Despair-inducing YA lit
Sep. 11th, 2010 01:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elbalesHoly shit. Holy fucking shit.
Look, we all know how totally fucked up the gender roles are in the Twilight series, right? Edward is a total stalker, Bella has no spine, Jacob force-kisses Bella, blah blah blah. Someone has actually managed to top Stephenie Meyer's bullshit. Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush, Hush features a too-stupid-to-live heroine who gets stalked, harassed, intimidated, flat-out terrified, and I'm running out of horrid verbs, by the "hero," a fallen angel who, I kid you not, wants to kill her so he can get back into Heaven. And we're supposed to believe that she's attracted to him. Worse, she goes for help to adults in her life, repeatedly, and gets told that she's overreacting. What the fuck. What the ever-living shit. This is what we're serving up to our young people? Urge to kill rising.
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bookshop has done an excellent, if possibly triggery, discussion, one which is well worth reading, of this heinous trend in YA lit.
ETA: Andceilidh_ann has done a full review so that anyone may be properly horrified without having to subject themselves to the book.
ETA2: Also linked bybookshop is this very interesting post that asks, "Do books teach or reveal?" Let me stress that I don't believe in censorship. I may think that the Twilight books and all of their imitations depict extremely unhealthy relationships in a way that tends to glamorize them... but I wouldn't support burning the books even though I despise what they stand for. I just think that we desperately need better written books for young people, books that show readers that it's okay to think for yourself, to stand up for yourself, to have agency in your own life. And if parents are going to let their kids read books like Hush, Hush, it's incumbent on those parents to sit down with their kids and say, "Okay, honey, now we're going to talk about things that it is absolutely not okay for a boy to do to a girl, or vice versa, or any of the other possible gender-based permutations out there." That's the only real solution.
Look, we all know how totally fucked up the gender roles are in the Twilight series, right? Edward is a total stalker, Bella has no spine, Jacob force-kisses Bella, blah blah blah. Someone has actually managed to top Stephenie Meyer's bullshit. Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush, Hush features a too-stupid-to-live heroine who gets stalked, harassed, intimidated, flat-out terrified, and I'm running out of horrid verbs, by the "hero," a fallen angel who, I kid you not, wants to kill her so he can get back into Heaven. And we're supposed to believe that she's attracted to him. Worse, she goes for help to adults in her life, repeatedly, and gets told that she's overreacting. What the fuck. What the ever-living shit. This is what we're serving up to our young people? Urge to kill rising.
bookshop has done an excellent, if possibly triggery, discussion, one which is well worth reading, of this heinous trend in YA lit.ETA: And
ceilidh_ann has done a full review so that anyone may be properly horrified without having to subject themselves to the book.ETA2: Also linked by
bookshop is this very interesting post that asks, "Do books teach or reveal?" Let me stress that I don't believe in censorship. I may think that the Twilight books and all of their imitations depict extremely unhealthy relationships in a way that tends to glamorize them... but I wouldn't support burning the books even though I despise what they stand for. I just think that we desperately need better written books for young people, books that show readers that it's okay to think for yourself, to stand up for yourself, to have agency in your own life. And if parents are going to let their kids read books like Hush, Hush, it's incumbent on those parents to sit down with their kids and say, "Okay, honey, now we're going to talk about things that it is absolutely not okay for a boy to do to a girl, or vice versa, or any of the other possible gender-based permutations out there." That's the only real solution.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-11 07:34 pm (UTC)Have.
Got.
To.
Be.
Shitting.
Me.
*looks at her collection of Oz books*
*Looks at the Zilpha Keatley Snyder stash*
*Looks at the Marge Piercy*
*Looks at collection of comic books*
I'll be over here...drinking.