Fellow Teens: Are you disappointed by the fiction being published for our age group?

Sadly, I have to admit I'm a teenage girl and as of right now, most teen novels are being aimed toward the female audience.

This is because they're more vulnerable. You say the words 'he had abs' and girls will be all over it placing themselves in the girl's shoes.

I can seriously see why most teenage novels are published. Money. Writing isn't an art to these authors, it's a beneficial green gimmick.

Honestly, teenagers are extremely vulnerable. Most don't realize how badly written a book actually is, only because they're awe-struck by the muscly, fare-skinned vampire man, or the busty blonde with full lips.

In reality, those are porn stars.

I'm actually embarrassed to say I'm a teenage female due to the 'Edward and Jacob hype'. For the last time, I'm "team- tree in the background" because it's the only living thing with talent in that series.

I'm grateful teens have taken up reading and writing but it gets on my nerves when they're all over books known for being a catastrophe; bad grammar, and a predictable plot.

I personally love to help people with their writings but almost every question I open it's, "My vampire-" or "My werewolf-" blah blah blah.

Some books have completely ruined the youth's creativity.

How hard is it to create a beast of your own?

Let me try- head of a squirrel, tail of a skunk, bat wings, can't fly, eats bugs. I'll call it Babble.

OMG, What is this!? A new creature and it took 5 seconds! Impossible!

It's great they love reading and writing but for the love of literature as we once knew it, GET CREATIVE!

This is almost exactly why I digress Fan Fiction. Rewriting stories.... How does that benefit you?

Actually practice and make something that could be worth a bit and valuable.

I get frustrated opening questions like, "Help with my book," and inside it starts out, "Okay, my main character is a vampire."

Let the vampire folklore take a break. Read a book WORTH reading like "Capone". Build a vocabulary from a book other than Twilight or else prepare to think the word 'Grim' means 'happy'.

D=

It's good they read and write but at least try to be independent in what you favor.

I love the Hunger Games and The Lightning Thief books. Twilight is okay for a first time author, but completely overrated. I think a lot of teenagers feel this way when looking for something to read. S.E. Hinton did, so she wrote her own book at sixteen, which has become a classic. Teenagers know what teenagers like to read and so do adults that are around teens. I you've read the Diary of Anne Frank, you'll see what I mean. I guess there are a lot of good books for teens out there, just not on the bestsellers shelf.

I am really disappointed in YA fiction. But what disappoints me more is when there is a huge hype and wonderful reviews of this young adult book and it's on the front bookshelf in every book store, and I *finally* get my hands on it to realize that it is, in fact, a load of crap, filled with annoying, under-developed weak characters, lacking a decent plot and written terribly.

For instance, the House of Night series. It suuuuuucked. So, so bad. And I would've rather eaten nails that dragged myself to finish reading Fallen by Lauren Kate. I'm reading A Great & Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray, and it's definitely overrated. It's very mediocre, and the characters are pretty annoying a lot of the time. ''Oh yes, let's randomly cut ourselves and spread each other's blood over our faces just for fun... because that's what 16year old girls at finishing school in 19th century England would do....'' Ugh. I'll try and make myself finish it though, seeing as some of my contacts seem to like it. It may get better.

Although there is a shocking amount of bad young adult literature there, I've found some good stuff. I really liked the Mortal Instruments Trilogy - not the best written book ever, but it was very entertaining and I liked the characters and plot. Also, I reckon Harry Potter is more teen than anything else. I love Harry Potter. :)

I've also read some little-known YA literature. Little-known because the authors are Australian and don't get much attention, but the books are way better than 90% of the international bestselling YA fiction that is out there. Which is quite a shame.

Edit: I remembered another terrible series. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - bahahaha. I only got 50 pages through and was just like ''Really? This author must be the richest 8 year old in the world.'' Honestly, the story went like this ''I'm going to miss you'' said Lydia. ''I'll miss you too.'' said Bianca. ''Now lets try on some magic pants'' said Milly. ''Oh my god, these pants are cool. Let's make up some rules for them'' said Charlotte.

