Discussions Only We Know: Repetitive Themes

Discussions Only We Know

Repetitive Themes

Today we’re talking about repetitive themes in books. I was going to ask if there are any repetitive themes in the books you read, but I already know the answer to that. The answer is yes. And I know that because there are repetitive themes in the books I read. That coupled with the fact that there is nothing new under the sun. So I guess the real question is what are the repetitive themes that you’ve noticed lately, and are you getting tired of them? Or do you think these themes are necessary?

(*NOTE: The statistics listed below are completely made up and probably exaggerated, but I think you get my point. Except for the ones where I link to an actual article.)

Ok...so Young Adult and New Adult books have a LOT of repetitive themes. I could spend days talking about each one, I'm sure.

Love triangles for one. People usually love them or hate them. I don't outright hate love triangles. As a matter of fact, some of them I really enjoy. I've noticed in the majority of the books I've read with love triangles there are two hot guys going after one girl. And the majority of those have ended with the girl still being in love with the first guy introduced to the story. The love triangles that work for me are the ones that include out growing one relationship which leads into moving toward a more mature relationship. As I said in my Top Ten Things I Dislike About Fictional Romance post, I think you can love two people at one time, but not in the same way. So love triangles that don't work for me have the main character head over heels in love with one character, but when in a situation with the other member of the triangle all thoughts of the other guy are out the window. (Love triangles that don't work for me: the Cambion series by Shannon Dermott and Unravel Me (Shatter Me, # 2) by Tahereh Mafi. *Note, I've not read the last book in either of these series, so the final book could sway my opinion on these triangles.) I actually did an entire post on Love Triangles That Worked For Me and Ones That Didn't.

How about bullying? Bullying has been such a hot button topic in the world of late. Bullying is a big problem, but I wonder if part of the problem is that we're not teaching our kids how to handle being bullied. But that's a different subject for a different kind of post. Bullying was present in 9 out of 10 YA books published through the years of 2012-2013 and 8 out of 10 published in 2014. The majority of the bullying I read during these years were gay kids being bullied. (Ex: Speechless by Hannah Harrington & Confessions of an Almost-Girlfriend (Confessions, # 2) by Louise Rozett) Which leads into the next repetitive them...

Homosexuality is present in maybe not the majority of YA books that I've read over the past three years, but it is definitely present in a large portion of those books. The book might not be about a main character that is gay, but there is some character, somewhere within the book that is gay. With statistics showing that only 1.8% of the population of the United States reporting to be gay, the frequency of gay characters in YA & NA literature is potentially--dare I say—unrealistic. (Ex: Just One Day (Just One Day, # 1) by Gayle Forman, Hopeless (Hopeless, # 1) by Colleen Hoover, and Riot (Mayhem, # 2) by Jamie Shaw )

Within the paranormal subgenre, there always seems to be a self-sacrificing female lead character. She's put into a situation where the evil bad guy knows that they way to get what he wants is to threaten the people she loves. And inevitably the female lead will throw herself into the clutches of the evil being with no plan and no thought other than "I must save PERSONxyz." (Ex: Switched (Trylle, # 3) by Amanda Hocking & Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, # 3) by Cassandra Clare)

This last theme has even trickled over into contemporary literature where both male and female characters will break up with their significant other “for the other’s good.” This has become such a predominant plot device used in place of real conflict that I can only roll my eyes at this point. (Ex: Blindness by Ginger Scott, Jane's Harmony (Jane's Melody, # 2) by Ryan Winfield, & Out of Breath (Breathing, # 3) by Rebecca Donovan )

While we're on the subject of protagonists or the main character, I can't tell you how many YA books I've read recently where the MC makes a blatant statement that they don't believe in God. I can understand why an author wouldn't want to include anything religious or spiritual within their work. But what I don't understand is why even bring it up at all only to say the character doesn't believe? Can we have a MC that does believe without that dominating the entire story? That is possible right? (Ex: Anatomy of a Misfit by Andrea Portes, Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover, & Invincible by Amy Reed--I feel like there are better examples than these, but this is what I found when searching my kindle. )

