All American Rejects, “Dirty Little Secret”

While I’m generally not a fan of the All America Rejects, their song “Dirty Little Secret” perfectly describes what I’ve been reading lately. No, it’s not something as terrible as what you’re imagining….it’s worse. To get me through finals week I’ve been indulging in YA Fiction. Terrible, I know. But hear me out:

There’s something magical about reading books that center around childhood and adolescence. They remind me of being in middle school and believing that someday I too would learn how to wield a sword, ride a horse or whatever else these crazy heroines were doing. The books are adventures meant to take the reader away from everyday life and into a world where anything, even the unbelievable, is possible. 

It kills me that there is still such a stigma attached to adults reading YA literature. Perhaps it’s not true anywhere else but here at Kenyon you get ceaselessly heckled at for carrying around a book that’s not “literature.” Why is it worse to read silly books than it is to watch terrible television? I’d much rather read some great books by Libba Bray than watch the Jersey Shore and I’d argue that the former takes far more brain power!

VS.

All of this is to say that, yes I enjoy reading YA literature. Yes, I read all of Cassandra Clare‘s new book Clockwork Prince in less than twenty-four hours. (I also may or may not have bugged the employees at my local post office for two days straight as the book was en route from the Amazon warehouses.)

The book was one of the best (of this genre) I’ve read in a long time, though I may be biased. Clare’s Infernal Devices series has everything that I look for in a fun read: vaguely Victorian setting, fully fleshed out characters, multiple plots, strong females, and not too terrible grammar! If you’re looking for an easy and fun read this Christmas season I highly suggest the first book in the series, Clockwork Angel, but be warned: these books are addictive and the third book in the series is not due out until September 2013!

If you can’t wait that long, try Cassandra Clare’s other series The Mortal Instruments which is set in modern times but is in the same universe as The Infernal Devices. The Mortal Instruments series boasts four novels to Infernal Devices two with another on the way in May 2012!

Sidenote: I just found out that Cassandra Clare is doing a book signing in Nashville tomorrow night and I want to go so badly. I get home from school on Tuesday night. This is tragic.