Not "literary" at all, but book related, I ended up with a pack of Kristan Higgins books. They are contemporary romances (but pretty fade-to-black on the sex scenes), and HOLY CRAP are they depressing. I liked the last one I read best, as it was all yearning and depression, as opposed to just depression, but somehow all of them, even though they have happy endings and everything, instead of feeling like "boy meets girl, happy happy drama resolution happy ending", it felt like "girl is horribly lonely and everyone else around her is happy and she is trying to be happy being single but all she can envision is being an old maiden aunt and a burden to her distant relatives who would not want to visit her, and...oh hey, there's a dude who there is awkwardness with, and then sex but really not going to solve the issue...wait, resolution marriage happy ending!"
...somehow all that stuck with me was the lonely depression part. Good god.
Amy, I'm reading Raven Boys. Enjoying it... er, intermittently.
Interesting, Sox. What made you choose it?
I ended up with a pack of Kristan Higgins books. They are contemporary romances (but pretty fade-to-black on the sex scenes), and HOLY CRAP are they depressing.
I haven't read her, but I looked it up -- she's published by Harlequin HQN, which can be light on the sex scenes sometimes. The depressing part seems weird for them, though.
Interesting, Sox. What made you choose it?
A friend's recommendation. And I really liked Shiver.
I have
Shiver
but I haven't read it. I haven't been in the mood for werewolves!
A friend's recommendation.
I really liked Raven Boys. It feels like Stiefvater truly knows what she's doing: she's got total command of the narrative and the characters. And while it's a YA supernatural story, it seems not to involve either
werewolves or vampires. Or demon-hunters of any kind.
I'm looking forward to reading the second in the series, although I'm waiting for the ebook to show up at the library...
I'm really liking
The Scorpio Races
so far. She's such a confident writer -- like you said, total command of the narrative and the characters' voices. I also love this myth -- I never imagined horses could be so terrifying.
Wow, it's like a love letter to the Common Core.
I mean, I can see what she's getting at, but I don't think it's a terribly compelling argument. For one thing, there does in fact exist a genre of novels that are exactly about all the hopes, fears, feelings, and experiences of teenagers, so it's odd to me that she doesn't even mention YA books once. I do think teaching good nonfiction should be a part of most high school English classes, but there are kids who would get bored with a steady diet of Capote and Didion, too. Instead of abandoning novels for nonfiction entirely, I'd argue for including different kinds of writing on high school reading lists: classic literature, contemporary literature, YA novels, and nonfiction too.
