Fiction is Fiction - Or Why I Believe Teens Are Smarter Than We Give Them Credit For

 

So, this is my very first discussion post on my blog, joining into the 2016 Discussion Challenge hosted by Feed Your Fiction Addiction and It Starts at Midnight.  I'm going to try to explain myself clearly, as well as make it fun with pictures and/or gifs.  Today I'm going to talk about what you might call a pet peeve of mine.  Over and over I hear books criticized, or even condemned, for the topics covered, or the way the characters are portrayed.  For instance, I'll start with talk about one of my favorite book series, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.

Over and over I hear about how horrible it is that Bella depends on a boy to take care of her.  That's one issue people have. The other is that Edward is a stalker and horrible boyfriend.  First off, let me point you back to the title of this post:  Fiction is Fiction.  It's not real people!  Most of the time when I read, it is to lose myself in something that is not my reality.  Yes, Edward does save Bella from a lot of danger, because he loves her, and also because he is a vampire, so his supernatural power saves her from other supernatural creatures.  And, my biggest point, sorry, *SPOILER*, for anyone who hasn't actually read the whole series, in the end, Bella ends up saving everyone!  So yeah, that isn't an issue for me.  Maybe we could talk about him being possessive and a bad boyfriend/stalker next.  Again, I believe part of that is back to him being supernatural and obviously not sure if he should be a part of her life at first. But besides that, while yes, I do ship myself with Edward, it's not because I would expect a real guy to do those weird things, or be okay with a real guy doing those types of things.  I know it is fiction.  In real life there is so much that I would not put up with.  If yu want to call this a damsel in distress story, I guess you could for most of it, but then also so are most fairy tales.  And yes, I know many people, feminists, etc, are against them as well. 

Now, there was a book that I read a year or so ago, that made me feel like I shouldn't have enjoyed it and devoured it as quickly as I did, Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire.

This is a story of a definitely emotionally abusive relationship, there is no way you can say anything different about it.  And I felt bad reading and being sucked into the story because I know people who have been in those types of relationships, and it is not a good thing.   When I talked to one of my sisters about it, the sister who reads most of the same books I do and knows the person this made me think of, she is the one who brought me back to where I'm going with this post.  It is fiction.  While I might have enjoyed the steamier parts of the story, for the most part I was kept reading because I wanted to know what happened to the characters, and how they would handle it all.  

More and more I hear people saying that girls in books are bad examples for teens.  As if teens aren't smart enough to know what is fiction, or what is bad.  Yes, I know that there are people who do take what happens in books, or whatever they read, as truth.  But I don't believe it is something that we have to worry about all teens doing.  I was a teenager at one time.  Many years ago now, but I did not assume life should be like what I read in the book.  My biggest example is always the Flowers in the Attic series by V.C. Andrews.  

I read that series, over and over, back in those days I didn't have piles of books to read, so my favorite books would be re-read until I did buy a new one every once in awhile.  Just because I read that series doesn't mean I then wanted to fall in love with my brother.  Another V.C. Andrews book I read a lot, My Sweet Audrina, didn't romanticize rape for me.  The funny thing to me was that my parents took away all of my Teen Silhouette Romance series books, but left these V.C. Andrews books.  They didn't want me to get all the silly romantic ideas, yet these books with incest, and later Stephen King's horror stories, were okay for me to read.  Why is it that people think someone can read the horror or science fiction stories and understand they're not real, yet when it comes to romantic stories, readers are too stupid to not know those are fiction?  

Finally, I want to bring up the series that I am so obsessed with now that I had to get a tattoo to show my love for it, the After series, by Anna Todd.

I know that the relationship in this book is a horrible, terrible, emotionally abusive one.  And the things that happen to Tessa, that the guy Hardin even is a part of at the beginning, yes, not something I should even think is a good thing.  But I couldn't help it.  I fell in love with the characters, both of them flawed, not just Hardin.  And over and over they fought through this, and there were so many times as I read that I knew I would have been done, things that Tessa let go that there is no way I would have. But that is why it is fiction.  You can read about a relationship like this, and you can have the characters work and maybe improve themselves like we wish would happen in real life, and it's a nice story.  One you can fall in love with, but not have to try out for yourself.  There is talk of how this book glorifies rape in the reviews I've seen online, and it is not true. There is no rape in the books.  There are bad things that happen, but never are they romanticized or glorified.  Yes I'm an adult now, but even if I was a teen reading these, which I don't really feel they are teen books, I wouldn't have felt this is how a relationship should be.

