YA Fiction: A Vast Teenage Wasteland

I just finished a YA dystopia novel. Not naming any names, but it had a severe allergy to character development, conciseness, unpredictability, and putting the characters in half the peril they should have been in.

And you know something? I've not seen much better out of that target demographic in my lifetime. The current definition of YA seems to be "too old for whimsy and brevity; too young for intelligence". For two or three decades, YA has been a dumping ground for Harlequin writers who can't be concise, realistic melodrama writers who can't be pretentious, dystopia writers who can't worldbuild or convey a serious threat, and fantasy writers who... well, can't be whimsical or intelligent.

The great exception, of course, is Harry Potter. Of course, Potter wasn't written with a target demographic in mind; it just stumbled into YA because it's the best compromise between "gee whiz, these magic poppers are so much cooler than the non-magical kind!" and "please report for trial of your racial purity and/or obliteration of your soul".

Now, I've read some '60s YA fiction, like This Time of Darkness, that wasn't bad at all. What on earth happened since?

Hail Martin Septim!

but but but I love YA fantasy

I haven't read any in a while, but I've enjoyed it a great deal in the recent past

You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!

Well, tie-in novels are about exclusively read by teenagers, and they can be pretty damn good. (No matter what you say about Drizzt, Homeland and Exile were the shiz. So was Crystal Shard; political maneuvering is the strong point Salvatore never seemed to recognize he had.) But at Barnes and Noble, you'll find those tie-ins under Fantasy, not Young Adult.

edited 21st Feb '12 4:49:22 PM by DomaDoma

Hail Martin Septim!

I think Nancy Farmer is, if not consistently a good writer, consistently an example of the style of writer you'd want to read good books from. I'm not sure how many other writers nowadays are like her, though.

Edit: Redlinked? Well, my favorite of her works is The House Of The Scorpion. (I've also read The Ear The Eye And The Arm, but I think it's overrated. I still haven't picked up A Girl Named Disaster.)

Double edit: And her two sci-fi works are bluelinks, while her most famous work, a historical fiction novel, is red. Dammit, Tropers!

edited 21st Feb '12 4:51:12 PM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

The House Of The Scorpion was a great book, and I remember seeing The Ear The Eye And The Arm around and not reading it.

You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!

Hey, how's Vivian Vande Velde on general principle? Heir Apparent was riveting and still makes me wish I could play that game (for some reason), but User Unfriendly, an earlier book set in the same universe, was just boring.

So, yeah. Heir Apparent. A recent YA book I've read which is downright good.

Hail Martin Septim!

The Young Wizards is a pretty good series. I'm not actually sure if it's YA though.

The Bartimaeus Trilogy counts as YA, right? I think it's pretty good, at least the two books I've read of it. Characters definitely develop, there's peril-y stuff, and the predictability factor is pretty darn low.

I usually like YA. They're no better than adult books, at any rate. For fantasy, you should try Nnedi Okorafor. I like that she doesn't do the typical Medieval European Fantasy or Harry Potter type book.

Garth Nix and Isobelle Carmody come to mind, though I don't know how popular they are outside Australia.

edited 22nd Feb '12 2:26:59 PM by Yuanchosaan

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj

Nix is popular enough here in the US that we don't label him as Young Adult. Last time I tried reading Sabriel, I went into incomplete information overload before the necromancy in the first scene was over with, but no harm in trying again.

Stroud... gah, I forget how Golem's Eye ended, except for the soul-crushing thing Bartimaeus said about it. But yes, awards committees seem to regard it as YA - I suspect because Nathaniel starts the story as a teenager - and I'd better reread and finish the dang series.

Hail Martin Septim!

In ANY genre, you're going to have some that's great, more that's fair-to-middling, and quite a bit of dreck. Some of my YA faves include Vivian Vande Velde (if you liked Heir Apparent, try Dragon's Bait - my fave), Gerald Morris, Tamora Pierce, Bruce Coville (leans MG, but great stories), Scott Westerfeld, Meg Cabot, Gary Paulsen, Ann Rinaldi, and Caroline Cooney. James Patterson and Lurlene Mc Daniel books tend to be popular, but I'm less of a fan.

Gonna have to second that Nancy Farmer recommendation. zerky picked up House Of The Scorpion when she was eighteen and just thought, "Holy jesus, who has been keeping this from her all her life?" It is depressing and horrifying and yet somehow, it doesn't come off as cynical either. Sea Of Trolls is decent too - Medieval European Fantasy that actually reads like it takes place in Medieval Europe, language differences*

and all? What kind of sorcery is this? It's got Deconstructor Fleet levels of subversion/aversion of the usual tropes. You may want to give the sequels a pass, though*

There are pacing issues that only get worse with each successive book

.

As for Garth Nix, Sabriel is definitely the weakest of the Old Kingdom series. The first book that introduces a reader to a series is the one that he or she is supposed to fall in love with, the one where the world is all sparkly and new, and the one that is used to measure every other book against. zerky picked up Sabriel first, since it was the only one published at the time... and she was not impressed. The protagonist is dull and uninteresting and the plot twists are incredibly obvious, even for a YA book. She was honestly surprised at the reveal of one character as the lost heir to the throne because she wasn't aware that the reader wasn't already supposed to know this. Aside from that though, the worldbuilding is amazing - even in the first book. The second installment, Lirael, is where the Old Kingdom trilogy really kicks off.

