There has been a lot of chatter on Twitter lately about the role of gender in YA books. On one hand, women writers and female-centric books dominate the YA market. (An interesting phenomenon given the “general knowledge” that a girl will read a book by or about any gender, but most boys will only read books about–or sometimes by–males.)

On the other, there’s still a lot of sexism. Female characters are held to ridiculous standards (especially by female readers!) and vilified for having faults. In YA fiction, as in adult fiction, male writers are showered with praise and awards while comparable books written by female writers are not. Year after year, critics “best of” lists are all about the men. In that post, critic Lizzy Skurnick writes:

I got a glimmer of an answer last year as I sat in a board room hashing out the winners for one of the awards for which I am a judge. Our short list was pretty much split evenly along gender lines. But as we went through each category, a pattern emerged. Some books, it seemed, were “ambitious.” Others were well-wrought, but somehow . . . “small.” “Domestic.” “Unam –” what’s the word? “– bititous.”

Oh, those damn scribbling women and their little domestic novels!

A few months ago, I visited the Jane Austen exhibit at the Morgan Library in New York City. The exhibit displayed some of Austen’s letters, first editions of her works, things like that. But the exhibit that stuck with me the longest was on on Nabokov. Seems he wasn’t such a fan of Jane (along with Emerson, Twain, and other males):

“I dislike Jane, and I am prejudiced, in fact, against all women writers. They are in another class. Could never see anything in Pride and Prejudice.”

He was called out by Edmund Wilson, a famous literary critic. Great, huh? Well, wait until you see the manner of the calling-out:

“You are mistaken about Jane Austin. I think you ought to read Mansfield Park. Her greatness is due precisely to the fact that her attitude toward her work is like that of a man, that is, of an artist, and quite unlike that of the typical women novelist, who exploits her feminine day dreams . . . She is, in my opinion, one of the half dozen greatest English writers.”

So she’s good, but only because she writes like a man. Astounding, huh? Because no male writer (and certainly not Nabokov), ever made a great work of literature out of exploiting his own daydreams. Right? Anyway, Nabokov revisited Austen, found an appreciation for Mansfield Park, and proceeded to teach it in his lit classes at Cornell. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.

As I said in yesterday’s post, I watched the new PBS version of Emma. I have to say it won me over in the end, but only because I am a sucker for the proposal scene and the way the two characters, who have had such an unequal relationship throughout the entire book come together in a moment of true mutual respect. Yes, it’s due to a big misunderstanding, but it’s quite moving, and it makes you realize that when they are married, he won’t treat her like the child he spent the first half of the book treating her as.

But I digress. My point here is that each episode of the mini-series began with actress Laura Linney addressing the screen and lecturing: “Is Jane Austen too ordinary and narrow for today?” she asks us. Linney’s point turns out to be that Emma Woodhouse is not Harry Potter or Edward Cullen or Wolverine. That she’s just a normal human with normal flaws. (Those magical guys all have “normal flaws” too, though.) However, the use of the word “narrow” is suspect. Ordinary? Fine. But narrow far too closely echoes another famous critic of Austen’s, Ralph Waldo Emerson:

I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen’s novels at so high a rate, which seems to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. The one problem in the mind of the writer is . . . marriageableness . . . Suicide is more respectable.

Oh, Ralph, tell us how you really feel!

It must be nice to live in a world where your options are wider than “marriageableness” or not. I feel like Emerson must have read the first line of Pride & Prejudice, took it at face value, and then went for a walk in the woods. The women in Austen are concerned about marriage because marriage was the only “business” they were allowed to conduct. And Austen’s characters do in fact realize the folly of bad marriages. Elizabeth Bennet would rather risk the kind of poverty that ends up befalling the Dashwoods than wed Mr. Collins. Her friend Charlotte decides that the stigma of being an old maid rates higher on the humiliation scale than that of being married to a fool with good prospects. In Austen’s novels, the onset of love goes hand in hand with the onset of respect. They are romantic within the realm of practicality. Talk about a woman’s daydream! Those were high hopes for the 18th century gal. (And if you want to read about how easily it can all go wrong, check out Millenium Hall by Sarah Scott.)

So Austen is narrow. But it doesn’t stop in the 18th century. I recently read a New York Times profile of the writer/director/producer Nancy Meyers. Meyers is famous for her women-focused domestic comedies. She writes about affluent women and their families and their romances. Sounding familiar? Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday, It’s Complicated — these are hers. The first page of the long article is devoted to talking about how Meyers was asked to move from her table at a tony LA restaurant. Ha, see? Even powerful Hollywood moguls get no respect — you know, if they’re women.

Then the writer goes on to talk about how important and influential and successful Meyers is — never letting go of the fact that gosh, it’s hard since she’s a chick. In response to a complain about the number of takes she likes to do of every scene, her (male) agent is quoted as saying there wouldn’t be a complaint if Nancy was Mike Nichols. And gosh, Jack Nicholson respects her, too! I especially loved this bit:

It would be tempting to attribute Meyers’s uninflated manner to her being female — to having been trained from birth in the art of the soft sell — except for the fact that she is more straightforward than girlish, more clear than coy. “She’s just really smart and doesn’t seem to be impeded by all the weirdness that everyone brings to whichever gender they are,” says Helen Hunt, who starred in “What Women Want.”

In other words, just because she’s powerful, don’t fear that she’s that horrible, aggressive kind of female. Don’t fear that she’s a bitch.

Later, the writer, Daphne Merkin, calls Meyers’s women-centric, romantic films “retro” and “post-feminist” — tags I find rather shocking. Because they are romantic? The women in Meyers’s films are successful and (usually) wealthy from their own accomplishments. Diane Keaton’s character in Something’s Gotta Give is a hit playwright with a tenured professor (in Women’s Studies, yet!) for a sister. Cameron Diaz’s character in Holiday owns her own movie trailer production company (and a mansion in Beverly Hills). Diaz puts it bluntly in that film when she tells Jude Law’s single-dad character that she feels comfortable telling him about her success because she knows he won’t be intimidated, having been raised by a mother who was a high level executive editor at Random House. The romantic elements of the film do not detract from the feminist ones.

