What I Read in May: Fated by Alyson Noel, Winter's Shadow & Winter's Light by M.J. Hearle

Fated by Alyson Noel

Strange things are happening to Daire Santos. Crows mock her, glowing people stalk her, time stops without warning, and a beautiful boy with unearthly blue eyes haunts all her dreams. Fearing for her daughter's sanity, Daire's mother sends her to live with the grandmother she's never met, but who recognizes the visions for what they truly are—the call to her destiny as a Soul Seeker—one who can navigate the worlds between the living and dead. 
There on the dusty plains of Enchantment, New Mexico, Daire sets out to harness the powers of her ancestral legacy, but it's when she meets Dace, the boy from her dreams, when things take an alarming turn. Forcing Daire to discover if Dace is the one guy she's meant to be with...or if he's allied with the enemy she's destined to destroy. 

I got on Google Maps, and I am fairly sure Enchantment, New Mexico is not actually real place. Thank goodness. Bad stuff happens there.

I enjoyed Fated, but there is so much information imparted, and so much to establish in this first book of the series, that I think the plot suffers slightly - I am certainly expecting more action in subsequent books with the sheer amount of background delivered in this novel. It's obviously been thought out and researched (as researched as a book about magical powers can be) in extraordinary detail, and if you are the sort of reader who wants to become invested in the world of a series and know all of these details, it's well worth picking up.

The book does require a lot of suspension of disbelief - there are twin characters that are the personification of good and evil, after all, which some readers might take issue with. But I think it's fun and out-there, and while I enjoyed the first book, I am especially intrigued to read the sequels because there are so many elements that can be explored further, this book felt almost introductory. Portals! Reanimated corpses! Different worlds adjacent to this one where fearsome creatures roam! The myriad abilities Daire has, including being able to effectively possess animals!

It certainly isn't disappointing in the inventiveness department, though some characterisations are a little incredible (when Daire's mother reappears she is just ridiculous, and has apparently forgotten about Daire's prior illness, and the twins are introduced flippantly considering their importance to the story). I do like that the love interest is not evil or likely to murder the protagonist. Lots of exciting stuff and awesome directions the series can go in!

Winter's Shadow by M.J. Hearle
Blake Duchamp…He’s all that Winter Adams can think of. Ever since their fateful meeting at Pilgrim’s Lament. Ever since he looked at her with those emerald eyes. Ever since he saved her life.

But Blake isn’t all that he seems. There is a strangeness about him, something dark and otherworldly. Something dangerous. He is her only protection against the gathering darkness. The only problem is, to protect Winter, Blake must risk exposing her to an even greater danger.

Himself.



Winter's Light by M.J. Hearle
 
Blake is gone. He sacrificed himself to save Winter, leaving her alone, unprotected…hunted. 

An ancient enemy is rising, but Winter is no longer the innocent girl who was fated to die at Pilgrim’s Lament. She will not wait to be saved. She will do what she must to survive, even accept an unsavoury alliance with those who destroyed her love. In the gathering darkness, the enemy of an enemy is not always a friend, and Winter must find the strength to stand alone and fight for the one she loves. For she is the key to unlocking the secrets beyond the veil of shadows.

And she is Blake’s only hope.

So I was excited to read this new series for a couple of reasons: 1) the author is a Sydneysider! I do get very excited about new Australian YA writers. 2) Promotional materials promised no sparkly vampires or werewolves!

In both novels, a second narrative occurs in a few chapters throughout - in the first it's Blake's mother's story, and in the second it's a character 2000 years in the past who is linked to both central characters. There's a lot of thought that's been put into world-building. I really enjoyed these back stories, and I would love to have read more of them (so many opportunities for other books set in the same world!).

I think it's important to state that my preferences in YA paranormal romances seem to differ quite a bit from those of most readers who are fans of the genre. I am always more interested in the paranormal part than I am the romance part. The parts that involved travelling to a different reality - an incredibly creepy and alien one - were probably my favourite (how could they not be?), and there is a definite promise of the third book being more heavily involved in this other universe. Also, the incredibly ominous Skivers? I liked them, too.

Though I felt the beginning a little clunky, the story picks up and the ending of Winter's Shadow was fantastic. Winter's Light is my favourite of the series (so far!), mainly because the plotline is not centred around the burgeoning romance but rather Winter's growth as a character and her involvement in a larger war that is occurring. While I expected the twist in Winter's Shadow, in Winter's Light there was a twist that I did not see coming. The events of Winter's Light are on a much larger scale than the first book.