Let's jump to more New Adult for a second. There’s quite a debate about the new adult genre. Is it even necessary? New adult books seem very similar to YA, and often include some of the repetitive themes mentioned above, but with the addition of descriptive--though not as descriptive as straight Adult books--scenes. I can't get what Anna from Anna Reads said about the new adult genre. She said she thinks this genre should be about the process of moving from high school to college, growing away from your high school friends, finding new friends, finding yourself, learning about what you want to do with your life, moving past the high school boyfriend to finding a new/different/possibly more mature college boyfriend.

Instead, the new adult genre features play boys in 9.9 out of 10 books. These boys will sleep with any woman who will allow them access, and often statements are made that they can’t even count the number of women they’ve slept with. Yet in 100% of these 9.9 books these bad boys find the one woman in the world who they want to be faithful to. I'm not even going to give you any examples because this is like every new adult book ever.

For sure the majority of new adult books include major conflict that is truly only a misunderstanding between characters. This conflict could be easily solved by the slightest bit of communication between characters who are often willing to share their bodies but not their hearts. (Ex: Riot (Mayhem, # 2) by Jamie Shaw, Jane's Melody (Jane's Melody, # 1) by Ryan Winfield, & Lick (Stage Dive, # 1) by Kylie Scott )

I’ve recently discovered that perhaps half of the new adult books I've read recently include the main couple having a physical encounter as their first real experience with each other. Relationships are built on sex and not anything of substance. (Ex: Beautiful Redemption (The Maddox Brothers, # 1) by Jamie McGuire, Riot (Mayhem, # 2) by Jamie Shaw, & Just for Now (Sea Breeze, # 4) by Abbi Glines )

And while this isn’t the last repetitive theme out there, but this is the last one I’m going to mention today. So frequently new adult characters turn to alcohol when conflict arises and things get tough. Most of these characters take their alcohol public—usually to a club or bar—and the other portion drinks in solitude. Seeking out alcohol in order to avoid dealing with life is just not a healthy way to cope with life. I wish this wasn't such a prevalent theme in new adult books. (Ex: Believe (True Believers, # 3) by Erin McCarthy, Beautiful Disaster (Beautiful, # 1) by Jamie McGuire, & Riot (Mayhem, # 2) by Jamie Shaw )

What about you guys? What are the repetitive themes that you see that get on your nerves? Have you noticed any of these themes before? Are there any major themes that I missed that you’ve noticed? Do these things not bother you? Do you ever feel like you’re reading the same book over and over again? Or does it not bother you to see a few things like this on repeat since the characters names and experiences are different?

Like I said, there really is nothing new under the sun. I think often times these themes are on repeat because they’re real. I think we all know the guy who would sleep with anyone. I think we all know the bully. We all know someone who turns to alcohol when life gets rough. And I have lived a love triangle myself. So this is one of the reasons why we see these themes so frequently. I don’t dispute that they’re often real (even if exaggerated), and thus people relate to them. But sometimes I feel like I’m reading the same book over and over again. I try to vary my reads by genre as that does often help break up repeating patterns, but sometimes the patterns travel across many genres.

What do you guys think? Have you noticed anything similar in your reading like? Let me know!

This Song Will Save Your Life - Review

This Song Will Save Your Life

By: Leila Sales

Published: September 17th 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

288 pages

Genre: YA, Contemporary

Source: Won in an Armchair BEA Giveaway

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Goodreads description--Making friends has never been Elise Dembowski’s strong suit. All throughout her life, she’s been the butt of every joke and the outsider in every conversation. When a final attempt at popularity fails, Elise nearly gives up. Then she stumbles upon a warehouse party where she meets Vicky, a girl in a band who accepts her; Char, a cute, yet mysterious disc jockey; Pippa, a carefree spirit from England; and most importantly, a love for DJing.