And the writer momentarily agrees:

“These women are self-sufficient and notably energetic. They may not have men, at least when we first meet them, but they make do with friends and children and siblings, for whom they whip up tasty dinners and homemade pies and laugh over their own situations. When men do appear on the scene, whether in the form of a babe-chasing player like Jack Nicholson’s Harry or Alec Baldwin’s renewedly impassioned Jake (or Dennis Quaid’s Nick Parker in “The Parent Trap,” for that matter), they awaken dormant desires that nevertheless have to be fit into pre-existing, busy lives.”

But then she spends a few pages obsessing over the filmaker’s focus on set dressings. She criticizes the thread count in the upholstery as being needlessly lush and overindulgent. Let us unpack the following quote:

“Whether her insistence on “softening the message” [Meyer's quote, which I for one believe was taken out of context] through plush surroundings ultimately weakens the films — renders them more glossy and insular than they need be, even for a genre that is inherently fizzy — is a question I have debated with myself and others.”

So, because women-centric romantic comedies are “inherently fizzy” we should make doubly sure to grit them up in a visual sense? I wonder how many other filmmakers are asked not to put their characters in fancy cars or film in exotic locales in order to, you know, make something real. These damn domestic female stories!

“At worst, her films can give off an air of tidy unreality — and it is this unexamined aspect, I think, this failure to even hint at darkness, that most fuels critical ire. Richard Schickel condemns Meyers with faint praise, hinting that she and the studios have struck a devil’s pact of sorts. “Clearly there is an audience for sweet little middle-class romances of the kind she makes, and it pleases the studios to indulge a woman, whom they would not trust with more vigorous projects. It’s as if they’re trying to say: ‘Hey, we’re not sexists. We make Nancy Meyers movies.’ ””

“Sweet little middle class romances.” (First of all, anyone who lives in a house like the Hamptons mansion in Something’s Gotta Give is NOT middle class, fwiw.) But can’t you just hear Emerson’s or Nabokov’s dismissal of Austen in those words? Can’t you hear the dismissal of that roomful of critics deciding on literary awards? Why is domestic a dirty word? Why is a character driven movie about a successful person dealing with their personal lives a Best Picture nominee if it stars George Clooney, but not if it stars Meryl Streep? I think I’m inclined to agree with Meyer’s agent. An article like this would never be written if Nancy was Ned.

I leave you with this (there’s a little bit of language at the end):

The following post has spoilers for RAMPANT. If you haven’t read RAMPANT, consider yourself warned.

Yesterday, I discovered a review of Rampant online. Which pretty much makes it a day ending in -y, but this one had me on the verge of hysterics. I love reviews that make me look at my own work in a new way, and this one made me look at it in a way that was simultaneously off the wall and yet, made a lot of sense.

Here’s the whole review. (Bonus: the reader loved the book.)

Here’s the part that had me and Sailor Boy laughing our butts off:

And oh yes, the tall mysterious stranger who regularly saves Astrid’s life, spouts meaningful broody comments about her destiny and is possibly flirting with her? The if-this-was-Buffy-he-would-be-Angel character? It’s a unicorn.

Now, my pal Sarah Rees Brennan has long advocated for an Astrid-hearts-Bucephalus love story, and I have long advocated that she should seek professional counseling on this matter, but I never put together the reason that she feels this is so right and true — and now I do. It’s because, in the story, Bucephalus’s role is the one usually filled by the wiser/more cynical/world-weary/advisor dude who totally has the hots (or vice versa, or mutual) for our naive heroine. Think Han Solo and the virginal, white-clad Leia. Think the Goblin King Jared and all the advantage he tries to take of the nubile Jennifer Connolly (man, that movie is disturbing. The more I think about it, the more disturbing it gets.) Aragorn and Eowyn. Buffy and Angel. Angel’s a few hundred years old and he spends the entirety of the first season ridiculing, reluctantly saving/assisting, advising, and blowing off Buffy (my favorite line of the series might be when Xander, by far a more noble character, is basically like, WTF, really?), and, also, he wants to get in her pants.

You see, boy heroes in fantasy get elderly wizard-types who are conveniently killed by the enemy. Girl heroes get sardonic older-but-sexy types who want to sleep with them.

So that’s interesting.

Ways that Bucephalus is like Angel:

• Knows more about heroine’s powers than she does
• Knows more about heroine’s enemies than she does
• Has been secretly watching over heroine
• Is older and more experienced than the heroine (bonus points for WAY older)
• Possesses more than a little cynicism and world-weariness
• Is not entirely trustworthy to heroine, not least because
• Is someone that the heroine should, by rights, be killing.

Ways in which Bucephalus is nothing like Angel:

• Does not want to have sex with the heroine.
• Is not seeking redemption in any way.

And the redemption, to be honest, is pretty Angel-specific (or, hell, let’s say vampire specific, as another dozen examples pop into my head). Lord knows David Bowie’s not looking for any of that nonsense, and Han Solo is pretty much dragged kicking and screaming into the whole rebellion thing. So, aside from the sex, we’ve got ourselves a character type. A type that does not actually map to “large venomous bovid species” so much as “hot dude in tight pants.”

Sarah, everything makes so much more SENSE now!

And yet… no. There will be no hot hot hot Astrid/Bucephalus action in Ascendant.

Dmitri and Rose. Bill and Sookie. Eric and Sookie. Poor Sookie!

But I wonder how much our reactions as an audience are mapped out for us by these stock character roles. I remember watching Avatar: The Last Airbender (really hate that I have to specify lately) and waiting and waiting and waiting for the episode where Iroh dies. You know, because he’s the elderly wizard-like advisor who is coaxing Zuko back toward the side of good. And then, when he doesn’t (ironically, the actor voicing him did), being really shocked. Not really knowing what to make of it. You see, I’d had him written off as Merlin/Gandalf/Obi-Wan/Dumbledore. And he wasn’t.

So maybe Sarah’s theories about Bucephalus as tortured romantic hero weren’t — as I always accused her — a product of her unique and uncanny ability to latch on the most unlikely romantic pairing in any work of literature to great comic effect, but rather a reflection of our indoctrination into this trope of fantasy fiction — the sardonic older protector who takes the pretty young thing under his wing (or hoof, as the case may be) and is hella sexy to boot.

Poe and Amy. Yowza. And that’s not even fantasy.

