STACKED

books

Abortion, Girls, Choice, and Agency: Guest Post by Tess Sharpe

|

Today’s guest post comes from author Tess Sharpe and it takes a keen look at the messages and insights YA books that explore abortion offer. Where it’s been said abortion is the last taboo of YA fiction, perhaps that’s not really the case. Rather, there’s still a lot of room for exploration.
Born in a backwoods cabin to a pair of punk rockers, Tess Sharpe grew up in rural northern California. She is the author of FAR FROM YOU and SOMEWHERE BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG (out Fall 2016). She lives, writes, and bakes near the Oregon border.

When I was a little girl, my father volunteered as an escort at our local abortion clinic. “Escort” is the nice way of saying “bodyguard” or “human shield.” They lead the women into the clinic, putting their bodies between the women and the protestors, just in case. But they can’t block out the garish signs, the accusations of baby killer and whore or the God loves yous. They can’t hide the women from the protestors—who might be friends, family members, neighbors, or fellow church members. 

In the ’90s (and now), my conservative small town was one of the few places you could get an abortion, and escorting—like working or volunteering there—was (and still is) dangerous work. One day, there was a knock at our door, and one of the protestors was standing there on our porch, wanting to “invite” my father and our family to church. The message was clear: we know where you live. 

There was reason to fear: By the time I was a teenager, the clinic had been firebombed five times, and has been destroyed, totally flattened, twice. 

When I was in college, the fear got personal: My only sister now ran that clinic, and would do so for a decade. I once asked her to carry pepper spray. She just shrugged and said pepper spray wasn’t going to help her against a bomb or bullets. 

Fighting for reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy runs in the veins of all the women in my family. Which is why, when Kelly asked me to write a post for Women’s History Month, I latched onto the idea of exploring YA’s abortion narratives. I put out a call for titles and talked with several clinic workers who have heard thousands of women’s stories to learn what they consider the most important factors in an abortion narrative. Armed with this knowledge, I was ready to read and identify any themes or patterns I found—as well as enjoy a bunch of great books. 

Not a lot of YA books mention abortion, and even fewer feature characters who choose to have an abortion or point-of-view characters having an abortion. I compiled a list of around 20 titles, and got my hands on about 15 of them to read. 

After my talk with the clinic workers, I identified three important factors:

Economics: How the books address the financial burden of abortion—from the cost of the actual procedure (around $500, on average) to the many associated costs of actually getting to a clinic—often not an easy feat, especially if you’re a girl or woman living in the U.S., where many states have recently closed down and severely restricted clinic operations under the false pretext of “making them more safe.” 

Because most teenagers aren’t working full-time and aren’t mothers already, I removed the job factor as well as the childcare factor from my analysis. But in reality, with the draconian laws that have been passed, especially in the last few years, many women must travel hundreds of miles, take days off work (often risking their job), and sleep in their car if they can’t afford a motel—if they have a car—all of this just to get a legal medical procedure. Many of these women are already mothers, so child-care is yet another crucial factor.

Accessibility: How accessible is the abortion? Does the character need to travel? Does she need to hide what she’s doing from authority figures? Does she need help to get to the clinic/location where the abortion takes place? Who transports her to and from the abortion provider? 

Support: Who is helping the character getting the abortion? Her boyfriend? Her best friend? Parents? Aunt? (Aunts, it turns out, are kind of big in abortion books. When I discussed this with the clinic workers, they agreed. Often, teen girls will be accompanied by their aunts, best friends, or older sisters). 

What kind of support is being offered? Positive or reluctant? Parental? Monetary? Emotional? 

Overwhelmingly, the books I read did not address the economics of abortion at all: The cost is never mentioned in most, and isn’t a genuine problem in most that do bring it up. For example, in GINGERBREAD, Cyd reconnects with her estranged father to get the money to pay for her abortion, unwilling to tell her mother about it. He’s an affluent man who is easily able to afford it. 