I think if you're a YA paranormal romance fan, this is well worth picking up, and I found the second book especially enjoyable - creepy and dark with an epic ending. I can promise no sparkly vampires, but there are some vampire-reminiscent creatures. There's a lot of familiarity about the series - the setting, romance and protagonist all fit very well within the genre - but it offers some interesting plot twists later on, and I've high expectations for the third book in the series. (More sinister paranormal beasties, I hope.)

My Writing Process: Twelve Simple Steps

Step One: Stare at computer screen for minutes on end, blinking occasionally, trying to figure out how to start. 

Step Two: Think to self: 'I would be a much more productive writer if I had a whiz-bang writing program, and also a newer laptop, and also a way to directly transfer my thoughts to text, and also a wireless keyboard. A wireless keyboard would sort out all of my problems.'

Step Three: Imagine the book is finished, and it is beautiful, and full of really excellent sentences and even better paragraphs and mind-blowingly intelligent chapters. Imagine a parade held in my honour because I am such a brilliant writer.

Step Four: Be suddenly struck with brilliant idea. Type out one hundred words. Rejoice, for I have started writing the greatest novel ever to be written. Practice answers about my personal writerly struggles and such for when I am interviewed on national TV programs that interview only very important, very smart people.

Step Five: Reward myself with a cup of tea.

Step Six: Return to desk. Reread what I have written.

Step Seven: Delete.

Step Eight: DESPAIR.

Step Nine: Think of possible alternative careers. Look up bachelor degrees in Accountancy.

Step Ten: Wish for a wireless keyboard.Or a magical typewriter that writes all on its own. Or another cup of tea, possibly some Vegemite on toast.

Step Eleven: Eventually start writing again. And then refuse to look back, or stop, or do anything foolish like that. Get about fifty-thousand words down. While writing, think: 'This is glorious! This is wonderful!' Finish first draft.

Step Twelve: Reread. Start thinking about alternative careers again. (And, eventually, edit it. And let other people read it. Eventually.)

--

This post wasn't very helpful, but here is a list that is:

(source)

Tell me about your writing process!

(And advice about finding inspiration, and not falling into this-book-is-terrible despair, would be awfully appreciated!)

10 Things that I love in YA novels

I am always talking about the things that I do not like in novels for teenagers (e.g. threatening vampire boyfriends, threatening fictional boyfriends generally, etc... I don't imagine I would be cool with threatening fictional girlfriends either but I never come across those). There are, in fact, many, many plotlines and literary devices that I love, and that I will never tire of. Behold - stuff that improves YA novels tenfold (well, for me, at least)... or any kind of novel, really:

1. Time travel. Especially when I have no idea there will be time travel! Surprise time travel is the best kind. As long as they don't go back in time to try and kill Hitler. Really, guys. Assume you failed. I do love it when people travel back in time and have to avoid their younger self/have to save their younger self from forces of evil!
2. This is really an extension of the previous point, but: alternate universes! Especially if there are two timelines occurring at once.
3. First person, present tense. Technically two things, but I like the two together. I like the immediacy of everything is happening right now! Will the protagonist die? What's going to happen? and being in the head of the character. Third person reminds me I am reading about fictional people. I don't want to be reminded of that!
4. Endings where it turns out everything was in the narrator's head. 'It was all just a dream' is actually one of my favourite lines. I am not sure when people decided that these sorts of stories are cliche, because I think they are awesome. I enjoy reimagining novels and films as if all the events were in the head of one character and no-one else was real. You know, like Harry Potter is just Ginny Weasley's coma dream.
5. Unreliable narrators. Especially when those narrators are so unreliable that they're actually serial killers. You know when you get to the last chapter, and all of a sudden everything makes sense. And you sit there with the book closed for a solid five minutes so it can all sink in.
6. Multiple narrators. I like being able to imagine the story from the point of view of every character. (This is a good measure of whether secondary characters are realistic, I find - if you can't imagine the story from their point of view, or have some idea of what else would be going on in their lives, they are not very well thought-out.) It is even better when the author writes from the perspectives of various characters.
7. A real-world setting. So many novels I read - particularly those of the YA paranormal romance persuasion - have this vague, kind of American but nowhere specific, maybe it's a bit rainy and green setting. I think this is why I like a lot of very Australian novels - the setting is specific, there are references I recognise, I can clearly imagine it. Even if a novel is set in another country, I like it when it's a specific, real place, with local references. And if it's a made-up place, I'd prefer it not be generic and Forks-esque. Oh dear. Talking about what I don't like in books again.
8. Realistic conversations. Sometimes characters have this odd, stilted dialogue that no one would ever really speak. Sometimes characters are ridiculous witty and composed to the degree that it's totally unbelievable. Of course, it's fiction, everything must be a little more fantastic than reality, but I don't want them to be too intelligent. That's just suspicious. I'll think they're 110-year-old vampires that only look sixteen. (I suspect this of real-world people I meet who are overly charming, too.)
9. Parent-characters that actually parent. Imagine that. Everyone's always so dysfunctional in books, functional characters, especially functional parents, are a real delight.
10. Dead characters that are not actually dead! Whether that's by zombification, conspiracy, or because they're actually an evil mastermind, someone who was supposed to be dead turning out to be alive is always my favourite twist.

