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Alexandria, Virginia is the most romantic city in America, according to Amazon.
The company has revealed its annual list of the Top 20 Most Romantic Cities in the U.S.
The company comes up with the list based on the sales data of romance novels, relationship books, as well as romantic movies and music from cities with more than 100,000 residents on a per capita basis.
Amazon’s Top 20 Most Romantic Cities
- Alexandria, Va. 11. Atlanta, Ga.
- Miami, Fla. 12. Salt Lake City, Utah
- Knoxville, Tenn. 13. Scottsdale, Ariz.
- Orlando, Fla. 14. Everett, Wash.
- Vancouver, Wash. 15. Gainesville, Fla.
- Cincinnati, Ohio 16. Seattle, Wash.
- Columbia, S.C. 17. Wilmington, N.C.
- Pittsburgh, Pa. 18. Rochester, N.Y.
- Round Rock, Texas 19. Dayton, Ohio
- Ann Arbor, Mich. 20. Bellevue, Wash.
By:
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on 5/17/2015
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Romance! Who doesn’t want that streaming into your ears? Now here’s your chance to win a free audio book edition of my romance novel FREEFALL.
But hurry! The giveaway ends Thursday at midnight so the 20 lucky winners will have their audio books ready for download at the start of the holiday.
Go here for all the details!
By: Ingrid Sundberg,
on 3/21/2013
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by Rachel Lieberman
I write YA, and I often ask myself, “Does my writing promote good messages to teen girls?”
Now, don’t get me wrong. Stories that preach = BIG FAT NO. Making your story a mouthpiece for your beliefs is never a good idea.
This is not your job.
BUT that doesn’t mean that you’re never allowed to wonder who’s going to read your stories, and what those readers will get out of their experiences.
For my graduate lecture, I took a look at how feminist and post-feminist literary theory can help us look at YA literature and decide for ourselves what messages we want to send. Feminism is, at its core, the belief in equal rights for all genders, but of course there are many definitions and variations among those definitions. The question of choice (who gets to choose, and what they should choose) is sometimes a point of contention among critics.
I think that one of the reasons so many critics find fault with Twilight and novels like it is because Bella’s choices may be her own, but they are consistently at odds with the choices we want our girls to make. When we show characters who consistently choose dangerous, controlling partners, our fear is that young adult readers will also choose dangerous, controlling partners.
I don’t think this is an invalid concern, but my intention isn’t to debate or argue it. That’s for another time, another post. My intention is to say, that if you’re a YA writer and this is something you are thinking about, there are ways to develop a good feminist story without making it preachy or propaganda. I’ll share some methods that I found useful and talked about in my lecture.
1. What does your main character want? If it’s just a relationship, consider that in real life, a desire for a relationship is usually a symptom of a deeper desire for something else, like security or acknowledgment. Consider what other forces might be at work, and you’ll avoid creating shallow characters whose problems can be solved by a significant other.
2. Make sure your character stays active. Find places in the story that force her to act, that take away her safety net and test her. This is true of practically any story, but in YA romances, it’s especially important. She doesn’t need to be a hero, but she shouldn’t rely on her love interest too much.
3. Pay attention to your character’s love interest. Speaking of the love interest, don’t forget to pay attention to him! Or her. What does he want? Does he act in a way that harms the main character, and if so, are there negative consequences? If your character has to choose between two love interests (very common these days), is the choice made too easy (by having one character turn out to be a jerk)?
4. Romance novel vs. novel with romantic elements. A romance novel is a little different than a novel with romantic elements. A romance novel’s plot is dependent on the relationship between two characters, so if you want to write a story with feminist undertones, you might choose the other path.
5. Why do your characters get together? Think about the reasons your characters are together. Is it because they find each other so attractive? Or do they share a deep, mutual connection? The more you develop the relationship, and the reasons for it, the more likely you are to connect with readers.
6. The moral of the story. All of these factors combined puts you in a better position to control the final factor: the moral of the story. Once you’ve finished a draft, it might be a good idea to take a look around. What’s happened to the characters? Who’s alive? What have they had to sacrifice? Your character’s rewards and punishments reveal a lot about your story’s message. Is it the message you want?
There are, of course, many more factors than these six that you will need to pay attention to in order to write a great novel. But this is a place to start if your aim is to write a story with romantic elements that will both appeal to teen readers and give them characters and situations they can look up to.
Rachel Lieberman works in higher education and writes YA. Her short fiction has appeared in Opium, Awkward, Emprise Review, and others. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Tampa.
