Not In My School (20)

Not In My School is a weekly feature that throws out one YA lit cliche a week to compare to my own high school days. Because we all know how accurate those fictional nuances are . . .

trenchmaker

Stalkers

Really?  We're STILL thinking that some dude breaking into a girl's house in the night to watch her sleep is romantic?  Or threatening her with bodily harm?  Or disabling her car engine "for her safety?"  Guys that don't grasp the concept of personal space?  Close talkers?  No.  This "fad" really needs to pass and/or people really need to grow some much needed brains.  If there were stalkers in my school they'd go directly to jail without passing Go and without collecting $200.  I'm with Buffy on this one; stalking isn't a turn-on at all.

Not In My School (19)

Not In My School is a weekly feature that throws out one YA lit cliche a week to compare to my own high school days. Because we all know how accurate those fictional nuances are . . .

christgr

Writers everywhere

There appears to be an inordinate amount of parents who are writers in YA lately.  And children.  And the kids aren't just your standard 'I write bad poetry to the tune of Fall Out Boy' writers but SERIOUS novelists.  And the parents are some level of established author.  I don't know if all of these manifestations are authors' dream worlds or what but while there were a fair share of writers in my high school only a very small handful were something beyond teen angst serious about it.  None of the parents were anywhere near published.  Read YA novels and authors/writers are EVERYWHERE.  As if that's the number one job in the created world of the books and the number one thing for all involved to aspire to.  I wish but it just wasn't so.  At least not for me.

Not In My School (18)

Not In My School is a weekly feature that throws out one YA lit cliche a week to compare to my own high school days. Because we all know how accurate those fictional nuances are . . .

Weird character names

Judging by this list you'd think people are rather tame with their children-naming.  If you happen to read, well, anything in the YA world it would appear parents are hitting the acid in the maternity ward. With names like Serenity, Destiny, Mystical Moon Beam (I may have made that one up just now) or anything with at least one apostrophe I can't help but wonder what particular pipe Mom and Dad are hitting before putting pen to birth certificate.  I'm not even considering ethnic names (since those are in their own category).  Just the funky ones that lend credit to hints of THC in the blood.  Why must we name our characters as if it's 1967 or we passed out with our faces pressed into the keyboard?  What's so wrong with Tom?  Or Michele?  I'll even throw in Rupert.  Why can't we have characters with parents that actually put some thought into how naming their children might affect their later years?  Please?

Not In My School (17)

Not In My School is a weekly feature that throws out one YA lit cliche a week to compare to my own high school days. Because we all know how accurate those fictional nuances are . . .

dreamjay

Magical objects

When I was a teenager I was shopping at places like Pacific Sunwear (before it was relabeled PacSun), Hot Topic and Claire's.  None of these places would have any kind of magical object (usually a piece of jewelry) that would endow me with any kind of power to do anything except magically turn my fingers green.  At the rate kids are lighting up the world in YA fiction you'd think their parents would let them get all blinged out in their heirloom finest.  Or they're shopping at Tiffany's.  Nearly everyone I knew didn't have that kind of expendable cash to stick a valuable piece of jewelry on an aimless teenager, whether it was freshly bought or generations old.  And if it were the latter parents would usually cut off their right hand before allowing their fifteen-year-old to don it for their friends.  Just the thought makes me vomit in my mouth a little.  So where are all these attainable magical objects coming from?  Are we spawning a generation of kleptomaniacs?

Not In My School (16)

Not In My School is a weekly feature that throws out one YA lit cliche a week to compare to my own high school days. Because we all know how accurate those fictional nuances are . . .

ABC

Evil step-parents

Usually female and usually with some level of ulterior life-destroying motives, whether it's keeping the step-child from the person of their choice, failing to recognize one's need to save the world or repeated murder attempts, a lot of step-parents are portrayed as ultimately wanting to eradicate the fruit not borne from their own loins for whatever evil reason that fuels them.  I can't help but wonder why step-parents aren't ever portrayed as nominally normal.  Do people think that all step-parents, after convening from their evil step-parent meeting, go forth and destroy, as is their sole purpose?  As someone that has a step-parent I can assure you no poison apples were ever involved in any of our exchanges.  I never lived with my step-parent but I was around enough and I never got an evil vibe.  That's not to say people can't be dicks.  Of course they can.  But they can be biological and be dicks too.  Just because a parent is step doesn't automatically file them into the evil category.