What events and/or literary devices do you love in novels?

(e.g. the appearance of aliens! the use of second person! incredibly sarcastic characters!)

What I read in April, part two: Pure, Every Other Day and Trust Me Too

Pure by Julianna Baggott  
'We know you are here, our brothers and sisters. We will, one day, emerge from the Dome to join you in peace. For now, we watch from afar.'

Pressia Belze has lived outside of the Dome ever since the detonations. Struggling for survival she dreams of life inside the safety of the Dome with the 'Pure'. 

Partridge, himself a Pure, knows that life inside the Dome, under the strict control of the leaders' regime, isn't as perfect as others think. 

Bound by a history that neither can clearly remember, Pressia and Partridge are destined to forge a new world.  

The world-building! The plot twists! The creepy 1984-vibe! I found Pure to be a fairly brilliant dystopian novel. I believe it has been optioned for film, and I imagined as a movie at several points as I was reading - it's very strong and exciting and fast-paced plot-wise. My tastes in books often tend towards the borderline ridiculous, so some readers may find some plotlines a little difficult to believe, but I thought it was fantastic.

I found the romantic aspects to be an unnecessary addition. Is there some unspoken rule that all books for teenage readers must feature minimum one romantic plotline? This book hardly needs it, and it all felt a little rushed near the end. I loved the world outside of the Dome - I mean, I wouldn't want to go there, but it seemed very well thought-out and was well evoked. The people melding with household objects, the ground, other people - all incredibly creepy. I found it somewhat difficult to believe these things would stand out to Pressia - she has lived in a world where most people have disfigurements like a doll-head hand or a sibling attached to them most of her life - so sometimes found it over-described (I could understand it being shocking to Partridge, having grown up in a world where people are perfect). I didn't have as clear an idea of the world inside the Dome, and it was less exciting anyway.

I would recommend this to an older YA audience, and fans of dystopias. Though there's a lot of time spent on each character's thoughts, I think the strength of the novel lies in the plot, and it is very plot-driven. It's the first of a series, but functions well as a standalone (if anything things are a little too neatly finished) and I'm looking forward to reading the next.

Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes  
Every other day, Kali D'Angelo is a normal sixteen-year-old girl. She goes to public high school. She attends pep rallies. She's human. And then every day in between...She's something else entirely. 

Though she still looks like herself, every twenty-four hours predatory instincts take over and Kali becomes a feared demon-hunter with the undeniable urge to hunt, trap, and kill zombies, hellhounds, and other supernatural creatures. Kali has no idea why she is the way she is, but she gives in to instinct anyway. Even though the government considers it environmental terrorism. 

When Kali notices a mark on the lower back of a popular girl at school, she knows instantly that the girl is marked for death by one of these creatures. Kali has twenty-four hours to save her and, unfortunately, she'll have to do it as a human. With the help of a few new friends, Kali takes a risk that her human body might not survive...and learns the secrets of her mysterious condition in the process.  

I loved the alternate universe of Every Other Day - where things like hellhounds, chupacabras and basilisks are an everyday part of life, and even protected by the government. But also there are no sexy threatening supernatural boyfriends! Always makes me happy when there aren't any of them. I thought it was original and refreshing and it did not go in the direction I thought it was going in at any point during the novel. Usually I can figure out how a book will end about fifty pages in, but not with this book.

