Something terrible has happened, my beloved followers (aka Whisper, lol). I have become something I used to shun and abhor. A vast network of literary evil has slowly worked its dark tendrils deep into my psyche and slowly taken me over, turning me into that vile monstrosity that I once risked my cyber-life to fight on a daily basis.
I have become a Team player.
We all know the Team phenomenon. It began with Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, with the advocation for either the werewolf heart-throb Jacob Black or the alluring and forbidden Edward Cullen. Can I just say "blech."
Although Twilight came out when I was in high school, I didn't read it until I was well out of high school, living on my own, and the film was out and had been out for a few months. I read it not to read Twilight itself, but to read New Moon, which my friend Whisper had written about in her myspace blog. That particular blog was about how in a conversation with an aunt, her aunt had called Bella psychotic and said that no girl would fall into a depression that deep over a boy dumping them.
My friend of course argued against this POV, because many of our friends in high school did that and worse (an example would be a young friend of ours "grid-marking" her arm to deal with her depression; the result of "grid-marking" looks like someone sliced into that person's forearm with incredibly fine razor-wire mesh. It's fairly gruesome). Although as a teen I was never that self-destructive, I was fairly close.
I'd never found someone in YA that reacted as I would've reacted in such a situation. Then Whisper told me about New Moon, and there it was - something I'd wanted for a long time. So I read the Twilight novels and got hooked (though I am not a Twi-hard - Twilight is too flawed for that, unfortunately - and I've never read The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner). But as hooked as I was, I didn't care a fig for the Team Edward/Team Jacob thing (except that I thought Burger King's thing about Team Bella was just ridonculous because how does one end up romantically involved with oneself? That's just gross). I thought the Team thing was the dumbest thing ever. I still think the Twilight Team thing is stupid.
In fact, in my own paranormal YA series, The Twilight Chessboard (no relation to Ms. Meyer's Twilight universe; the Twilight Realm is another name for the world of Faerie) I introduce a pseudo-love triangle because it gives an added level of tension, but the love triangle in my series isn't very even-sided. There are two guys vying for the girl, yes, but she doesn't want them both. One of them is a complete freak (and not in a high school way; more like a selfish morally abiguous way). It's not even supposed to be a love triangle. The freak guy's just a character, not a potential love interest. But I'm betting if those books hit popular, there will be girls going "Team Jack!" and "Team Darren!" And it will be my unfortunate duty to inform them they are all on Team Stupid. I hope that doesn't happen, though.
However... there are other books that have sucked me into this Team trap. What are they? The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. Matched, by Ally Condie. Wither, by Lauren Destefano. The Iron Thorn by Caitlinn Kittredge. The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross. These five books have done it. They've turned me into a monster! I blame the Dystopic Epidemic, lol, as all but the last one are dystopian novels.
But anyway, here's my affiliation:
The Hunger Games - Team Peeta
Matched - Team Ky
Wither - Team Linden
The Iron Thorn - Team Dean
The Girl in the Steel Corset - Team Jack Dandy
Why?
In tHG, Gale may or may not be responsible for the death of my favorite character, Prim (thus negating the point of the series in my eyes).
In Matched, the reason Cassia even falls for Ky in the first place is because she begins seeing him in this sympathetic and sympathizing light; as the book is 1st person, the reader begins to view him that way as well.
In Wither, both potential love interests are kind of wussies, but unlike Gabriel, who only pushes the boundaries around him in order to have Rhine (and who acts like a juvenile brat at times), Linden does things in order to make other people happy - not just Rhine, but his other wives as well. And he truly loves Rhine, in a way that you can't be sure of with Gabriel, who is much younger and more impulsive and has never known what it is to be in love before. He may just be in like with Rhine, and the rest is fueled by his hormones. Is that fair to say, just because he's young, especially when Linden is only 21 himself? Maybe not, but when I read the book, Gabriel came off as more selfish and actually a bit whiny at times. The only thing standing in the way of a happy ending between Rhine and Linden is Rhine herself, whose pride and prejudices refuse to allow her to love him.
The Iron Thorn is happiest for me. Aoife doesn't love Cal romantically. Never has, never will. He has no chance. I adore Dean. He's amazing. And, like Aoife, he is more than he appears. Of course, so is Cal, but not in the same way. I love you, Caitlin Kittredge, for making my life so much easier.
As for The Girl in the Steel Corset, which I just finished this morning... there are actually 2 love triangles, one surrounding each girl (the girl in the steel corset, Finley, and the girl who made the steel corset, Emily). Finley is stuck between Griffin King, the 18-year-old orphaned Duke of Greythorne, and Jack Dandy, a rumored crime boss of the London underground who's too charming by half. Emily is caught between Sam the "mandroid," a boy with a robotic heart and skeleton who loves her and is loved in return, and Jasper, a cowboy with super speed (which sounds stupider than it is; it's actually fairly cool).
In regards to Emily's boys, I don't have a preference because while Sam was getting on my nerves at first, he grew up by the end, and we don't know much about Jasper. But as for Finley....
I don't like Griff. He's obsessed with revenge, for one thing, and he lets his jealousy of Jack Dandy cause problems. While he's not willing to throw Sam out of the house (he could go back to the Devon estate) for punching him in the face and trying to legitimately kill Finley for no reason, he is willing to throw Finley out with nowhere to go if her association with Jack Dandy "becomes a problem." While yes, he's 18, that doesn't exactly make him attractive to me.
Whereas Jack Dandy is willing to help Finley whenever and wherever, and while he doesn't particularly like Griff, he saves his life and doesn't let his dislike of the kid affect how he treats Finley. While Jack is a couple years older, that's not really the point.
Two years is a lot in regards to maturation usually when someone is that age, but Griff - due to his position, life story, and responsibilities within the group of the MCs - should know how to reign in his youthful temper by this point, especially because of his powers. So I don't have a lot of sympathy for him as a person. He's a great character, nice and flawed, but as for a rival on the Team playing board... nah.
For once - for once - I would like two guys in a love triangle where I can't choose. Where I'm happy with the girl hooking up with either guy. Where I like them both equally. Where I don't mind if she gets with Guy A or Guy B.
Kind of like how on Wizards of Waverly Place (gah, I know, I'm so pathetic) at the end, both Alex and Justin got to keep their powers. I was happy with that because I liked both characters enough that I didn't want either of them to lose the Wizard Competition.
Why can't we have that in love in books? If we have to have the triangle, can't it be an equilateral, instead of an isoceles? Or would that make the girl too much of a player? The only time the isoceles works is in The Iron Thorn and in Kelly Creagh's Nevermore (there's Varen, who's on the cover with MC Isobel, and then there's Brad. Brad is a psycho; therefore, the isoceles makes more sense than the equilateral). So can we please either have equilateral triangles, or no triangles at all? I would like that. Sigh.
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