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Sep. 12th, 2012 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
settecorviGuess who just rage-typed three pages on this YA series I was supposed to be listening to for fun. Go on, guess. It was supposed to be a brain break, not to break my brain. :(
No really, this author has constructed a nightmarish dystopia and she doesn't even realize it. She thinks it's all luxury porn and badassery, when really it's child soldiers being sent to die for adults and racialized prejudice so blatant I'd think it was obnoxiously heavy-handed if there were any hint she knew what she'd written. There is a literal "separate but equal" approach between two groups in the school for Special People. There are repeated assertions that girls from one group are fun to mess around with, but not the type of woman you'd marry.
Plus bonus slut-shaming perpetrated by our Exceptional Girl protagonist.
Plus there are only two POC, and all but one of the group in power are repeatedly described as the palest of the pale.
Plus nobody outside the gender binary.
Plus prose that's workmanlike at best and downright awful at worst.
I'm at the point where anger has fizzled out and it just makes me sad. I kind of want to steal the protagonist away, give her cookies and a quiet space to think, and tell her that it's okay to put herself first until she believes it. This despite how incredibly obnoxious the kid is.
When did I start thinking of teens as kids and feeling desperately protective of them, even if they're really annoying (and fictional)?
No really, this author has constructed a nightmarish dystopia and she doesn't even realize it. She thinks it's all luxury porn and badassery, when really it's child soldiers being sent to die for adults and racialized prejudice so blatant I'd think it was obnoxiously heavy-handed if there were any hint she knew what she'd written. There is a literal "separate but equal" approach between two groups in the school for Special People. There are repeated assertions that girls from one group are fun to mess around with, but not the type of woman you'd marry.
Plus bonus slut-shaming perpetrated by our Exceptional Girl protagonist.
Plus there are only two POC, and all but one of the group in power are repeatedly described as the palest of the pale.
Plus nobody outside the gender binary.
Plus prose that's workmanlike at best and downright awful at worst.
I'm at the point where anger has fizzled out and it just makes me sad. I kind of want to steal the protagonist away, give her cookies and a quiet space to think, and tell her that it's okay to put herself first until she believes it. This despite how incredibly obnoxious the kid is.
When did I start thinking of teens as kids and feeling desperately protective of them, even if they're really annoying (and fictional)?
no subject
Date: 2012-09-14 01:32 pm (UTC)The Hunger Games was a dystopia on purpose, at least, though there are so many other problems with that series. (So very, very many.)
This was Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. Despite the stupid title, I thought it might be a cut above most other YA because a female friendship was placed centrally. And there may be a dissection post later, because at this point I'm just pausing every other scene to type up an angry screed to explain to Google Docs why it's awful.