Month: January 2023

The book One Great Lie by Deb Caletti focuses on Charlotte, a young aspiring writer’s journey to Venice, Italy. In Venice, Charlotte gets to spend the summer with other writers in the esteemed author Luca Bruni’s writers’ program. Charlotte is also on a mission of her own in Venice, to learn more about her Great Great Grandmother Isabella di Angelo, a now forgotten poet of the 1500s.

Whilst in Venice Charlotte befriends the others in the program. As well as forming a romantic connection with Dante, whom she meets in Venice. All the while each student forms a connection, good or bad, with Luca Bruna and are able to form their own opinions on the supposedly great writer.

One Great Lie was a well constructed and well written book, however to me it was not a great book. At times it was difficult to continue reading when nothing was happening in the story line. There was little character development and only a couple strong events that peaked my interest. Overall it was a good book, just not one I would choose to read again.

The ending was very pleasing. Charlotte was able to find what she had been searching for and reunite with Dante. It was a good, typical ending for most romance novels.

I would recommend this book to readers that enjoy a typical romance trope, girl goes to Italy and falls in love, all the while striving towards her dreams. It might also appeal to people who can relate to Charlotte. To get to a pedestal mark point in your dreams only to watch that pedestal crumble, and then rebuild from there. One Great Lie is a good book to please readers.

Melanie Koss briefly explores the context in which we see disabilities in young adult literature, criticizing some and uplifting others. She argues that characters with disabilities are often stuck as the victim, villain, or hero, all because of the disability. It is much rarer to find a character whose disability is one aspect of a more complex individual. 

Koss lists a few YA stories that fit the latter description, reminding me of the books I’ve read with disabled representation. Leigh Bardugo authored Six of Crows, including a main character with a disability. She did a great job bringing the character’s struggles to light, drawing from her own experiences with osteonecrosis, without taking away from the complexity of the character. While this is one good example of mindful representation, there are too many careless and dehumanizing examples of disability representation in YA literature, but it is getting better as people become more educated on the subject.

Koss, Melanie, and Donna Wakefield. “Core collection: YA characters with special needs.” Booklist, vol. 104, no. 12, 15 Feb. 2008, p. 79. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A175442728/ITOF?u=maine&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a4ef8a5f. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.

In this article, Sharin Colvin speaks on how diverse literature can help build a reader’s empathy and social capacity. Colvin mentions the campaign “We Need Diverse Books”, which started up as a social media campaign to promote diversity in young-adult literature. This program has grown and now includes grants and festivals. Colvin says “The idea is simple: Our world is diverse and children’s books should reflect that” (Colvin, 2017). I really admire this quote, because of how realistic and straight forward it is.

The US has dealt with parents or teachers banning books from school libraries for many different reasons. Sure, maybe some books aren’t appropriate for younger students, but that shouldn’t give them the right to ban other books that represent other races and sexual orientations. Many books being banned led to what librarians call Banned Books Week, which defends these diverse books.

Sharin Colvin later goes on to discuss that “In order to understand the impact of diverse literature on development, it is important to understand why people, especially young people, read fiction” (Colvin, 2017). She explains that navigating through social experiences is a very important part of life, and I agree with that. Some books, depending on the person, can act as a safe place. Colvin claims that young people are drawn to books because it can explain the world around them in a more simplistic way. Overall, this article really digs deep into why diversity is important, and it’s affect on young readers everywhere.


Colvin, Sharon. “Literature as more than a window: building readers’ empathy and social capacity through exposure to diverse literature.” Voice of Youth Advocates, vol. 39, no. 6, Feb. 2017, pp. 24+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A484156262/ITOF?u=maine&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f27304b0. Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.

The Hunger Games is a very captivating novel and series, with the book following a girl that volunteered to fight for her life in an arena in order to save her sister. Katniss Everdeen was a poor girl growing up in a failed society in a monarchy, with the worth of people depending on what district you were born into. When a sick game created by her capital threatened to take her sister to a game of death Katniss stood up to protect her. Katniss is one out of 24 children sent to an arena to fight to the death over a span of a couple weeks, with the threat of starvation, dehydration, and mutts (genetically modified creatures) Katniss has to do things no one would dream of to be the one allowed to go home to her family while not letting herself be changed by her evil king and failed society.

I really enjoyed the book myself, there isn’t too much mystery but you never really know what’s coming, the book puts you in the arena with the contestants, with everyone not knowing whether a spear will fly from the bushes or if there is someone behind a tree waiting to water the trees with someone’s blood. Seeing how these games changed all the contestants except for Katniss was wonderful, she showed respect for those that died and gave mercy to those that suffered. Even straight to the end, Katniss showed that the games didn’t control who she was by controlling the games herself. I feel like this book would be highly popular for those in high school and above, children may not like it due to the death and sadness, but those who are more mature would definitely be hooked by the twist and turns of everything that happens.

