YA's Far-Reaching Appeal

Admittedly, I'm not exactly ancient.

In fact, I called myself old to a bunch of freshmen in the math class I'm teaching, and they vehemently denied my claim, despite the fact that I've got over a decade on most of them. But, I still love reading YA. It just fits.

That's not all that surprising though.

Here are two things that did rather surprise me this week:

1) My FATHER, upon hearing that I was reading my daughter Harry Potter, wished aloud for another epic YA series to read. This is a grown man, a business owner, non-fiction lover, who spends his free time on golf and home-improvement projects. And he's angsting because Christopher Paolini hasn't gotten the last Eragon book done yet. Though, he's also the man I caught laughing during iCarly, after complaining loudly every time my daughter wanted to watch it.

2) Another teacher at my school totally caught a student trying to get away with something (something I recognized, but figured she wouldn't, since she'd graduated college way before me). Her response? "Please, I invented this."

So now, I'm just wondering why YA isn't more popular than it is. How many sit-coms seem like an adult version of high school? Yeah...I can name a few.

YA's about screwing up, fixing it, knowing yourself, and changing the world. Sounds pretty universal to me.

Comment time: Who's the oldest person you know that enjoys YA, whether they admit it or not?

Flashback Friday: When Krista Met Twilight....

Welcome to Week Twelve of our fabulous segment Flashback Fridays where the old and new collide on everything from books to movies to first loves to favorite vacations.

With Eclipse's record breaking box office opening last week, I felt some Flashback Friday homage needed to be paid to the Twilight series and how I became a fan.

My experience with reading the Twilight Saga goes something like this. Let's Flashback to October of 2009. As I was making my way through a mound of papers—book reports to be exact—I noticed a pattern. The vast majority were talking about this book or series of books to be exact. Yep, you guessed it: Twilight. Sure, this was shortly before the movie’s November release, so there was a lot of film generated buzz going on. Yeah, I figured that out later since I had no idea there was even going to be a movie until I read it on Stephenie's website. So, once I finished all the grading, I decided I should check out what all this “Twilight” hoopla was about.

And that my friends was shortly before I became infected by what I like to call “Twiacoccus Infection”. You may even have suffered from it before yourself. It’s that inexplicable feeling that nothing in the world matters besides Edward and Bella. Your Job? Sleep? Family and Friends? Psht, nope, nothing outside of Forks is as important but devouring the Twilight series like Emmett and that Grizzly.

It goes without saying I had an unusual Twilight reading experience. I actually read part of Breaking Dawn first. Hey, it was left in my classroom. Okay, so maybe I skimmed parts to see where the “good stuff” was. Sadly, I learned it was only fade to black “good stuff”. Damn. Then while I was waiting for Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse to come from Amazon, I started reading Midnight Sun online. This is an interesting piece in my reading saga. Perhaps it’s why(along with aforementioned Twiaccous) that I was able to tolerate Edward’s behavior.

After reading the books, I stayed highly feverish with Twiaccous until the movie’s release. My female students counted down the days until it opened....my male students rolled their eyes. For Twilight, I didn’t go to the Midnight Premiere. I went with two good friends the day it opened. However, when New Moon and Eclipse came out, you better believe I was going serious with the Midnight Premiere.

But before I release some Twilight hilarity on you, I should say this. I owe SERIOUS props to Stephenie Meyer. Here’s why. Up until November 2009, I had never written YA except for when I did the Institute of Children’s Literature(and that’s a whole other post for another time!). The summer and fall of 09’ I wrote a Southern Literary Fiction. But when I read Twilight, something happened to me that I had never experienced before. I began to dream about a story just like Stephenie did. For the first time, I had full-blown character schizophrenia where I couldn’t sleep at night for thinking about my characters. What came from reading Twilight was the idea for The Guardians, my YA UF about angels sent to earth to guide and protect lost souls. The Guardians sent me on a long quest to find an agent….on an epic journey of revisions….and a pit-stop along the way where I wrote Don’t Hate the Player—the book that landed me an agent.

So, yes, I may bash Twilight….I may poke fun at Bella or other characters, but in truth, I do so love the story and characters. From time to time, that Twiaccous Infection seeps back into my system. And I’m good with that. And for your viewing pleasure....

And of course, I must recommend some Twi-inspired reading, right? Of course, there is SOOO much Twilight related funny stuff out there that it's hard to narrow it down. But here's two.

Even though it wasn't quite as hilarious as I thought it would be, Nightlight was pretty hysterical with it's Belle Goose and Edwart Mullen. I'd recommend giving it at least a peek when you're at the bookstore.

And then a blog that seriously had me ROFLing so loud that my dogs kept looking at me like I was an idiot would be Cleolinda's. You seriously have to check this out. Her breakdown of Breaking Dawn had me in tears from laughing so hard.