Now give me your thoughts.  Surely I'm not the only person smart enough to know fiction is fiction, right?  I have dealt with teenagers on a daily basis for almost 20 years now, working in education as a teacher for 17 years, and a librarian now for 3 more.  The teenagers I know, for the most part, are smarter than many people give them credit.  A story is a story. They learn in their English classes about symbolism, which helps them to know that fiction isn't a true thing, that what happens in the book isn't what they should expect as real life.  You might say that maybe since I've never been in any situations like this I don't have the right to chime in on this.  But you'd be wrong.  I had very bad experiences in college, ones that even to this day, it is hard not to say that it was my own fault that it happened.  But not one of them do I blame on some book I read making me think it was okay.

Wow, this got a little bit deep and depressing I think.  I guess I just feel strongly about this topic.  Please comment below and tell me your feelings on this topic.  Do you totally disagree with me?  Do you somewhat see what I'm trying to say?  I want everyone to have their own opinion and be able to express it in my comments below, no name calling just because we disagree, let's talk about it, what do you say?

Review: Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Well, I had to go ahead and check this out from the library after reading the first one.  Mainly because as I read a sample of the first chapter of this one, I thought it would help me to understand the main character Travis Maddox, and might help me to not feel so guilty about reading it.  Why did I feel guilty?  I'm not going to spell it all out again, you can go read my reasoning at my review of the first book, Beautiful Disaster.

I would definitely say that reading from Travis's viewpoint did help to make it a little less bad.  And as I read it from his side, I could see that one thing the other main character, Abby, says is true.  They are both so dysfunctional together, but it is right.  While in the first book you only saw it from her side, and all you saw was how crazy Travis got, here you could see what was going through his brain, as well as how he really was trying to do better for her.

This isn't going to be a long review, because really most of the story is the same as I would have told you in the review of the first book.  Now, this book, I noticed some spelling/grammar errors that weren't caught by an editor.  Another difference in this book is that you get to see more of Shepley, Travis's cousin, Abby's friend America's boyfriend.  Because he lives with Travis.  So we get to know him better.  And I loved at the end, the little bonus bit that talks about Travis and Abby and their life further down the road.  They've been married for awhile and have kids.  It's great to hear about what kind of job Travis has. Although, I don't know.  I guess just the dysfunctional codependency I saw in Travis makes me a bit hesitant to believe that was the type of job he went into.  But what do I know?

A good, quick read.  I will definitely be reading the book that got me to read this, Red Hill, when I get a chance.

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

So, well, this is going to be a hard book to review.  I only picked it up because I saw the book Red Hill by this author, and it sounded really good, but I was told I needed to read this first.  So I checked it out from the library, thinking if I liked it, it would be one I'd recommend to my sister Sarah who is my fellow chick lit reader.  But, she and I have had many conversations about someone we know who was in a very co-dependent, dysfunctional, unhealthy relationship, and as I read this book, that was what I kept coming back to.  I read this over 400 page book in two days, it was definitely a page turner, and definitely hard to put down.  But I felt guilty rooting for them because of how the relationship was.  If people say that Twilight is a horrible example of an abusive relationship, then there is no way they could possibly like this book.  I never once felt that way as I read Twilight, but this book, I just felt it from the morning they really started getting involved.  I don't know if it is okay to go ahead and read about this, knowing this isn't a good type of relationship.  Is it condoning this?  I don't want to do that.  But the characters were at least interesting.  I can't decide whether to read on, as the next book is supposed to be the same story, but from Travis's viewpoint.
Abby has gone to college with her best friend America.  She is glad to be able to get away from her small town and all the looks she got for who she was, and who she was had to do with who her father was.  But here at school she gets to reinvent herself as a good girl.  And then she meets Travis.  Travis is America's boyfriend Shepley's roommate/cousin.  And he is exactly what she doesn't need.  He is a bad boy.  Tattooed, a fighter, a ladies man.  So they end up becoming friends.  And she seems to be good for Travis.  But she knows that he isn't good for her, so she keeps him at arm's length.  But he does seem to fall for her.  And really, of course, she does seem to fall for him.  It is a best friend type of romance.  But when they do get together, he becomes very jealous, and definitely what would be considered unhealthy jealous.  So she tries to break it off, but that doesn't go well either.  It's a very wild ride.  And maybe, very realistic as there are many people in this type of relationship.
I'm so torn on my review.  It was a good read, but I just feel like I shouldn't read about this.  But I have to stick to what I tell people, just because I read something, doesn't mean I'm going to go out and look for a relationship like that.  So, it's okay, right?
If you've read this, do you get what I'm saying?  Did you feel this way at all?  I'd love to hear some other points of view.