Visit Rachel’s blog: A Reputation in Digital Form: The Writerly Musings of Rachel Lieberman
Follow Rachel on Twitter: @LiebermanRachel
This blog post was brought to you as part of the March Dystropian Madness Blog Series.
By: Ingrid Sundberg,
on 3/21/2013
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by Rachel Lieberman
I write YA, and I often ask myself, “Does my writing promote good messages to teen girls?”
Now, don’t get me wrong. Stories that preach = BIG FAT NO. Making your story a mouthpiece for your beliefs is never a good idea.
This is not your job.
BUT that doesn’t mean that you’re never allowed to wonder who’s going to read your stories, and what those readers will get out of their experiences.
For my graduate lecture, I took a look at how feminist and post-feminist literary theory can help us look at YA literature and decide for ourselves what messages we want to send. Feminism is, at its core, the belief in equal rights for all genders, but of course there are many definitions and variations among those definitions. The question of choice (who gets to choose, and what they should choose) is sometimes a point of contention among critics.
I think that one of the reasons so many critics find fault with Twilight and novels like it is because Bella’s choices may be her own, but they are consistently at odds with the choices we want our girls to make. When we show characters who consistently choose dangerous, controlling partners, our fear is that young adult readers will also choose dangerous, controlling partners.
I don’t think this is an invalid concern, but my intention isn’t to debate or argue it. That’s for another time, another post. My intention is to say, that if you’re a YA writer and this is something you are thinking about, there are ways to develop a good feminist story without making it preachy or propaganda. I’ll share some methods that I found useful and talked about in my lecture.
1. What does your main character want? If it’s just a relationship, consider that in real life, a desire for a relationship is usually a symptom of a deeper desire for something else, like security or acknowledgment. Consider what other forces might be at work, and you’ll avoid creating shallow characters whose problems can be solved by a significant other.
2. Make sure your character stays active. Find places in the story that force her to act, that take away her safety net and test her. This is true of practically any story, but in YA romances, it’s especially important. She doesn’t need to be a hero, but she shouldn’t rely on her love interest too much.
3. Pay attention to your character’s love interest. Speaking of the love interest, don’t forget to pay attention to him! Or her. What does he want? Does he act in a way that harms the main character, and if so, are there negative consequences? If your character has to choose between two love interests (very common these days), is the choice made too easy (by having one character turn out to be a jerk)?
4. Romance novel vs. novel with romantic elements. A romance novel is a little different than a novel with romantic elements. A romance novel’s plot is dependent on the relationship between two characters, so if you want to write a story with feminist undertones, you might choose the other path.
5. Why do your characters get together? Think about the reasons your characters are together. Is it because they find each other so attractive? Or do they share a deep, mutual connection? The more you develop the relationship, and the reasons for it, the more likely you are to connect with readers.
6. The moral of the story. All of these factors combined puts you in a better position to control the final factor: the moral of the story. Once you’ve finished a draft, it might be a good idea to take a look around. What’s happened to the characters? Who’s alive? What have they had to sacrifice? Your character’s rewards and punishments reveal a lot about your story’s message. Is it the message you want?
There are, of course, many more factors than these six that you will need to pay attention to in order to write a great novel. But this is a place to start if your aim is to write a story with romantic elements that will both appeal to teen readers and give them characters and situations they can look up to.
Rachel Lieberman works in higher education and writes YA. Her short fiction has appeared in Opium, Awkward, Emprise Review, and others. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Tampa.
Visit Rachel’s blog: A Reputation in Digital Form: The Writerly Musings of Rachel Lieberman
Follow Rachel on Twitter: @LiebermanRachel
This blog post was brought to you as part of the March Dystropian Madness Blog Series.
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on 9/29/2012
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HEART OF ICE and FIRE AND ICE
The Hearts on Fire duo by Elizabeth Ruston
Who is this Elizabeth…
The “Heat” continues as Brenda Novak spins another tale of mystery, murder and mayhem in,
Killer Heat.Skull Valley may have been named years ago, but the finding of seven dead women (and perhaps more) leads the small town to bring in hired hand, Jonah Young. All is well until Jonah discovers the woman he’ll be directly working with...
...Betrayal is one of the worst feelings in the world, but when Private Investigator, Francesca Moretti is thrust in working with her betrayer of fourteen years ago, Jonah Young, how will it effect her performance and her ability to solve the crime at hand?