Nix's Keys To The Kingdom series is worth a read as well. Let's just say... if you're looking for whimsy in YA fiction, well. There it is.

edited 22nd Feb '12 12:48:59 PM by zerky

Regarding Scott Westerfeld, I thought Peeps (or Parasite Positive, as it's titled in the UK) was very good. Not the best book I've ever read, but a suspenseful and intelligent take on the vampire mythos. Well written, too. (I don't think I would have pegged it as a YA book, but it was in the YA section of my library, so I guess it must be.)

I wasn't as fond of Uglies: it's well written, but the concept is pretty well-worn and anvilicious (beauty and luxury isn't all there is to life? I guess some teens need to learn that...), and a lot of the plot hinges on the protagonist hiding important information from her allies, rather than growing some balls and admitting that she's made questionable choices. I've heard that the other books in the trilogy are more original, and the ending of the first one did hook me, so I'll keep reading.

edited 22nd Feb '12 2:14:10 PM by DoktorvonEurotrash

Keys to the Kingdom was actually one of my favorite YA series. It might have been the incredibly interesting world building alone that drew me in, but I enjoyed the themes and characters.

The Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld is also one of the best steampunk series I've read, along with being a fantastic YA series (even if the last one wasn't my favorite).

Okay, I just read a jillion reviews and nobody else seems to have the same problems I listed, so: the book that triggered the rant in the OP was XVI by Julia Karr. Seriously, she's got a GPS tracker implant, she's clearly against the party line even if you discount the not-very-well-hidden spoilers that would provoke government interest, and the only agent pursuing her is a blaringly obvious personal enemy who doesn't actually have access to the GPS data? Weak.

And the real reason behind the Inevitable Romantic Subplot Misunderstanding was so patently apparent, I don't believe Karr even explicitly cleared it up. But the pages were so thin, staticky and samey that I might have skipped past it and not known.

edited 22nd Feb '12 4:48:19 PM by DomaDoma

Hail Martin Septim!

Runemarks is good if you like Norse myth, and it's true Lirael is where the Old Kingdom series kicks off.

Because someone has to recommend something that isn't spec-fic, I'll bring up Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John. Just start reading from that link, and if you're anything like me, you'll want to buy the full book. (The same author's Thou Shalt Not Road Trip looks funny as well, but I haven't read it yet.)

edited 23rd Feb '12 1:05:25 AM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

@zerky: "Horrifying and depressing yet somehow not cynical" was pretty much what I thought when I first read The Beyonders. It's such a messed up world, with death around every corner, and most of the populace is pretty much sitting around to die. But the refusal of the protagonists to just let this world implode on itself, their insistence on doing something, no matter how feeble and weak it is, makes it strangely heartwarming in its way. So yeah; I'd also recommend that one.

And if we're throwing out recommendations, I highly recommend the Flora Segunda series. The only adjective I can think of that does it justice is "vivacious." Seriously. The characters are characters, the worldbuilding is wild, the plots are entertaining, and they're immensely fun to read. Plus, they don't talk down to readers or attempt to play nice with them. However, they are more on the "adventurous and idealistic" side of things, so they're not really grim and gritty. Sure, there are stakes, but it's the kind of series where you're reasonably certain it will all be OK in the end. And that's perfectly fine, because they're well-crafted, the characters and world are likeable, and they have plenty to say for themselves about the state of teenager-dom without resorting to grimdark.

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

Young adult books? Read Aidan Chambers. Boy, is he good. Especially Dance on My Grave, which isn't as morbid as it sounds. edit, and which I read at near the time it was published when I picked it up from my local library.

edited 24th Feb '12 1:56:18 PM by TamH70

Is this the general A thread?

Hmm...Out of My Mind and Scrawl on my desk, along with two rows of YA books on my bookshelf. I also have Five Flavors Of Dumb, which was a great book.

Yep, I love it, and I want to write it. However, I do agree mainstream YA needs a little more intelligence, so to say, so that's what I'm aiming for. To carve out a new image among a varied and growing demographic.

EDIT: I'm sandboxing Five Flavors of Dumb in my sandbox.

edited 26th Feb '12 8:58:10 PM by chihuahua0

Anything I say only applies to fantasy/ supernatural YA because I don't read slice of life of anything.

I can't grab YA books off the shelves and read them anymore. I end up putting them back and sighing.

I'm composing a huge post about it for my blog right now, but I'm actually not sure if I should ever actually post it because it sounds too angry.

The characters are probably the biggest problem for me. They all fit the same mold of stubborn and/ or snarky with a good heart, they almost always enter a forbidden romance with a mysteeeerious troubled hottie that may or may not have introduced them to the plot or the supernatural elements of the world, and they leave me wanting more depth.

Worldbuilding can get pretty creative, but it gets bogged down by some generic plot with the annoying characters I already mentioned.

Or maybe I just don't understand the teenage mind.

edited 26th Feb '12 10:06:20 PM by SnowyFoxes

The last battle's curtains will open on stage!

There are plenty of YA books and authors that I love, but when looking for new ones I find myself doing that exact thing more often than not. There is nothing that will make me shove that book back onto the shelf faster than the tag-on mention of a mysterious, troubled, but scorching hot member of the opposite sex arriving to turn the protagonists' life on its head.

Not sure if a tag-on mention of a mysterious, troubled, but scorching hot member of the same sex would have the same reaction, because I've yet to run into it, but it'd at least be a change of pace.

And so many characters have "trying too hard" names!!

edited 27th Feb '12 8:23:07 AM by Bur

i. hear. a. sound.

Just once, I'd like the mysterious, troubled, smoking hot stranger to actually turn out to be bad news.

Hail Martin Septim!

I'd read that book.

i. hear. a. sound.