And there’s a lot to be said here on the topic of why a (primarily female readership) is interested in this paradigm. Even if the women are strong, the men must be stronger? Does the girl have a special power? The men’s power has got to be bigger and better? He has to know more about it than she does? Is that true? I remember the guidelines for the old Silhouette Bombshell line of action-adventure romances. They were looking for strong heroines and heroes who were their match.

I wrote a book aimed at that market, about a very strong woman who owns a security company and hires an agent who doesn’t like to play by the rules. They fall in love. In the revision letter, I was told to cut her backstory (she started the company to avenge the kidnapping and death of her younger sister), make HIM the owner of the company, and have him hire her, who was to be reassigned a generic military background. Oh, and could I set it in South America instead of Europe? And dump the plot?

Suffice to say, I did not do those revisions. I’m not sure what kind of book they were looking for, but it clearly wasn’t the one I wrote. I offered to write them a different book. And what stuck with me most out of all the things they asked me to change was the way they wanted the power dynamic of the characters to switch. They didn’t want HER owning the company and hiring HIM (even though he was incredibly knowledgeable about both the business and the case they were on. (And therefore mapped pretty well to the paradigm.) He was as smart as she was, as good an agent as she was, as well trained in martial arts and use of weaponry as she was… (actually, he was an explosives expert).

It was many years later that I began writing Rampant, and from the beginning, I knew I had a very different romantic plan for Astrid. She’s strong, physically, and she’s very brave, and she has special powers, but the man for her is not the one who teaches her how to use a sword, or knows more about her magic than she does. Because I believe that strength can be complementary as well as corresponding. Giovanni strength is his normalcy. He’s a rock in her very unstable world. Which I suppose makes him the mirror of Bucephalus.

Seriously, this is all making sense to me now. I just thought that Irish dame was spouting nonsense.

Hi, my name is Diana and I write books about cool girls who do cool things.

Of course, what passes for cool varies enormously depending on your own personal taste. Some people think that long conversations about the perils faced by polar bears given global climate change (complete with scientific equations) is hopelessly uncool. Others are totally turned off when a group of young women yank out bows and arrows for a little friendly competition. I’m pretty much into all of that, though.

It takes all types.

On that subject, I really liked this post by kiwi YA writer Karen Healey about how she’s sick of the bum rap cheerleaders get in a lot of fiction. Almost invariably, they are presented as mean, empty-headed, shallow, boy-crazy… what’s nice is the post engendered a great discussion about those cheerleader stories that don’t perpetuate the stereotype. To wit: some cheerleaders are awesome, like those in Jennifer Barnes’ THE SQUAD series, or the fabulous women of Bring It On.

Though not a cheerleader, Philippa of RAMPANT is a volleyball player, and embodies a lot of the characteristics common to the evil-cheerleader trope. She’s a beautiful blonde jock, a popular girl with lots of guys after her and a ton of influence due to a large circle of friends who think she’s super-cool. Ready to hate her?

Luckily, most folks love Phil. In fact, when I met with a school group who’d read RAMPANT, one girl thanked me for writing a “nice jock.” As an athlete and a reader, she was weary of only reading about mean girls and guys in the sporting world. I recommended she check out HOW TO DITCH YOUR FAIRY, by Justine Larbalestier, which is chockers with athletes.

Speaking of Justine, it was about a year ago that she introduced me to the concept of the Bechdel-Wallace test.

A story (book, movie, etc.) passes if:

1. It has at least two women in it,
2. Who talk to each other,
3. About something besides a man.

Like any neurotic writer, I immediately feared that I’d unwittingly failed this test. But I’ve come to the conclusion that the kind of writers who would care whether or not they pass the test probably don’t have anything to worry about. Yes, the girls in my books talk about boys, but they also talk about: religion, their futures, polar bears, mythology, computer programming, ancient warlords, pretty clothes, their classes, their theses, nuns, political scandals, the best way to hold a sword, the best reasons to join (or not join) a secret society, how they felt when their mothers died, how they felt the first time they killed something, how best to get another girl they know off drugs, the movies they like, the jobs they want, the things they fear more than anything in the world.

Which is not to say that stories that don’t pass the B-W test are inherently bad. Some are fantastic. But the kind of books I write (cool girls doing cool things), are very Bechdel-Wallacey.

And of course, cool girls come in all shapes and sizes. Some are sweet; some are bitchy. Some are into clothes, or sports, or music, or parties, or medicine, or God, or some combination of things you’d never expect. I’ve gotten letters from readers thanking me for writing a nice Christian girl. I’ve gotten letters from readers disappointed that they finally read a book with a Singaporean girl in it, only to discover that she was mean. The pitfall of writing a lot of different types of cool girls is that sometimes, the one with the characteristics a reader most identifies with has other, far more unlikeable characteristics. It’s unavoidable. I try to write balanced characters, who have reasons for the things they do. After all, that nice Christian girl has been known to be pretty mean from time to time, and the bitchy Singaporean girl has a very good reason to feel slighted, and, on the plus side, she’s really good at hunting killer unicorns.

It’s a good thing to read about different kind of people. Expands the brain. I loved this post by Malinda Lo, the author of ASH, about reading for diversity (and not just because she name-checked RAMPANT). I don’t want the cool girls I write about to live in a world where everyone is white, or straight, or American, or has the same religion, or likes the same things, or believes in the same things (or even believes in the same things for the same reasons — one of my favorite things to write about is people who team up to achieve the same goal for markedly different — even diametrically opposed — reasons). It makes things more interesting. It makes things more realistic, too. Because that’s the kind of world we actually live in.

So, cool girls. Cool girls doing cool things. It’s important to me as a writer that I continue to write those kinds of characters. Not simply out of a sense of responsibility to my readers (who are also, by and large, cool girls — though there are a lot of cool guys, too) as Jo Leigh points out in this awesome post about how she writes books about strong young women who believe they are worthy not only of love but of the best in their lives. But I also write those kind of books because I honestly can’t imagine it any other way. Those are the books I like to read, too. I like to read books where the women are strong (not necessarily physically strong, but strong in character and conviction) and interesting. I like to read books about cool girls doing cool things, and when I write a book, I have to read it a lot.