Killer Heat is a must read for anyone who loves stories of mystery, murder, love and deceit. I had trouble putting this book down - and so will you! Brenda Novak has a wonderful knack for spinning a tale of romance and murder and keeping you wanting more.
Check out
KILLER HEAT and all of Novak’s books at;
http://www.brendanovak.com/Be sure to leave me a comment to be entered into the draw for all 3 of "the Heat" books - they're autographed too!
I have been on a romance-reading bender lately, in part because it brings a little joy into my humdrum life (with a nod to Lina Lamont for the phrase) and in part because I consider it a form of tutorial. One of the series I've read (yes, there have been more books than these, and I'll review some of them later) was the "Desperate Duchesses" series by Eloisa James.
In the first title, entitled Desperate Duchesses, we meet the scandalous Duchess of Beaumont, who has returned from the Continent in order to breed with her estranged husband. She turns out to be not nearly as notorious as her notoriety suggests, but it takes four more books for her story arc to play all the way out. In this particular book, she has involved herself in two chess games (actual chess games - that's not a metaphor): one with her husband, and one with the Duke of Villiers, a rather notorious bachelor who has sired a handful of illegitimate children, but who has not (yet) wed. (It takes FIVE more books for his story arc to conclude.)
The main romance within Desperate Duchesses involves Lady Roberta St. Giles, the daughter of a marquess known for his poetry and scandalous behavior. Lady Roberta wants to marry a duke - specifically, Villiers. She throws herself on the mercy of her (quite distant) cousin, the Duchess of Beaumont, who happily takes Roberta in and launches her into society - and, along the way, into the arms of the Duchess's brother, Damon Reeve, the Earl of Gryffyn. The scenes involving Damon's illegitimate son and Roberta's unorthodox father are some of my favorites in the book, but the whole story is made of win.
The second book in the series is entitled An Affair Before Christmas, and before I tell you about it, allow me this brief rant about Barnes & Noble's stocking decisions. This title is NOT A CHRISTMAS STORY. It is #2 in a series of books that are interlocked and have through-stories involving the Duchess of Beaumont and the Duke of Villiers, yet B&N DOESN'T STOCK IT IN STORES BECAUSE THE WORD "CHRISTMAS" IS IN THE TITLE! GAH!! I understand not carrying, say, The Christmas Shoes or The Best Christmas Present Ever in the Whole, Wide World or whatever on a daily basis, but COME ON! I had to order the damn book and wait for it to be delivered, even though every other title in the series is in stores now. A little common sense would go a long way, B&N. /rant
Where was I? Oh. Right. The Duke of Villiers is ill, and is befriended by a lovely young woman named Charlotte. The Duchess of Beaumont is continuing to play chess with her husband, but not for the main match, since Villiers is too ill for chess. And our main story is about a duchess named Poppy (actually Perdita), who is already married to her duke, the extremely handsome Duke of Fletcher. Only they've stopped having relations because she's a bit of a prude, really, and it's all crossed signals and whatnot, with the added wrinkle of a horrible, horrible mother for Poppy, and then they all go to a Christmas house party and there's a big fat happy ending (double meaning entirely intended).
In Duchess by Night, Harriet, Duchess of Berrow, is a lonely widow whose husband killed himself a while back (before the start of the first book, anyhow, when we first met Harriet, who is a friend of the Duchess of Beaumont's). In order to help her friend Isidore (another duchess, whose story truly plays out in the next book) cause a scandal that might force Isadore's husband to return from overseas so she can truly be married and/or get her marriage annulled(she was married by proxy when under age), Harriet agrees to accompany Isadore to a house party at the home of Lord Justinian Strange -
Long-time blog readers are well aware that I am a HUGE fan of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation series by Lauren Willig. Which is why, when The Orchid Affair went on sale on Thursday (not Tuesday - I was surprised by that, but whatever), I made the staff at my local Barnes & Noble go dig it out of the back room for me. (I am so not kidding.) Sadly, my ability to stay awake deserted me on Thursday night, but I am now entirely triumphant, having just finished reading this, the seventh book in the series, if one does not count October's issue, The Mischief of the Mistletoe, which was basically a straight-up Regency romance (with a bit of a mystery twist) featuring Reginald "Turnip" Fitzhugh and a young lady named Arabella Dempsey.