Accessibility is also not deeply discussed or even touched upon in most of the books. In most contemporary YA abortion narratives, it’s assumed that there’s an abortion clinic in town. I did not come across any books that included an actual scene in a clinic, though, through poetry and a few flashbacks, we see hints in AND WE STAY. Emily, the main character, also does travel to Boston with her parents to stay at her aunt’s to get the abortion there, but there are no scenes of the procedure itself—only before and after.

 IN TROUBLE is the exception when it comes to accessibility. It goes deeply into the subject of abortion access, and that’s because it’s set pre–Roe vs. Wade, in the world of back alley abortions. Here, accessibility is discussed constantly because abortion was still illegal at that time. There is talk of women throwing themselves downstairs (something the character tries in desperation) and of downing 7-Up and vodka in a bid to miscarry. There is talk of neighbors who “know someone” who can help a girl “in trouble.” It examines in depth the coded language women had to use with doctors who were willing to risk their licenses to perform abortions. It also describes pregnant women who fake mental illness, hoping to be deemed unfit so that the hospital is forced to give them an abortion. 

Support is an interesting aspect of YA abortion narratives. Almost always, the teenagers tell one or both of their parents, often quite soon after finding out the pregnancy. Interestingly, I found several books featuring divorced parents in which the teen confesses to one parent—who decides not to inform the co-parent. 

Most of the books have a “confession” scene in which the parents are told about the pregnancy. Almost always, the parents react with initial anger but then accept the situation, moving straight to support. Even in AND WE STAY, where Emily’s parents come off as cold in many ways, they immediately get to work on fixing the “problem.” 

In these books, parental awareness of the pregnancy ties directly into the lack of consideration regarding the economics of abortion as well as problems with transportation: If the parents know, it’s assumed they’re paying for it (and providing transport to the clinic), so the cost is never mentioned. 

The difficulties that many girls and women face in reality are rarely addressed in the fictional world of YA abortion narratives. Lying to one’s parents, going without support, finding the money, finding the transportation, and finding the time (many states have waiting periods, and often clinics only perform abortions on one day of the week). 

With the exception of a few, most of the books that have a character getting an abortion feature white, privileged, “good girls”—affluent girls who were virgins and are going to college… girls who aren’t “that kind of girl.” This pattern avoids the stigma and myth of the “slut who uses abortion as birth control” perpetuated by the anti-choice movement, as well as the lit community’s own problem with judging girl characters much more harshly than boys. 

Interested to see how readers perceive characters who had abortions, I read through many positive and negative reviews of the books. Over and over, in both positive and negative comments, the boys who had impregnated the girls were called “sweet” and their pain and heartbreak over the girl’s choice was lauded and focused on. The girls, however, were judged as “cold” and “selfish” and “bitches” for acting, like, well, young women in an incredibly difficult situation. I must admit, it pained me to see these judgments about fictional characters, mostly because I know that much worse is assumed about real girls making the same choice. 

The most prevalent theme I found in most of the books was this: Abortion ruins romantic relationships and leaves you alone. While it’s true that many young couples facing an unplanned pregnancy break up, many others stay together. In I KNOW IT’S OVER, which is fascinating in its exploration of male privilege by way of an abortion narrative, we’re treated to the possible new romance of the boy narrator at the end of the book. This is a boy who is so steeped in his male privilege that he repeatedly reveals his ex-girlfriend’s pregnancy to his friends without her permission. Despite some really questionable treatment of his ex-girlfriend, he gets a potential new romance and keeps his ex-girlfriend as a friend. She, however, does not find a new romance. At the end of the book, she is alone, existing in the periphery of his bright and now unburdened future.

Many feelings come up before, during and after an abortion. But relief is an emotion that is not explored very deeply in the YA abortion narrative. Grief, loneliness, and romantic isolation of girls specifically seems to be the prescription. And although terminating an unplanned pregnancy can be isolating, when there are so few abortion narratives to draw from and even fewer with a point-of-view character who undergoes the procedure, the repeated message of isolation and romantic brokenness can be limiting—especially when 11% of women in the U.S. who get abortions are teenagers, and 21% of all pregnancies in the country end in abortion. 

