Teen Fiction

Today, I had an "Aha!" moment. Really, it was more like a "Well, duh!" moment, but bear with me.

I was thinking about some of the characters that I really love in the teen fiction that I've read and I figured out why some of those stories appeal to me. It's because, to some extent, I was those girls in high school. Or maybe they are me from back then.

I suppose that's the point -- the books are relatable to a lot of girls and women because we all feel like we don't belong or we're different or we think of ourselves as being outside the norm. But really, I was outside the norm.

I wasn't unpopular, but I wasn't popular either. Like Bella, for instance, in Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series. She doesn't want to be popular, but she doesn't want to be disliked either. She just wants to be herself and find a place where she fits comfortably, whether it's with the yearbook kids, the smart kids ... or the vampires. Whatever.

(Although, full disclosure: The thing that really appeals to me about "Twilight" is the romance, because that sense of having to be with someone, no matter what, reflects how my husband and I felt, and still do, about each other when we were that young.)

Another great teen novel, or series, that I loved was "If I Stay" and "Where She Went" by Gayle Forman. I never had a near-death experience, but I was that girl: different from most of the other students that I went to school with (i.e. more mature); best friends with girls who also were outside the popular groups, but not disliked; actually really close to my parents, siblings and grandparents without feeling embarrassed about it; independent, determined and responsible, maybe even to a fault, because I didn't do some of the reckless things that other teenagers do and learn great lessons from (instead I learned from their mistakes); and in love with someone (and an older someone) I thought I might spend the rest of my life with before I even graduated from high school.

Similar characteristics are represented in other young adult novels that I love, Clary from Cassandra Clare's "Mortal Instruments" series or Andi from Jennifer Donnelly's "Revolution." The character similarities cross genres from paranormal romance to historical fiction to contemporary fiction.

Perhaps a lot of girls feel like I did in high school, but I felt like I was one of very few girls going through what I was going through at the time. My parents divorced when I was barely 6 years old and I moved a lot, so I had to grow up fast. I'm not complaining, but those were some of the circumstances that shaped me. It was a combination of factors and personality characteristics that not everybody has.

But, I suppose that's the point, isn't it? A lot of girls must feel like outsiders or "outliers" at some point or another, regardless of how popular they are, or else we wouldn't understand and fall in love with the characters in all of these books.