Of course, one should count Turnip's book, even though the Pink Carnation does not appear in it, and neither does her devoted modern-day researcher, Eloise Kelly or her boyfriend, Colin Selwick, descendant of a different floral spy during the Napoleonic wars. I like seeing what's going on with their real-life romance, and hearing about the life of an actual researcher (I know, I know - I'm a total nerd; you needn't tell me about it). I also like Eloise's voice. Here's the first paragraph on page three, one of my favorite examples in this particular tome:
Colin's great-great et cetera grandfather had been one of those masked men. Under his chosen fleur de guerre, the Purple Gentian, Lord Richard Selwick had dashed around Europe in tights, rescuing aristocrats from the clutches of the guillotine. Colin liked to point out that at the time they had been called pantaloons, not tights, but a man in tights is a man in tights, call it what you will. Nothing says buckle and swash like a pair of skintight leg coverings.
In this particular novel, Colin and Eloise are in Paris for a long weekend - which is a bit less romantic than it sounds, since they are there for a weekend-long fête in honor of Colin's mother, thrown by Colin's cousin/stepfather (who is only about eight years older than Colin - and smarmy). Eloise is sneaking in a bit of spy-related research about the Silver Orchid, a female spy deployed in France in 1804.
The Silver Orchid was the code name for one Miss Laura Grey, a thirty-two year old governess whom we met back in the second book,
The Masque of the Black Tulip, at the spy school run by Richard Selwick and his wife. Born in France, Laura was orphaned at age 16. She became a governess for the next 16 years, and joined the league of the Pink Carnation in 1803. She's now been sneaked into France and provided with false papers in order to become the governess for André Jaouen, a relative of Fouché (the Minister of Police), who has access to papers in which the Pink Carnation has an interest.
Let's just say that this one has some rather heart-pounding adventures in it, as well as some heart-pounding romance, since Monsieur Jaouen and Miss Grey/Mademoiselle Griscogne have quite a complicated relationship for any number of reasons. I enjoyed every minute spent reading it, and look forward to a somewhat more leisurely re-read in the future. (Once M gets through it, of course - she's also a huge Pink Carnation fan.) It was marvelous to see the actors back in France (where we spent most of the first book), and while it wasn't exactly a pleasure to re-encounter the insanely evil Monsieur Delaroche again, I was still glad to see him. I was also quite glad to see the over-the-top poet, Monsieur Whittlesby (whom I secretly ship with the Pink Carnation, but I rather expect - and hope - that it will be ages until I find out if I am correct).
If you're interested in my reviews of the earlier
Pink Carnation books, they can be found
0 Comments on The Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig as of 1/1/1900
What if Elizabeth and Darcy were high school students? That's the basic premise of Prom & Prejudice.
The book is mostly set at Longbourn Academy for girls and Pemberley Academy for boys: two private high schools in Connecticut for children of the rich and famous (most of whom seem to live in or near New York City). Of course, both schools take the occasional scholarship student, which is how high school junior Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bennet comes to be at Longbourn on a piano and academic scholarship. She was extremely fortunate to be assigned the sweet-natured Jane as a roommate, since so many of the girls at Longbourn are set on making her life a living hell. Malicious pranks are the order of her day, ranging from throwing a milkshake in her face to dumping coffee on her dress to stealing her coat at a restaurant in the middle of winter. Her only friends at Longbourn are Jane, who is just about the kindest person on the planet, and the only other scholarship student at the school, a girl named Charlotte.
Charles Bingley and Will Darcy are both juniors at Pemberley Academy. They spent the fall semester in London on some sort of foreign study program, along with Charles's twin sister, Caroline. Caroline is good friends with a perfectly horrible girl named Cat De Bourgh. Other characters include Jane's younger sister, Lydia, a freshman at Longbourn, Darcy's younger sister, Georgie, a freshman somewhere that is notLongbourn, Colin Williams, a rather tedious junior at Pemberley, and George "Wick" Wickham, a former scholarship student at Pemberley who got himself expelled. Lizzie is putting up with the horrible climate at Longbourn because she gets to study piano with Mrs Gardiner, one of the best instructors in the area. Lizzie wants to be a concert pianist, you see.
If you've read Pride & Prejudice, you know that Jane and Charles are destined to go to prom together (the high school substitute for marriage, evidently – and a welcome substitution if a concrete goal is to exist), and that Lizzie and Darcy are meant for each other as well. What you might not know is all the steps along the way, now that the protagonists are both high school juniors. And there's a lovely, unexpected twist to the ending that made me happy-happy-happy and gave the entire book deeper resonance. Just so you know.