IN TROUBLE is the only book I read that features another woman sharing her own abortion story with the character who is considering an abortion. It’s a beautiful moment of bonding, and I found myself wishing more of these books had more scenes like this to offset the message of isolation that many perpetuate. 

The girls and women who get abortions are our sisters, our daughters, our friends, our mothers, our readers. It is the stigma of abortion that prevents us from sharing these stories with our fellow women and the world, and it is that same stigma that might make us cautious, as writers, to approach the subject in ways that diverge from the acceptable abortion narrative: the good, unpromiscuous girl whose birth control failed or whose boyfriend convinced her that just this one time without a condom would be OK. This girl usually tells one or both of parents about her pregnancy. She agonizes over her decision. She has a bright future that must be saved through abortion. That kind of abortion is acceptable. It makes sense. She won’t make that mistake again. She learns. She’ll be better at being a good girl in the future. 

But a girl who never even tried to use birth control? Who wasn’t in love or a virgin? Who doesn’t tell her parents? Who slept around? Who might not know who the father is? Who doesn’t agonize over her choice? Who doesn’t have a bright future? Who has to wait until the last minute because she doesn’t have the money? Who hitches a ride to the abortion clinic because she has no other option? Who is getting her second, her third, her fourth abortion? Her story remains largely untold—it isn’t acceptable. This girl, she makes bad decisions. She might not learn a lesson. Her story may be complicated, but it deserves to be told just as widely and boldly. 

YA titles considered in this piece:

THE TRUTH ABOUT ALICE by Jennifer Mathieu
GINGERBREAD by Rachel Cohn
UNWIND by Neal Shusterman
MY LIFE AS A RHOMBUS by Varian Johnson
GABI A GIRL IN PIECES by Isabel Quintero
EVERY LITTLE THING IN THE WORLD by Nina de Gramont
WHISPER OF DEATH by Christopher Pike
THINGS I CAN’T FORGET by Miranda Kenneally
TENDER MORSELS by Margo Lanagan
LIKE SISTERS ON THE HOMEFRONT by Rita Williams-Garcia
IN TROUBLE by Ellen Levine
LOVE AND HAIGHT by  Susan Carlton
BORROWED LIGHT by Anna Feinberg
NEWES FROM THE DEAD by Mary Hooper
SMALL TOWN SINNERS by Melissa Walker
AND WE STAY by Jenny Hubbard
I KNOW IT’S NOT OVER by C. K. Kelly Martin
***
Far From You is available now.

On Being a Feminist YA Author and Daring to Write “Unlikable”: Guest Post by Amy Reed

|

Today’s guest post for the “About the Girls” series comes to us from Amy Reed. She’s talking about writing those “unlikable” girls and why she does it. 


Amy Reed is the author of the gritty, contemporary YA novels BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN, CRAZY, OVER YOU, and DAMAGED. Her new book, INVINCIBLE, the first in a two-book series, releases April 28th. Find out more at www.amyreedfiction.com.







Something I see a lot in reviews of YA fiction (including my own books) is the complaint that a main character isn’t “likeable.”  A book can be written beautifully and have a compelling plot, but if the protagonist isn’t likeable, it’s as if the rest of the book’s great qualities don’t matter. It’s as if the book isn’t worthy of being read if the main character doesn’t meet a certain list of qualities that a perfect girl should have. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this complaint in a review of an adult literary novel written by a man. In fact, some of the most celebrated books in the straight white male literary cannon—Infinite Jest, A Confederacy of Dunces, The Catcher in the Rye, anything by Jonathan Franzen– are full of main characters who are detestable. Lolita is about a pedophile. Crime and Punishment is about a murderer. No one says these books suck because the main character is unlikeable. These books, these characters, are judged by a different set of criteria. 