I loved the various hunting scenes. The bit with the basilisk! The part with the zombies! It's a very strong novel plot-wise. There are plenty of endearing but less-developed characters, which makes me wonder whether this is the beginning of the series - there are clues at the end that it perhaps is, which is exciting, because I'd very much like to read more novels set in this world. I would have preferred a bit more character development, though - there's a particular point where being invested emotionally is important, and I wasn't, and perhaps that event was not that necessary - other revelations overshadowed it. (I am trying not to be spoiler-iffic here. If you have read the book hopefully you will know what I am talking about.) I think it's hard to pack in that amount of plot + world-building + tight timeframe and also have a full cast of well-rounded characters in one book.

Worth picking up if you like paranormal romance but are not as keen on the romance part! If you mainly like the parts with creatures and fighting and such, this is for you. Also there's a conspiracy and an ice dragon and a lot of very interesting twists.

Trust Me Too (Edited by Paul Collins)  
Trust Me Too delivers a wonderful diversity of writing and art. It contains a host of short stories, along with heartfelt and witty verse, and delightful yet thought-provoking illustrations. Many of the offerings provide glimpses into other worlds – known and unknown, past and present. 

If reading is something you do to find your way into the lives of other people, you will discover much to enjoy within. Welcome. Have fun getting lost in these worlds – but remember to return to the present once you’ve finished reading!

This is a great anthology overall. The Obernewtyn prequel is great, and makes me very much want to pick up Obernewtyn again, and it is one of many wonderful stories. If you are reading it cover to cover, as I did, I think having a more defined theme would have made it a more satisfying and cohesive reading experience. I think it's even better if you dip into it and read individual stories out of order - it's a wonderful and varied selection, with a lot of great writers. Susanne Gervay's Boo, Deb Abela's Don't Let Go, Sandy Fussell's Dingo Boy, Michael Gerard Bauer's Oh Brother, What Art Thou? and Kim Kane's Scaffolding are some of my favourites, and if I don't stop now I'll end up listing pretty much every story in the book. (I think it would work really well as a text to study for upper primary/lower secondary students... so many excellent stories that would prompt lots of interesting ideas and questions and such.)

I think what lets this collection down is the fact that the cover appears very much targeted towards a young teen male audience, when the stories are varied enough for older teenage readers and girls to enjoy it as well. While the variety of the stories is wonderful, and many readers with different tastes will find stories they will love within it, I think age-appopriateness is an issue across the stories. While some of the stories are definitely aimed towards a younger audience (the age range recommended by the publisher is 11+), there are certain, darker stories which I don't think would be as suitable for younger readers. Jack Heath's Rats was pretty terrifying, Justin D'ath's Stilled Lifes x 11 really very disconcerting, and Michael Pryor's Shop Til You Drop was also very creepy. These were some of my other favourite stories in the book, but I probably wouldn't have let my eleven-year-old self read them. (Depends on the eleven-year-old, obviously.) I don't even know who to specifically recommend this too - perhaps give it as a gift to a young not-so-keen reader, or pick it up if you like fantasy stories, or simply read it if you're a fan of one of the authors (you will probably be a fan of a few more by the end of it). It's a potpourri of awesome. See, this is why I'm a writer. Metaphors like that one.

Bookish Confessions

1. The first (and only) time I read Twilight, I loved it. I'm not kidding. I was thirteen. The very odd thing here is that I had the same belief systems then as I have now, but this did not seem to matter when I was reading. I read the first three books like a crazed fan, then stepped back and thought about it and was really disturbed. I never read the fourth book, but I saw part one of Breaking Dawn and it was so ridiculous I could hardly believe anyone had been serious about it. Did people genuinely enjoy that? Anyway, looking forward to that sequel.

I will never reread this series, unless I am at some point offered a choice between reading Twilight and painful death. Sometimes I really, really loathe the series and all that it stands for and really wish it would just cease to exist and everyone would stop referencing it due to my moral repulsion. The rest of the time I leave vehement hatred of crappy books to other people, mainly because I don't really get anything out of it except bad feelings. Also there are disturbing romantic relationships in about 90% of paranormal romance books and I cannot protect all of the impressionable young girls from all of the disturbing books.

2. I never quite made it through the first Hunger Games book. I have not seen the film, nor do I plan to. I feel as if I am missing some monumental pop culture thing, since I never finished reading it nor did I particularly enjoy it, but if I try and read it again or see the movie now and it doesn't measure up to my now massive expectations, that will be terrible. I have very complex feelings about books. If you like we can still have conversations about the Hunger Games and both pretend I've read the whole series without me having to make an effort. I've read enough material about it to have effectively read it, anyway.

