Male MCs in YA (from New Adult thread)

Kat M

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<-- blows the dust off of the old library he had as a teen-ager. What? Just because they're on rocks using cuniform doesn't mean they're not books.

I'd LOVE to read Sumerian YA. Is there a translation available?
 

Brightdreamer

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Books we got from the old Weekly Reader Book Club featured what now would be MG as well as YA books all the time.

Ah - the Weekly Reader Book Club! Mom had that for both me and my sister. (I may be wrong, but it sorta seemed to cut off after MG at most, or maybe we just stopped subscribing. Started with picture books, then moved up to chapter books... maybe one or two that might qualify as lower MG toward the end.)

Yeah, there was kind of a "juvenile" catch-all before the MG and YA categories became a Thing, IIRC. Rereading some of the juveniles, though... yeah, you don't have to wade far to find the sexism. There was always the unspoken assumption that the boys got all the big active adventures and the girls... sometimes they could be sidekicks if they wanted, but if there was a boy around they were automatic second-billing, at best. (And this despite more than one of those Weekly Reader picture books trying to push the notion of gender equality; the ideas were still being reinforced outside the covers from all quarters.)
 

novicewriter

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...*moves it down a few spaces on the TBR list*

Okay. I've finished They Both Die At The End.

As far as how bad/sad it is, I guess I could describe it as a bit similar to how characters die in the Harry Potter series, although, for me (when I was a kid), I felt more upset about characters who died in that series because they were described in detail and other characters showed a lot of emotion, grief, etc. But They Both Die At The End isn't as graphic, nor do the characters show a lot of angst about other characters' deaths, the way the characters in the Harry Potter series do, so that was part of the reason why I didn't find myself overly sad or upset (plus, everything takes place in one day). It's sort of hard to explain without spoiling the book.

But, yeah, I'd say that it's a lot more similar in the writing and plot to I Am The Messenger, which I also felt was an "okay" novel, for me: not one of my absolute favorites, just "okay."

Honestly, now that I've finished it, I sort of feel as though my worry about it was overblown, due to the title.
 
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Cobalt Jade

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When I was growing up, most of what "might have been called" YA now was called juvenile because the protags were usually between 13-18. I had a healthy collection that featured young men as the MCs - the Hardy Boys, The Power Boys, Brains Benton, The Three Investigators - as well as female MCs - Robin Kane, Nancy Drew - and even entire families - The Bobbsey Twins and those were just the series.

They had these books for girls too -- Ask Any Mermaid, published by Whitman Teen, 1962.

Juvenile lines were often of lower production quality than regular books, the kind you'd find in a library. The covers were thinner, of pressed cardboard, their covers garish, and the paper was pulpy and tended to yellow. I often saw them in five-and-dime stores, like Kresges, or drug stores. The girl books, the mermaid one at least, were not as over-romanced and love triangled as a lot of female-oriented YA is these days. The books focused more on the girl's life, growing up, and domestic adventures, which boys may or may not have been part of. In the book above, a girl in a coastal California town aspires to be the star mermaid in her town's yearly sea parade. She also copes with a friend who develops polio. I loved this book as a teen even though it was published before I was born just because of the California coastal setting, which was very exotic to someone who grew up in a decaying East Coast industrial city. These days, I guess, TV and YouTube fulfills kids' desire to see how other kids live their lives in different locales.
 
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Richard White

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Yep, I had a TON of Whitman books as a kid, mostly purchased at the local Gerbes supermarket in a spinner rack for $0.99. Still have a few of them (the Brains Benton and the Troy Nesbitt outdoor mysteries). Whitman also used to do a lot of books based on popular TV shows in the 60s too - Combat!, Mission: Impossible, F-Troop, and SF/Fantasy anthologies.

But, yeah, I was just pointing out that Male and Female protags in YA have been done before and probably will be again. We just didn't call them YA when I was a YA, many, many moons ago. *sighs, looking at that upcoming birthday.*