I love the girls in my books. I love the decisions they make, I love the mistakes they make as they work their way toward their own self-identity. I love the fights they have, and the love they show to each other. I also love the boys who love them — I love that their taste in women is all about cool girls who do cool things. Those are the best kind of men, if you ask me.

I’ve spent the week working on revisions for the second killer unicorn book. I’ve spent the week with Astrid and Phil and Cory, and other cool women you may or may not have met yet, and I’m really proud of them. I’m proud when they are put in impossible situations and they don’t give up. I’m happy when they look at mistakes they make and think, okay, I screwed up, but I’m not going to let this stand. I’m thrilled when they are brave enough to fight for what they want and who they love. I’m in awe of the sharpness of their minds and the size of their hearts and the strength of their spirits.

I love how totally cool they are, and I’m glad I created them this way.

Check out this great new review of Rampant, from the independent bookstore Russo’s Books in Bakersfield, CA:

Like most red-blooded girls, I’ve always like horses, and unicorns are an extension of that. Being a mythology buff, I’d bump into unicorns in my readings a lot. And I have to say, that’s where this book really hooked me.

The unicorns portrayed in the book aren’t the sparkly white horses with perfect spiral horns that are the boiled-down and sweetened unicorns popular today. They are based on the historical record of unicorns from around the world. No two unicorns from any region were alike, and that is reflected in this story. These guys are vicious! And yet, somehow, some of them are still quite adorable (like that little stinker Bonegrinder!)

The pacing is excellent, the excitement level is on the ceiling through most of the book, and the characters are completely developed and become like actual, real-life friends. I love Astrid and her cousin, and her mother drives me nuts! Even more than my own mother does! This novel is completely original and different from anything else I’ve read (and I’m ALWAYS reading) and I can’t wait until she writes more– this NEEDS to be a series!

The bookseller goes on to express concern that it’s more a book for older teens, “[especially] in our conservative town of Bakersfield,” but says (bolding original to the text):

Otherwise, this book is so much fun, so different from anything else out there, and so well done, I’d be pushing it into everybody’s hands as a must-read.

Nice, huh? I know there’s been a lot of talk lately about responding to reviews and how it’s always A Bad Idea, but I think the downside of that is that authors might feel afraid of participating in discussions they meant the book to engender in the first place.

Rampant, being a book about virgins with superpowers tied to their virginity, deals with the issues of sexuality, feminism, the commodification of virginity, and how religion, culture, and tradition intersect with modern society and the pressures on a teenaged girl. It has a strong abstinence message. It also has what I’m glad to see this reviewer call “well-written, tasteful, and accurately realistic” discussions by the characters in the book regarding the topics above. I’m proud that I’ve written a book where the female characters are making informed decisions about their choice to remain abstinent. They do it for different reasons, too: some have religious or cultural beliefs that form the basis of their choice. Others want to keep hunting unicorns, an activity incompatible with being sexually active. Some just aren’t ready, or just aren’t interested. All are valid, and it was important for me to show that. As an abstinent teen myself, I was often surprised and put off by the assumption that “only Christians” or “only prudes” or “only insert-descriptor-here” were saving themselves, and if I didn’t have a darn good reason not to, then I should.

For the record, “I don’t want to,” is one of the best reasons in the world. You don’t have to justify it to anyone. Not your friends, not your boyfriend, not your prom date, not that mean girl who put a “V” in Sharpie marker on the door of your locker that everyone could mysteriously translate and make fun of you for. Being a virgin is not an epithet.

I put a discussion of virginity and abstinence in the book because it was something I talked about when I was a teenager, and it was something I was interested in and would have liked to read more books about. Kind of like how I wanted to read more books about women warriors, and ancient Rome, and myths and legends, and really close friends, and kissing boys, and Renaissance art, and all the other stuff I put into Rampant.

Oh, and just in case the bookseller at Russo’s sees this… good news: it is a series! I’m writing the second one now, and it’ll be out in Fall of 2010. We haven’t figured out the title yet, but we have a bunch of finalists.

A busy day here, which is why this blog is so late. Woke up this morning to find out that my adorable, perfect puppy has graduated into the full throes of adolescence. I was out the door at 7 a.m. this morning, by which time, she had already:

• peed on the floor, which she hasn’t done in months! (In point of fact, she peed on my favorite Yale shirt, which, to be fair, I left on the floor, but still!)
• eaten one of Sailor Boy’s socks
• jumped on Sailor Mom’s head
• squeezed herself underneath the fence and run out into the street

And when we told her to “come” she sat there and blinked at us, which I believe is the adolescent puppy equivalent of rolling her eyes. The vet warned us this would happen, but I didn’t believe her. Not my Rio! Not the pride and joy of her puppy school class!

Oh crap, brb. She’s eating my slipper.

What? I’m, like, totally obedient, Mom! Whatever. It’s so unfair!

And this just before my folks come to town, too, toting their perfect one year old sheepdog. I was hoping to impress them with my well-behaved pup. Instead I will try to impress them by restraining myself from throttling her.

Bleh.

So anyway, was up in Annapolis today. I love it there. So pretty! We ate lunch down by the pier. Oysters and crab and flounder and shrimp. Yum! Almost made me forget how mad I am at Rio.

In other news, I saw a fascinating blog post the other day at Curiosity Shop, about the theme of choices/romance/feminism in a lot of YA literature. Martha writes:

“[It] is an underlying theme in a lot of teen books, since it’s a big teen concern–choosing who to be, how to live life, how to be independent. But my fall reading has very much been about characters whose main conflict is the choice between being true to themselves, following their dream or passion or being in love. I’m so glad that there are these books for teen out there. They are important, because they show that it’s not all about the boy (or girl, if the protagonist is a boy).”

This is a theme that very much concerns me, too, and has been a central issue in almost every book I write. It is, in fact, a central issue in most romance novels, especially the ones I really like. The difference is that the genre constrictions of modern (by which I mean “shelved in bookstores as”) romance novels requires what the romance folks call “a happy ending,” by which they mean that the two central characters “end up together.”

Which in turn requires romance novels (well, at leas thet kind I like) being written so that being with the boy is also the way in which the character is most true to herself/ or she can be with boy AND achieve her goal (or same, genders reversed).

