Is anyone else really disappointed in YA Fantasy lately?

Sage

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Cheering you all on!
Secondary world fantasy, or are you okay with contemporary?
 

playground

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Finally, there's someone else who doesn't like that book. I gave up at around 100 pages. Plot holes, cliche, etc.


I honestly wasn't crazy about it either. There were definitely spots I felt the writing really flourished though, but for the most part I thought it was just okay.
 

Ninten

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I'm just about to finish reading The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman, which came out earlier this year. I've enjoyed it quite a bit--it really hits that paranormal fantasy sweet spot for me.

Since it's being discussed, I'll mention that I also found Children of Blood and Bone underwhelming. I didn't dislike it per se, but I don't think I'll be reading the sequel.
 

S. Eli

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YA often goes into cycles of formula where everyone accidentally writes the same thing for a few years. They're seen in hindsight as "trends" but whilst we live in it, we just feel disappointed (i.e., I feel like "dystopian trend" became the title near the end, but when we were in the midst of it it was just the YA boom, you know? Same thing with Harry Potter and Twilight copycats--rather than thinking of it as magical school and paranormal romance trends, we only thought of them that way when we got tired of it). It's happening with me currently--I've noticed a lot of authors are writing works similar to mine, which means in like 2023 we'll be having a conversation about how all OUR books are the same and they're all disappointing lol. Best way to solve it is to read some back catalogs rather than new releases for a while. Maybe 2008-2013 would be good years for you?