Those weren't the characters name, but I couldn't be bothered remembering.

@Lyra: Hmm, I'll have to add Old Magic to my book list! Hahah, yay! Someone knows an Australian author! :) And I'll read the rest of the Gemma Doyle Trilogy since it's supposed to get better.

I cannot even BEGIN to say how much I agree with you! Although I have frequently tried to read some books in the teen section, I continually find myself traipsing back to the "kiddie" section of the library. The books which are my favorites - the ones that are laced with beautiful vocabulary, thought-provoking storylines, or exciting action - always come from the novels in the kid section of the library, while every single book I have read from the teen section I have always put down because of a sickening overdose of drugs, drinking, cussing, and sex.

"When did teenage fiction get dummed down to a couple of whiny princesses complaining about their wonderful lives and stumbling onto broody vampires?" - This is a question that I, sadly, cannot answer, for I am just as befuddled as you are. Society nowadays can keep on encouraging teenagers to do bad things, but why oh why must it influence our books!?

1) Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and in my humble opinion, I agree. The Twilight Saga is a waste of paper. I have read Twilight and Breaking Dawn, and I have seen Twilight, New Moon, and I am going to see Eclipse when it comes out. I don't see The Twilight Saga movies because I like them; I see them because I review movies.

Stephenie Meyer's writing is very over-exagerated and boring. The protagonist, Bella, is a blank character with no personality; an empty shell, if you will. Meyer did not build up her characters at all, and most did not have a back-story. Also, she got way too into the description. For example, count how many times she uses the phrase, "Edward's perfect face."

I do not know why people keep asking that asinine question. The Twilight Saga is a work of fiction and a vampire-human romance. Fine. It's been done before (Dracula, the Sookie Stackhouse novels etc.), and it has worked before. In my opinion, The Twilight Saga did not work, and it was hugely copied from the Sookie Stackhouse novels.

I'm not one of those people that gets all 'PC' about everything, but I will say this: The Twilight Saga sets a bad example for young girls. How many people were on Yahoo!Answers asking how to become a vampire before The Twilight Saga was published? I'm not going to say that there weren't any, but I would say that there were more after The Twilight Saga was published. Stephenie Meyer basically writes that it is okay to be completely and totally dependent on your [undead] boyfriend, and to fantasize about seeing him, and to nearly kill yourself in order to see him [in your head].

Also, it glamorizes vampires, when, in reality, a vampire cannot have children, cannot abstain from drinking [human] blood, and would not sparkle in the sun. That's another reason people hate it so much; it strays too far from the vampiric folklore.

I really don't understand why people think Stephenie Meyer is a good writer. But it's okay to like The Twilight Saga.

2) I haven't read The Hunger Games

3) I haven't read the Sarah Dessen books.

4) After things like Sookie Stackhouse and The Twilight Saga came out, the main topic is vampires.

5) Personally, I don't read more recent teen/young adult novels, because, mostly, they are not very good.

6) In my opinion, Jodi Picult, like Stephenie Meyer, exagerates way too much.

I could go on forever.

I agree, I do! (A lot of people have said that by now, haven't they ? :P )

And, really, I have nothing new to add. But this question's been plaguing me as well and I had to answer. Something, at any rate.

Have you read 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time' ? You will not be disappointed. It's brilliant.I think it's also a Whitbread Award Winner or something.

It's bugging isn't it, how so much sodding rubbish is classified as YA, while all the good stuff keeps piling on the Kids' shelves?

But, thank you - I think reading this question has restored my faith in humanity and intellectuality and all of those flowery things our generation strives for. (a bit of an exaggeration there.But just a bit.)

P.S - What's stopping you? Your grammar and style's better than most!

I sort of agree with you. Like JLT said, there are good and bad books for each genre and age group. I've read some good, and I've read bad, and I've painfully watched good turn into bad. It's saddening, to me, and annoying, because most teen authors are NOT teenagers, so they tend to fill their "teen" characters with either too many adult traits, or too many cliches. I wish there was some kind of publishing company that published books by teens, for teens.

