I find that it's really rare to find a work of fiction that manages to portray anything like my experience. You always find either a relationship which involves endless petty bickering, or the author treats any pair of siblings that are able to express their affection for each other as uncomfortably close/bordering on incest
Yes, this is exactly what I was getting at. It's as if it's unthinkable that siblings could enjoy one another's company without it becoming unhealthily codependent. Sarah Rees Brennan gets it right.
I think when I read the Tomorrow series, I was still young enough that what struck me most was the fact that the books talked about things I hadn't heard people talk about much - like that sex can be awkward, and your first relationship is not always the best decision.
Oh, this, so much. The Dead of Night was actually the first time I read sex explicitly described on the page - I was ten years old and remember thinking to myself, a writer can actually DO that? - and now you bring it up, it makes me grateful that that was the first depiction I encountered. Because Marsden depicted the messiness, and the awkwardness, and the fact that a teenage girl might actually want sex, and that she would worry about contraception (because being pregnant in a war zone would be really difficult). All this matters, and it was powerful.
I saw an Australian YA author (who really should know better) opining in her blog the other day that YA was really sanitised until recently, and was unable to adequately address these kinds of issues or portray these kinds of characters, and I wanted to drop the entire Marsden bibliography in her lap in frustration. People were talking about it, and writing about it, before 2010, and not just Marsden. You mention Melina Marchetta, and I feel like Looking For Alibrandi and Saving Francesca in particular covered similar ground.
in hindsight I really appreciate that passionate defence of Gen Y
Yes! He really respected his readers and their concerns, and had, as you say, this passionate belief in Gen Y and its values.
To be fair, I really enjoyed the first three books, but I felt after that that they went downhill a bit. Not sure what popular opinion is on that.
In that your opinion is pretty much the dominant one. I agree with you, and feel that while the first three books described situations that a band of untrained teenage guerrillas could realistically have experienced, it started to get ridiculous in the later books. (Indeed, the whole thing was supposed to be a trilogy to begin with, and it could've stopped after The Third Day, The Frost with Ellie and co. in New Zealand.) I've also read the spin-off trilogy (I think it was called The Ellie Chronicles), as I had to review it for work, and it's really weak.
I for one am putting my hand up! I'll let you know if any catchy names come to mind. (How do you feel about Melina Marchetta (particularly Jellicoe Road?))
Excellent! I'll try to think of a name, and try to build up a backlog of content to populate it with before I make the comm/Tumblr visible, but it really is something I'd be interested in doing, and it's good to know there'd be other readers.
I LOVE Melina Marchetta, although I must admit that I'm more of a fan of Looking For Alibrandi and the Francesca books. I think it's because I grew up in Canberra with my extended family in Sydney (and then moved to Sydney during uni), so I found it really moving to read stories that were so rooted in the Sydney landscape, with characters who hung out in places I knew intimately. I was also already an adult when On The Jellicoe Road came out - and indeed had to review it for work - and that may have coloured my opinion slightly. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!
no subject
Yes, this is exactly what I was getting at. It's as if it's unthinkable that siblings could enjoy one another's company without it becoming unhealthily codependent. Sarah Rees Brennan gets it right.
I think when I read the Tomorrow series, I was still young enough that what struck me most was the fact that the books talked about things I hadn't heard people talk about much - like that sex can be awkward, and your first relationship is not always the best decision.
Oh, this, so much. The Dead of Night was actually the first time I read sex explicitly described on the page - I was ten years old and remember thinking to myself, a writer can actually DO that? - and now you bring it up, it makes me grateful that that was the first depiction I encountered. Because Marsden depicted the messiness, and the awkwardness, and the fact that a teenage girl might actually want sex, and that she would worry about contraception (because being pregnant in a war zone would be really difficult). All this matters, and it was powerful.
I saw an Australian YA author (who really should know better) opining in her blog the other day that YA was really sanitised until recently, and was unable to adequately address these kinds of issues or portray these kinds of characters, and I wanted to drop the entire Marsden bibliography in her lap in frustration. People were talking about it, and writing about it, before 2010, and not just Marsden. You mention Melina Marchetta, and I feel like Looking For Alibrandi and Saving Francesca in particular covered similar ground.
in hindsight I really appreciate that passionate defence of Gen Y
Yes! He really respected his readers and their concerns, and had, as you say, this passionate belief in Gen Y and its values.
To be fair, I really enjoyed the first three books, but I felt after that that they went downhill a bit. Not sure what popular opinion is on that.
In that your opinion is pretty much the dominant one. I agree with you, and feel that while the first three books described situations that a band of untrained teenage guerrillas could realistically have experienced, it started to get ridiculous in the later books. (Indeed, the whole thing was supposed to be a trilogy to begin with, and it could've stopped after The Third Day, The Frost with Ellie and co. in New Zealand.) I've also read the spin-off trilogy (I think it was called The Ellie Chronicles), as I had to review it for work, and it's really weak.
I for one am putting my hand up! I'll let you know if any catchy names come to mind.
(How do you feel about Melina Marchetta (particularly Jellicoe Road?))
Excellent! I'll try to think of a name, and try to build up a backlog of content to populate it with before I make the comm/Tumblr visible, but it really is something I'd be interested in doing, and it's good to know there'd be other readers.
I LOVE Melina Marchetta, although I must admit that I'm more of a fan of Looking For Alibrandi and the Francesca books. I think it's because I grew up in Canberra with my extended family in Sydney (and then moved to Sydney during uni), so I found it really moving to read stories that were so rooted in the Sydney landscape, with characters who hung out in places I knew intimately. I was also already an adult when On The Jellicoe Road came out - and indeed had to review it for work - and that may have coloured my opinion slightly. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!