The other day, I was watching You’ve Got Mail, and it occurred to me (in a way it did not when I watched the movie as a teenager), that the reason for the long interlude between the closing of Meg Ryan’s store and the happy romantic ending was so that the audience could realize that Meg’s life was not over because she failed in her stated goal of keeping her mother’s store open. That sometimes, your life takes a path different from what you expect, and you are thwarted in one direction, but you grow from that experience and find new happiness. Meg did in fact lose her little store (hope that’s not a spoiler for anyone) but all her former employees became star salesmen at the big box superstore and Meg herself is first offered a job as an editor and decides eventually to write books (and you see that she has a flair for writing from the very start). Also, she gets to keep her stunning apartment that New Yorkers only live in in the movies. Score.

If she lost her store, was crushed by Tom Hanks, and then went off into the sunset with him right away, there would always be this part of you going “What? You can’t be with him! He ruined your life!” For me, the happy ending is not necessarily the romantic one. I like it when the girl (or boy) saves herself (or himself) and then gets the boy (or girl, or boy, or vampire, or etc.) Happy romantic ending without happy “other goal” ending is not satisfying to me, though happy “other goal” ending without happy romantic one works for me just fine. (cf. Casablanca, which a very good, NYT bestselling romance writing friend tells me she will never watch because she heard it “didn’t have a happy ending.”

This is why I don’t write “shelved in bookstores as” romance novels. Because my books don’t necessarily end with the girl getting the guy, though they do end (so far) with the girl getting what it is that she wants. And sometimes, that involves NOT getting the guy (as in Under the Rose).

I’ve been seeing a lot of reactions to Graceling (one of my fave books of the year) that show dissatisfaction with the romantic ending of the book (I’m really not going to spoil it for you). I’m not sure why. Maybe my standard for “happy romantic ending” differs from other people’s, as I know my standard for “happy ending” differs from a lot of romance readers. The romance in that book really worked for me, not least because the dude’s name was Po. But, again, I think that Rick had it right in Casablanca: Sometimes the problems of the world are much bigger than two crazy kids, and sometimes, love doesn’t work out, and sometimes that’s a good thing. It’s not a tragic ending a’la Nicholas Sparks. It’s great.

The most common question I get about the secret society series (after “Were you ever in a secret society?”) is “Who is Amy going to end up with?” My response is “Why do you think she is going to end up with anyone?” Amy is 22 years old at the end of the series. She just graduated from college. I may have been dating my eventual husband at that time, but I sure as heck didn’t think I was, and I bet the vast majority of people in Amy’s situation are not going to marry their college sweethearts.*

Whether or not she “ends up with” someone (in the immediate sense of “is she in a relationship on the last page of the last book”) was not, to own the truth, soemthing I thought about too much as I was planning the series. I was more interested in where Amy “ended up with” regarding herself and the society.

I guess this is rather rambling, My general point is yes, I’ve read all the book that Martha is discussing, and I loved the way the romantic themes were handled in each one, and it’s something I think about a lot in my own work, so great post, Curiosity Shop!

Oh, and in honor of said post, today’s giveaway is ALANNA: THE FIRST ADVENTURE, which is the first in the Song of the Lioness Quartet, by Tamora Pierce. I love this series, though I totally read it out of order. After I told someone I was calling the killer unicorn book RAMPANT, they said to me, “Oh, like Tamora Pierce’s book?” So I rushed out to get hers (It’s actually called LIONESS RAMPANT, which was even more terrifying to me, since “lioness” also plays a major part in my book) to make sure that I hadn’t written in ground already covered, and then I was like, “Um, where have these books been all my life, and how come no one, knowing my vast love of Eowyn and Aravis and all things warrior-woman esque, has told me about them before?

So, in case you, too, love strong women and non-traditional romantic stories and have not heard of this series, comment here to enter. You shall thank me later.

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* Though now that I’ve said this, I realize that my mother, my  brother, my best friend, and two of Sailor Boy’s best friends are married to their college sweethearts.

Sailor Boy has finished the bar exam and is on vacation for the next month. Me? I am not on vacation. I have a deadline.

This should be interesting. I’m going to be like that kid stuck inside on Saturday afternoon watching his friends play in the yard.

I have been thinking a lot of late about the role of feminism in my books. I am a feminist. I am married to a feminist. I was raised by a pair of feminists and so was he. Thus, there is always a moment of “does not compute” when I am confronted with highly anti-feminist material. For a long time, misogyny and institutionalized inequality between men and women seemed like something that didn’t happen here, that didn’t happen now. Indeed, surrounded as I was by families and teachers who strongly believed in equality, it was a long time before I recognized instances of the opposite, before they began to affect me in any meaningful way. Much like Amy, I was almost at the end of my college career when the ivory tower crumbled, and I saw that in the real world, there was still a lot of work to be done.

University presidents who claimed that men were better thinkers. Potential employers who would dismiss me, Yale diploma notwithstanding, because I was a female. People — men and women — who demeaned anything associated with femaleness: their books, their music, their movies, their colors. (Seriously: why the hatred of pink?) Whole fields of study that, if women began to make headway in it, were dismissed as not as important as other fields of study dominated by men.

Why was one of my favorite classes at Yale, Women and the Rise of the Novel, attended by only three women? Was it because the word “women” appeared in the title? We thought so, and even had a discussion about it with the professor. The following year, she changed the title (I think to “Sex and the Rise of the Novel” or “Sexual Politics and the Rise of the Novel”), and turned away (male and female) students at the door. Why does that happen? Why?

I did not set out to write books in which women’s issues formed a primary piece of the plot. In fact, the original “what if” concept for Secret Society Girl wasn’t even about this “first woman tapped into a secret society” thing. It was about someone who wasn’t supposed to be tapped ending up in a society. But in trying to take that germ of a concept and turn it into a workable story, feminist issues came out, and they continue to come out, more and more.

This aspect of my work has been both praised and criticized. The criticism I understand — it mostly comes from people who, like me, have been raised in environments that value equality, and that don’t necessarily believe the things that are happening in my book. I get that. After all, Skull & Bones, a real secret society at Yale whose growing pains were a huge inspiration to my story, went co-ed almost two decades ago. But that doesn’t mean it’s over. The praise I receive proves that to me. Women may be allowed, but that doesn’t mean they are accepted. I get letters all the time from female students and professionals who say they recognized issues they are dealing with in their schools, jobs, and lives. That they know what Amy and her friends are going through.

