Comments on: Let’s think about the ladies

By: Annette Drake

Annette Drake — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 17:29:05 +0000

Why YA? Why not start it with middle-grade fiction?

By: Let’s think about the ladies | Accessories

Let’s think about the ladies | Accessories — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 03:01:01 +0000

[…] I think the expansion of the children’s market, YA in particular, over the last few years have produced a great number of smart, thoughtful books with female protagonists grappling with real emotional issues other than love, including my own Brianna on the Brink by Nicole McInnes, which begins with a sexual liaison but evolves into so much more. The author of The Atlantic piece, Kelsey McKinney, also points to a coming-of-age family drama with no love story that sounds terrific called Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. It was published decades ago. Read more… […]

By: Joelle

Joelle — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 17:41:45 +0000

I love this post because I have a YA that I set aside. It was good enough to land me an agent but then I moved to DGLM and forgot about it because I wrote something else that ended up being my debut. I still love this book a lot and it is about exactly what you’re talking about – a girl sorting out what she wants to do after high school, her family, friendships, and no romantic element at all. Maybe it’s time to dust it off and see what MB thinks!

By: Nicole

Nicole — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 23:34:30 +0000

Thanks for sharing this piece, Stacey. I agree that it would be refreshing to see more well-rounded female protagonists in YA – especially contemporary YA. It seems to me that sci-fi and fantasy YA novels are more open to heroines who have more than just romance on the brain. Real girls are generally much more complicated than that, so why not fictional characters as well?

By: Simone

Simone — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 00:00:30 +0000

I love this idea and if there’s a market for it, then that’s fantastic. One thing that actually irritated me about reading “On the Road” in my 20s was how male-oriented it felt. I do recall that as a teen, I wasn’t interested in anything that didn’t have a love subplot, but I don’t know if that’s typical or not. There certainly shouldn’t be an issue with it in adult books about women. That reminds me of the Bechdel Test for movies, which a comment mentions on that article. (I have to disagree with the writer’s take on Jane Eyre though.)