3. I never managed to get through the entire Harry Potter series. I own the first five books, but could never finish that fifth book. I was about eleven, though, so perhaps I should reattempt it now. They were at a quidditch tournament for a while. I really wanted to move beyond the quidditch tournament, but it seemed as if Harry and Co would be there forever, so I gave up and started reading The Hobbit. Is it bad to admit that I found that series boring? They were good enough, but I've never really understood why people love the series so rabidly. Is it worth starting over, seven years after I originally read it? Does it improve as it progresses? Is it something older, not-quite-wiser Steph would better appreciate? (I quite enjoyed the later films.)

4. As you may have noticed, I often don't 'get' popular or classic books or series. It's actually terrible, feeling both uncultured and awfully un-hip. I am reading War and Peace at the moment, and while I am sure it was brilliant nearer to the time it was written, reading it almost a century and a half later, it is actually quite a clunky piece of literature. Interesting historically, sure, but not remotely enjoyable for me as a modern reader. And yet so many people adore it. Really? There's all these rich people having inane conversations, and then a rich girl was going to marry this bloke, but then loved that guy! but it turned out he was really awful and then Napoleon has a sit down on a hillside and thinks about some stuff, like the war and the battle he's supposed to be winning. I am missing something, I am sure. I just don't know what it is.

5. I very often watch film adaptations before I read the original book! I'm a rebel! And then I sometimes prefer the film to the book. Sacrilege!

6. If someone lends me a book, and it's a really important book for them, I almost always say I loved it, even if I thought it was terrible. Mainly because it makes me sad when people don't appreciate the things I think are brilliant, and I don't want other people to feel sad! They're reaching out to me through literature! I appreciate that. I feel like I'm Dead Poets Society. It's a bonding experience. I'm trying not to do this anymore. Someday I will very tactfully say, to a friend that lends me a novel, 'you know, you're great, but, I don't know, your most adored book is not really my thing.' I'm working up to it.

Feel free to share your bookish confessions! 

(Books you pretended to love, or books you pretend to hate, or books you could never read!)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar & other books I loved as a kid

...and still love now.

I have been thinking about the books from my childhood that I loved since hearing of the very sad passing of the brilliant Maurice Sendak. (This beautiful interview from last year is well worth listening to.)

I think in a lot of ways the books I was first exposed to as a little kid were the greatest - when I read now, it's always with a critical eye. I don't reread books now because I hardly have time. I am always thinking about everything too, too much. Whereas when I was five, reading was about pure enjoyment. I read or had books read to me over and over again, until I knew the words by heart. Individual books were really special to me in a way that I rarely feel with more grown-up books. It was also a wonderful thing to share reading with other people. We should all read to other people more often. And this enthusiasm I had for these glorious books was what planted the seed of an idea to write stories myself.

So here are some of the more adored picture books of my childhood (which was not all that long ago, really - I was obsessed with these in the late nineties):

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
I think this is probably a favourite childhood book of everyone born in the last forty years, but only because it is truly brilliant. It brought me sheer joy as a child. I loved the cut-outs from the pages (one of the greatest things about books for small children are the inclusion of shapes and textures and so forth... why do we get rid of these? I want more art in books for teenagers, too!), and the lists of food, and the transformation most of all (the anticipation of the page-turn, and then 'into a butterfly!' I have very clear recollections of this being read to me). Recently I was tempted to buy Very Hungry Caterpillar wall decals. I may still.

The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch by Ronda & David Armitage
What I remember really loving about this book - loving to the point the book fell apart - was probably the food. The wife of the lighthouse keeper sends her husband his lunch by a flying fox-type contraption every day, and seagulls eat it before it can reach him. Those little drawings of the lighthouse keeper's sandwiches were my favourite part. I can't even remember how or even whether they outsmart the seagulls, but gosh I like a packed lunch.

Clarice Bean, That's Me by Lauren Child
I was quite convinced at the age of six that Lauren Child was actually a child. I think because her drawings seemed child-like. It also seemed logical that someone with the surname Child must be a child. Now we have Wikipedia, I have discovered she was actually born in 1965, which is a terrible disappointment. I thought she was a prodigy. I always liked that there was a lot going on in the pictures.

