So, it’s almost that time of year. November–when your eyes go cooky from looking at the computer screen too long; when you take any plot bunny you can get, just to get up your word count; when you freak out because there are only three days left and you need 12,854 more words and you are out of Twizzlers and you’ve lost your totem and there are already tons of purple bars all over the forum, taunting you because those who have purple bars have already won. Yes: it’s NaNoWriMo.
NaNoWriMo, also known as National Novel Writing Month. Every November. Write a 50,000+ word novel in just 30 days.
My genre of choice is YA (young adult) fiction. Frankly, I don’t feel like I should write anything else. Literary fiction? Uh, no thank you (at least, not yet). Adult fiction? I’ll call you up in 20 years. Chick lit? Just…no. (Fun to read, no desire to write.) YA seems like the obvious choice. I think YA fiction actually reaches from around 13-20 or so, so I’m still in that age bracket. But also, I haven’t lived enough to write anything else, have I?
And I’m ok with that. There is a whole lot of really crappy YA writing out there. But there are some really amazing YA books. Either they were a pleasure to read or they helped me in some way. Maybe someday someone will take my book on an international trip and take solace in it at night when they are far away from home and homesick (true story).
All too often, YA writers are underrated, underappreciated and just don’t get enough respect. More times than not, the less-than-stellar writing (here’s looking at you, SMeyer) overshadows the books that really deserve the credit and praise. I don’t see a Printz Award sticker on any Twilight book, do you? But those are the kind of books getting all the attention now.
And hey, maybe that’s not a terrible thing. At least people are reading, right? It’s kind of how Harry Potter got younger kids to read, Twilight is probably getting some teenagers reading who otherwise might not crack a book open. But let’s forget Twilight for a minute.
In preparation for NaNoWriMo and my goal of writing the Next Best YA Novel (ok, that’s not really my goal. I know I’m not that good. Yet.), I am reading as many YA books as I can before November. Here are a couple I’ve recently read:
Paper Towns – John Green. In Paper Towns, John Green introduces the worldly, unattainable, mysterious character of Margo Roth Speigelman. At the risk of giving away too much, all I’m going to say is: Breaking and entering Sea World. Road trip. Walt Whitman. Green is an amazing writer and his humor is so effortless. I laughed out loud countless times during this novel and parts of it had me grinning from ear to ear. I loved it just as much as his other novel I’d previously read, Printz Award-winning Looking for Alaska. Whereas Paper Towns had me laughing, Alaska had me bawling.
How They Met and Other Stories – David Levithan. Levithan is one of the most poetic, lyrical YA authors out there right now. I need to stop and reread whole sentences, even whole paragraphs because they are written so beautifully, emotionally and truthfully. How They Met…is, obviously, a collection of short stories. Like any collection, some pieces are great and some are just ok. There are definitely some favorites, and while I can’t remember all the titles, they include “Starbucks Boy,” “the number of people who meet on planes,” and the one about the dancer. Some really beautiful stories about love.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockart. A Printz Honor book, The Disreputable History…is one of the most original, fresh YA novels I’ve come across in awhile. For once, a female YA character calls herself a feminist. This book is a social commentary. Frankie goes to a co-ed boarding school, and decides to shake things up by infiltrating the boys-only secret society, and having them play some pranks that critque the social and political climate of the school. Of course, they don’t realize this. Also, Frankie and her boyfriend both love words. I love wordy, intelligent books and this is definitely a good one! The end is a little unsatisfactory, but real. And real-life is sometimes unsatisfactory, right?
Some other well-written or original YA books that I would suggest include: Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson; The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray (some of my FAVORITES!); anything by David Levithan, including Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, co-written with Rachel Cohn (probably my all-time fave YA book); I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak; nearly anything by Meg Cabot, and of course the “classics”: Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and anything by Judy Blume.
Currently reading: Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta.
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