When I was a young adult, fantasy novels were pretty much all I read. The chosen-one trope with its formula was exactly what I needed to get through each day.
It was my escape and soon became a goal for me to write my own, while secretly fantasizing about my own chosen-one destiny eminently beginning (I was like 15% convinced I was going to drop through a blackhole into Middle Earth each morning I walked into school in the 7th grade.)
My unexpected and disappointing arrival into adulthood without the experience of an arch nemisis, epic battles, and the awakening of dormant unique power has been a lot. While my chosen career path can definitely be thrilling when there is a full moon, it is not due to supernatural reasons as much as human nature.
When I listen to/read YA novels now, it is with the grumpy awareness that these stories are not happening to the 30-somethings. That demographic in the book is either dead, dying, or disappointing. A humbling and exasperating experience to be relegated to the sidelines due to my age.
The YA novels I enjoy now do not emphasize the chosenness of our main character. It is one where their humanness and fallibility are front and center as opposed to their youth, power, and attractiveness to various love interests.
I’m not writing this in any desire for the genre to change or to emphasize a fault in it. I have no intention to say that the books of my youth set me up for failure nor am I saying they are good books that I currently enjoy now. I am simply saying that the books I read were what I needed at that time in my life.
A time when I was still figuring things out and didn’t know what I wanted, just that I was uncomfortable with all the changes in my life and skin. As I’ve settled more into my bones and who I am, the books I need are not ones where the character is manic and being handed all that she/he needs. But ones, where they are enough as they are and they are working towards something achievable but not necessarily awe-inspiring.
I want a book where a character has flaws and has to sometimes struggle to get what they want. I want someone to call them unattractive. It will make the few people that do like them all the more worthwhile because it wasn’t about the fading physical looks, but the relationship they are working at having.
I want a book where characters aren’t necessarily doing well overall, but they successfully baked that cake. It was enough for that week.
So thank you, books of my youth. You gave me the peace I needed at a time when I wasn’t sure of many things. But with the maturity of my age, I know it is not you that I need now.
On my to read list (or listen! most have audiobook versions!)
- Behind You is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj
- Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
- Freedom is a Constant Struggle; Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis
- I Don’t Want this Poem to End by Mahmoud Darwish edited and translated by Mohammed Shaheen
- Power Born of Dreams by Mohammed Sabaaneh
- They Called me a Lioness by Ahed Tamimi and Dana Takruri
- 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East by Naomi Shihab Rye
- Badawi by Leila Abdelrazaq
- Thunderbird by Sonia Nimr
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