As I moved through the post-college world, it became more evident. Women I knew were told they were not committed to their husband unless they took said husband’s name. I was accused of that myself. People assumed I was the one fighting to keep my name — it was actually Sailor Boy’s idea. Was I less of a feminist because I was willing to take his name? No. Am I so glad he talked me out of it? Hell yeah.

Women I knew were told that if they intended to get married and have children, it would severely curtail their opportunity for advancement in their chosen field. (Contrast this with the experience of men I knew, whose engagment, marriage, or family were actually viewed as a positive for employment, because it meant they’d be steady and committed to their job, expected as they were to “provide” for their family.) I met wonderful, brilliant, powerful women who coudln’t get a date because their position and strength intimidated the hell out of many men. I was told not to call myself a feminist, and definitely not to call my husband or father one. That the word is too “female” and denotes misandry. That I should say something about “equality” instead, if I even bothered with “all that stuff.”

Whatever. The opposite of feminism is misogyny, sexism, and female subjugation. Not getting behind that.

So as women’s issues confronted me every day, they crept into my writing. I was moved by stories about the choices women make, how they live and move and work, and love in a society that has made so many strides toward equality that they may not always notice things slipping by them.

And it’s not always the big things, the “and now  they let women into the society” things. Sometimes it’s the girl who will do anything, absolutely ANYTHING, to make the boy love her. To keep the boy’s interest. I’ve written books about that. Sometimes, it’s the girl who is willing to act a little bit stupid or weak in order to not intimidate the boy. Or the girl who wonders if the reason the boy likes her is because he thinks she’s stupid or weak. A boy who thinks that is not going to encourage her to become better than she is. A boy who thinks that is not a fair partner. He’s the boy who pats you on the head and says, “how cute! You’re scribbling!” He’s the boy who decides that having a “children’s book author” for a wife would be gold during his political campaign — but not a romance author. It’s got to be something cute, not subversive or dangerous. Not because he thinks you’d be an amazing children’s book author. But because he thinks it would be “safe” for him. I’ve written books about that. Heck, I’ve lived it.

And I know other people are living it every day. And I see stuff out there that says, “This is okay. Love conquers all. This is the way it’s supposed to be.”

No. I refuse to believe that. I refuse to write it. Happily ever after is not about “getting the guy.” It’s about being a complete person. If Amy, or Jenny, or anyone else ends up with their dream boyfriend, but in the process, loses themselves — what they want, who they are, what they know is true — then it’s not happy to me.

I love Love. I love relationships. I’m happily married. I love to write stories where the girl “gets the guy” at the end. But not at the expense of her happiness (or his). Sometimes, the happy ending is the one where they leave each other. Sometimes, the happy ending is the one where she dumps his ass on the pavement and walks off into her bright and glorious future.

I argue with a romance writing friend who refuses to watch Casablanca (one of my favorite films) because it “doesn’t have a happy ending.” Really? The freedom fighter and his wife escape the Nazis, the broken man becomes whole and joins forces with the reformed rake to similarly fight for freedom and goodness and etc.? Sounds pretty darn happy to me. (I always find it an interesting statement that Nora Ephron makes in When Harry Met Sally, how when graduating from college, Sally is all about Ilsa leaving, then, years later, after her first major heartbreak, she thinks Ilsa should have stayed. It’s supposed to be how our priorities change over the years. However, when I was graduating from college, I thought that Ilsa should have stayed and now, when I’m the age where Sally changed her mind, I’m totally on the “Leave! Fight for justice with your husband!” side.)

Many years ago, I was enamored with the computer game Syberia. Spoiler warning: at the end of the game, the main character, who has been dealing with increasingly annoying phone calls from her needy, controlling fiance, chucks him and runs off to look for Mammoths with the eccentric toymaker. As I described this to friends, all starry-eyed, as a wonderful story with a wonderful conclusion, every single one of them assumed that the main character was in a romantic relationship with the eccentric toymaker. But a satisfactory ending does not necessarily require a romantic one. If that’s possible, great. I love me some love.

SPOILER WARNING FOR RITES OF SPRING (BREAK) (white text, mouse over to read):

The ending of ROSB is not happy because Amy gets together with Poe. It’s happy because she gets to a point where she saves herself, and where the support she receives from her fellow knights is complete, and where the questions Amy has about herself: her worth, what she wants in a relationship, what she needs and is willing to fight for, are resolved. Were she to go and make all those declarations to Poe, and were he to say, “Tough patootie; I’m not interested,” (assuming that Poe would ever use a word like “patootie”), it would still be, as far as I’m concerned, a happy ending. Those things, those revelations, those abilities — they do not leave Amy just because she doesn’t end up coupled.

Of course, it’s not a completely happy ending. If it were, there would be no reason for book four. But still.

SPOILER ENDED

Vicki Hinze has an excellent essay about the idea of “author theme” — a motif or message that appears over and over in an author’s work, though they may not even realize it. I do not have a huge body of work. I have one series, and another book in the hopper. They each have very strong feminist themes. I don’t know what the future holds for my work, but I am pretty sure that strong women will always play a role in my stories. Why?

Yeah. What he said.

Remember that scene in the movie of Bridget Jones’s Diary where poor Bridget is forced to stumble her way through introducing the publisher of “Kafka’s Motorbike: The Greatest Book of Our Time” in front of Jeffrey Archer, Salman Rushdie and other literary luminaries, and — understandably — keeps apologizing. “And, Mr Rushdie, yours aren’t bad either.”

That scene never fails to crack me up, and it was in my head all afternoon. Which was a nice distraction, because between the book deadline and the huge non-writing-related thing going on in my life, I’m getting a little bit overwhelmed. It may be why Sailor Boy sat me down yesterday with a glass of wine and a DVD of Mean Girls.

