The Great Gatsby

I just finished Mr. Fitzgerald's novel, and loved it. Of course. 


At first, when I finished it, I thought I had had an epiphany; the beautiful yet murky, mysterious yet strikingly clear metaphors and symbols; the endearing yet foreign characters...all lay before me, unveiled and mine for the taking. 


Except, oh wait. Everyone (or, at least, nearly everyone) who has read Gatsby since it was published in the 1920's has had those exact same startling realizations. And the craziest thing is, they did it without SparkNotes there to comfort and guide them along the path of enlightenment concerning Jay, Daisy, and the American Dream. I kid. But seriously, people before SparkNotes were smart. Really smart. Reaaaaaaallllly smart. 


Anyway, the whole point of this post was really just to let you know that basically none of my thoughts (or yours, for that matter) are original. It is kind of a terrifying (and sometimes incredibly comforting) idea. 


In conclusion, here's a quote about Tom Buchanan -

(Her husband was) one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. 

On Trends.

So I think everyone can agree that J.D. Salinger created a monster in 1951 when he wrote A Catcher in the Rye. Granted, YA is an incredibly undefined, straight up weird monster, but it is a monster none the less.

(There is something amiss with that last sentence. Please disregard it.)

YA is changing. It's always changing - genres are changing, settings are changing...even the writing styles are changing. Now here's the crazy thing - it only takes one novel to set an entirely new tone; a tone mood that soon runs rampant throughout every YA novel published. Some books that did just that:

Harry Potter - Not only did J.K. Rowling raise the bar infinitely high for every YA author when she penned The Philosopher's Stone, but she also inspired a movement of magic. Soon, The Boy Who Lived became "The Boy Who Did Pretty Much Everything,With Magic."

Twilight - My personal favorite, Twilight has had more impact on a genre than any other book in my lifetime, and perhaps, well, ever. Literally every single YA book written in the five years after Twilight was released was either about vampires, or was a "paranormal romance novel." Way to be Stephanie Meyer, way to be.

The Hunger Games - Dystopian novel are "the" genre right now, at least among YA novelists. I can't remember the exact quote, but I remember reading that Suzanne Collin's publisher has started throwing away any submissions that are labeled as Dystopian. The Hunger Games not only rejuvenated a lost genre (try and name a Dystopian written before 2005 that is not called "1984" or "A Brave New World").

Finally, we come to our current state of affairs:

Every graphic novel, ever - Let's just get it out of the way. I absolutely despise graphic novels. Yes, some people love them and everything, but I am certainly not one of people. Haha. In all honestly, I think they take away the best part about books - the ability to create everything (the characters, the settings, etc.) yourself.

However, some authors (Ransom Riggs and Patrick Ness(!)) have started to use heavy illustrations and pictures in brilliant ways. Perhaps the best example is Ness' latest book, A Monster Calls. The illustrations are beautiful, inspiring, terrifying, and above all else, vague. Every single picture lends itself to your imagination, aiding it in incredible ways.

A Monster Calls

So that's what I think is coming next. Pseudo-graphic novels. Who's pumped?

Questions

So here are some questions. You can answer them in the comments below. Get on that.

Do you prefer fluffy kittens, or acid.

Do you prefer dogs, or $1 million in cool cash.

Chimpanzees.

Do you prefer beautifully written Greek mythology or MURDER.