I liked Gwen. She was the audience stand-in, asking questions we as viewers wanted to know. She had a perfectly normal and boring life before. I also liked Owen. He was witty, charming, and a man whore. Gwen and Owen had a lot of banter. I won't deny that they had chemistry, but in fiction, somehow banter = sexual tension. It's not, but anyways. I was looking forward to more quips and jokes at the others' expense, and then I found myself rooting for them to get together.
They did. The problem is, Gwen already has a boyfriend. It's not Owen. And by get together, I mean in the most basic, carnal way. While Gwen was still attached.
And that's when I lost respect for both Gwen and Owen. It didn't matter that I was rooting for them to get together before, what mattered was that they shouldn't have. Because Gwen was not available you know.
It got me thinking: the forbidden fruit tastes much sweeter when it is out of reach. They were my OTP, and I was giggling during their scenes together, hoping for more even though I knew they shouldn't. And when I got more, I was appalled.
And another point: What were the repercussions going to be?
Some YA novels don't address this issue as satisfactorily as I would have liked. The forbidden fruit is always had in the end, and with little to no repercussions. Look at Twilight: happy ending all around! Except for some of those inconsequential characters. It's not that I don't appreciate a happy ending, but there's only so much you can do without having contradicted the previous things you said in the past few hundred pages before it's just sexual tension, and we're just in for the ride to see how you get together.
And all those amazing premises you pointed out: werewolves, angels, vampires with humans etc. All that attracted me to the story, all that intrigue--it's just gone in one magical plot device. And irrelevant. Because it's like a quick fix for me. And if I wanted to just see how you hooked up, I can just read a romance novel.
I would like to see what happens when you break those rules, without a magical plot device that gives you a loophole. When that happens, it results in some pretty sticky and unpleasant situations for the characters. But you know what? That's better, because then the characters grow even if they didn't want to. Or an alternative, sometimes the forbidden fruit should just stay forbidden. Then we'll see what we get.
It's much more satisfying for me as a reader to get the full meal, rather than just dessert on steroids.
2 comment(s):
The book that fits the prescription is Steve Brezenoff's |-1| (Absolute value of -1). The trailer and description are here:
http://www.lernerbooks.com/carolrhodalab/
It's YA to the core; it's sure not a simple romance--and there are NO magical loopholes.
This was a great post. I'm an aspiring YA author and my WIP was in response to this very topic. I was kind of disturbed that so much paranormal romances don't have real consequences for these hook-ups, so I decided to remedy that by writing my own. I was a bit worried about not having the typical happy ending, but you've confirmed my belief that in these kind of relationships, that shouldn't always be the case. Thanks. It's a little scary going against the tide!