Why This Blog?

I love young adult literature, and I have since, well since I was a young adult. Though I suppose most would consider 20 an age still in the young adult category. Sometimes I think the same thing, sometimes I don't, depends on how my day is going I suppose. Still what is so fascinating about young adult fiction compared to adult fiction, and yes I have read adult fiction?

I suppose it is this, as a young adult you spend your days questioning who you are and who you will become some day. Everything in your life seems to center around those two questions. Day in, day out, all a young adult is doing is trying to figure out where they fit into the world. (Okay maybe a few other thoughts cross their mind as well). Sometimes it is just nice to open a book and read a story where someone else is going through the same struggles, whether those struggles are perfectly relatable or not.

Some of you probably already disagree with me. For example you might ask, how does Twilight address this need for self discovery, and I am so glad you asked that question via telepathic communication. Twilight isn't just a story about love or glittering vampires. No, it just appears to be that on the outside. Deep within the pages, if you are really reading is a girl trying hard to find her place in life. Think about it, think about all of Bella's doubts about herself. She never thinks she is good enough, don't most teenagers feel the same, even if they are popular? Bella is clumsy, too smart, too pale, and most importantly she thinks she is just like everyone else. But of course, we the readers know that she is not. Not because she is stuck in a love triangle with a werewolf and a vampire, but because we can hear her thoughts, and we know those thoughts differ from our own. That is the beauty of young adult literature (YAL), it shows us how to find ourselves. It can open so many doors for students who feel lost. Knowing someone else out there is lost, fictional or real, somehow makes us feel found again. Do I really need to explain my love for YAL any more than that, I think not.

However, I should explain why I am writing this blog. Well here it is, I am writing this blog mostly for myself. I want to use it to remember what I thought about a certain book, what connections I made to it, and what connections I think my future students might make with it. Also, I love knowing what other people think of the books I have read. If there is anything I love more than reading YAL, then it is discussing it. So I am writing this blog as a reminder of what struck a chord and what didn't, but I am also writing it as a format to gather other opinions about YAL novels as well.