What a funny film. My favorite part is where Cady recognizes that in “girl world,” Halloween means dressing up in lingerie with animal ears. It’s so true! When my best friend and I were looking for costumes for the Masquerade last New Year’s Eve, the costume shops were filled with boy costumes, and girl costumes that could all be categorized under the heading “Boy Costume Wench” and looked like your average sex shop costume with corset tops and super short flippy miniskirts. You could be a pirate wench or a medieval wench or a Tarzan wench or a Revolutionary War (complete with tri-cone hat) Wench. In the end, my friend bought a pirate wench outfit that she proceeded to wear as a vest, because that’s how skimpy it was, over a puffy shirt, a pair of black pants, and kicking boots, thereby creating a slightly more feminine equivalent of the boy costume you could buy ready made. So frustrating! It’s kind of sad when the entire social paradigm shifts toward “all girls want to dress up like streetwalkers” to the point that you actually can’t find a costume that doesn’t fit that mold.

I had a great lunch with a writer friend yesterday, and we talked about feminism and why a lot of young people refuse to refer to themselves as feminist or even people our age (Gen X) tiptoe around the phrase or think that to be feminist means “you won’t get a date” or you don’t wear dresses or makeup or whatnot. Or how things that are classified as “for women” are things that society — even supposedly enlightened, intelligent society, feels comfortable denigrating. Men will avoid it and women will avoid it as well. We’d apparently both taken classes in college that came under fire for using “women” in the title of the class. In her case, the men in the required course couldn’t stop complaining about being forced to read “girl stuff.” In mine, the class was eventually titled something else, and the applications went through the roof.

Sad.

And then in Mean Girls, Tina Fey’s character is telling the girls, “You guys have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores; it just makes it easier for men to call you that.” I used to do that all the time, both in jest and affection with my girlfriends and as a pejorative. That women choose to denigrate other women, as well as things that are considered “for women” isn’t really helping matters.

There’s a scene in SSG where Amy calls herself a slut. I threw it in for laughs, and because it seemed authentic to the voice of that character. She’s describing how she made out with one guy at a bar, then met another back at her dorm room and spent the night with him. Back when I was in college, they used to send around these things called “purity tests” and I always remember one of the big “OMG, no!” questions was “Did you ever hook up with two people in one 24 hour period?” I think that Amy, in retrospect, would be a little uncomfortable with that choice (especially given the repercussions), and “slut” is the term applied by and to girls who do things like that.

Boys? Yeah, there is no term.

However, it doesn’t seem as funny to me now. I still think it’s authentic for Amy to make that self-deprecating comment, and to use that term, but I also think it’s unfortunate. These are some of the choices you make as a writer: because your characters aren’t perfect. They aren’t always going to make the “right” choice. Even if they believe (as Amy certainly does) that her sexuality is just fine, thank you very much, it doesn’t mean she’s free from what our culture thinks girls should be. Maybe she calls herself that so no one else can do it first, to own the phrase on a level that renders it toothless. Because if she thinks she did anything wrong that night, it wasn’t hooking up with two people, it was that one of the people would view it as a betrayal. Maybe classifying herself as “slutty” is an easier thing for her to swallow (perhaps because she and her girlfriends have been tossing the term around, Mean Girls style, for seven years) than “cold-hearted.” Or “unfaithful.” Or anything else that the betrayed party would be more likely to say than “slutty.”

Yes, these are the things I think about. Especially as I bring the series to a close, and I think about where Amy is now, vs where she was at various points in the previous books. Amy is thinking about it too, much as I look back on that girl I was in college, who threw “slut” around with abandon and wonder why in the world I’d do something like that.

Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld, Cecil Castelucci, and many others are in a new anthology out today about First Kisses, called, appropriately, First Kiss (Then Tell): A Collection of True Lip-Locked Moments edited by Cylin Busby.

In honor of that, Justine is canvassing for first kiss stories on her blog. Head on over and share, if you dare.

I actually dare not, given the fact that not only my first kiss, but several kisses following that were not exactly my idea. In fact, one of them, I only kissed the guy because I was at a cotillion class when it happened and I didn’t have time to work out the proper etiquette of refusing to kiss him, yet keep dancing with him (because we had learned in class that when a lady offers a gentleman a dance, she is honor bound to keep it).

I hated cotillion class.

I was several kisses in before I actually kissed someone because I liked him, not because I was guilted, awkwarded, or coerced into it. That’s a shame. What’s also a shame is that I remember being lectured to, in all seriousness, by two friends in high school who explained to me exactly what I needed to do with a guy in return for him taking me to prom. And believing it.

At first, at least. I wised up a few minutes later.

A few months back, I was hanging out with Robin Brande, and we got to discussing this very issue. She had recently returned from the “Twilight Prom” and blogged:

I was talking about that with a friend of mine who used to teach high school not so long ago. She said the hardest thing for her to hear from a lot of these girls who’d been invited to the school prom was that there was this expectation that if they said yes to the date, they were also saying yes to sex. It was just a given. And I’ve heard enough about that from other kids to know that her school was not unique.

How did it get to be that way? When I went to the prom my one time, all I was desperately hoping for was to be kissed. We weren’t renting out hotel rooms back then for after-prom, and there wasn’t any whispering about how going to the prom meant losing your virginity, as it does for so many girls these days.

Robin goes on to talk about how she feels that some of this pressure comes from the ways girls are taught to be “polite” which struck a real chord with me, remembering my cotillion experience. Fortunately, I had a strong enough sense of self that the ingrained impulse to be “nice” only went so far.

Of course, these sorts of issues are muchly on my mind right right now, seeing as I’m sinus-deep in a story dealing with all the ramifications or female sexuality, and the commodification of virginity, and the various pressures on teens, both benign and otherwise, to abstain or not. What’s been interesting to me, as a writer, to discover is that even though I can recognize something as an artificial cultural construct — and a damaging one at that! — I can still have an emotional reaction to it. There’s a certain amount of cognitive dissonance there that I’m finding conducive to story tension.

I guess I’m way past the original topic of this post. Though, to combine the two, I like writing first kiss scenes (though I’ve never written any where it was a first first kiss, just a first kiss between the characters involved). And for me, the decision making process that goes into that kiss, the build-up to it, is as important as the kiss itself. I have characters who kiss for the wrong reasons, and for the right reasons, stolen kisses, awkward kisses, perfunctory kisses, desperate kisses, and perfect kisses, even triumphant kisses. They all have such a different flavor.