Not In My School (15)

Not In My School is a weekly feature that throws out one YA lit cliche a week to compare to my own high school days. Because we all know how accurate those fictional nuances are . . .

Diaol

The skinny chick that wants to gain weight

I've seen this among guys, especially since guys usually want to bulk up but chicks?  Yeah . . .  As having once been an adolescent female that actually had hips that these characters supposedly vie for, I can assure you I wanted nothing more than for them to go away, especially since I was (and still am) pretty much titless.  Having half an hour glass figure kind of sucks.  Have I come terms with it now?  Oh yes.  I'm fine with it.  I WOULD NOT COMPLAIN if my boobs decided that wanted a belated growth spurt but I'm not about to go out and cosmetically alter myself.

But chicks in high school, last I checked, we ALL wanted to look like this.  We all wanted to be that size two that looked a bit like a twig in a dress.  Of course we all wanted boobs.  But on this body.  Screw hips.  Hips made you fat.  So when I read books about girls that think they're "too skinny" and want to get heavier I can't help but roll my eyes.  I know of ONE girl that genuinely wanted to gain weight because she thought she was too skinny.  And she still is too skinny (and by skinny I mean her doctors accuse her of having an eating disorder) but the girl can clean out a McDonald's and not gain weight.  Some people are like that and I'm sure it can be frustrating.  As it stands I don't know that pain.  I eat a marshmallow and it goes right to my ass.

It just seems to contract the media standard and the gripes people have with teen magazines and skinny models and whatnot.  It's the antithesis of how it was in my school days.  Have the tides finally started to change and younger girls realize that curves really are okay?

Not In My School (14)

Not In My School is a weekly feature that throws out one YA lit cliche a week to compare to my own high school days. Because we all know how accurate those fictional nuances are . . .

Source: jansun

Proms actually IN the school

I always thought this incredibly strange, proms in high school gymnasiums.  Do the school people re-gift ugly Christmas sweaters too?  It's PROM.  Boys wear tuxedos.  Girls wear evening gowns (sometimes).  And you're holding it where the wrestlers contract ringworm?  Gross.  My proms, both junior and senior, we're hosted at outside venues, the senior prom being the nicer of the two that included water fountains, a well-manicured lawn and some hosted-event legitimacy.  The cutlery was fine, the glasses crystal and the tablecloths white.  Don't get confused: I was a public school kid.  This isn't the result of some uber-rich private school education.  This is fundraising with overpriced wrapping paper and tins of popcorn.  Even my guys saw something inherently wrong with holding a formal event in the same room death matches of dodgeball are played.

Not In My School (13)

Not In My School is a weekly feature that throws out one YA lit cliche a week to compare to my own high school days. Because we all know how accurate those fictional nuances are . . .

© Demidov | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

Unsympathetic parents

BUT YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!  Of course.  Because parents were born at the age of 30, having previous skipped their own teen years for the comfort of a prolonged womb . . .  I'm always put off by parents in YA that give their kids the brush-off, don't give them the benefit of the doubt and generally don't believe a word out of their mouths because that was the polar opposite of my own upbringing.  Unless the kid's a compulsive liar, or a constant complainer, why wouldn't the parents have a shred of sympathy?  That makes no sense.  Aside from the fact that teens have a tendency of blowing things out of proportion, that would also make me assume that parents don't know that, and thus make them seem far more idiotic purely for the sake of amping up the teenage MC.  Boo.  Let's give parents some credit, please?  Most of them aren't total uncaring dicks.

Not In My School (12)

Not In My School is a weekly feature that throws out one YA lit cliche a week to compare to my own high school days. Because we all know how accurate those fictional nuances are . . .

hogwarts-hipsters.tumblr.com

The chosen one

From fantasy to paranormal to supernatural and whatever hell else there is there's always just the one dude or chick that can save the planet/race of people/prom from completely imploding on itself.  Except there are SO MANY of these chosen ones around that one can't help wonder if some high power just had a field day.  I mean really, are there THAT MANY heroines that have super shitty taste in boys and jeopardize their destiny as a result?  If anyone or anything hefted the weight of the world onto the shoulders of anyone in my school we'd be sucking earth dust in a gargantuan crater right now.  People need to listen to this guy more -

Not In My School (11)

Not In My School is a weekly feature that throws out one YA lit cliche a week to compare to my own high school days. Because we all know how accurate those fictional nuances are . . .

