Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Well, it’s no “Hell ass tits goddamn motherfucking YES,” but it’s enough to make it to my wishlist.

My daughter’s dying for a girl protag in her generation. Fingers crossed.

Argh.  Read it last week.  Thought it was a B-rated Harry Potter rip-off.  Zoey was so ‘gifted’ and ‘special’ and ‘awesomely cool’ and wasn’t it amazing the way she had the markings of (potentially) the most powerful vampire - ever?  It felt forced and weak to me. It was the first PC Cast novel I’d read and I was disappointed after reading Dionne Galace rave about her.

~~sigh~~
So not on my list....I’m extremely tired of teenage, smart mouthed ‘witty’ vampire/werewolf/anythingotherthanaverage ‘kick butt’ heroines.

Nothing I want to read about.

I like P.C. Cast’s novels, I wouldnt read the young adult ones, if I wanna associate with teens I’ll drag my own kids away from their cell phones. But since I do like her other writing, I would reccomend it to my young relatives who read.
My daughters are really past reading young adult literature now.My 16 year old recently read JR wards series ( cept for zhadist’s story..I hid that one from her)

I wonder what age group you would reccomend this type of books to? 12-15 year olds?

Why is it that every YA title I’ve read or considered recently has a mean, nasty, or neglecting parent?...or just call me an over sensative parent(that can’t spell).

Maybe the parents are bad in the novels so that the kids that read them think “ hey my mom and dad arent so bad!” lol

I wouldn’t say it’s just YA.  Miserable parents are prevalent in regular romances and often used to explain hero/heroine’s obnoxious behavior or messed up psyche.

On the other hand, if you look at the fairy tales we read kids, they almost always involve orphans or miserable step-parents.  I’d guess it’s nothing new.

Sarah, I share your dread of series fiction.  I mildly enjoyed the first Bridgerton book, then realized it was a series.  Blech, even though the Bridgerton books are freestanding.  My reaction is about wanting freshness in every book.  Too often I enjoy a book, then find the author’s written 5 others just like it, and it loses its freshness.  Even knowing some series do work well, I’m always afraid that reading the rest will ruin the first book’s sense of newness and discovery.

On tha Potta....  It’s easy for magical YA books to sound like Harry Potter ripoffs.  But I read a Potter and thought it was a blatant rip of Mary Stewart’s The Little Broomstick, updated and changed from a girl to a boy.  That’s OK; I can believe that Cast’s series shares common roots with Rowling’s, rather than being a rip.  (There are many great magical YA books in Candy’s Better Than Potter post.  Quite a few are old enough to have influenced both Rowling and Cast.)

the prevalence of bad parenting in YA/children’s lit as a quick and easy source of protagonist empowerment

There’s a long tradition of YA novels setting up the protagonist to be isolated from familiar adults.  Often absentee parents (not poor parents) leave the child responsible for his/her own adventures.  In WW II fiction, the children are sent to the countryside for safety (CS Lewis’ Narnia, 1950).  Children are sent to friends in the country in Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960) and Mary Stewart’s The Little Broomstick (1971).  Clement Freud’s Grimble (1974) and Norton Juster’s Phantom Tollbooth (1977) are latch-key kid adventures.  In Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising (1973-76), Will’s parents are sensitive and well-meaning but can’t access the magical world to help him, so he’s still isolated.

It really is a pervasive theme.  Sometimes there are other adults guiding the young protagonists (Cooper); sometimes the kids are on their own (Nesbit, and most child-detective novels).  Which all makes sense: that’s a time of developing an unique identity, of sometimes finding adults stupid and sometimes realizing they do know best, of finding role models outside the home.

Were you also annoyed by how every single Sweet Valley High book felt it was necessary to repeat in the first ten pages how the twins were five-foot-size and had aqua eyes and were rilly rilly pritty and wore those effing lavalieres, like, all the damn time?

Because that pissed me off a little.

A few years ago a copy of That Sweet Valley High Book Where Regina Does Cocaine Once and OMG DIES, also known as The Book That Made Us All Scared of Cocaine Even More Than the Len Bias Thing, came into my roommate’s hands. Dramatic readings were had.

Uh, I meant five-foot-six. My typing is often overwhelmed by rage.

Thank you, Sarah, for the insightful review.  As always, I lurve me some Smart Bitches.  Target age is 13 to 18 year olds, although I’m getting mail from 12 to 40 year olds saying they’ve enjoyed MARKED.

I liked Grimble’s parents. His mother was particularly inspired on the subject of things to do with stale bread.

I dunno. How many people did you know in high school that came from genuinely happy, functional families?

I’m not sure I can think of ANY that I’ve ever known, truly.

Everyone’s got their issues. Even the saner families (and technically speaking, mine would be among them, and mine are legendarily nuts- but at least I didn’t get pregnant or go to jail and did move out of the house and go to college) can really fuck up a kid. So I totally buy it in YA fiction.

Kerry Allen,
On the subject of YA heroines, check out Tamora Pierce. She has a few series which are all fantasies set in the medieval realm of Tortall. They’re not modern, but if she likes fantasy I highly recommend them.

I think Cast squared, did an awesome job.  Um the house of night reminds me of my high school but mine was a bit more bitchy and the guys were less hott oh and drinking blood was replaced with gin.  but other than that the similarities are parallel. lol.  seriously I devoured this book in 1 night and was not so patiently waiting for more!  high school is so much better this time around! like for sure! teehee.