monday, April 25, 2016

Books these days

Lately I have found it hard to find young adult books that actually sound good. They either sound unoriginal, cliche, or meaningless. I think the best way to express my frustrations is in a list.
  1. Love triangle. When this is in the book description, I put it down immediately. It is so cliche at this point to include this unsuspenseful who will she choose drama to a story. It’s overdone and boring, and so I immediately set the book back down when I see it.
  2. I also can’t stand the chosen one trope. Do you realise how old that got after Harry Potter? All the others with similar abilities to the main character mysteriously die or something. Or there's some prophecy that only a special snowflake can fulfil.
  3. There's also the not like other girls theme that shows up. The female character will put down other girls, talking about how unique she is, describe her make up routine immediately after puting down girls that wear make up, etc. She also has colorful eyes.
  4. The brooding male character. Ugh. A tragic backstory used to excuse his behavior. Love at first sight because he and the female character are connected somehow. Emotionless, distant, and super hot.
  5. White characters. Everyone's white. If it's a fantasy novel, it's about a Western culture and everyone's white. If it's modern day, it's about America and everyone's white. If it's sci-fi, dystopian, whatever, everyone's white. Unless you are explicitly looking for a book with not white people, you could randomly pick a book and it would be white. And if a race isn't given for a character, they are presumed white by everyone else.
Young adult novels need diverse characters that don't rely on the same old tropes over and over again. Diverse characters and plots that don't read like 500 other books are what's needed to save these stories

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