Eulberg does a terrific job skimming the major plot points from Pride & Prejudice and running them through some sort of high school translation program. The long letter that Darcy delivers to Elizabeth in Austen's book is now a lengthy email, for example. And the activities that got Wick expelled from Pemberley are as horrifying to the modern reader as the sins laid at Wickham's feet in Austen's novel would have been to early 19th-century readers. The book manages to examine both the love relationships and at least some of the class issues found in Austen's book, and is a decidedly enjoyable read.
In the interest of full confession, M gave me crap for buying it the other day. Judging the book by its (very pink) cover and its title (a clear nod to Austen's novel), she figured it would be a waste of my time. I very much wanted to read it because, as many of you already know, I am currently working on a contemporary YA romance. What I haven't told you yet is that my current WIP is based on another of Austen's novels, so you can see how I'd be interested in Eulberg's book as part of my market research. Having gulped it down in one long (and late) sitting last night, I can assure you that it was a perfectly wonderful use of my time, and that I will make every effort to bludgeon M into reading it help M overcome her bias against bright pink books and Austen-related titles.
A lovely confection and a thoroughly delightful read, the book is recommended for fans of Austen's work as well as fans of contemp
(it is a fair bet that most of these stories have a bad guy and a good guy, and a crime and a gun)
Not to belabor the point… as I’m ready to move on. But a few people commented, and a few people emailed, and complained that they don’t feel “genre” is formulaic.
And while I essentially agree with them that my definition came across as simplified and overly negative, (because, basically, I’m a snob) I’m going to fight for my assertion of genre as formulaic. Of formula as the defining characteristic of what might be called “genre” writing.
As opposed to readership.
I think formula=genre works pretty well as a definition. But I want to explain a little what I mean by “formula”. I don’t really mean that no good writing is formulaic. I don’t mean that all genre writing is bad. Or that a formula means the writing can’t also be creative and new. I just mean that books from a like “genre” will share elements of plot, craft, set-up, resolution, etc. That’s what I mean by formula.
That books in a particular genre share some kind of lowest common denominator in their actual storyline. The Once and Future King and Pat the Bunny do not share an LCD I can think of.
There are romances that will be categorized as such, but also be shelved with “literary” books. Same for fantasy, detective fiction, etc. But some of the conventions are still there.
All romance novels are not the same, but you can pretty much bet that genre/romance will have someone who starts out alone and ends up with a lover. Or someone who starts out with the wrong lover, and finds true love. Most will also have some kissing, and the love will, at turns, appear to be thwarted. Do you know of a “genre” romance novel with NO romance?
All detective fiction is not the same, but most detective novels begin with a crime of some sort, an unsolved situation. And by book’s end, a clever (though complicated or flawed) character will have figured out the answer. Whether it’s an old pulp magazine, or The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, on some level, it makes use of a series of plot conventions. Readers have some idea of what they’re getting.
That’s all I really meant.
And think about this– the less a book is plot-driven, the less the formula will make the book identical to other books. I think when a book jumps from “genre” classifications into “literary” classifications, what is happening is that the author is leaving some of the plot/genre conventions intact, but focusing less on plot and more on other elements of craft.
I find myself thinking about fantasy, and that fantasy is perhaps, by definition, less of a genre. I recently read Merlin’s Dragon, and while I didn’t like it much, it’s NOT a book I’d call genre at all. It has, like, no human characters. It’s just about a little dragon creature looking for animals like himself. Weird.
If that’s fantasy, than I have no clue what the fantasy conventions are. Dragons? That’s dumb.
But I’ve read my share of mysteries, and my share of romances, and I’m sorry, y’all… they do, by and large, follow a recipe.
Ever since I saw my first stack of romance paperbacks at a garage sale as an impressionable Midwestern kid, I've always wanted to know who in the heck made them. Today, Barnes & Noble showed me.
Romance and fantasy illustrator Judy York gives these mass-market paperbacks that extra fantastical twist that makes you want to buy the book. Watching her in action, I thought about how novelist Jonathan Lethem wrote about a science fiction novel illustrator in The Fortress of Solitude, mining pop culture ephemera for literary gold. Thanks to Virginia Heffernan for the link.
As long as you're watching videos, Conversational Reading spotted this super-cool documentary about one of my literary heroes, Jorge Luis Borges.
Finally, Wyatt Mason wrote another thought-provoking post about book reviewing, asking a deceptively simple question about the great Philip Roth:
"I am curious over the methodology of its future reader-evaluators. How much of Roth’s prior work they will feel they should read before passing judgment on his latest effort?"
