Young Adulting

let's compare scars, I'll tell you whose is worse.

I spent the other night watching My Fault: London on amazon prime. It’s a soapy teen flick straight out of wattpad. But at the same time… I want it. I’m in my thirties. I am way past thus demographic. I should be thinking about other things. Like, I don’t know. Mortgages or whatever else. But god help me, I want to fall for my hot stepbrother when my mom marries a rich man across the Atlantic(The way that this will literally never happen in my life, mostly because my mom is dead, I already own an apartment, amongst other things, but it’s fine! ). What is it about the tortured bad boys? Like - I’ve done the therapy guys, I know these things are toxic and not healthy, and you should not want to change a man, because god help me I have also tried that. They will change when they want to, not because you want them to. BUT TELL ME WHY I’M STILL SWOONING, K? (Probably because he’s cutie Guy from the Buccaneers) Then, like the gemini I am, I went into rationalization mode, and started thinking about the YA genre as a whole, something I’ve almost exclusively read for the last eight years or so. To my earlier point - if you’ve been anywhere on Booktok or read a Young Adult/New Adult novel - you know we love our morally grey man. Not, a toxic man, mind you, like this article from February in the New York Times that made me grumble (ahh! That’s what older people do! Grumble!!!) but like, a bit of edge, right? It’s always that edge though, because it can be particularly dangerous as a woman otherwise. Violence against women isn’t a joke, which is why these tropes resonate so deeply. There’s a tacit understanding of how dangerous it can be so the idea that YOU are safe from this one man is a comfort and a guarantee that doesn’t necessarily come IRL.

are they *finally*about to kiss?!?!?!

This movie in particular has the plot point - her father abused her so she has a nasty scar, and that’s who she needs protecting from. There’s a line from a song that’s always haunted me, “Let’s compare scars, I’ll tell you whose is worse.” (Hello 9^th Grade Emo Phase!) But the lyrics always hinted at that emotional vulnerability only the young can have. It’s a staple of any YA story worth its bloody salt.

It’s the same impulse - how an opening chord progression of a song moves me so, stirs so much feeling - but it’s not a unique experience - that’s what music and art and literature is for after all, yet I feel so alone in it. It’s why I’ve been listening to The Smiths on repeat for the last week. Spotify describes (lead singer) Morrisey as “drifting from tradition by singing in a keening self-absorbed croon, embracing the forlorn romantic poetry of Oscar Wilde”. First of all, that sentence did something to me. Second, fuck you but AI couldn’t write that shit. It’s why the AI hill I will die on is that you will always need creatives. I think this version was also as great as it was (for what the source material is) because you clearly had a production team (read: mostly female) that understood what the story is trying to do. There is such a history of things that teenage girls value being written off as dumb or basic. When in fact I believe it’s the opposite. There is such power in the written word and what we see on the screen. I learned about the world through books like these - they shaped my worldview irrevocably (side note: I can never see that word and not think of the following quote from that little vampire movie from about fifteen years ago maybe you’ve heard of it, “About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him, and I didn't know how dominant that part might be, that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.” ahh teenage angst is so yummy).

I had a conversation during a Milan Fashion Week Party about YA. It was another woman - much more fashionable than I - but we were both in our thirties. She said, isn’t it weird that we still read this? I (unsurprisingly) am in the category of vehemently shouting no about this from the rooftops. I think, especially as women, most of us who had to grow up to quickly (I, myself, was always called mature for my age from age 11. Precocious too. Which I was proud of. Not sure if I still am), means that our true girlhood probably ended prematurely. Sometimes I do feel that I am still seventeen years old and dreaming of when I’ll finally be “living” my life. I’d say there’s something wonderful about teenage girls saving the world - those who are so undervalued (It’s also why IMO so many YA adaptions fail, because they are directed by men who are 40+ who could never possibly understand what being a teenage girl is like) by society and themselves. Feels a wee bit on the nose now.

But it’s also not wrong. I mean, I grew up on Harry Potter and the Hunger Games and Percy Jackson and Divergent and (love it or hate it, Twilight does fall into this category) Shadow and Bone and Vampire Academy and the Mortal Instruments and I could keep going, but what do all of these have in common? Their Hero/Heroine is under the age of eighteen. I’ve always viewed this not as an improbability but a way to teach young people (and event adults in their 30s) where their power and inner agency lies. We need more people these days who understand their power within the ecosystem they live in. Whether it’s at a magical boarding school in Scotland, or just and average person living and working in New York City. The alchemy these stories teach you is how to ignite and make and leave the world a better place than you left it. I think I’ve referenced this before but there was a study done just after the 2016 election about how (millennials specifically, because we grew up on it) were statistically less likely to vote for trump if they had read the series. It’s why J.K. Rowling’s anti-trans rhetoric was such a betrayal to so many. The whole rooting-for-the-underdog, and the x thing about you doesn’t determine your worth or value stance somehow didn’t apply to the real world, all of a sudden. Which is ludicrous. Obviously the blood purity argument (Hermione as a muggleborn) is paralleled for anything like racism or islamophobia or anti-semitism. The werewolf argument we see in book three with Professor Lupin is has some LGBTQ+ parallels (Fun Fact: In some corners of the internet /Fanfic, Fenrir Greenback, the wolf who bit him as a child is quite obviously a metaphor for pedophiles). So yeah, thinking about it through this lens, and obviously it makes sense.

There’s a certain degree of media literacy that is required here, but hopefully most people who read these types of books are engaged enough. But it does further my point that Young Adult - as a genre - is actually an incredibly valuable form of literature. It’s continually devalued. A male figure very close to me has continually, while checking in on the progress of my novel, in the next breath said, “but it’s so much easier to get published because it’s not serious literature”. For any outrage, don’t worry, you can find him as a villain in the novel. In the meantime, however, I’m taking applications for my Morally Grey love interest, particularly one who very much embodies the “Who did this to you? I’ll kill them for touching you” trope amongst others. I’m a sucker for Enemies to Lovers (because apparently if you have *Anxiety* you are really drawn to the idea of someone liking you despite seeing all of your flaws) but babes my cortisol can’t handle that shit IRL.

UNTIL NEXT TIME & XOXO & ALL THAT JAZZ

Casey

Once more with feeling: Here’s my YA Spotify playlist titled POV: you’re the lead in a YA novel complete with morally grey dark haired love interest. It’s awesome.