Told in a refreshingly genuine and laugh-out-loud funny voice, THIS SONG WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE is an exuberant novel about identity, friendship, and the power of music to bring people together.

So I've got some mixed emotions about This Song Will Save Your Life. I really struggled with Elise's character in the beginning. I can't tell you (well...if you read my blog then you've seen me talk about this frequently anyway) HOW OVER THE BULLYING TOPIC I AM! Seriously! Done! And Elise's attitude toward her situation in life was just hard for me to comprehend and push through. Some of it I even found slightly unbelievable.

pg 8 "I shaved my legs, which is something I didn't know you were supposed to do until an ill-fated all-class pool party at the end of the eighth grade."

I mean I get that Leila Sales was trying to establish the fact that Elise doesn't really have any friends and maybe this is the kind of thing that you learn from friends, but Elise isn't living under a rock. Not to mention that she does have a mom. I just find it hard to believe that she wouldn't have known about this for so long. I was begging my mom to let me start shaving at eleven. And this isn't an isolated quote I picked out. This type of thing was throughout the beginning of the book.

Elise hasn't had friends. She's been bullied. She looks around her and sees what she thinks is how good everyone else has it. Others have friends. Others do the bullying and the putting down. "That girl" wears all the right clothes and says the right things. Surely all of these people are completely happy with their lives. But that's just not the way it works. You never know someone else's story. You can see what shows up on the outside, but you don't ever know how they feel on the inside until you spend some time with them and talk. And even then they might only be letting you see what they want you to see. Elise does learn this lesson among many others, and I'm glad that I pushed through my struggles with her initial attitude and negative self-talk.

This Song Will Save Your Life is a coming of age story. It's a story about a girl who finds her place in the world. She finds friends. She finds something that she truly loves to do. She learns about herself and life and love. And it's a story about how music connects us all. Music was a big instrument that contributed to my relationship with Husband, and it just has this way of making connections. For that reason, stories that include music in this way, like This Song Will Save Your Life, have a soft spot in my heart.

The secondary characters were similar for me in that I struggled with some and not as much with others. I felt nothing but bad for Amelia. She was put in an awfully uncomfortable situation and did the very best that she could do with the information she was given. I like how Elise wanted so much more out of Char, but that's the nature of life and not-quite-love. Pippa was a truly flawed character, repeating her mistakes time and time again. I can't say I liked her, but I did like that she was real. I loved Vicky, and I wanted more of Harry. Even Elise's family members were memorable.

More than anything, I enjoyed how much Elise grew as a character throughout this story. It wasn't always rainbows and cotton candy getting there, but neither is real life. If she hadn't moved passed where we started the story, I completely would have felt like I wasted my time reading this one, but that's not the case.

Most memorable quotes:

pg 25 - Only mine wasn't going to be a cry for attention. Mine was going to be punishment. Punishment for Jordan DiCecca and Lizzie Reardon and those girls at lunch and everyone who ever tortured me or turned their backs while I was tortured. And punishment for myself, too, of course. Punishment for being wrong.

pg 238 - But power was not friendship. All these people were not my friends.

pg 247 - What do you do when you say sorry, but that still isn't enough?

Small spoiler alert for the next two quotes...
pg 248 - I wanted to DJ my party tonight. Not to prove Char wrong, not to put Emily and her friends on the guest list, not for anything like that. Simply because Alex deserved to be the best that she could be. And I did too.

pg 273 - You think it's easy to change yourself. You think it's so easy, but it's not. True things don't stay the same forever: couches are replaced, boys leave, you discover a song, your body becomes forever scarred. And with each of these moments you change and change again, your true self shining, shifting positions--but always at least it returns to you, like a dancer on the floor. Because throughout it all, you are still, always, you: beautiful and bruised, known and unknowable. And isn't that--just you--enough?