So who are these girls we’re supposed to be writing? Are they girls we think our readers would want to be friends with? Are they girls we think boys want to date? I think about some of the best-selling YA books I’ve read over the years, and there is definitely a standard “type” in many of them. These girls are white and of average height. They are thin, but not too thin. They are smart, but not too smart. They are a little bit shy, but not disastrously so. They are mostly nice, and when they are not nice, they feel bad about it. They make mistakes, but recognize them quickly. They want to be good. They fall deeply and madly in love with a boy, and that love defines them. The conflicts in their lives tend to be external rather than resulting from their own character flaws. Theirs are the stories of good girls fighting against a world that wants to corrupt good girls. 

But what about the rest of us? I imagine myself as a teenager and reading these characters. I imagine myself throwing these books across the room. Not because they are not good books, but because I did not see myself in their pages. I was not the good girl they described. I was a girl who did bad things and did not always feel bad about them. I was a girl who struggled with addiction and mental illness. I starved myself skinny and I ate myself borderline obese. I loved both boys and girls, but my relationships were rarely about love. My friendships were deep and passionate and far more meaningful than any romance. I was a leader, a loner, and sometimes a follower. I was a mean girl and I was bullied. I was too smart and too entitled. I was a bitch and I was a victim. I was obnoxious and righteous, and I was pathologically shy and insecure. I was a million different kinds of girls. And they were all valid. 

These are the girls I know. These are the girls I write. They are sometimes unlikable, but they are always worthy of love. They are worthy of having their stories told.

I am a feminist YA author. I want a feminist YA. I want a YA where all girls see themselves represented, where all girls see hope and truth, struggle and redemption. I want them to find home inside the pages. I want them to find both escape and gritty reality. I want them to see their mistakes being made, their feelings being felt, and their problems being resolved. I want them to know it is okay that they exist. I want them to know their existence is worthy of being written about.

If we are to have a feminist YA, we must write about all the girls, not just the ones that are “likeable”. Because “likeable” is just another way of prescribing a right way to be a girl. Because girls and women are complicated and deep and layered and messy and infinitely fascinating. Because if male characters are allowed to be those things and still be worthy of reading, so should female characters. Because I don’t want to read just one kind of woman. Because I don’t want to be one kind of woman. Because if we do not give our female characters the right to be all kinds of women, how do we expect our readers to know they have that right, too?

***

Invincible will be available April 28. 

Why Friendship Books Are Essential: Guest Post by Stacey Lee

|

Today’s guest post comes from debut YA author Stacey Lee. She’s talking about the importance of friendship books and why girls need these stories, be they about girl-to-girl friendships or not.

Stacey Lee is a fourth generation Chinese-American whose people came to California during the heydays of the cowboys.  She believes she still has a bit of cowboy dust in her soul.  A native of southern California, she graduated from UCLA then got her law degree at UC Davis King Hall.  After practicing law in the Silicon Valley for several years, she finally took up the pen because she wanted the perks of being able to nap during the day, and it was easier than moving to Spain.  She plays classical piano, wrangles children, and writes YA fiction.

UNDER A PAINTED SKY is her debut book.  

Tastes change.  At two years old, my daughter couldn’t get enough of Everyone Poops, but by age three, she had discarded that one for The Holes In Your Nose.  After sticking her fingers up her nose got old, she moved to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (which might explain her insatiable need for cookies), and so on and so forth.  

Somewhere along the way, she’s become a tween, and now she can’t get enough of friendship stories.  But even as she evolves into wanting the more ‘lovey dovey’ books, I hope the friendship story is one she will never outgrow.  

So why are friendship books so important?

First, let’s look at why friendships are so important.  Studies show that the strongest predictor of having a fulfilling life is to build healthy relationships with others, especially for women.  One landmark study showed that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause them to befriend other women.  Up until then, it was thought that stress provoked a fight or flight response, but that was due to the test subjects historically consisting of men.  This ‘befriending’ response buffers stress for women in a way that doesn’t occur in men.  Another study found that the more friends women have, the less likely they are to develop physical impairments as they age.  Friendships are as essential to women as a good diet and exercise. 