Shirley Barber's Bedtime Stories
I don't believe this classifies as a picture book, but I very much loved these fairy stories when I was little. I remember reading a Shirley Barber poem at a school talent contest when I was five or six. I could probably add 'perfomance poet' to my resume now. I also remember being part of an interpretive dance duo around the same time. I was an awesome child. I still have a number of her 100-piece fairy puzzles. I could probably write a lot on the subject of my childhood love of puzzles, but that would just be off-topic. I had a lot of Shirley Barber storybooks (I still have them) and one of my favourite stories was about a small fluffy mammal with a shoemaking business in the hollow of a tree. I did quite like anthomorphism.

Possum Magic by Mem Fox

Possum Magic is glorious and unashamedly Australian and one of the better things to come out of the 80s. It is just wonderful. The more I think about picture books I loved as a kid, the longer the list gets (My Cat Maisy by Pamela Allen! ALL of the Hairy McClary from Donaldson's Dairy books!), despite the fact that I have a terrible memory, which shows the impact books have had on me. I can hardly remember events that happened when I was five, but I can tell you about the books I read! (If only because I read them hundreds of times.)

Oh, and here is one of many very lovely Maurice Sendak quotes, to wrap up:

 

So, tell me, what were your favourite childhood picture books?

10 issues I have with love interests in YA novels

1. If it is a paranormal book, the love interest often has some kind of power to influence the heroine's emotions. It's very odd. Morally, I have problems with a character saying 'I love him because he radiates goodness and love!' No. Seriously. Think of the implications this would have in the real world. Using magical beastie power to force someone who hates you into adoring you... That's not cool.
2. Why is everyone always so romantically experienced and suave and cool about it all? (Except the girl protagonist. She is innocence personified.) Obviously I realise that in the worlds of novels (even realistic ones) things are a lot less awkward than in the real world, and that's nice, but sometimes I just think that it's been a very, very long time since the author was sixteen. (Seriously. There's all these confident, self-assured boys in these novels, even the contemporary ones where they are actually supposed to be sixteen. We need to remember that teenage boys are humans and teenagers too. Many of them are much more unsure of themselves than novels depict them to be.)
3. Love interests are often really over-described. If I want to hear a teenage girl endlessly gush about the smoothness of some guy's skin, and his lovely, shiny hair, and how fit he is, and how stylishly-yet-effortlessly he dresses, and his goddamn crooked smile, I know a lot of One Direction fans who I can get that from. I think once we have established he's a babe, we can move forward with the plot.
4. Why does everyone always have such special eyes? Jewel of Girl Saves Boy has two differently coloured eyes. But it's different! She's a girl! Okay, really, I have a problem with doing this myself. But I limit myself to one character a story, at most, and their eyes never glow or change in different lights or anything, so I hope it's all right. (Why is the temptation to mark characters as special by their special eyes so great? Even in contemporary novels?)
5. Particularly in paranormal romance, why does the male love interest always have to be evil/secretly evil/the twin of an evil guy? I only have an issue with this because it has happened in every paranormal romance I have read lately. A lady protagonist never says, 'You know what, I'm going to pursue that guy who seems quite well-adjusted, transparent about his background as a shapeshifter, respectful, fun to be around and not controlling.'NEVER. Always the stalker creepsters who may or may not kill you because their species has been your natural enemy since the dawn of time.
6. There is always so much hetero love. Why can't the love interest be the same gender as the protagonist more often and that not be a thing? The main plot of the novel can be about werewolves and sparkly folks or identity crises or whatever and lesbianism can be there but not be what the novel is all about.
7. Why does the love interest always have to be their One True Love? Forever and ever and ever? Or, if we're in a novel more based in the real world, why is there so often the implication that they're going to grow up and get married? Maybe the two characters don't have to be together for all of eternity for their relationship to have value, hey? (Obviously people's personal values systems come into play here, but I think the concept of meeting 'the One' at the age of sixteen or seventeen kind of... frightening. Don't the characters have more growing up and learning about themselves and the world to do before they settle down?)
8. Why, in paranormal romances, is the secretly-an-old-man-only-looks-young-and-attractive creature-boy always still going to high school? Why willingly subject yourself to that torture for decades? It makes no sense! Edward Cullen, it seems to me you are a poorly thought-out character who only goes to school in order to meet the protagonist! (Unless he was trying to find his one true love at high school? Really? Get a mail-order bride or something.) There are others. There are many others. (There are better places to pray on teenage humans, I am sure.)
9. Do they actually all have to be dazzlingly attractive? If it's their One True Love and all, and they have the superpower that makes them able to influence emotions, or if they are just still a gangly teenager (people are mostly not that attractive at sixteen. You have to grow and such and your body and face are quite all over the place), perhaps, just perhaps, they're not conventionally beautiful. Just average. Maybe they just have a really good personality. Everyone being unbearably beautiful seems like a bit of overkill.
10. I would say something about the lady love interests of male protagonist YA novels, but I don't find there are that many of them (at least not ones that focus solely around the romance) and really they don't do that much to annoy me. My main wish is that more of the love interests in YA novels (and there are many, many good ones already) just become whole, well-developed characters, that don't entirely exist for the protagonist to lust over. Maybe they could have hobbies. Take up scrapbooking, you know? Not attempt to murder the protagonist, or be overly suave all the time, or Manic Pixie Dream Girl all over the book. It's not a lot to ask. Really.

