top ten tuesdays! (04)

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. If you love lists

and wracking your brain for answers, then this is the meme for you!

Top Ten Trends You Would Like to See More or Less of:

More:

1. Books that deal with real-life issues. Don't get me wrong, I love a good, fun book just as much as the next person. However, I'm much more inclined to love a book that makes me think such as Unwind or, well, I haven't read Speak yet, but I'm sure that will also be one of them. These circumstances are real and when a story touches on a point so aptly - it's memorable.

2. Standalone books. To be fair, I love series. I'm the sort of person that loves delving into the characters and finding out more and seeing how they grow and interact...but I'm also the sort of person who can acknowledge something is being drawn out unnecessarily when one longer book would have been just as fine, and probably more lasting. And sometimes it's just ultimately more satisfying to figure everything all out at once.

3. Parents of YA characters. Tell me that I'm not the only one who wonders how convenient it is in a book where the parents work odd hours and are never home or, better yet, they're around you just never ever see them and no one is having a conversation with children who are out all night running with wolves or slaying vampires or whatever else is going on. I get that it's easier to advance the plot when Jane Doe isn't being grounded all the time, but it's an incredible suspense of disbelief on my part.

4. Characters in their 20s. I guess I really don't understand how YA always is understood to be teenagers. Trust me, people in their 20s (me!) are still learning the ropes of what it is to be an adult and we definitely fall under the auspice of YA. I would love to read more novels about people my age whether they be contemps or not.

5. Female MCs who are not klutzy, mousy, and afraid to speak up for themselves. I know we can't all be Katniss Everdeen or even Rose Hathaway, but, we can at least have a girl who's sure of herself and not afraid to say no. (And why does she always have to trip over her own feet? ) Case in point: I read a lot of stories where there's some bizarre interaction between female MC and male protagonist where the female is always internally thinking uhm, this is weird, can we hold up a second? and then she looks into his startling icy blue or deep black eyes and it's all over. It is 100% okay to question what is going on. (I'd extend this into a girl who says no to creepy potential male boyfriend, but that's a whole different essay.)

Less:

1. Stereotyping. The bad girls being catty cheerleaders or cliqueish popular girls or jocks. The outcasts being the smart ones or the emo or whatever alternative is. No plot twist would surprise me more if someone completely out of the blue ended up taking one of those roles instead. Besides, it's a completely unfair and not quite updated viewpoint.

2.Instashipping. Please. No more. This is an instant turn-off for me in a book. You know, I can almost deal with the books that are 'fated to be together 4eva' ones because at least there's a snippet of things tying together there. What I really don't understand is a story where two people have met and within a day (or hours, sadly) where they have no idea why, but suddenly the other person is the wittiest, most gorgeous person they've ever seen or envisioned in their lives and can do no wrong. What? The fate thing doesn't always work, either. I love a slow build-up. A recent example of this for me is Tris & Four in Divergent.

3. Lack of worldbuilding. I live for dystopia. Fictional, that is. But I need to know how things came about. Not a chapter's worth, but if girls are acting in a very specific manner I'd like to know what happened to create this situation, and perhaps even more about why people are not trying to remedy that situation instead of keeping the horrific status quo? If there's one thing I can't wrap my brain around, it's why a character would submit to a terrible situation without first wondering why nothing's being done to change it. It's a big no-no.

4. Girls in dresses on covers. And a lot of the times they don't have any heads, which seems a hard way to tell your story. Dresses are pretty and can be styled in so many ways, but there are times where it just seems like the 6th girl-in-a-dress you've seen and there's nothing unique about it. If I were at a bookstore and I saw a really inventive cover sandwiched in between two girls-in-a-dress it's an easy answer as to which one I'd pick up and start to read.

5. Perfect endings. Okay. I love a good happy ending. Really. Buuut I also love an ending that isn't so clear-cut and kind of makes you think or leaves you completely surprised, but in a manner that doesn't hinder the overall plot. If Billy and Mia are in this fantastic, perfect relationship and Joe comes along out of the blue and suddenly Joe and Mia are Happily Ever After/True Love at the end, well, I want no part of that. But if it's a twist that just works, well, yes please. While I wasn't the biggest fan of Possession as a novel, I appreciated the ending for this reason.