1. Friendship stories encourage us to seek out good friendships.

Books that show healthy friendships encourage us to foster these relationships in our lives.  How many of us wanted an amazing spider for a best friend after reading Charlotte’s Web?  Someone who would save our hides from becoming bacon when the world turned against us?  E.B. White created such relatable emotions in her two unlikely characters of Wilbur the pig and Charlotte the spider, it’s not surprising this book is the best selling paperback of all time.  The ending still chokes me up.  

Another classic series, the Betsy-Tacy-Tib books by Maud Hart Lovelace, centers around three best friends who are constantly getting into trouble for things like throwing mud at each other, and cutting off each other’s hair.  When I read them, I longed for a friend I could throw mud at.  (Instead, I had sisters, who were almost as fun.)  To this day, I still seek out the kind of people I can be silly with, because of those girls.

2.  Friendship stories help us to be good friends.

My daughter loves the Gallagher Girl series by Ally Carter, about an elite spy school for teen girls.  When I asked her what she likes most about the books, it wasn’t the gadgets or the girls’ crazy adventures.  Instead, she loves how the girls rely on each other in tough situations, whatever that involves – boys, parents, ancient international terrorist organizations.  I felt a moment of pride when she told me, “When I read (these books), they help me be a good friend.” 

Returning to Charlotte’s Web, while I wanted a spider for a best friend, more often I imagined that I could be that selfless spider someday.  Books help us imagine ourselves at our best, and if we can imagine it, we can achieve it.

3.  Books that show unhealthy friendship help us understand others and ourselves.

Alexis Bass’ brilliant novel Love and Other Theories is about a group of girl ‘players’ who follow certain rules to avoid heartbreak.  These girls are cruel and catty, and the indignation expressed by Goodreads reviews is a testament to how well the author captured these characters.  But the book shows us how easy it is to get caught up in toxic relationships, and the harm that can result.  It encourages us to emerge from such relationships, stronger and wiser, and may even help us understand these flawed characters in a redemptive way.

In one of my favorite books, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Junior’s best friend Rowdy rejects him when Junior switches to an all-white school.  But even while Rowdy is beating up on Junior, Alexie somehow makes us care about both of them, showing us the power of best friends to hurt and to heal.

4.  Books about friendship give us hope.

One of my favorite adult friendship titles is Waiting to Exhale, by Terry McMillan, about the lives of African American women living in Arizona.  Each have their own stories –a woman tries to find Mr. Right, a divorcée rebuilds her life, a mother deals with an empty nest, and a serial dater questions whether she needs a man.  What carries these women through their own personal heartbreaks is their friendship with one another.

In writing my debut, UNDER A PAINTED SKY, I wanted to show how essential friendship is to our survival.  Samantha, a Chinese violinist, and Annamae, a runaway slave make a perilous escape out of Missouri in 1849.  Each has separate missions that will require them to eventually split up, but their unlikely friendship might be the only thing that can save them. 

Friendship books assure us that in the midst of life’s worst struggles, as long as we have friends, we can prevail.  As the famous Calvin and Hobbes cartoonist Bill Watterson put it, “Things are never quite as scary as when you have a best friend.”  I couldn’t agree more.

Friendship books in YA I recommend:


The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie

Love and Other Theories, Alexis Bass

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

The Orphan Queen, Jodi Meadows

When Reason Breaks, Cindy Rodriguez

We All Looked Up, Tommy Wallach

I Am the Messenger, Markus Zusak

Friendship books in my TBR pile:


Tiny Pretty Things, Sona Charaipotra & Dhonielle Clayton

Mexican White Boy, Matt De La Peña

Becoming Jinn, Lori Goldstein

The Distance Between Lost and Found, Kathryn Holmes

Lucy the Giant, Sherri L. Smith
***


Under a Painted Sky is available now. 
You can find more about Stacey in these places: 

www.staceyhlee.com
@staceyleeauthor [Twitter]
https://www.facebook.com/staceylee.author
https://www.pinterest.com/staceyleeauthor/
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/staceyleeauthor

Strong Heroines: Guest Post by Mary E. Pearson

|

Today’s guest post comes to us from one of the very first YA authors I read as an adult and one that Kimberly admires: Mary E. Pearson. She’s talking about strong heroines, particularly in science fiction and fantasy. 