I get to write all the first kisses I didn’t get to have. I know what my favorite one is, but I can’t tell you. (Spoilers, you know.) I remember in high school, being at a slumber party and watching Pretty in Pink. The scene where Andie and Blane kiss in front of the car? Siiiiiiigh. That one killed me. I think it was because those two characters wanted to kiss so badly, and hadn’t — they’d been so tied up in awkwardness and expectation and class constrictions and in that one moment they just let it go and whoosh.

Of course now my favorite fictional first kiss is the one between Logan and Veronica in “Weapons of Class Destruction” on Veronica Mars. For all the reasons listed above, and also because it was totally unexpected and completely perfect. And because Veronica starts it, timidly, backs off, and then Logan moves in for the kill. It’s perfection.

What about you?

So this is partially inspired by Justine Larbalestier and Meg Cabot’s posts of recent days, partially by the fact that I’m planning a wedding, the traditions of which might comprise the single least feminist ritual known to mankind, and partially inspired by a conversation I’ve been having on one of my writerly email lists about what exactly you’re saying when you write a book where part of the requirement for a “happy ending” is that the woman finds herself a man. But these are all big topics — much bigger than I have time to post upon right now (deadlines and all), so this post is just about the most disturbing Amazon review I’ve ever seen.

Now, I’ve seen some whoppers in my time. Personal attacks on the author, threats, racist and bigoted posts, “reviews” that read more like the writer’s weekly therapy trip than any comment on the book, illiterate ones, comments from the land of bizarro-world that make you wonder if you were reading the same book as the poster… and I usually don’t give them much thought. But this one made my mouth drop open.

It’s from a new lead title out of a major publisher, and the review was five stars, and titled that it was one of the best books the reviewer has ever read. But then, she said:

“I almost didn’t buy it, expecting a book written by a woman to be some silly romance.”

My hackles raised instantly upon reading this line. First, “silly romance?” And then, indignation reined supreme as the words “expecting a book written by a woman to be…” sunk into my brain. This reader has a prejudice against any book written by a woman? Every book? What kind of books has she spent her life reading (she claims in the review to read about five per week) that she dismisses any novel written by a gender that includes half of the population? Does she only read novels by men? Does she…

And this was when my mouth dropped open, as the entire meaning of the sentence became clear. This person, this reviewer, was a woman. It was her “real name” she posted under. She was a woman, and a devoted reader, and she thought anything a woman would write was silly, was worthless, and would only cover one subject. She didn’t hate romance. She hated women.

What’s with the self-loathing? It takes my breath away. The way I see it, here are your choices: 1) You can appreciate and even celebrate femininity in fiction, modern romance, etc. Or, 2) you can hate and demean the “silly romances” that make up the lion’s share of the fiction market. (I know many people who do.) But, if so, then you spend quite a bit of time finding the women writers who write the books you do admire. You get all gooey for Alice Sebold or James Tiptree or Marilyn Robinson or Ursula Le Guin. Dismissing an entire gender of writers? Not so much a choice.

I know I’m talking about this one reader on the internet, one who may not have given much thought to what she was really saying in her review, but it a microcosm of an attitude I’ve seen over and over and over again.

On one list I’m on, we were recently discussing a phenomenon of writers, both men and women, who speak in media outlets about their favorite novels, and tend to dismiss those of women. At the time, one of the list members was up in arms about Stephen King’s recent tribute to J.K. Rowling, in which he listed a bunch of other amazing children’s writers, most by name or at least the title of their books, but only, obliquely, the work of a single female writer.

You know, except for the fact that the whole article was about Rowling, said her responders.

Okay, Touche, but I do think that the original poster had a point. Do we do that, and if so, why? Because we’re more likely to be taken seriously if the work we name is the work of men?

And then I started wondering if I do that. When people ask me about my favorite books and writers, what do I say? The Count of Monte Cristo. I talk about loving The Chronicles of Narnia and rereading them over and over. And I do. Wow, do I ever. But why don’t I talk about Jane Austen? Is it because I don’t want to be yet another of those Jane Austen-loving romancey acolytes? Why don’t I talk about Louisa May Alcott, or Lois Lowry, or Judy Blume? I mean, I was just in a book about how much I love the work of Ms. Blume, and my own novels owe far more to Forever and Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself than they do to anything penned by Dumas.

Why don’t I mention L.M. Montgomery, whose books I’ve reread just as often as Lewis’s, and who may have provided her Anne with a happy ending via husband, but as soon as Miss Shirley affianced herself to Gilbert (post university, mind you!), she gallavanted off for a stint as the first female principal of Summerside High School. Surely, my love for epistolary novels was formed then, not when I read Clarissa, by the all-too-male Richardson.

I spent the first year of college in a program called Directed Studies, in which we read the “western canon.” Some of my classmates jokingly called it “Dead White Men,” which isn’t funny in retrospect. (We read a couple Sappho poems, and Hannah Arendt, but otherwise, it was all male.) A whole year, studying nothing but men. And male writers formed the bulk of my studies for the subsequent four years. Even my favorite class, Women and the Rise of the Novel, which I took senior year, had as many male points of view as female (or Clarissa was long enough to balance out several books). So, in retrospect, it’s little wonder that, post-college, I leapt into the world of women’s fiction and didn’t look back. It was time to balance the scales.

And it’s funny, now that I think about it, since this subject has only been on my mind for a few days, but I’m looking at my most recent manuscript, and a few months ago, I wrote a scene where Amy laments the lack of female-penned books in a Rose & Grave library. So I suppose this has been bubbling under the surface for a while.

I didn’t spend much time thinking about feminism in college, but it’s a subject that’s increasingly on my mind. I am fascinated by the fact that I’ve received letters that both applaud me for talking about sexism and letters that ask me what century I think I’m living in, that sexism is no longer an issue.

As Demetria says to a similar statement on page 261 of Secret Society Girl: “Oh, Honey, we need to talk.”

Because if we can say to ourselves, “Oh, it’s fine, it’s not like it was in the fifties/sixties/seventies/eighties/nineties…” then we are missing the point. Because Joss Whedon is still asked why he writes strong women, and my friends are being told that they need to wear skirts, not pants, to job interviews, and writers are only talking about their favorite male writers, and women readers– women– are tossing off statements condemning everything a woman can write.