Jill Ratzan writes about how queer representation in young adult literature has taken a significant turn for the better and rather than vilifying queer characters authors are writing about the everyday experiences and the realistic struggles and hardships queer characters have to endure not only to find their identity but also to find support within their identity and their community. While queer representation in literature hasn’t always been portrayed in a positive or healthy way Ratzan describes how authors are making a switch and representation of the Lgbtq+comunity has become more positive and has been a healthy and relatable role model for millions of queer-identifying youth.

In the world of Young Adult Literature Lgbtq+ characters, especially teens identifying within the Lgbtq+ community have been vilified and used as basic plot points to only better the story for the heterosexual main character couple. While it could be said that they were represented within this genre not all representation is good representation. Frequently in stories, queer characters are not taken seriously in their endeavors whether they are romantic or not. They are simply there to further the story. In many stories, it is the queer couple that suffers the most or ends up without their happy ending, and while not every story has a happy ending it is most frequently that we see queer characters suffer

More recently authors have begun to portray queer characters in a positive and healthy way whether it be a coming-of-age story about finding yourself, discovering your identity, and overcoming the hardships that come with being a queer-identifying youth or whether its a string independent character being the hero of the story that just so happens to be queer. Authors are beginning to give queer youth role models in books that they can look up to and really find themselves in and relate to. Now more than ever queer representation isn’t something that is rare and belittled.

Ratzan, Jill. “Coming-of-age while out and proud: In decades past, the world of queer YA literature comprised cautionary tales and sob stories. Thankfully, these two new novels stand out for their uplifting and romantic perspectives.” BookPage, May 2019, p. 28. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A583249872/ITOF?u=maine&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6c63d520. Accessed 17 Jan. 2023.

Mental health has been a topic talked about in the book community for quite a long time; but, is it being represented in a proper and educational way? The author of the article The fault in YA books: why mental health in YA fiction needs to be better, Usratt Fahmidah, wrote about how wrongfully many YA authors depict the struggles of mental health. She believes that books such as 13 Reasons Why show the recovery from self-harm and the mourning of someone lost due to suicide, as something linear. In reality, it is anything but. Recovery from something such as self-harm is a long and winding road with many ups and downs and many people relapse. Mourning someone is very similar in most cases. There is no timeline for recovery and acting like there is gives the reader a false sense of reality. Fahmidah believes this is just one of many reasons why the wrongful depiction of mental health is harmful.

I personally believe that mental health is wrongfully written throughout many YA books. I think that many authors write characters with certain issues in a way that makes them seem crazy or even scary. For example, the way schizophrenia is portrayed is extremely harmful to the people dealing with it and incorrect in most cases. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that causes a warped view of reality that can cause hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking. This causes the condition to be highly stigmatized and in YA literature it has been blown out of proportion significantly. Many authors depict schizophrenia in a way that makes the character seem dangerous or crazy. Depicting them as people who are driven to harm others and cause destruction. In reality, many people with schizophrenia live a semi-normal life with the help of medication or specialty care. The way that authors depict this illness simply raises the stigma surrounding the topic.

Veronica Roth writes Insurgent, an action-packed novel continuing from the book Divergent. Following the Character Tris (Beatrice) Prior, Roth takes us through a roller coaster of emotional and informal loops, teaching lessons and keeping the reader engaged. She shows how people who are different aren’t always different in a bad way when Tris fights her entire corrupted government to show that her being different is what everyone really needs.

I am personally a big fan of Roth’s Divergent series, but Insurgent is my personal favorite, the way Roth portrays Tris and the other Divegents throughout the novel is perfect, it shows how they are different from everyone and yet so similar, showing that just because someone is different doesn’t mean they can’t be like everyone else. Tris’s character is always learning and improving from every single point of the book, from jumping off the train in the beginning the revealing the shocking truth about Divergents at the end, which makes me like her character so much more, it separates her from everyone else, including her fellow Divergents. Roth writes in such a way that you cant quite put together the whole story until you read the last page, always leaving a mystery and questions.

I think anyone can really enjoy the book, since there isn’t one clear genre you can put this in the hands of anyone. There is romance, action, mystery, survival, and a lot more, there’s very little to not like about this book. I do think teens would enjoy this book, and the series, the most though, with it following two teens doing things every high schooler has dreamt of at least once it is a great book to read to escape from the world.

As the title clearly states, the article I read was all about red flags in young adult literature. Young adult romance novels all typically end the same way. The couple gets together, all of their previous hardships just disappear and they live happily ever after. This article focused on the idea of how everything can just be forgotten. Of how the male lead can be incredibly rude and hostile at the beginning of the novel and even throughout but the female lead sees no problem with this. The author relates all of her points back to Twilight’s Edward and how he is magically “changed/fixed” at the end of the novel. She goes on to explain how incredibly dangerous this is for young girls because it promotes unhealthy, toxic relationships. Young girls read these novels and think that this is what real-world relationships should look like.