Mary E. Pearson is the  author of The Kiss of Deception and many other award-winning books for young adults. You can learn more about Mary and her books here.










March is National Women’s History Month and this year’s theme is about weaving women’s stories into the “essential fabric of our nation’s history.” There are so many strong, amazing women who helped build this country and often they’ve been left out of the historical record.

  

The National History Women’s Project aims to correct that and says, “Accounts of the lives of individual women are critically important because they reveal exceptionally strong role models who share a more expansive vision of what a woman can do. The stories of women’s lives, and the choices they made, encourage girls and young women to think larger and bolder, and give boys and men a fuller understanding of the female experience.”

I think this applies to fiction too. I love reading about strong women. Why shouldn’t I? They are a part of our lives. They are everywhere. Our mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, and colleagues. They inspire us, hold us up, and help to move us forward in our own dreams. They help us to see all that we are and all that we can be, in spite of our flaws, our weaknesses, and fears. The stories of strong women, both in history and in fiction, need to be heard! And heard by both our daughters and our sons.

I’ve had some incredible strong women role models, one of whom was my grandmother. She didn’t take crap from anyone. Maybe it stemmed from an oppressive childhood. She grew up in in a small town in Arkansas, and though she fell in love with one boy, her father forced her to marry another—a man actually—much older than she was. He was “wealthy.” He owned the only car in town which was a big deal back then—at least to her father.  It was a loveless marriage and two children later she walked out, defying both her father and her husband. Being a single mother during the Depression wasn’t easy, but somehow she kept her children fed, including the “love child” that came along later. Yes, scandalous for her time, but she made no apologies. She moved forward.

That’s what I’ve seen with the strong women in my life. They may get knocked down; they might make mistakes along the way, but that doesn’t stop them. They move forward drawing on their own unique strengths and the ones they’ve gained on their journey—and there are so many ways to be strong. One way of course, is through plain physical power.  I know a lot of women with incredible physical endurance—and ones who can pack a wallop! But there are many shades of strength, including bravery, compassion, intelligence, perseverance, vision, curiosity, cleverness, ambition, resolve, and so many more.  

I love seeing the whole spectrum in so many amazing heroines. In celebration of Women’s History Month, I’d like to share a few of my favorites from recent reads:

Sybella


Oh Sybella, how I ached for you.  From the time she was introduced in the first book of the series, I was pricked with curiosity about the depth of her story.  When at last it unfolded in Dark Triumph, I was undone. Yes, it is a fantasy novel, but Sybella’s story cut me to the quick with its gritty realism. Sybella somehow finds the strength to reach deep and overcome a lifetime of betrayals. She broke my heart and then pieced it back together again with hope. I loved all the female protagonists in the His Fair Assassin series by Robin LaFevers, but Sybella’s strength melted into my core.

Charley


Charley is fun. She is clever. She is strong.  She’s the kind of girl you want for a best friend—whether you’re a guy or a girl. She is resourceful, and has a sense of humor even as she is desperately trying to survive after being thrown into the most dire of circumstances on an island—without food, water, or clothes. Yes, she is naked, which she notes with all the shock and horror that my own seventeen year-old self would have had. Charley, the main protagonist in Lynne Matson’s debut, NIL, has stuck with me and still makes me smile when I think of her. She is a survivor.

