PRETTY DEAD ~ What Happens When Publishers Tell Authors What to Write #Oct #ASMSG

The dollar store is now a wonderful place to find a small selection of hardcover books normally valued at $20+. Bookstores are going out of business, and its liquidation time.  So, I find cool deals there once in a while, and come out with an armload of hardbacks for less than the $20 it would have cost for a single novel.  

I recently picked up PRETTY DEAD by Francesca Lia Block:

I absolutely love the cover art. Very eye-catching, very unique.  It gave me a sense of sexy, youthful decadence and vampires, kinda snarky... 

Maybe that's just my own perverse nature wishing the book would have been something like that.

But, PRETTY DEAD is a Young Adult vampire novel, by an author who writes with an ADULT literary fiction style.  So, why would an author like this attempt to give the world a whiny, apologizing-for-being-evil, self-depreciating vampire and another vampire who is basically a needy-obsessive Peeping Tom stalker?  

Yep, those are the two main characters, and neither of them act or think like teens (even though Charlotte is technically 16-17 in physical appearance).

Well, adult literary fiction is all about existentialist stuff, contemplating the folly and bittersweet truths of the human condition.

But why write Young Adult in this style?  Do teens really care about existentialist crap?  I'm 40, and I still don't care.

The only reason that comes to mind, Francesca's publisher and perhaps even her agent said something like, "Hey, the latest trend is YA vampire fiction. So that's what you should write."

I am not one to bash authors, and Francesca has a smooth and emotionally evocative writing style, subtly drawing us into her characters.  The main character Charlotte, is a hundred something year old vampire teenage girl, and none too happy about the condition. We felt the girl's plight. We felt her lost life, her lost humanity. And towards the end, as she begins to regain that life spark, she transforms more and more into a young woman, rather than the tired, jaded old bitch in a teenage body.

Francesca can write, very well (she teaches workshops on writing).  But she is not a YA author, not in this book anyway.  This book was not about teens.  It did not address teenage issues or lifestyle.  No issues with school, parents, homework, grades, social pressures, dating, or any of the gazillion things that plague teenagers today or even teens in a dystopian/fantasy/horror setting.

This is adult literary fiction pigeon-holed into the YA teen vampire genre by a publisher who is forcing their author to write something to meet a trend.

This is what happens when publishers tell authors what to write.

Check out the final cover art for THE SHEPHERD #YA #Paranormal #Thriller #ComingSoon

And here it is, the moment you've all been waiting for, the final cover art for THE SHEPHERD, my new YA paranormal thriller novel.

Publication Date: Sunday, September 29th, 2013

Add it to your TBR: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18520651-the-shepherd

Genre:  Young Adult (15+) Paranormal Thriller

Skate punks, kleptomaniacs, clairvoyant visions and reincarnation.

16 year old skater Mike Evans has issues. His alcoholic father's unemployed and he's stuck living in a white-trash trailer park after the foreclosure of their family home. The last two years have sucked royally, and to top it all off, he's plagued by clairvoyant visions of strange-grisly events that always come true. Mike loses his best friend, ex-girlfriend treats him like a leper, and his only friend Anita wants to get in his pants––he's clueless. Since his mother died at birth and his father doesn't give a damn, Mike's on his own.

His fortunes begin to change after helping a 14 year old girl named Nadia, the victim of a hit and run on the highway. An intimate bond is forged through an intense night of ministering to her injuries. He suspects Nadia is homeless and an unusual relationship develops as she sneaks into his room nightly for a place to stay.

Mike lives a double life, daylight hours at school, new girlfriend, skating, part-time job, and then his nights spent with Nadia. She's a secret friend, giving him money, listening to his problems when no one else will.

Strangeness abounds as they develop a mutual obsession. Nadia is not an average little girl, but Mike ignores the obvious signs of danger.

Struggling to avert another vision of gruesome death, he must face the evidence that his secret friend is much more than she seems.