I don't know if you know this yet, but holy books, Batman! the amazing Beth Revis is giving away a library of FIFTY SIGNED YA BOOKS!
FIFTY! 5-0!
You guys. I would die. Seriously die.
On top of only owning three of the books on this list (I know, I know, what a terrible booknerd I am), I can't imagine having all of these signed copies. I'd need a vault to protect them. My signed copies of UNRAVELING and SWEET EVIL are so special to me ... I can't even imagine if I had FIFTY signed books. I'd probably pet them every day. That's not weird.
Anyway, as one of the ways to enter the contest, Beth asked us to share why we love young adult fiction so much. Well, I figured this was an easy thing for me, being both an avid YA reader, and also a passionate YA author.
There's something so special about youth. Something so innocent and pure. There's so much room to grow and learn and create, that it opens up worlds of possibilities. As a reader, I love to be able to experience the ups and downs of being a teenager again. When you're faced with making decisions for someone else, as parents are every day, and constantly battling with bills and budgets and grown up life, to be able to escape into the life of a teenager is priceless. For me, when I read about first love, and all the things that come with it, I am taken back to the days when my heart was all over the place and I truly believed anything was possible. I trusted easily, loved often, and gave myself fully to the idea that I would find my happy-ever-after. I was naive. I made mistakes. I suffered heartbreaks. BUT, with that pain came a passion to move on, to continue looking for love and discovering who I was. That to me, is youth, and the power of having your entire future before you. I love to slip into that time again via a good book, and really embrace all that it means to me to be young, make mistakes, and love like its the last thing you'll do.
As a writer, I don't get to just curl up with a good coming of age romance, I get to create one. I get to delve even deeper into the mind of a teenager, thus reliving my teen years a little with each word I write. I get to live vicariously through my characters. I get to experience the excitement of a first kiss, survive the heartache of a break-up. I get to create friendships in my characters that are loyal and strong, but occasionally tumultuous because that's what it is like when you're still trying to figure out who you are. I write about girls making mistakes, because I did. But i also have control of rectifying those mistakes, and helping my character learn from them.
Whether reading or writing the words, I think young adult fiction is so much more engrossing, and gives you so much more room to grow and create than anything else.
Its a beautiful thing.
So, why do you love YA? Tell me in the comments, or write your own blog post and enter the contest!
Thank you, Beth. This contest is amazing!!
 |
| Click HERE to visit Beth's site and enter the contest! |
I began writing about young people way before the modern YA explosion, before it was even called YA. At the time, it was because I was a young person myself, and it would've been kind of ridiculous and out of my league to write about adults. While I do write adult fiction as well these days, I've primarily stayed with writing about young people because it's familiar. I love to read or write a good old-fashioned Bildungsroman, showing a young person coming of age and going from child to adult, with all the growth, change, development, and awakening that entails.
ReplyDeleteI write historical, and I love working with young characters and showing how events like the Shoah, the American homefront during WWII, the changes of the Sixties and Seventies, and the readjustment to normal life after the European liberation affected them, and how they got through it in a different way from adults. And since I write family sagas, I get to do it all over again with each new generation, seeing them through from childhood to adolescence to early adulthood. It doesn't really fit with what's considered popular YA in today's market, but in my heart I still want to believe there's room at the table in modern YA for stories like mine.
I don't know how I missed this contest! Thanks for blogging about it.
ReplyDelete