Characters like Bella and Anastasia really upset me. It’s like teens of today don’t understand how women in the 50-80s had to fight for respect and equal job opportunities. They think it’s now their right to choose to not work and want a man take care of them. I know teens will learn the ugly truth about men and love as they get older, but I find myself repulsed by many heroines (and writers) of today’s YA for propagating the fantasy that being dependent on someone else is a good thing.
Reblogged this on Wild About Words and commented:
Rachel’s take on post-feminism and writing strong female protagonists is a must read.
Wow. Excellent post (and I plan to purchase your lecture). I gave serious consideration to this issue as I wrote my WIP. I wanted to include romance, but didn’t want the book to be all about that. I wanted my heroine to yearn to be strong and capable, something I want for my nieces and the other teens in my life. And I want my nieces to read this post!
Rachel’s lecture on this topic was fabulous! I’ve been having a lot of discussions with writer friends about social responsibility and art. This post has aligned nicely with what’s been on my mind!
I was trying to write a novel that might turn out to be YA with a female protagonist and one of the issues that I was running into was that people seemed to take issue with the fact that there was no love interest or love story. In fact they kept pegging male characters as the emerging love interest. Do you think that in today’s world YA pretty much has to have a love interest?
Justin – I think you need to be true to your character. If your female protagonist isn’t interested in your side characters, she isn’t interested. You can’t force her to have a relationship! It will feel false and your reader will feel that. However, if she happens to take a liking to someone (and maybe she does, you’ve got to listen to her and what she wants), that’s different. Your readers might be picking up on signals that your character is dropping for you. It’s also possible your readers are projecting. Trust your writer instincts! You know your character better than anyone else.
Thanks so much for posting this! My thoughts exactly- especially #3!
Great topic & tips. Do you think it’s possible to write a feminist YA romance novel?
I think so. Why can’t contemporary girls have it all?
Hi Cynthia! It’s actually been suggested to me that a romance cannot, by its definition, be a feminist text. But I don’t know that I necessarily agree, because “feminism” itself is such a loaded term, so to say that there is no such thing as a feminist romance is saying that there is a strict definition of feminism that everyone has agreed upon.
I think it’s entirely possible that a YA romance can be feminist, but I also understand why some might disagree, and I think it comes down to the audience, especially for YA. It’s an audience that may be questioning its position in society a lot more, and therefore the values behind the romance might have a more profound impact. So, say Twilight had been written for an older audience with older characters, but other than that it was the same (and no, I’m not talking 50 Shades of Grey). Would it have the same reaction from the public or its readers? I’d argue no. It resonates with teens because it speaks to something they want, and it gets a reaction from us older people because we’re worried about what they want. I think readers tend to see more feminist value in adult romances because they are marketed as an escape for readers, rather than as a potential “promise” that things might turn out a certain way. But I’m not comfortable saying that there is no such thing as a YA feminist romance novel, because I feel like that would be saying I have examined the subject from every possible angle, and since a 45 minute lecture and 600 word blog post can only contain so much theory, I can’t say that I have.
There’s a great quote by Peggy Orenstein from Cinderella Ate My Daughter that I used in my lecture, but not this post, where she talks about the fact that one of the reasons Bella as a character (and characters like her) appeals to so many readers is because she isn’t perfect or gorgeous, but she gets the guy everyone wants. She shows that you don’t have to be a long-legged beauty with flawless complexion to be desirable. In that sense, I’d say that Twilight could actually be a feminist romance novel, but in my lecture I moved it more towards the post-feminist side of things.
I hope that all makes sense!
Hi Justin! I would say definitely not. Yes, you’re going to see the vast majority of YA novels today have some sort of romance, but if you’re true to your character, the audience will respond. I will say I’ve met young readers who say, “If it doesn’t have a romance, I don’t want to read it,” but I’m willing to bet that if they read a good, solid YA with a well-developed female protagonist, they would be so absorbed in the story they wouldn’t even care if there was a love interest. Don’t feel that you have to cave to pressure. Your readers will probably react more negatively to a forced love story than they would to no love story at all.
BUUUUUUT, that’s not to say you won’t encounter agents and editors who say the opposite of me, so I don’t want to steer you in this direction of thinking my advice is the only advice. I’ve attempted, in the past, to write YA without romance, and I often find myself adding one. Not because I’m caving to pressure but because the characters you’re writing about are at ages where the hormones are flying, so it’s not crazy to think that some guy or girl might catch their eye.
As you can see, I have come to a not-at-all firm conclusion about this topic.