Thursday, December 08, 2005

Does This Sound Familiar to Anyone Else?


In The Fiction Machine, The Workshop and the Hacks Sam Sacks says of Best New American Voices 2006"All but one of them are written in the first person; a similar percentage hinge upon the narrator's difficulties with dysfunctional or deceased members of his or her family, or with ex-lovers. The tone is always confessional and saturated with self-pity.

Isn't this a common complaint of YA fiction? Perhaps it's not a problem specific to YA but to fiction in general. (Thanks to ArtsJournal.com for the link.)

Maybe the Book is Different


Yesterday I watched Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen while I was ironing clothes. I haven't read the book of the same name by Dyan Sheldon. I definitely liked the main character, but I think it's fair to describe the movie as a formula high school story. Not very subtle in the message department, either.

Sheldon also wrote Planet Janet, which I couldn't get through because it seemed like too much of a clone of the Georgia Nicholson books.

Speaking of which, the Georgia book in which she goes to Hamburger-a-go-go Land is waiting for me in my To Be Read basket.

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