It also generally angers me that all the awful books hit the best-seller list. Whenever I feel like a good read, I'll ask my friends. "Oh, go read Boy and His X. It's really good." All right. I'll buy it, get a couple of chapters in, and then want my money back. It happens nearly every time.

When you mentioned becoming an author... What's stopping you? I'm disgusted by present teen fiction, so I write all the time so maybe there'll be something good on the shelves for once. It really doesn't matter if you're bad. If you post it on sites like fictionpress or WritersCafe, you can get reviews and critiques.

Oh, I'm sorry... I meant to keep this short. Ah, well.

tl;dr, I agree with you. Why not start writing?

FROM TOKI.

Harry Potter is classified as a children's series because in the first book the main characters were ten/eleven. I'm pretty sure that I read, somewhere, that the way books are classified is largely by the age of the main characters. I suspect that's how His Dark Materials is found in teen/children a lot of the time, when it's really meant more for teen/adult. But, anyway, Harry Potter is really meant for teens/adults, as well as children. But it should sit in the YA shelves.

Anyway, I'm dissapointed, as well. Teenagers deserve well-written, quality books, just the same as adults. Just because the attention span of teenagers is notoriously geared towards superficial things, it doesn't mean we all want Meg Cabot and Stephanie Meyer sitting on our bookshelves.

I stopped looking at YA a long time ago, but there are a few YA books I really liked. The Gemma Doyle trilogy was pretty good, as I remember it. And Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynn Jones is one of my favorites of all time. I liked Hunger Games, but I never read Battle Royale, so I can't really compare... on its own, though, I think it's entertaining and will read the last book.

Edit: I remember reading Lucas by Kevin Brooks a long, long time ago. I liked it but I don't remember much... and bringing up another YA author, Chris Wooding's The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray, Poison, and Storm Theif were all very, very good. I agree with Just Like That's point to a certain extent... not all YA books *are* bad, and you are picking the worst as examples. But it's not just the cliche plots that deter *me* from YA, it's also the poor, demeaning, condescending writing that really turns me off. I can't read a book like that, it makes me feel as if I'm twelve again.

@Felix: Do you know a book called Old Magic by Marianne Curley? I'm almost positive she's Australian... and while I read that book ages ago, I loved it. Thinking back, it was a bit cheesy, but gosh is it a lot more original than the other stuff lying around! And I think the Gemma Doyle trilogy gets better as you keep reading. I remember thinking the first was alright, the second was pretty good, and the third was the best. But, again, I read these books a few years ago and my tastes have changed since then. So maybe they are rubbish, I don't know anymore! XD

I definitely agree with most of what you are saying. I'll go the library and automatically head to the YA section, just because, well, I'm a young adult, and all the books are so stupid and immature and poorly written. Obviously there are exceptions -- I personally loved the Hunger Games, though I haven't read Battle Royale. But for the most part it's just boring. Like this "Clique" series. I started reading it a few years ago, thought it was mildly entertaining. But whenever a character enters a scene, the author describes her clothes! I don't care about fashion! I want to read about plot and conflict and snappy dialogue! What is this madness? But honestly if you cut out this "Dylan was wearing a denim mini..." the book would be half as long.

But as another person pointed out -- there are terribly written and superficial adult books as well. If you look on the adult shelves there's plenty of crap about clothes and dating as well. Also, I feel the need to point this out even though I don't know how it relates to this -- plenty of adults are obsessed with Twilight as much as teenage girls, which I think is hilarious as well as pathetic.

Sorry my hand is starting to hurt. I can't go on.

OMG. THANK YOU! Somebody else who sees that Suzanne Collins isn't a genius for coming up with The Hunger Games. Battle Royale FTW! :D

I'm not upset with what publishers are publishing for us teens. I mean, yes, the young adult literature has degraded drastically over the years. But. There are some really great, amazing books out there. I've read a lot of really good teenage books, especially coming-of-age stories. But, unfortunately, they are overlooked all too easily.

I'm more disappointed in the books that become bestsellers. (Seriously. I'm starting to wonder if that list is rigged.)