Cress


Humorous like Charley, Cress is a different kind of survivor. She’s on an island of another sort, a prisoner in a satellite high above the earth. Locked away from almost all human contact, Cress uses her imagination to survive. She is a dreamer and envisions a different life from the one she has had. Yes, Cress is flawed and naïve—what else could you expect from someone who has had to endure a life of isolation—but she is also skilled at things like hacking computer systems and when she realizes how she has been used, she puts those skills to good use. In her naivety Cress is so different from the other heroines in Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles, but that is what captured my heart too. Her world has only been seen through the lens of a netscreen and from that she pieces together some semblance of a life—until she has the opportunity to grab for another.

Celaena


She’s a bad ass. There is no other way to say it. Dangerous and driven, violence is all Celaena has ever known. She was raised to be an assassin—and she’s damn good at it. But besides setting her adversaries on edge with her knife skills, she can do it with her humor too. That’s my kind of girl. She lets no strength go unmined. My grandmother would love her. So do I. I’ve only read the first book in The Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas, but I can’t wait to see what mayhem Celaena stirs in the rest.

For the sake of space, I’ll have to use shorthand here, but more strong heroines I loved were Kestrel from The Winner’s Curse (clever and calculating!), Wilhelmina from The Orphan Queen (courageous and determined!), Rosie from The Vault of Dreamers (curious, creative, and brave!) and . . . okay, there are a lot of great heroines out there.

Even though all the stories I’ve mentioned are fantasy, I think the fantasy elements help illuminate the very real strengths in all of us. All these incredible heroines had tough choices to make, just as we all do every day, and they meet the challenges of their fate and circumstances through trial and error, calculations and intelligence, missteps and perseverance, vision and triumph—and plenty of badassery. Sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

The NWHP says, “There is a real power in hearing women’s stories” and I couldn’t agree more. The female voice, experience, and perspective is unique, and reading about it enriches all of our lives, girls and women, boys and men alike.
There! Go link arms with one of these women and let them take you on a powerful journey.

***
Kiss of Deception is available now. The sequel, The Heart of Betrayal, will be available July 7. 

Appropriate Literature: Guest Post by Elana K. Arnold

|

Today’s “About the Girls” guest post is from author Elana K. Arnold. She’s here to talk about the idea of “appropriate literature” and how that applies to girls, girls reading, and feminism. 

Elana K. Arnold has a master’s degree in Creative Writing from UC Davis. She writes books for and about young people and lives in Huntington Beach, California with her family and more than a few pets. Visit Elana at www.elanakarnold.com.
















A few days ago, I got an email. This is what it said:

“My 13 year old daughter is interested in reading your books. I research novels before she reads them to ensure they are age appropriate. Can you please provide me with information regarding the sexual content, profanity, and violence so I can make an informed decision.”

The subject of the email was: Concerned Mother.

I’m not proud to admit that my first reaction was a twist in my stomach, a lurching sensation. Was I attempting to lead her daughter astray, were my books nothing more than thinly disguised smut, or pulp?

And I wasn’t sure how to respond. Yes, my books have sexual content. They have profanity. There is violence. But my books—like all books—are more than a checklist, a set of tally marks (Kisses? 6. Punches thrown? 4.) 

Then I began thinking about myself at thirteen, about what was appropriate for me in that year, and those that followed.

When I was thirteen, I read whatever I wanted. No one was watching. Largely I found books in my grandmother’s home library. I roamed the shelves and chose based on titles, covers, thickness of the spines. I read All You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex (But were afraid to ask). I read The Stranger. I read Gone with the Wind. And I read at home too, of course, and in school—Anne of Green Gables and Bridge to Terabithia and Forever.

Those early teen years were steeped in sex, even though I wasn’t sexually active. In junior high school, there were these boys who loved to snap the girls’ bras at recess. I didn’t wear a bra, though I wished desperately for the need to. I was sickened by the thought that one of the boys might discover my secret shame, reach for my bra strap and find nothing there.

So one day I stole my sister’s bra and wore it to school. All morning I was aware of the itch of it, its foreign presence. I hunched over my work, straining my shirt across my back so the straps would show through.

