The Secret Ingredient of Young Adult Literature

This winter break I had the luxury of reading for pleasure. During this time, I was able to read a few young adult novels, and I was surprised. Nearly all of these stories had some sort of romance, and I was surprised by how many love triangles there were in these books. I understand that that a large component of YA is romance but the sheer amount of love triangles that I saw was enough to put me off from young adult fiction for a while. Let’s name a few of these series for starters – The Mortal Instruments, Matched and The Hunger Games. All these books start their story with seemingly “strong” and “independent” female characters, but I feel that the romance in these stories significantly reduce any empowerment that the female leads are supposed to have. Usually at the center of these triangles is a girl who, while portrayed as strong and capable, falls under the spell of the two other legs of this triangle. There’s nothing wrong with romance in a YA book; if tastefully done, I think it can even make it better, but these triangles make me roll my eyes.

Setting aside Twilight (which I feel is sort of unsalvageable plot-wise and character development-wise…sorry Twilight fans), I think the love triangle plot device hasn’t been executed correctly even by well written books. For the uninitiated, the run-of-the mill love triangle nowadays has a girl with poor self-esteem, guy 1 (her best friend from childhood who has worshipped her ground but somehow never manages to confess this before guy 2 comes along), and finally guy 2 (a “bad boy” who honestly in my book sets off alarms for stalker/abusive tendencies). SPOILER: the girl usually ends up with guy 2. But what’s baffling is that this concept isn’t even new; most of these books are simply reinventing the wheel of a long gone era with more angst. Ever heard of Wuthering Heights or Sense and Sensibility?

Why then does this type of romance hold so much appeal? I think the answer lies in the reader’s need for wish-fulfillment through the heroine. The idea of a whirlwind romance with two (or even more suitors) seems to answer the universal need to feel wanted and sought after. But what irks me about these romances is that this romance comes at the cost of an intelligent heroine. Often, the minute she interacts with any of the guys involved in the triangle, the authors feel the need to make the girl into a damsel in distress or make the guys involved in the triangle into cavemen. Take The Hunger Games as an example. Katniss is pretty kickass and can launch a pretty nice projectile into the throat of an enemy. In fact, she saves Peeta from certain death in the Games. However, when Peeta or Gale (the 2nd leg) has the opportunity to interact with Katniss, they both seem to revert to big lengths to “protect” Katniss at the cost of actually asking her opinion or treating her as an equal. My qualm does not only lie with this book.

The girl’s independence often only lasts as long as the male lead is not in the scene, at which point the desirability of the girl seems to arise from her docility towards this character. Even if the heroine is shown being abrasive to guy 2 and calls him out on their unhealthy relationship, it often gets swept under once the “angst” is introduced and chemistry starts. This sets up a very poor example for the readers of YA – presumably teenagers who are just beginning to explore and start relationships. Letting these girls believe that this is the norm for relationships allows them to feel that behavior that may be demeaning or inappropriate might be socially acceptable. This innately disempowers these girls and sends them a message to accept what shouldn’t be accepted. What further irks me is that most of these books are written by women. Why would women write stories that harkens these heroines back to an era of merely being a shadow of men? Sure, they are writing about female protagonists, but I don’t see any truly independent females. That said, I am mainly referring to the mainstream YA books that reaches a wide audience, as I have read plenty of gems that don’t fall into this trap. But I dream of a YA genre when I don’t have to dig for these books and the heroine doesn’t have to choose between two guys who don’t really understand her needs or true personality.