This Song Will Save Your Life gets 3.5 Stars from me. Have you read This Song Will Save Your Life? What did you think? Let me know!

Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend - Review

Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend (Confessions, # 2)

By: Louise Rozett

Published: June 25th 2013 by Harlequin

288 pages

Genre: YA, Contemporary

Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you)

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*Note: The above links to Amazon, The Book Depository, and Booksamillion.com are affiliate links. Affiliate links support giveaways for Somewhere Only We Know readers.

Goodreads description--Rose Zarelli has big plans for sophomore year—everything is going to be different. This year, she’s going to be the talented singer with the killer voice, the fabulous girl with the fashionista best friend, the brainiac who refuses to let Jamie Forta jerk her around...

...but if she’s not careful, she’s also going to be the sister who misses the signals, the daughter who can only think about her own pain, the “good girl” who finds herself in mid-scandal again (because no good deed goes unpunished) and possibly worst of all...the almost-girlfriend.

When all else fails, stop looking for love and go find yourself.

After finishing Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend, I went back to re-read my review of Confessions of an Angry Girl. What I found re-reading that review was that almost everything I said about Confessions of an Angry Girl was completely turned around in Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend. So let me address those things first.

In my review of Confessions of an Angry Girl, I said that considering the title, I felt that Rose actually didn't display as much anger as I was expecting. In Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend, we get an extra level of Rose's coping and anger when she discusses the violent images that she sees periodically. This would have been an added bonus to Confessions of an Angry Girl and seems to me that it would have fit in better with that book.

I was worried after reading Confessions of an Angry Girl that Rose wasn't concerned about whether or not Jamie actually respects her. But I felt that Jamie was a much better character all around in Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend. There are still some questions there about whether or not he's right for Rose, but I definitely understood Jamie much more after reading Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend.

Finally, in my review of Confessions of an Angry Girl, I was impressed with Rose's ability to be her own person. She stood up to her own standards apart from everyone around her. In Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend, I was disappointed with Rose. Her self confidence issues really drive me batty. She's constantly talking down to herself. She thinks she's ugly. She's always comparing herself with her friends or any other female ever. While this is extremely frustrating to me because I guess I've gotten to a place where I love and accept myself for who I am, I also find her thought process to be extremely typical of a fifteen year old girl. So in this way, I really felt like Rose took a step back. It was nice to see that one of her teachers addresses this with her.

"Rose, do you know what I've noticed about you since I met you a year ago? You're mean--to yourself."

A slight pet peeve of mine is how anytime I've read a book where a character is in therapy, that character never really gives therapy a chance. They don't participate willingly or fully. They think the advice of the counselor is stupid. And they just generally look down on the whole process. Granted I haven't had much experience with therapy--just pre-marriage counselling--but I think the whole experience can be really beneficial. I think most people would benefit from some good counseling and therapy sessions. Just my opinion.

There were a couple of things about Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend that were really small things but things that I found extremely annoying. Here's a couple of quotes as examples: "I look down at my feet, squeezed into my flats, and imagine that if I'd just worn my boots, this wouldn't be happening." REALLY? I mean I'm sure that's not supposed to be literal, but I couldn't help but think "what a stupid thought!" And "It's the first time I've seen Kristin in anything other than a cheerleading outfit..." Seriously? You go to school with this girl every day and she wears her cheerleading outfit EVERY day? You've never seen her wear anything else? Not quite sure why those things bugged me so much, but they just did.

I did like the way that things flipped from Confessions of an Angry Girl where Rose was the focus and target of bullying to flip where Rose witnesses others being bullied and her reaction to that. While Rose doesn't exactly stand up to the bullying she doesn't stand by in the same was as everyone else does either. In Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend we learn more about Regina and her life--things that make her treatment of Rose make more sense even though it doesn't justify her behavior. While Matt turned out to be the bully in this installment, I'm wondering if we'll get more of Matt's story in the future that might show how he's turned out the way that he has. Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that there's usually something going on that we can't see that prompts the actions of others. Because we aren't always aware of those things, we're quick to judge others, but everyone is struggling in some form or other.

Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend has several good messages throughout that I think many teenagers need to learn. Learning to love yourself and figuring out who you really are is a huge deal and something that I don't expect most people to figure out until even their 20s or later. Building self-esteem. What is "normal?" Positive self-talk. Doing the right thing because it's the right thing versus doing what you feel like or whether or not you're in the mood to be nice. Dealing with difficult people. What is really important--going to college or spending more time with your loved ones? Our decisions aren't always ones that people we love will agree with, but you have to make decisions that you can live with.

A couple of other things that I thought were great messages that I can't really summarize, I'll quote two instances here: "Although there are many things about desire that I haven't figured out yet, here's something I do know: it only takes a second for things to be misinterpreted and get really confusing when people are talking about touching each other." & "Or I guess maybe it's that I see her differently. It used to be when I looked at her, I was afraid." (I won't go into detail about these because this review is already too long and there's another issue I want to discuss.)

And now it's time for a rant. If you want to skip this rant, I won't be offended because I'm fairly sure I'm about to elicit a variety of opinions, but I can't be silent any longer. I've noticed a trend with YA literature over the last year. Almost every book I've read over the last year has at least one gay character. At the same time 9 out of 10 of those books have a subplot that includes said gay character being bullied. I feel like this topic is so overdone that it has become completely cliche. Really....you mean your gay character gets pushed around, bullied, and made fun of? SURPRISE. I would have never imagined that. While I understand that gay rights and bullying are both extremely popular and hot topics lately, I feel like this has become such a prevalent subplot in YA literature that it is completely overdone. I'm utterly sick and tired of this topic.

I hesitate to even mention this because I immediately think that I'm "asking for" arguments over this topic on the blog. Truthfully, I'd prefer not to bring this up at all, but YA literature has become so inundated with this topic, I feel like it can't be ignored. Perhaps the reason why I can't ignore it in Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend is because of what is said within the book itself.

"Not that being gay is a choice," she quickly adds, repeating what our health teacher from last year, Ms. Maso, drilled into us, even though she probably could have gotten fired for stating as fact what some people think is just a belief about homosexuality. As far as we can tell, Ms. Maso's the only teach at Union High who is actually interested in giving kids useful--aka truthful--information.

As a Christian, of course this is not the stance that I personally take, and I resent this information being treated as fact by the author. The book also states:

"Do you want to be the coward who is so afraid of people who are not like him, who is so narrow-minded and small, that he attacks out of fear?"

No...I don't want to be the coward who is afraid to speak out against what I disagree with just because what I believe is no longer popular. But because I believe what isn't popular, does that make me narrow-minded and small? And who have I attacked out of fear? Maybe I'm taking this particular passage too personally, but I don't know how else to take it.

And later the principal tells Rose, "Not to diminish your experience, but what's happening with Conrad is harassment on a whole other scale."

This statement bothers me as well. Why is what Conrad's experiencing any different from what Rose experienced last year? Rose was bullied and was generally scared--not necessarily for her life. But she was scared of Regina. Scared of going to school and getting hurt. I quote her saying this exact thing above. I don't understand why Conrad's form of harassment is any different than what Rose experienced. Both are unacceptable.

"Making things better requires risk," she says."Sometimes the moral imperative to speak up outweighs personal need. ...Whether you like it or not, you do what's right, even when it's hard..."

Should Conrad be bullied because he's gay? No. Should Rose be bullied because a guy she likes no longer wants to be with his ex-girlfriend? No. But that still doesn't change the fact that this subject is repeated so frequently in the YA genre that if I never read about it again, it would be too soon. End rant.

Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend gets 3 Stars. Have you read Confessions of an Almost Girlfriend? What did you think?