Bloglovin?

Follow my blog with Bloglovin!

This is just a quick post to mention that I'm on Bloglovin.  Check it out, but also be sure to spend some time outside on this beautiful, end-of-summer day.

Happy reading,
Elizabeth

The Real Problem with "Sick-lit"

According to some news sources, in particular The Daily Mail, a new (made-up) genre of YA fiction is rising in popularity.  “Sick-lit” is defined as books that exploit serious issues such as depression and illness, which in turn can be traumatizing for its readers.  Some titles supposedly included on this list are The Fault in our Stars by John Green, whose protagonist has cancer, and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, which tells the story of a teenage girl who recently committed suicide.  Both books have received tremendous praise from both readers and critics.

So the fact that there are people who believe sick-lit is a legitimate genre is itself sick.

It’s true that some doctors claim that exposure to novels dealing with topics such as depression, suicidal thoughts, and eating disorders have led to these behaviors in young teens.  This is extremely tragic, and I believe people for whom these books may be triggers should have the ability to pass up on them if necessary.  

But consider the alternative of not exposing teenagers to these topics: by not having a healthy, supportive way to be introduced to serious issues in the first place, teens are being sheltered from the realities of the world.  Fiction, as well as art as a whole, gives us a way to examine our own lives from a unique lens.  It draws attention to topics that might have otherwise been ignored by starting conversations and introducing new perspectives.  And I find it hard to believe that those who have actually read these books really think its authors are writing them out of morbid enjoyment; it’s clear from the first page that authors such as John Green are handling their difficult subject matter with complete respect.

After all, it’s not as if cancer or depression will magically go away if we stop talking about them.

Though I personally am not a huge fan of YA lit, I realize that this genre has recently grown exponentially in popularity among both teens and adults, and I applaud authors who are using this genre to shed light on the issues real teens are facing.  Discussing depression, terminal illness, and other serious topics through literary fiction does not romanticize the subject; instead, it proves that these issues are real, and serious, and worth knowing how to handle if the time should ever come.

Here are the titles of a few more literary young adult books considered “Sick-lit” by certain dumb adults:

Never Eighteen by Megan Bostic

Before I Die by Jenny Downham

By The Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead by Daelyn Rice

Red Tears by Joanna Kenrick

So Much to Live For by Lurlene McDaniel

Zoe Letting Go by Nora Price

Read on,

Elizabeth

The Coraline Generation, or The Book That Made Me Want to Write

A few nights ago I met one of my greatest role models.

I have been a fan of Neil Gaiman’s writing since first reading Coraline when I was ten years old.  My memories of growing up with this book still play like a montage in my head—I remember how I was running errands with my aunt, wandered into a children’s bookstore, and was handed Coraline by a salesperson after I told her I wanted something scary to read; reading the book in a matter of hours that afternoon; my aunt buying tickets for us to hear Neil Gaiman speak during his Coraline book tour a few weeks later, and after the Q&A, eating stale Altoids and reading brochures on summer creative writing classes to pass the time as I waited for an hour and forty five minutes to get my copy signed; reading the book at least five more times over the next few years, throwing it in my backpack before school, and dropping it in the muddy puddles on floor of the bus, the stains of which are still visible on the pages of my warn, battered, beaten copy.

Coraline is a badass.  In the story, she travels through a mysterious door in her family’s new flat and meets her Other Mother, a woman with black buttons for eyes who wants to raise Coraline as her own.  Coraline escapes, but after the Other Mother kidnaps Coraline’s real parents in order to lure her back, she returns to her alternate universe to rescue her parents.  Coraline dreams of being an explorer; she scavenges through overgrown gardens and abandoned theatres, is stalked by rat circuses and left to spend the night in a closet haunted by the spirits of the Other Mother’s former victims, and outsmarts every monster by the end of the book.  What ultimately made me fall in love with the book was its message that children are capable of more than they’re given credit for; even just the fact that the story is so scary compared to other children’s books proves that stories don’t need to be dumbed down for children.  Reading it, I felt like I was being taken seriously, like I was being treated like an adult, which at ten years old, is all a child really wants.

I read everything I could find by Neil Gaiman over the next several years.  But even as I grew up, I always came back to Coraline, and everything it had taught me about the power of books.  I began taking creative writing classes, and decided I wanted to learn the craft of fiction writing for myself, so I could someday create art that I hoped would affect readers in the same way Coraline had affected me.  So when I saw that Neil Gaiman would be doing his final tour for his newest novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, in Chicago at the Music Box Theater on July 9^th, nearly ten years after I’d met him in Minneapolis, I knew I had to go.

I was counting down the days until the signing, when I saw an interview with Neil Gaiman online titled The Book That Made Me Want to Write.  In it, he begins talking about a signing recently held in Cambridge, and says, “I found myself meeting a lot of really really nice young ladies… who were incredibly keen to see me.  And they were, you know, 19-21 years old… and I realized that this was the Coraline generation.”  When I saw this video, I almost screamed.  Not only are there other girls out there who have been affected by Coraline in the same way as myself, Neil Gaiman is aware of these girls.  The thought of a “Coraline generation” is inspired, it proves the affect a really good book can have on a child, even years into the future.

The reading at The Music Box was perfect, as expected, but the most memorable part of the night for me was when I made it to the front of the line to have my book signed.

I had brought my beat-up copy of Coraline and showed it to Neil Gaiman, explaining that I’d met him about ten years ago.  “I’m studying creative writing now,” I told him, “and I consider this the book that made me want to write.”

He reached out and took my hand, looked into my eyes and said, “Thank you for telling me that.”  Then, glancing at the rat drawing he’d made ten years ago, sketched a second rat in my copy of The Ocean at the End of the Lane.  “There,” he said, “now this is the only copy of Ocean with a Coraline rat.”

There are dozens of people I admire and would love to meet, and this isn’t the first time I’ve pledged my admiration in shaking, broken sentences to an author at a signing.  But as I was leaving the Music Box that night, I realized that there was no other author who had had the same lifelong impact on me as Neil Gaiman.  I will always be a part of the Coraline generation.

These are only some of the Neil Gaiman books I own; back in Minnesota, I have Good Omens, Sandman Volumes I and II, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, The Wolves in the Walls, Fragile Things, and two books on the making of Mirrormask.

Read On,
Elizabeth