{"id":108,"date":"2012-01-04T09:46:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-04T09:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wordynerdy\/2012\/01\/binging\/"},"modified":"2012-01-04T09:46:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-04T09:46:00","slug":"binging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wordynerdy\/2012\/01\/binging\/","title":{"rendered":"Binging"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
<\/a>Happy New Year! \u00a0I haven\u2019t blogged much because\u00a01) I\u2019ve been on vacation and 2) I\u2019ve been binging. \u00a0Not on all the treats that\u2019ve surrounded me the past month but on young adult novels.<\/div>\n

It started right before Christmas when Kai-Kai raved about Sarah Dessen books. She gave me a list she wanted for Christmas. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat won\u2019t happen.\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?????\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause you know I don\u2019t believe in buying books\u2013order them from the library.\u201d <\/p>\n

So she did, and brought me her favorite The Truth About Forever,<\/u>\u00a0begging me to read it. \u00a0I did. \u00a0And then I read another and another and another. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve now read 6 Sarah Dessen books plus 2 books by Pam Jenoff that Ling brought to me with the command, \u201cRead them!\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve heard it said that romance novels are women\u2019s porn. \u00a0If what gets us going is the perfect love, the perfect romance, being pursued and desired even if you\u2019re plain and unremarkable, these books got it all. \u00a0Literary fiction just doesn\u2019t provide the same bang for the buck (or rental).<\/p>\n

In the Dessen books, the vast majority of male love interests are teenage rebels who\u2019ve dealt with their dead parent\/broken home\/alienated father\/etc. and can love and support the female protagonist perfectly, helping her work through her own issues with her dead parent\/broken home\/anorexic sister\/alienated mother\/etc. <\/p>\n

Love wins. \u00a0Healing happens. \u00a0Hope abounds.<\/p>\n

Yum.<\/p>\n

In this new generation of girls\u2019 novels, none of the main characters depend on a boy to make their lives perfect. \u00a0They\u2019re not looking for someone who will support them financially. \u00a0They certainly aren\u2019t after an \u201cM-R-S\u201d degree (a new male acquaintance during freshman new student week at Northwestern asked me if that\u2019s what I was at school for\u2013I didn\u2019t even know what he was talking about for several minutes).<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

But they still want perfect love. <\/p>\n

Even in this current era, an era where my girls have the privilege of seeing their lives and futures full of all possibilities, an era where thus far at least, they\u2019ve never been taunted for being a smart girl, a talented girl, a girl who has \u201cboy\u201d strengths instead of \u201cgirl\u201d strengths, something deep inside still yearns for a Prince Charming who will love them unconditionally. \u00a0Who will complete them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Some say that all stories lead us back to the ultimate story, the story of a God who loves us, seeks after us\u2013even to the point of dying for us, and will never let us go. \u00a0A God who chooses us despite our plainness, or bad eyes, or even worse hair. \u00a0For men, the story may be the hero\u2019s journey. \u00a0For women, it might be the great romance.\n

So I\u2019m not going to feel guilty about indulging in sweet confections all Christmas break. \u00a0It\u2019s back to the real world this week of cleaning my office, working out life and love with my husband, parenting 3 kids who got used to waking at 11 a.m. and are back on the 6 a.m. grind. <\/p>\n

After all, we all need a little love, hope and romance in the new year, don\u2019t we?<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy New Year! \u00a0I haven\u2019t blogged much because\u00a01) I\u2019ve been on vacation and 2) I\u2019ve been binging. \u00a0Not on all the treats that\u2019ve surrounded me the past month but on young adult novels. It started right before Christmas when Kai-Kai raved about Sarah Dessen books. She gave me a list she wanted for Christmas. \u201cThat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1263,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nBinging<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Happy New Year!  I haven't blogged much because 1) I've been on vacation and 2) I've been binging.  Not on all the treats that've\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wordynerdy\/2012\/01\/binging\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Binging\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Happy New Year! 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