Super douche love interest

Not to be confused with a bad boy or stalker, although the terms are not mutually exclusive, the super douche is incredibly full of himself and believes his shit to be the awesomest on the planet.  Let me tell you, I had my own super douche love interest except he didn't start off as a super douche.  When I liked him he was a genuinely nice guy (summer between 8th and 9th grade) and we hit it off really well.  Get to high school and around his friends and he became a hot piece of shit and shunned me right out the door without even having the balls to do it himself.  I then watched as his douchiness progressed throughout the rest of high school and holy shit was I glad I was shunned.  No thanks.

What I don't get is reading about these girls that drool after guys that have a long standing reputation as douche bags whom they've known for a while.  Like you've been going to the same school for years, you know he walks around with his head up his own ass yet you still drool over him.  WTF?  Most girls, when they find out a guy's a douche he gets ugly.  So what, exactly, is appealing about a douche bag?  This isn't really bad boy syndrome in a Cry Baby sort of way.  The guy's just a dick.  Is there a drive to de-dick a guy?  I don't get it.  Obviously it's psychological and it may or may not make my head explode.

Not In My School ( 10)

Not In My School is a weekly feature that throws out one YA lit cliche a week to compare to my own high school days. Because we all know how accurate those fictional nuances are . . .

Dead parents

There appears to be, in YA fiction, a rash of dead parents of high school students.  If one were to believe this cliche, puberty = death to the parental figures, leaving said child to come into the world on their own.  Aside from those of us from broken homes, I didn't know anyone with a dead parent or parents.  That's not to say parents don't die with younger children but I'd like to think they're not dying in droves and MOST kids have at least one biological parental figure around.  Absentee/deadbeat parents is another trope entirely.  I'm just focusing on the purely pulseless here.  I don't think there's a virus or anything.

Not In My School (9)

Not In My School is a weekly feature that throws out one YA lit cliche a week to compare to my own high school days.  Because we all know how accurate those fictional nuances are . . .

Funky eye color

At the rate I'm reading in YA books there are a hell of a lot of people being born with violet (or other variations on purple), golden, unnatural blue or green or ghost-gray eyes.  I'm wondering if it's something in the food.  Hormones in the chicken maybe?  Or are people starting to reproduce with the more radioactive members of society?  Maybe it's just a bypassed Litmus Test thing or something.  I don't know.  But most of the people in my school?  Brown, green, blue or hazel.  You know, standard colors.  So where are these characters coming from?  And I'm not even talking about fantasy!  Or anything otherwise supernatural!

Not In My School (8)

Well, after eight weeks of Not In My School and a total of one participant (not including the people that leave comments) I've decided to de-meme the meme and just make it a feature.  A little less stress on my part and a little less sad all around.  I'm okay with it.  Trial and error and all of that.  But I like it enough to keep it around for a while.  Not to mention I have plenty to complain about!  So go ahead and comment to your heart's content.  It's just Not In My School is no longer meme-ified.

Not In My School is a weekly feature hosted by yours truly that throws out one YA lit cliche a week for you to compare to your own high school days, current or past. For more information go here.

What's going on this week?

Love triangles

What?  Did you think I was going to use a TWILIGHT image?  Because that's the first ever love triangle in YA?  Right.  Anyway, do you know what the girls who were involved with two boys simultaneously were called?  Sluts.  The girl that strung two guys along?  Skanks.  While love triangles are all super sexy in the books, in school, at least in my school, they were pretty much frowned upon.  And don't think girls were the only ones to get the names hurled at them.  It was equally gross for a guy to tag two girls (we really didn't have much same sex going on at the time).  Where is this acceptable behavior except in a hippie commune?

Not In My School (7)

Not In My School is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly that throws out one YA lit cliche a week for you to compare to your own high school days, current or past. For more information go here.

And now . . . sigh . . . for this week's topic . . .

The boring, droll, plain but new girl that everyone falls all over themselves for.

Bella Swan would be a friendless loner in my school, that's for damn sure.  Yes, I understand that especially in a smaller town someone new coming in is all exciting.  Something to stir up the status quo.  But once they find out said person has no discernible personality and whose hobbies include cooking dinner for dad and mouth breathing, interest is going to dissipate fast.  The bottom line is no one likes boring people.  People want to interact with other people who can define themselves, who can bring something to the table other than a need to be rescued, who has some semblance of a life defined by themselves, not someone else.  Boring is boring.  Period.

What about you?  What was it like in your school?  Leave your link in the comments!

Not In My School (6)

Not In My School is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly that throws out one YA lit cliche a week for you to compare to your own high school days, current or past. For more information go here.

