Something Different: Why YA Paranormal Romance Bothers Me

So! Sunday is officially going to be my Day of Rest.

This is partly because I don't want to burn out. I think taking a day off every week or so is a good thing in any discipline - gives a chance to free up the mind from its focus during the week and take a fresh perspective on things. On a more practical level, taking weekends off gives me a chance to get ahead in my homework so I'm not scrambling for time all week. :p

It being Sunday today, I thought I'd post something more interesting than the minutiae of my current research topic. So here you have it: a nice long ramble on my reasons for disliking the current YA fad.

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Before you read this, I should probably tag a disclaimer: not all paranormal romance falls into this formula. I am aware of this. There are phenomenal books by phenomenal authors out there in every genre. On the flip side, this is not a specific attack on the black sheep of the genre, Twilight: I've read more than one book that falls fairly neatly into this category (actually, what spurred this train of thought was two books in the genre I borrowed from my sister -- one wasn't bad writing but still fulfilled most of these conventions, and the other was absolutely, cringingly stock). I'm stereotyping a bit to point out underlying themes that make me uneasy even in pretty good books within the genre.

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1. It's predictable.

Don't get me wrong; I'm sure there's some good paranormal out there, and I know I've read some. But the majority of the 'paranormal' books on the YA shelves seem to follow this formula:

1. The protagonist is a teenage girl, usually a high school student, who is either blandly unopinionated or dissatisfied with her average high school life.

2. A Mysterious Boy enters the picture. He is usually either arrogant, distant, or frankly an asshole, and either won't leave the protagonist alone or refuses to acknowledge her existence.

3. Despite the typically unnerving behavior of the Boy, the protagonist is immediately, irresistibly drawn to him. She spends most of her free time thinking about him. Meanwhile, during their interaction (or lack thereof) mysterious things begin to happen which the protagonist associates with the Boy.

4. The mysterious occurrences take on a threatening edge. Eventually the protagonist gets in deep trouble because of them and is rescued by the Boy. A confession of the source of the mystery (the Boy's paranormal aspect!) and consequently of their improbable, irresistible love takes place during this period.

5. The Boy performs an act, usually in renunciation of the darker aspect of his paranormal side, which rescues the girl from the paranormal threat. They live happily ever after.

Don't get me wrong here. I understand the need for brain candy. I understand the draw of these sorts of books. But after one or two, I get bored, because I can predict the plot - and the characters are so thin that I have NO reason to read once I know the plot. For goodness sake! Give me a strong, willful girl who says to the boy, "Sorry, creepy stalker, I'm not interested." Give me something -- ANYTHING -- other than a brooding, handsome boy who positively BLEEDS specialness! Given my annual brainless hot-boy fix, I want to read characters I CARE about.

Still, predictability is a common issue in the fiction world. I could have done this same thing for the stock medieval fantasy -- and while the generic medieval fantasy book isn't for me, I don't have anything against the subgenre. So what else?

2. I HATE the way it treats the idea of love.

As far as I'm concerned, there are two kinds of love.

The first happens of its own accord. This is what people call 'chemistry', or 'attraction', or 'passion'. It's 'love at first sight'; it's the thing that instigates romance. It's looking at someone and liking their smile or eyes or the way they talk, and liking being around them and interacting with them. It can be all-consuming...and it often fades after a while.

The second kind of love is when you know a person inside and out, and want to keep that person happy and safe because you know them so well they're like a part of yourself. It's built on laughter, tears and trust; the people you have this love for are the people you work well with, because you understand each other well enough to make up for what the other lacks. This kind of love is slow to build, but it endures.

The funny thing? The latter kind of love is much more flexible and enduring than the former...but it is exactly the same sort of love you could have for your friends.

I think that's why paranormal focuses so exclusively on the former sort of love. It's like: this girl sees a guy, she is hopelessly drawn to him, and the conflict of the novel is that they have to rework their entire lives so that they can be together. What kills me is that you never see any of the deeper sort: it's all focused on the attraction, this wordless 'need', and never even takes into account their (frequently thorny) interactions. The focus is on molding the girl's life to suit the Boy's quirks, and the Boy's paranormal aspect to fit in with the girl's life. Generally -- sooner than develop a conflict of personality which would make their relationship, quite realistically, fall apart -- the girl becomes bland and pliant or accommodates herself to the Boy's behavior.

That seriously bothers me. And it leads me into my next point...

3. I don't like the message these books give to teenage girls. And these are the books that teenage girls are eating up.

I'm a lucky girl. I grew up on Alanna the Lioness and Keladry of Mindelan, Lyra Belacqua and Hermione Granger, later on Herald Talia and Gemma Doyle. I didn't read Twilight until I was sixteen, and despite -- I confess -- a brief infatuation with the series and paranormal romance in general, I quickly grew disillusioned and some three or four years later I'm writing this blog. I was used to active, willful, insightful protagonists and moral meat. Bella and her host of followers didn't cut it for me long.

Tamora Pierce is still a presence on the YA shelf, but Philip Pullman has been pushed over to general SF/Fantasy. Stepping into YA fantasy, three out of four books on the shelf -- and the books that an infrequent reader is familiar with! -- are this sort of romance, or have significant elements. I'm sure a discerning reader can find other books, but what about the average indifferent American girl?

These are the things I see when I take a closer look at a paranormal romance book: the girl is pliant, bland, defined almost exclusively by her high school status and her infatuation with a boy. The boy varies from moody to an outright asshole - if he's good to the girl, it's on an infrequent and bewildering basis. And the outcome? The girl and guy end up together, in love, and happy.

As I said before, I understand the need for brain candy. I understand the appeal of dark fantasy in today's day and age: we are in economic depths and our youngest generation has grown up in a time of war. In the era of the Internet and cell phone, we live closer to the other side of the world than ever before, but farther from our closest friends. We want to read the dark and gritty; we want the escapism that fantasy and romance provide. This isn't what bothers me.

I hate the way these books portray love: this irresistible, all-consuming force. I see a long line of girls chaining themselves to an abusive asshole because they Love Him So Much. Let's face it -- this is a generation used to instant gratification and knowledge at their fingertips (and I speak as a part of that generation!). We're not encouraged or inclined to Deep Thought if we can help it. Maybe I'm not giving girls enough credit -- but I see a lot of them reading these books, taking them at face value, and carrying the unspoken messages into their daily lives.

Like it or not, every book has a message, and every book is going to have readers that take that message as pure gold and carry it over into their lives. I do not like the message of these books.

Give me a book that makes you think any day.