Bad YA Fiction

Young adult fiction is bad. 

Is that how you do a hook, English teachers? No? Okay.

Either way, it is. A large portion of it, anyway. I think I started reading proper YA (I'm talking books that didn't come in 1234456432 part series and/or were printed in font size 32) when I was around eleven. I had read the Harry Potter series for the first time slightly before that, but I think that deserves its own genre and, quite frankly, a throne and a crown. 

Recently, though, I realized I had almost run out of good YA books to read. I had read all of John Green's work, The Hunger Games and all of those dystopian novels that tried to do similar things to it, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (11/10 book, 12/10 movie), Twilight (twice, don't tell anybody), and a bunch of the other ones that the YA section of any library liked to stock. It was to the point where, if I Googled around for book recommendations, I couldn't find anything that grabbed my attention on the first page-ish of results. Oh, no, woe is me!

So, I turned to my trusty source of information for all things literature: my friend Meryl. And, let me tell you, she showed me some true gems. 

The one I'm reading right now is the Throne of Glass series. I'm on book five, I believe. 

So far, it's a cross between Harry Potter (natch), The Hunger Games (what is it with so many of these authors wanting to write game shows?), and, like, Game of Thrones (minus most of the intrigue). It's fantastic. The writing is relatively good until you consider some of the character inconsistencies: the fact that the main character is both a deadly assassin and shockingly incapable of defending herself until around book 4; her uncanny transformation from a rash teenager to a 5000 IQ 4D chess player somewhere between books 3 and 4 (which we never really get to see); and her *ahem* RELATIONSHIP WITH SOMEONE LIKE 200 YEARS OLDER THAN HER. EXCUSE ME?

Anyway, the series is addictive as all hell. I wouldn't compare it to watching a train wreck; it's not that bad. Maybe a Hot Wheels crash? Fun stuff either way. 

Thank you, Grace, for setting up this blog. It's been a lot of fun reading everyone's thoughts. Bye :)