February has dawned on us, and Valentine's day is just around the corner. While some of us may loathe the magical time of year, there are some who enjoy it. So, in honour of Valentine's day, I will analyse how young adult romance novels shape our view of love as teenagers.
With popular titles like "Twilight" and "Vampire Academy", we're quick to judge the genre. Despite these popular novels, there are lots of young adult fiction books that have received a lot of positive feedback. Some examples are: "Shatter Me", "Everything, Everything" and "This Lullaby". Young adult fiction is very broad and undoubtedly has some legitimately good work. I couldn’t possibly lead this article with a statement like "most adult fiction is bad" because that would be biased and ignorant towards the many good novels out there.
So, what is the issue with teen fiction? I believe that the bigger issue with romance directed towards teenagers lies in the fact that it is unrealistic. It actually may influence the younger more naïve mind to seek out a significant other very early on in their life, and it builds expectations for some, depending on how naïve they are but for many it just causes a loathing towards the genre of young love in general. The way relationships are portrayed in teen novels are sometimes downright ridiculous, and often it sets up scenarios where two extremely young characters are destined to be together for the rest of their lives, which just isn’t true for actual teenagers. It’s a bad influence for the teeny tiny middle schoolers that don’t know who they are, let alone who they want to be with. While it may be an enjoyable read, it's important to take fictional romance with a grain of salt. The reality is that most teenage relationships don’t last longer than a couple years, and most teenagers shouldn’t feel the need to think that far into the future – it just isn’t ideal to expect to find true love in high school, and young people shouldn’t feel the need to hold themselves up to that standard.
That being said – it's ok to enjoy young adult novels. It's as with any other form of entertainment media – any other form of fiction. It shouldn’t influence you significantly, but you should never be ashamed of liking a certain book because it belongs to a certain genre, or because it caters to a younger audience. I myself like many novels that are marketed as teen novels. Clearly, the category of young adult fiction has some really ambitious work that is well liked and popular.
The bottom line is, that young adult novels may have unrealistic romantic relationships in them, but that shouldn’t discourage you, and you should be able to decide for yourself whether or not you like them. Reading in general is a fun and enriching experience that you should participate in – so whether it's some wacky vampire novel, or a classic tale of two lovers – you should get out there and read something that you enjoy.