And we keep rollin' . . .

Contrived slang

Nothing goads my grits more than someone saying something that makes them look like a total tool but they're so delusional that they think they're as awesome as the hipster clothes they're wearing.  Whether it's actually saying OhEmGee or spouting off with the gangster slang, it all makes me shiver.  That then translates to reading it in writing.  Come off as a poser in my school and you will be called out right quick.  Slang is one thing; trying to be too cool for school is quite another.  No one's buying the shit you're selling, dude.  Time to pack it away.

What about you?  What was it like in your school?  Leave your link in the comments!

Not In My School (5)

Not In My School is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly that throws out one YA lit cliche a week for you to compare to your own high school days, current or past. For more information go here.

What's on this week's agenda?

Boys with super long lashes.

I can't count how many times a boy's eyelashes are mentioned in your standard YA novel.  And they're always long and luscious and at times make the chick jealous that she needs to supplement with volumizing mascara.  Usually a guy's eyelashes were pretty low on my list of noticeable things.  And if you happened to mention to a guy that he had lovely eyelashes you'd probably get some weird looks in return.  But now it appears all boys go the way of the Bieber and Efron and actually WANT enviable lashes, with or without curling.  So maybe I'm out of date.  Or maybe I'm just not a fan of the Bieber.

What about you?  What was it like in your school?  Leave your link in the comments!

Not In My School (4)

Not In My School is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly that throws out one YA lit cliche a week for you to compare to your own high school days, current or past. For more information go here.

What are we discussing this week?

Redheads and their fiery shenanigans

Apparently every school has their share of redheaded best friends or that redheaded chick that SO lives up to her redheaded standards.  Well, I think I had all of three gingers in my school with two of them being more strawberry blonde.  None of them were tripping over themselves with friends and none of them are what I would call "fiery."  And there was relatively little, if any, shenanigannery going on with them.  But maybe this is regional.  Maybe there are an abundance of redheads somewhere I don't know about, some magical land where everyone has a redheaded best friend hiding somewhere.  No?

What about you?  What was it like in your school?  Leave your link in the comments!

Not In My School (3)

Not In My School is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly that throws out one YA lit cliche a week for you to compare to your own high school days, current or past.  For more information go here.

This week's cliche is . . .

The best friend love interest with oblivious consequences

If the people walking around my school were that oblivious we would have gotten our federal funding yanked ASAP.  If you've got a bestie of the opposite sex and they have feelings for you, it's usually pretty obvious.  Unless your head is wedged firmly up your own love interest's ass.  I had a couple of male friends that had some level of interest in me.  If you're even half as observant as a lobotomized chimp you can tell they look at you differently, pay attention to you differently, act a little differently around you.  It's there if you're willing to see it.  If not then denial can be a really strong thing.

What about you?  What was it like in your school?  Leave your link in the comments!

Not In My School (2)

Not In My School is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly that throws out one YA lit cliche a week for you to compare to your own high school days, current or past.  For more information go here.

Now for this week's cliche . . .

Snatchy cheerleaders

I don't know about you but the cheerleaders at my high school were NOT the top echelon of the social hierarchy, if I can even say there was a hierarchy at my school.  My high school cheerleaders consisted of a lot of girls that wanted to participate in something but didn't want to put too much effort in (because cheerleading required barely more than fistpumping for us).  There were a few girls on there that, while nowhere near snatchy, were of a nominally popular variety.  It just wasn't because they were cheer squad.  Shit, my class's valedictorian was on the squad.  So it was a rather eclectic mix and maybe two or three of the girls actually had bodies like those chicks above.  The rest, well . . . let's just say gym wasn't their thing.

What about you?  What was it like in your school?  Leave your link in the comments!

Not In My School (1)

Not In My School is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly that throws out one YA lit cliche a week for you to compare to your own high school days, current or past.  For more information go here.

And now for our first cliche!  Drumroll . . .

The clumsy kid, most likely female and usually endearing to the point of fawning over.

Srsly. in my school if you're falling all over yourself you would have been left to fall all over yourself.  A trip is one thing but if you're constantly at risk of slamming into lockers, spilling acid on yourself or getting into more car accidents than you have fingers, PEOPLE WILL AVOID YOU.  Usually because they didn't want to die at your clumsy ass expense.  Or at the very least be maimed.  And there certainly weren't guys falling over these girls to protect them or help them up.  In fact that probably would have been laughing their faces off.

What about you?  What was it like in your school?  Leave your link in the comments!