As in, their existence cannot be proven? [rimshot]
When I was in library school I did a term paper comparing the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress systems to the (market-driven) way B&N (and Borders, still in business then) sort their books into categories. It’s a fascinating subject.
But, going back further – damn, in the early '90s, I was deeply disturbed when “Addiction and Recovery” acquired its own section in B&N, crying in existential despair, “Is this what the '90s are going to be like?!” And, so it was. . . .
And Chief Wiggums suspects 'em. (In Treehouse of Horror IV, instead of Dracula.)
I saw editions of Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, and IIRC, Jane Eyre in the Young Adult section of Borders (back when there was a Borders) all with covers designed to make them look like sequels to Twilight.
I say this as an adult woman who has never read any of the Twilight books, but why is this so terrible that there’s a “Teen Paranormal Romance” section? Is it really so much worse that teenagers are reading about girls falling in love with handsome vampires as compared to 10 years ago when they might have been reading about girls falling in love with handsome football players?
My local Barnes & Noble has had that section for quite some time. I weep every time I see it. The employees have taken to asking me to at least go to the bathroom instead of standing near the section.
My friend made the point that if all the books are in that section, at least we can destroy them easier with less collateral damage to the other stuff.
Fair point. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the genre, but Twilight (which they’re all mostly following) hasn’t done any favors to the perception of the genre. I read Twilight and it’s… it’s not pretty. I think there’s a decent story in there if Stephanie Meyer had a much better editor (and a thesaurus), but as it stands it’s worse than your typical Mary Sue “lead girl is perfect and makes out with every hot guy” fanfic. If nothing else, the relationship presented is an idealized abusive relationship (of the flavor “he only took the spark plugs out of my truck so I couldn’t see another guy because he LOVES ME SO MUCH”), and the sheer manipulation that goes on is terrible.
That’s ignoring the facts that the main character is insufferable, and such, that kind of stuff I’d expect out of a tweeny-romance and I wouldn’t hate it nearly as much if it was JUST a Harlequin Romance with Vampires and paper thin characterization. The book just has certain bits of plot and characterization that are held up as SO ROMANTIC by so many young people (and even a few middle aged women I’ve talked to), and at the same time very sexist and damaging if you don’t accept that the plot is just a silly nonsense wish-fulfillment excuse plot (which a lot of young men and women I’ve heard talking about it don’t accept).
I’m sure some Paranormal Romance is just Harlequin Romance with Vampires, or whatever. Which is mindless, and probably poorly written pulp, but then I don’t pretend that my Conan The Barbarian short story collection is high art, so that’s fine. It’s just my fear that they follow directly in the tradition of Twilight which was bad enough to be what I consider damaging, as in, above the level of merely bad.
I was big into paranormal romance when I was a teenage girl, and that was well before Twilight. I was way into LJ Smith’s stuff, who now has 2 TV shows (Vampire Diaries and Secret Circle) based on her books. So its always been now, but now may be getting more prevelent.
Perhaps more authors are writing paranormal romances now that Stephanie Meyer has shown you can make a gazillion dollars without any stunning talent…
I really think people who take this tack are overreacting. Twilight isn’t going to convince a mentally healthy girl to run out and get subjugated post-haste by a controlling jerk. Neither can the most heartfelt, impassioned plea convince a girl in an unhealthy relationship to leave it. Even before Twilight’s dastardly influence, there have been many women who willingly stay in abusive relationships. It’ll take a lot more than internet doom-saying to convince me Twilight has had a statistically significant effect on the relationships chosen by young women.
Twilight has many *extremely *vocal critics in the mainstream, and I don’t believe the existence of Twilight has caused a net harm to teenaged girls or womankind in general. MUCH more harm is done to young women who witness their parents’ dysfunctional relationship and believe it’s normal. Twilight is just a fun fantasy. It’s fun and sexy to read about an attractive young girl who’s willing to give up her humanity for an attractive young-looking guy.
Like I say, as long as they’re reading, that’s what’s important.
Urban fantasy isn’t necessarily the same thing as paranormal romance. Urban fantasy just means stories that take place in the modern world and have magic. You can find a book or two that aren’t “Harlequin with fangs” if you look carefully.
Racellelogram – I’ve made the same argument before, but I’ve talked to a few tween girls (which, granted, I don’t make a habit of, a couple were cousins, a couple I met via the magic of forced awkward conversation in various places like on a train to the Grand Canyon) who have said things to the effect of that Twilight is so romantic and that they’re holding out for a guy like Edward. When I point out they should think about it I get a really good “but he cares about her so much, he loves her so much he doesn’t want to lose her to some other guy and protects her from seeing other guys” stuff.
I was in your camp until I was floored by actually seeing it in the wild, I’m usually in the “kids are smarter than we give them credit for” camp. Now, it’s every possibility that my small sample size is working against me and I just got unlucky, but just anecdotally it seems like it’s actually affected the relationship POVs of at least the young women I’ve talked to about it (which, again, is around the ballpark of “about 5 of them”).
See 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America, by Jack Huberman. #96 is J.K. Rowling. And it’s a fair call. Yes, I liked all the Harry Potter books and the movies too, and, yes, she’s getting kids to read; but, she’s also adding to the amazingly resurgent antirationalism and superstition of this period in our culture. And this plague of Twilight-knockoffs is just another set of causes/symptoms of the same.
And, if they’re anything like Twilight, they’re not even good vampire-or-whatever fiction. As The Buffalo Beast published in its “50 MOST LOATHSOME PEOPLE IN AMERICA, 2008” list:
That’s another thing. The Romance section at B&N would be vastly improved, these days, if vampires and werewolves were barred from it.
And coming from the other side, werewolf and vampire fiction would be vastly improved if they cut down on the pulp-novel romance.
I’m sorry you met some idiots who can’t separate fantasy from real life, but your experience is still not statistically significant.
I know! The handwringing over a genre that first started making waves at least 20 years ago is seriously amusing to me. As is the idea that Stephanie Meyer is some kind of hack who Mormon voodooed her way into a book deal. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Twilight isn’t amazing literature, but it’s leagues ahead of a lot of published YA.
Oh please, science fiction and fantasy has always captivated Americans. Jules Verne, HG Wells, A Trip to the Moon, comic books, Tolkien, Star Wars, Harry Potter.
Again, to pretend this is some “new plague” is to close your eyes to decades of popular culture.
Among teenagers?! I should think it is.
Agreed. Teenagers reading pulpy escapist fiction is actually a good thing IMHO. They are actually reading rather than merely watching passively.
I’ve seen you say this before on here, but I don’t think you’ve ever specified what published YA you think is worse than Twilight. I am (morbidly) curious to hear about them.
When I say that I’m usually referring to Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother. I was taking a Teen Literature class at the time and read both books back-to-back. Twilight was a mildly amusing throwaway, but Doctorow’s book was just terrible. The fact that it pretended to be IMPORTANT made it worse. Then it won a whole bunch of awards at the same time the Twilight backlash started.
A few others I hated from that class were The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier and House of Stairs by William Sleator. Both were just awful, awful reads.
While I don’t like paranormal romance, personally, I don’t see what the big deal is.
Twilight is a bad book, but it’s not the end of the world.