It’s week two of the Just Contemporary month that’s being hosted by Basically Amazing Books and Chick Loves Lit.

This week, we’re discussing The Tough Stuff.

These contemporary stories are the ones that get you right in the heart. The stories that are hard to take at times and the ones that make you sit up and think about your life. It’s one of my favorite things about the Contemporary YA genre, it tackles everything that we go through in our everyday lives. There’s a story out there for every mood you’re in and stories that deal with things that you can personally relate to.

On the other hand, books about the tough issues in life also let you step into the lives of characters who are going through stuff you’ve never been through but helps you understand where they’re coming from and what they’re going through.

I’ve never been addicted to drugs or in love with my brother, or lost my entire family in a car accident but I could feel the emotions that went through each of the characters involved in Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma, Clean by Amy Reed and If I Stay by Gayle Forman. Through these authors words, they took me on an emotional roller coaster that put me right there with each of the characters going through these different situations and that’s what the tough issues stories are great for, putting you right in midst of things you’d never go through in your life.

Stories like Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher made me take a look back to the teenager I was back in high school. It made me wonder if my actions would ever have driven someone to commit suicide. I don’t think I was a mean person in high school but there were a few people that I didn’t like and didn’t really go out of my way to be nice too.

I loved reading this book, being a part of this story was heartbreaking at the same time that it was captivating. Seeing how the actions of others drove a young girl to commit suicide made me want my daughter to read this and be aware of her actions at school. This young girl was bullied enough that she thought life wasn’t worth living.

Stories that tackle tough issues are worth reading because you walk away from each story with a different lesson learned. Whether it’s to be aware of the way you treat others around you or that drugs are addictive and can land you in rehab, or that incest does exist. These things happen in real life and for a few hours, you’re introduced into different worlds and walk the footsteps of people/characters who are going through these things and you learn, you understand and I truly believe that teens that are of age should be reading and learning these things.

There are a million reasons why I enjoy reading books about the tough issues. Incest, drug abuse, abusive relationships, eating disorders, are all things that I’ve never had any personal experience with but reading about them through the lives of the characters in books have made me understand that they’re real issues with real consequences and I’ve learned so much while reading these books. If it’s done right, the issues will speak to me and will put me right there in the thick of everything. These books tackle real issues and real life, I can appreciate the lessons I learn while reading these books.

..and that’s your scoop!

Basically Amazing Books & Chick Loves Lit are hosting Just Contemporary in the month of November. What that means is that all month long, they’ll be discussion, reviewing and having all kind of fun with the Contemporary YA genre.

I’m a total fan girl for Contemporary YA books so I definitely had to get in there and participate.

Each week, Ashley and Shanyn will be posting topics and will be dedicating each week (for the month of November) to those topics and I couldn’t be more excited. They’ll also be reviewing fabulous contemporary titles and interviewing fantastic contemporary YA authors. This is so my kind of party.

Here’s the schedule for the topics for each week:

So this week, we’re going to tackle the whole Why I Love Contemporary YA and for me, there’s a million reasons.

I’m one of those readers that loves to connect with the characters in a story. You want me to love your books then make me love your characters. Write characters that I either want to be or want to be best friends with. If you can hook me with your characters than I’m a loyal fan through and through.

For the most part, contemporary YA’s are character based. Most of the characters are going through something and throughout the book, you really get to know the characters in that book. In The Truth about Forever by Sarah Dessen, I adored Macy. I thought she was such a great main character. She wasn’t perfect, she did a lot of things that made me want to smack her a good one but at the end of the book, I wanted to be best friends with her. I wanted to steal her man too but mostly, I wanted to be her friend.

In Where She Went by Gayle Forman, I wanted to marry Adam. Where She Went is the follow up novel to If I Stay and is told through Adam’s (the main character from If I Stay’s boyfriend) POV. I thought I adored Adam when I first met him in If I Stay but I outright loved the heck out of him when I read Where She Went because I got to really see the kind of guy that Mia fell in love with. I got to go through what he was going through after we leave him in If I Stay. Everything he went through, everything he felt- I felt it all and I wanted to cuddle him close and be there for him, I loved him so.

In Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour, I got really close to both Amy and Roger (that sounds weird, but if you’re a reader then you understand what I mean). The author did such a great job of putting me right smack in the middle of everything going on in the story that I felt like I was sitting in the back seat. I was anxious for Roger and I was worried about Amy. Both of their characters were so real to me and I wanted to be apart of their lives, the way that they were a part of mine. Morgan Matson did such a bang up job of writing characters that I loved that it wasn’t hard for me to fall into the world she created for these characters.

And that’s another thing that I love about Contemporary YA. The world that each character inhabits is a world that I’m familiar with. Even if I’m not familiar with the setting, I’m familiar with everything else. Driving cars, shopping at the mall, meeting girlfriends for coffee at Starbucks, all of those things are real to me and they’re real to these characters and it’s always nice to have something in common with the characters in my favorite books. I can connect with these characters more because they’re just like me. We like a lot of the same things and even if we don’t, I can still understand and that makes me happy.

Physically, I haven’t traveled all that much. I’ve been to a few states like Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada. I’ve traveled up and down California but not very many other places. Through stories like Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins and There You’ll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones, I’ve been to Paris, France and Ireland. I went with Ginny all of the UK in Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson and if it weren’t for these books, I would have never gone to those places.

I’m telling you, I could go on and on about the many reasons I love Contemporary YA books but I’ll end with this reason, reading about these characters falling in love takes me back to my high school days when I fell in love for the first time (or so I thought, haha). They take me back to carefree times when I didn’t have to worry about car payments and health insurance. How could you not love that stuff? I’m a fan because this genre has introduced me to some amazing characters like Wes from The Truth about Forever, Adam from Where She Went, Etienne St. Clair from Anna and the French Kiss, Cricket Bell from Lola and the Boy Next Door, Roger from Amy & Roger…really, the list goes on and on.

So there you have it, some of the many reasons I’m such a huge fan of Contemporary YA books. All of these reasons and more are why I’m so excited about participating in Just Contemporary this month.

It’s your turn, why do YOU love Contemporary YA?

..and that’s your scoop!