Welcome to our first ever Featured Follower Friday!Today I'm honored to present to you all Blodeuedd from the book blog Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell(have you noticed her fab blog address by the way? book-forlife.blogspot.com, I love it!).
Mari asked me for a guest blog and here I am. I am going to talk why paranormal YA always fail for me. Truth be told I do not know why this is. Sure adult pnr is not a fav either. I enjoy reading it but it never really rocks my world. A few books do but most fall in that category of ok because in the end I enjoyed, smiled at, but perhaps I will not get book 2 since there are so many other books out there. From the library yes, to buy, no. I am not saying they are bad, most I highly enjoy reading and can’t stop. But the drive to make me crave more seems to be missing 85 % of the time. Still I would recommend many anyway.
But let’s get back to YA pnr that has never worked, mostly it just annoy the hell out of me. First we have the mean girls, honestly why are always kids so bitchy? I hate bitches, and YA books seem to be crawling with them. Next up we have the love triangle. If adult books have love triangles they are always somewhat different, and I can live with them. But in YA these love triangles have a life of their own. And everything is always so life and death, ok chill down children. You have your entire life to live still, and that guy will be forgotten in 10 years. So is that my whole problem? Not really there is one thing that bothers me still and that is insta-love. Yes that so happen to me all the time, I see a guy and am in love. That is called lust not love. That feeling that you just want to kiss him, yes lust again. And again with the life and death with their insta-love scenarios. I am not a fan of insta-love anywhere and here it just bothers me. It’s lust! Lol, when I saw my boyfriend for the first time I thought damn he is cute! But I did not fall in love. That takes time; you have to get to know a person to love a person.
Oh, I am totally dissing YA pnr! Sorry! I do not mean to but honestly I never really read it when I was still YA. I think I never even was a teen, I kind of jumped over it.
Ok back to PNR. I do love romance but truth be told maybe that is where one big problem is. I love romance, but I just don’t love it. It does not make me crazy like fantasy, it does not occupy my thoughts days afterwards. It makes me happy for the moment, blissfully sometimes, but it never pushes me over the edge so I will stay there. Which is totally weird since have you seen my blog? Pink and fluffy.
I think that if a book is going to change my mind if must be well-written, not have that YA feeling, not any love-triangles and insta-love, not have the feeling the world is ending if you do not see the guy tomorrow. It have to feel real even though it is a paranormal for me to love it, well it has to have that something extra. Like with the few adult books I truly loved, I fell for Marta Acosta’s books cos they were funny and not really PNR, I fell for Kresley Cole cos her men were just hot!, or the hilarious and sexy books by Jill Myles. But in the end most adult books that I enjoy for a little while are still better than the PNR YA ones..
There you have it, my little story for YA pnr and I do not go hand in hand. I think I might change my mind one day but then it must be crossovers, like PNR UF mix, PNR steampunk or something like that.
Thank you for this wonderful guest post, Blodeuedd, it's been a real pleasure having you over. You know I've always wondered what it was about this particular genre that made you not being able to love it.
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Have you ever read Marcus Sedgwick. I think he writes really good pnr YA that's not too YA and not too gushy. Another good fantasy author with several good pnr (or urban myth) YA books are Charles de Lint. I really liked The Blue Girl and have The Painted Boy in my tbr-pile.
ReplyDeleteHihi, thanks for having me over Mari :D I feel like I totally trashed YA pnr now *hides*
ReplyDeleteSedgwick, well I did try a few pages but did not get into it. I could try again one day. And I have head of de lint and that he is good..and differnt.
I do like YA, not just YA pnr. Dystopia rocks
I agree that YA Paranormal often has insta-love and the love triangle and the whining. I really think it can get on your nerves, especially if you read too many in a row. I think you should check out Mary Pearson...her YA Jenna Fox books are excellent, though more sci0fi thank paranormal.
ReplyDeleteThis is my problem with PNR - love at first sight and readiness to die for or without each other after 5 minutes together :) This is why I like so few PNR and most of them crossovers. SO I'm with you on that, Blodeuedd.
ReplyDeleteMy, my, what a clever post our Blodeuedd wrote! You know, it's good I've never believed you when you said you had no brains. You've get plenty of brains and also a way to express yourself; perhaps with a bit of waffling but it is very pleasant waffling and you always return to your point!
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more: insta-love (or rather insta-lust confused with love), love triangles and too serious approach to practically every little problem are the main banes of YA PNR.
Serena
ReplyDeleteI have heard about her and yes those books sound different. it does not take much sometime to make me like something, and the sci-fi angle could work well for me
Kara
Lol, yay that I found someone like me. The love and drama sure get on my nerves.
ANa
Hihi, yes I go here and there and around and then back. I am the queen of ramble.
Aye, and when that is around I can't fall for any of it
Oh, I love that you're all leaving suggestions. I'm writing them down as well :)
ReplyDeleteI can believe in insta-love but that depends heavily on the writing. These past couple of months I can't say I've read any great or unforgettable PNR YA. What I have read is an excellent paranormal YA/urban fantasy,for the older YA reader I would say, that I would recommend(release this month)and that is Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor.
I can suspend belief and overlook a lot, but I agree... a great YA PNR really shouldn't have that YA feel to it. It should transend all genres so everyone enjoys it. Oh what a great post!
ReplyDeleteThe insta love drives me crazy too! We need to find you some better YA PNR. I'm reading Dearly Departed and it's pretty good. She's falling for a zombie, but not too quickly!
ReplyDeleteThanks melissa :D I am glad you liked it.
ReplyDeleteAlyssa
Yes I have heard about the zombie one...who knows, because for it to work I do think I am gonna need something different
Oh, now you know I'm not much for the Romance part of Paranormal books, weither adult or ya. ;) But it does seem to be the same feel with the YA reads, and it gets old. This is a wonderful post! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Melissa :)
ReplyDeleteI am just gonna deal with that PNR will never be a fav, some I love, but the rest not so much