Which Fantasy Worlds In Teen Novels Balance Magic With Real‑Life Issues?

Your old writing practices may not work anymore. In the past, you wrote alone, looked up information on the Internet, and drank lots of coffee. Now, to write, you need to collaborate with a bard for the melody, an illustrator for the visuals, and a scribe for copies of your work. In this sense, writing becomes a very communal activity and even a performance. You can write by dictating your work to a scribe while acting out the parts. It’s all part of the oral tradition. Go perform your stories in taverns and adjust to the audience’s reaction immediately. Charisma and the ability to perform are just as important for your success as a good plot.

Right now I’m reading ‘Court of Mist and Fury’ by Sarah J. Maas. It’s the sequel to ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ and I am absolutely loving it right now. The characters’ emotions are so intense to read in this book and the stakes are even higher than before. Plus the romance is getting even better which is making it hard to put down. Another darker but equally as romantic book is ‘Shadow and Bone’ by Leigh Bardugo. I really enjoyed this because it had just the right mix of magic and adventure, and I loved how the characters got pulled into the world and the epic journey that they were on. Plus there was just the right amount of romantic tension to make it a super binge-worthy read and have me turning page after page.

There’s a tremendous amount of love for humor as a genre driver. A book that makes people laugh has a devout and persisitent reader base, often from crossover audiences (fans of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, for example). Humor can also be witty and winning, especially in books with lots of dialogue in the romantic comedy genre and beyond. And even when humor is used to explore tough, serious topics, popular and successful YA authors like David Yoon and Mary HK Choi and Phil Stamper use humor to fantastic end in their work. I believe a funny YA book can rise above the rest in a crowded field of books because most people seek out authentic experiences of joy and are willing to spread the word to others when they encounter something humorous. This can be a very difficult talent to master above the typical plot device, so it makes the books that are laughing their way to the top all the more impressive.

My favorite series of novels to read are YA dystopian novels. They are so much fun to read because they have a lot of action and the main characters are usually underdogs who rise to the challenge. They also allow for a lot of philosophical questions to be brought up throughout the novel, such as whether the ends justify the means. Novels like ‘Delirium’ and ‘Red Queen’ are great examples of this genre because in ‘Delirium’ love is a disease that needs to be cured and in ‘Red Queen’ people are divided into classes according to their blood. There are so many amazing dystopias that are hard to choose from, but I do have a few favorites. One of them is ‘The Giver’ by Lois Lowry which is about a perfect utopia where everything is supposed to be great but it’s not. The other favorite is ‘Uglies’ by Scott Westerfeld. In this future world all 16 year olds get this extreme make over so that they can be pretty. Other books have amazing subplots like the slow burn between two characters in ‘Carve the Mark’ or the strong family ties in ‘The Darkest Minds’. Overall, this genre is so good because it takes real life fears (like climate change or inequality) and creates an amazing story out of them. Even though most of these books take place in worlds that seem hopeless the characters’ rebellion is what makes them so memorable.

It’s also worth noting that the source file may need some tuning before side loading, as I found out with some poorly converted EPUBs leading to wonky spacing. Using ebook-convert from Calibre (on the PC) to reformat the book to a Kobo Clara optimized ebook (in EPUB format) sorted the spacing out completely. This also cleans up the CSS and reflows the content, stripping out any numbers of render snagging formatting tags. Some older ebooks contain font-size tags that the Clara’s relatively simple ebook reader interprets strangely. And then make sure to safely eject the device from your computer, to avoid writing metadata that messes up how your ebooks appear to read. A soft reset (hold the power button for 20 seconds or so) usually will fix up newly added ebooks too. Note, though, that the ultimate reset to resolve such persistent problems and get your Kobo back to full, factory-default operation is also to perform a full factory reset. (Yes, a real pain, but there it is.)

Pride by Ibi Zoboi, it's a Pride and Prejudice retalling as a Black romance. Children of Blood and Bones by Tomi Adeyemi, African Fantasy/Mythology which also has romance. Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson, Black romance really beautifully and lyrically written. As someone who's not typically a fan of romance, this book is really good.

Most YA fantasy novels fall in the range of 70,000 to 90,000 words. That can vary from the debut novel to longer novels in a series. In general, however, every chapter must earn its place in the novel. The plot must be tight and well-written. My book, Classic Faery Tales Rewritten For Adults Only, takes familiar elements of fantasy stories and rewrites them for adults only. This novel presents the same archetypes in a darker and more mature setting, focusing on the same political intrigue and moral conflicts that are presented in classic faery tales but are glossed over in children’s stories.

The saddest character in the Emperor’s story is not the Emperor himself, but his followers: people who believed in him and dedicated centuries of their lives to him and his Empire. At the end of the book these loyal followers are left without a purpose or place in the world. Some of them kill themselves as they have nothing left to do. It is a sad and brutal comment on the ‘great man’s’ project and how much damage it can cause to others. Their stories are told briefly in a few sad vignettes. These provide a starkly realistic commentary on the fall of a regime and how it affects all the followers of the Emperor who lived their lives within the Empire’s walls.

This is a light novel series. It is seriously wonderful. Unlike most other fantasy stories it is totally sincere. It does not wink at the reader. It does not parody the genre. It is simply presented as fantasy. The light novel is told from the same pragmatic, goal-oriented perspective as the protagonist. It can sometimes feel rather unemotional or even cold, but that is part of its ingenuity. The relationships in the light novel are almost always developed through transactions or by working towards a common goal. Emotions slowly develop from there, and it can be rather glacial. The anime had to speed that up, by adding lots of emotion and lots of fan service. But the light novel’s methodical and glacial development is what is most notable and defining of the story itself.

For quick picks, the Memorial Library circulation desk has a “Fantasy Favorites” display, and last week The Poppy War was one of the titles on display. Memorial also does a great job with interlibrary loan, and I recently received a copy of The Blade Itself. For e-book lovers, Hoopla allows searching of their collection using UW credentials, and I listened to all of The Sandman as audiobooks during finals.