Young adult/new adult romance books are my guilty pleasure. I love to read, but I am super picky and find it very hard to find new books. The only books I can usually be guaranteed to like are the stereotypical young adult/new adult romance. While I may love these types of books, I do know and see that they have many flaws. The biggest flaw is their promotion of the “magical fix”. Two great examples of this are Until Friday Night and Under The Lights both by Abbi Glines. Until Friday Night shows the male lead take out all of his pain and anger about his dad’s cancer on a girl who was already suffering. But it’s okay because she understands what he’s going through and that makes it all alright. Under The Lights shows both male leads openly using girls for sex. One of them, Gunner, even goes so far as to only show interest in one girl so that a different girl doesn’t get the wrong idea. As the author of the article described all red flags and flaws were suddenly forgotten though by the female lead because the male had his reasons for his behavior.

It may be that I grew up in a small town and go to a relatively small high school. It may be that I am “sheltered” and other high schools may actually be like those that I read about in books. But for the most part, these novels are just unrealistic and dangerous to young girls.

UCLA, Posted by GlobeMed at. “Romance Novels Are Teaching Young Girls to Ignore Red Flags.” GlobeMed at UCLA, GlobeMed, 16 Jan. 2020, https://globemedatucla.wordpress.com/2020/01/16/romance-novels-are-teaching-young-girls-to-ignore-red-flags/.

Cassidy Proctor writes about queer representation in graphic novels and why it’s so important in her article “A New Hope: The Rise of Soft Queer Graphic Novels”. It puts a particular emphasis on those stories that have happy endings. In recent years more and more graphic novels have given queer people their happy endings and that has been a positive step forwards for all. Young people need to be shown that it is possible for them to have happy lives. Cassidy is fully in support of this statement. She believes that these books need to be written not only for queer youth but also for everyone to get a hold of and become better kinder people. She believes that these books could help show other people how to support their loved ones who are queer.

I fully support this as well. Not only for youth, but for any queer people, representation is important. There needs to be so much more, enough to normalize it being in the mainstream media. I have many loved ones that need this support as well as myself and it’s so incredibly important for us to be able to see that things are just as possible for us as anyone else. Most of the works written for/about queer people are often sad or don’t have happy and positive endings. Having stories that actually give us that give us hope of that for ourselves.

Proctor, Cassidy. “A New Hope: The Rise of Soft, Queer Graphic Novels.” Booklist, vol. 116, no. 21, 1 July 2020, p. S18. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A632532987/ITOF?u=maine&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0a8d4e63. Accessed 12 Jan. 2023.

Somnath Sarkar writes in “Romance in Literature: Definition, Examples Characteristics” about the changes in the genre of romance over the years. He defines romance as “Any tale of adventure, whatever the origin of its matter, could be a Romance, and the adventure could be chivalric or merely amorous.” The article states that the purpose of a romance is to be “…an escape from realism.” Meaning, according to Sarkar, that in the old style romance novels, “The sexual love, if any, is but the rarefied expression of courtly love.” The story was about the adventure the characters went on that may have lead to love and may not have. The point of the genre was not to create a toxic love between broken people, but a world that allowed readers to escape through the characters to a better place.

Prior to the 21st century a romance novel meant something other than it does now. The changing definitions of genres are of little consequence. The problem lies in the types of relationships portrayed, specifically unhealthy ones, in modern romance. In American society we romanticize things that have no business being romanticized, in large part as a mechanism for healing. For example, traumatic events or mental health problems. This feeds into modern day romance which causes problem for the young people reading YA as we are easily influenced before our prefrontal cortex is full developed as 25, at the earliest.

An example of a beloved romance YA novel is Twilight. However, Edward clearly displays abusive behavior both stalking Bella and attempting to control her by isolating her from her support system. He also threatens to kill himself if anything happens to her and frequently scares by driving too fast or abandoning her in the woods after breaking up with her.

Another example of an unhealthy relationship in YA is Katniss, Peeta, and Gale’s love triangle in The Hunger Games. Gale and Peeta have a conversation in The Mockingjay where they acknowledge that they both love Katniss and they don’t know which one of them she will pick, but they agree it will be the one she can’t live without. Katniss and Peeta’s PTSD is explored thought the series and is used to show how the games have broken them and Katniss in particular. Katniss regularly uses both Gale and Peeta for her own benefit and casts them off when no longer useful. Peeta is cast off after the first games, then Gale before the second. This cycle continues until the epilogue were the readers are still in the dark over which man Katniss choose. The Hunger Games popularity caused for the same cycle as Twilight‘s popularity. More and more copycats.

The problem with Twilight besides the toxic relationships, is that it set the precedent for all of the copycats to create their own unhealthy relationships in order to benefit from the popularity of Twilight. This cycle has to be broken. Books are influential and they need to unhealthy relationships, but not in a way that romanticizes or allows the reader to think such relationships are okay. Writing about unhealthy relationships sells books but people take these relationships out of context and assume that is how real relationships work.

Works Cited

Sarkar, Somnath, “Romance in Literature: Definition, Examples Characteristics.” All About English Literature, 9 May 2022, https://www.eng-literature.com/2022/05/romance-literature-definition-examples-characteristics.html.