7 Things I would really love to be able to write

1. A memoir. I'm really hoping that it turns out I will have the sort of interesting and exciting and unique and splendid life that people write biographies about. Of course I will publish this memoir when I am very old so that all the people I defame are mostly dead. (I don't think I'd actually defame anyone. I think we should all just live forever, too.)
2. Poetry. I am incredibly disappointed that I will never have awful emo poetry from my youth to someday look back on and cringe. (Instead, I have a book in print! Even better.) But I really enjoy reading poetry (I wish I read more. Recommend me some poets/publications, yo!), and a really wonderful poem can capture in a couple of lines an incredible amount of emotion and meaning. I'd like to be that succinct and powerful. Or at least have a go, and have some awful stuff to dig up later on.
3. A full journal. Writers are supposed to keep diaries, aren't they? I've always been bad at this. I have the best intentions - I bought a nice green journal at Officeworks at the start of this year, it cost me fifteen dollars (seriously) because I was so committed to being a journaller, and practicing my craft, and having something to look back on. I've written three pages and they were just lists of books I want to write. I just find writing about my life incredibly awkward and self-indulgent because not much really happens to me. I do a lot of thinking, but I tend to work through it in fiction. I know, I am a sad imposter for a legit writer.
4. Lyrics. As a child, I had dreams of becoming a rockstar. (I also had dreams of becoming a psychologist, a writer, a teacher, a marine biologist and fifty other things. I continue to have a lot of impractical dreams, which are clearly the best kind.) I would really very much like to write concise and profound lyrics. I'd also like to be able to sing really well and play seven different instruments and have really effortless messy rockstar hair. I'm not really keen on doing the hard yards to achieve these things (especially the hairstyling bit), though, since I am not the most musically gifted, and generally leave it up to other people who have talent in this field.
5. A really long and complex novel. I have no idea how people manage to write those hundred-and-fifty-thousand-word behemoths with about a thousand characters and two different realities and a saga that plays out across ten generations. You know, the kind that you finish reading after a month, and you can't tell which world is the real one and which is a work of fiction? I want to write one of those. That would be great. I tend to run out of steam at the fifty thousand word mark and get confused if I have more than ten characters in a book. (I can never keep track of what people look like. I am devising a filing system for the next book.)
6. A lot of witty things on the internet. I think a lot of people conflate who they are on the internet with who they are in real life. Sometimes I suffer from this. Especially considering a lot of people will never know me in real life, but can read my words on the interwebs. So I want to be really smart and great all the time, and then the pressure from myself to be smart and great gets to me, and I end up writing stuff that is not smart and great, for instance this sentence. Also if I was always incredibly intelligent on the internet, that would be even less representative of my real-world self, who is more of a listener than a talker and can't really edit as she speaks. Which is a pity. But I ramble.
7. Letters. Everyone always says, let's bring back letter-writing! How quaint and kitsch we will be! No one means it! I so want to write letters again, as lovely as lengthy and instantaneous and easy-to-write emails are. (I would also love to have more phone conversations with people. Texting is not the same.) I never really wrote many letters in the first place. If only I had people to write letters to! And it didn't require all the effort of finding some paper and a decent pen and writing neatly and getting an envelope and then a stamp and that costs sixty cents and I don't have any change and then finding a mailbox and feeling worried because what if it gets lost in the mail... I think I know why this isn't in vogue anymore. I am so committed to writing letters, though. Just like I'm committed to journalling.