yeah but I bet you don't do it because you're too silly or too young to use them. Just that whole thing about usually you can use a shorter word instead.
I read Cut but not My Brother's Keeper. Unfortunately by now I don't remember enough about it except that I guess I liked it, but at the same time, I can see why it might not qualify as edgy. Sorta. I just don't remember why, just general impressions. I mean, I thought it was OK, but I can see why it disappointed some. Maybe the ending was too pat? (Or maybe I should just read it again to figure out what I think about it. )
What's the difference between edgy and fake-edgy? What other authors and books do you think qualify as fake-edgy?
yeah but I bet you don't do it because you're too silly or too young to use them. Just that whole thing about usually you can use a shorter word instead.
I strongly believe that there are a million types of teenagers, and no such thing as just one teenage voice, I hate authors who think putting totally into their writing a bunch makes it sound youthful, that's totally passe', but the thing is consistency. There are certainly smart teens with who have a better master of the language than most adults, it just has to all flow together.
Thanks for the book info Shady.
Has anyone read America by E.R. Frank? I haven't read it in years, but I'm pretty sure I loved it. I think I read it all at once.
Nope, but I read Life is Funny a few years ago and I'd like to read it again. It was pretty good. America's about the teenage runaway, right?
That makes sense to me. At least Beatrice Sparks did work as a counsellor. Also, the teens whose journals and diaries she used (and there was a real teen in at least one case, so I'm sure there were real teens in the other cases) spoke from experience. Patricia McCormick, on the other hand, graduated with a degree in journalism. (Of course, that doesn't mean she doesn't have personal experience with SI and drugs, but it's an interesting difference.)Cut and My Brother's Keeper, about SI and drug abuse respectively, seemed to me, in a lot of ways, like Go Ask Alice (which I liked and didn't know was forged until I read that link, and I'm currently faced with some extreme disillusionment.) They seemed like instruction manuals disguised as novels. But unlike Go Ask Alice, where whoever the author was at least knew what she was talking about, Cut and My Brother's Keeper made Patricia McCormick sound like all she'd done was read other books on the same subject.
I kind of like after-school specialy books some of the time. Depends on my mood. But they shouldn't pretend to be edgy. I do remember the ending seemed pat. She talked to her father and everything was OK. It seemed over too quickly after that. That seems to be a problem with a lot of YA books, even ones I've liked. The protagonists go through all sorts of turmoil and trauma, and then everything is made OK too easily at the end.It's the same old stuff, the same all SI is bad and only done by people with really, really crappy lives but it's still not good and drug abuse is bad, very bad, and you shouldn't cover for someone you love who's doing drugs but you can't hate them either and by the end they will promise to stop and you know that they mean it. They were very after-school specialy to me.
So what are the good, edgy books about SI, particularly for young adults? Are there any? And how do they approach the topic?
I'm still trying to form my categories, it's just that somehow edgy seems to be losing its meaning to me (and maybe it's just me).
The only way I can articulate is to choose a topic, so let's go with homosexuality. It is obvious in our culture that any positive outlook on gayness is controversial. So I guess you could have a book with a gay protag that could be any genre lets say mystery (a homosexual Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys), whatever, if your protag (or even main secondary characters) are actively and happily pursuing a gay lifestyle, then you will have some controversy, particularly if they are teens. But all gay MC's would fall under the category of controversial, so the next two would also be controversial....
Gritty I think would be getting really deep into a kid's mind who is deeply in denial, hates what he or she is, has trouble coming to grips with his/her sexuality, and may have other dark issues, family and friends who won't accept them. I imagine that it would be gripping to get into this young person's head, and also painful, you know?
For me, edgy might not go so deep as the gritty one, but it also wouldn't be all happy gay pride parades like the first one. Edgy to some extent depends on language, but I have a hard time pinpointing edgy language. The voice in Speak is astounding, and I would call that edgy, I would call the voice in Fat Kid Rules the world edgy. Ponyboy in the Outsiders is edgy because he sounds so real, Holden Caulfield, I don't know anymore....For my gay theme, I think edgy would be a combo of voice and theme and something different, some angle that would be new. Some aspect of being harrassed with a twist, some aspect of a crush, with a twist. This is not to say that the first books with homosexual mc's weren't edgy, but now you need more to make it edgy, I just don't know what exactly it is!
And of course this is just speculation as I try to decide where I want my own writing to fall, and try to pick out good books to read!
And now for a comment on the thread as a whole. Thanks, Shady, for helping me to define that yes, indeed, I do have a YA book on my hands. And I'm going to have to shorten it a little to make it work, but I've already cut it from 186k, so from 112k to 80k is going to seem like cake (well, maybe...lol).
I have several theories.The opening scene in my novel has my female teenage protagonist vomiting frozen margaritas. A clerk overheard my friend and I discussing said intro at a local bookstore and she decided to offer the *sage* advice that it might be rather inappropriate for the YA audience. My friend promptly told her to "sod off," but I was left wondering why the rubbernecker in question had felt that way.