feature image via shutterstock
Welcome to this week’s Friday Open Thread, the digital rendezvous point for our coven to converge. This week we gather under the last quarter moon to discuss how to curb the profusion of elfin construction, swap tips for keeping mildew out of our newly-constructed moss bath mats, find out whether Nikki bought that tie, and ponder Saturn’s transit through Sagittarius.
Also: I’m dying to hear about your Staycation plans/dinner menus/latest crushes/every glorious detail of your lives.
This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about YA Lit. Growing up, I was deeply invested in series such as Goosebumps, Baby-Sitters Club, The Dark Is Rising, Animorphs and Wayside School. Plop me in front of a Harry Potter, Fearless, A Wrinkle In Time or Sweet Valley [Anything] book, and I’d be engrossed for hours at a time, days, weeks and years on end. This all took place before the internet existed, mind you, and I didn’t have cable TV, so there were definitely fewer things competing for attention. But still. There’s something about young adult genre that demands full commitment, total immersion.
As a still-young-but-not-categorized-in-the-“young”-demographic adult, I continue to seek out YA stories. Since my girlfriend also has excellent taste, we often read these books together. When the Hunger Games series came out, we devoured those books whole. Not long after, we read the Divergent series together. I couldn’t get her to read Twilight with me, but we did watch all the movies, which was actually more than enough. (I think she would like those hours of her life back, but I maintain that we were taking part in an important cultural moment.)
Most recently, I lent her my childhood copies of the His Dark Materials books. I loved those books as a kid, but my girlfriend is pretty lukewarm about them as a woman in her mid-20s. I’m considering re-reading them, but I’m afraid they won’t hold up to my fond memories. I recently re-read Sirens of Titan for the first time in a decade, and man. I just cannot get behind that book the way I did before I knew about feminism.
What should I do? And also, what else should I read? And what do you like to read? What did you love in the past? Where are you going in the future? What are you doing this weekend? Would you consider yourself more of a Rory or a Paris? What’s your story?
Talk to me!
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