At recess, I wandered dangerously near the group of boys, heart thumping, hoping, terrified. Joe Harrison did chase me—I ran and yelped until he caught me by the arm, found the strap, snapped it.

And then his words—“What are you wearing a bra for? You don’t have any tits.”

The next year, there was a boy—older, 15—who didn’t seem to care whether or not I needed a bra. We kissed at a Halloween party, just days after my thirteenth birthday. I was Scarlett O’Hara. He was a 1950’s bad boy, cigarettes rolled into the sleeve of his white T-shirt. He was someone else’s boyfriend.

The next day at school, a well-meaning girl whispered to me, just as class was about to start, “If you’re going to let him bang you, make him finger bang you first. That way, it won’t hurt as much.”

Later that year, before I transferred schools when my family moved away, my English teacher told me I was talented, and that he would miss me. Then he kissed me on the mouth.

The next year, a high school freshman, I was enrolled in Algebra I, and I didn’t think I was very good at it. Truthfully, I didn’t pay much attention to whatever the math teacher/football coach was saying up there, preferring to scribble in my notebook or gaze into half-distance, bringing my eyes into and out of focus.

On the last day of class, the teacher called me up to his desk. “You should fail this class,” he told me. “You went into the final with a D, and you got less than half of the questions right.”

I had never failed a class. I was terrified.

“But,” he went on, smiling, “I’m gonna give you a C-, because I like the way you look in that pink leather miniskirt.”

At fifteen, a sophomore, I took Spanish. I raised my hand to ask a question, and the teacher—who liked the students to call him Señor Pistola—knelt by my desk as I spoke. When I finished, instead of answering me he said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear a word. I was lost in your beautiful eyes.”

I wasn’t having sex. I had only kissed one boy. But still, I was brewing in it—sex, its implications, my role as an object of male desire, my conflicting feelings of fear and excitement. 

Recently, I taught an upper division English class at the University of California, Davis. The course topic was Adolescent Literature. Several of my book selections upset the students, who argued vehemently that the books were inappropriate for teens because of their subject matter—explicit sexual activity, sexual violence, and incest. The Hunger Games was on my reading list, too, a book in which the violent deaths of children—one only twelve years old—are graphically depicted. No one questioned whether that book was appropriate. Of course, none of the characters have sex. Not even under the promise of imminent death do any of the featured characters decide to do anything more than kiss, and even the kissing scenes end before they get too intense.

So I think about the mother who wrote me that email, asking me, Are your books appropriate for my daughter? I think about the girl I was at thirteen, and the girls I knew. The girl who told me about finger banging. The other girls my English teacher may have kissed. The girls who had grown used to boys groping their backs, feeling for a bra strap, snapping it. 

I think, What is appropriate? I want to tell that mother that she can pre-read and write to authors and try her best to ensure that everything her daughter reads is “appropriate.” But when I was thirteen, and fourteen and fifteen, stealing my sister’s bra and puzzling over the kiss of the boy at the party, the kiss of my teacher in an empty classroom, what was happening to me and around me and inside of me probably wouldn’t have passed that mother’s “appropriate” test. Still, it all happened. To a good girl with a mother who thought her daughter was protected. Safe. 

And it was the books that I stumbled upon—all on my own, “inappropriate” books like Lolita and All You Ever Wanted to Know about Sex—these were the books that gave me words for my emotions and my fears. 

Maybe the books I write are appropriate. Maybe they are not. But I think it should be up to the daughters to make that decision, not the mothers. Censorship—even on a familial level—only closes doors. We may want to guard our daughters’ innocence, we may fear that giving them access to books that depict sexuality in raw and honest ways will encourage them to promiscuity, or will put ideas in their heads.

I don’t think our daughters need guardians of innocence. I think what they need is power. 

Let your daughter read my books, Concerned Mother. Read them with her. Have a conversation. Tell her your stories. Let her see your secrets, and your shames. Arm your daughter with information and experience. 

Give her power. 






***



Infandous is available now.