What is "good"?

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

Hello Sounis! I am absolutely shameless and am asking for your help with my homework.

Well, not really. But if I'm somehow out of line in posting this please let me know.

You see, I'm taking an Adolescent Literature class this term. The final for the class is to write an essay on the characteristics of a "good" YA book. A very subjective topic, about which we can say anything we want, as long as we can find someone else who says the same thing in some kind of scholarly article.

I just wanted the help of my Sounisian friends on coming up with criteria for judging how "good" a book is. Of course I'm thinking of our favorite series as an excellent example of "good" YA Literature, though of course we won't limit ourselves to that. Articulating exactly and specifically *why* certain books are good is the trick.

Some general criteria I've thought of so far:

-Re-readability
-"good" writing (which needs an essay of its own, as nobody seems to agree on what this is -either)
-three-dimensional characters
-a plot which moves the reader forward
-respect for intelligence of the reader
-interesting setting
-a "hook" (haha)

But my brain is kind of stuck there. What have I missed? Care to expound on any of the above, or any other criteria you can think of?

What makes a good book "good"?

I'm curious to know what you guys think.

Comments

[katsie.livejournal.com]

A book that, once you have finished it, causes you to immediately find someone else who has read it or to make someone else read it because you need to discuss it with someone!

Other than that, I think you've got a good list already.

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

I think a desire to discuss a book is a really good indicator of the "goodness" of a book. There some books I've read and wasn't really interested in discussing with anyone. There are some that I wanted to talk to people about how bad they were, but thats completely different. ;-)

[xoxeskel.livejournal.com]

Kind of related, but not really - cobweb_diamond has a post (http://cobweb-diamond.livejournal.com/431897.html) about what kind of work lends itself well to a large fandom.

Something I saw on tumblr but didn't think to like "a good book should leave you feeling tired at the end because you have lived the lives of several people".

World-building is a must. It needs to feel real, not just some ideas haphazardly tossed together in an approximation of a setting. This applies even when the world is the real world (not the same medium, but see the criticism that Girls got for it's largely white cast).

Character agency. A character should drive their own plot, not be caught up in it imo (see: Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom. Fantastic world-building, but the protag seemed to be playing catch up the entire series. Compare that to his Abhorsen series).

What are we defining as "good writing"? If we're defining it as the old staple "show, don't tell", then I disagree. I think a trade off betwen telling and an economic use of words is a necessity.

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

I don't have time to read over cobweb_diamond's whole post right now, but after looking over it it looks really interesting. I'll definitely have to read that.

Feeling tired at the end.... hmm. I definitely think you should be feeling something at the end or it wasn't a very good book, or at the very least a bad ending.

Character agency IS very important, though I've never heard it put that way, I've usually just heard "character driven". But it really is about the character and their choices, isn't it? The plot should follow the characters choices, the character shouldn't just follow the plot.

Defining good writing is the most difficult for me. It depends alot for me on what fits the story, characters, point of view, world, etc. What is good writing in one book isn't for another.

[xoxeskel.livejournal.com]

It's like...a good kind of tired. Like the feeling after a good workout, rather than the feeling after 2 hours of public transport that only should have taken 1 hour.

[readingisgoodforyou.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Well, it depends on if you define good as the Printz award committee does, as quality, well-written literature, or books that have appeal to the target age-range, like the Best Fiction for Young Adults committee looks for. I prefer the latter definition, as I've found that so many of the Printz winners are hard-sells for actual teen readers (Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta being a major exception for me).

I like to put myself in a teenager's shoes and think of what they look for in a book to read -- is it characters to whom they can relate or plain likeability in characters? Is it a plot that allows them to escape the cruddiness of their day-to-day situations? Is it swoon-worthy romance? Whatever the answer, that is what makes a book good for them. Sometimes this leads them to books that teachers or the American Library Association would not label as 'well-written' or award worthy, but I think whatever sets them on the path to becoming a reader (even if their selection makes me want to cringe in horror) ought to be considered good, at least for that particular person. Goodness a very subjective term, as you've already pointed out.

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

I think its possible to find a balance between what teens like and what adults think they should read. The book world isn't divided into Literature and Fluff. Don't get me wrong, I do believe that there is Literature and Fluff out there, but IMHO the best books fall somewhere between those two categories--an engaging plot that hooks the reader and keeps them interested, but at the same time explores deeper themes and encourages the reader to think.

I think Fluff can be a good starting point for teens, but reading won't be anything but entertaining to them unless they can step up, if not all the way to the realm of "Literature," at least to books that require deeper thought.

[readingisgoodforyou.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

See, that's where being a librarian is such a lovely job. I can say 'oh, you liked such and such book -- have you tried this one?' and point them in the direction of some awesome similar books that have all the features of goodness that we're trying to define. Or I make a read-alikes list. So much fun.

[(Anonymous)]

Good, or YA Good?

~mwt

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

Its a class for Adolescent Literature, so YA good.

[(Anonymous)]

Then you'd have to define what YA is. I think you should write your whole essay explaining why it is wrong to attempt to define YA and then you can just . . . slide lightly past the business of "good."

: )

~mwt

[mairelon.livejournal.com]

A book where you care about what happens to the characters after the book ends. I'm not necessarily talking about sequel hooks. There are some standalone books which resolve all the plot points but you still wonder what the characters are doing a week, a month, and a year after the book ends.

[readingisgoodforyou.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

I'm with you on this one. There's a reason why I can read books like Froi of the Exiles, The Piper's Son,Chime, Graffiti Moon, and our lovely series here a million and one times-- yes, the plots are entertaining, but the characters are so vividly created that they become like best friends. I can't help but adore them and worry about them and cry over them even after the book has ended (gosh, especially the characters in Froi -- I need Quintana of Charyn in my hands so I can know that they are going to be okay).

[bluestalking.livejournal.com]

Authorial sympathy! For the characters and for the readers.

[(Anonymous)]

This...essay, I suppose, by Peter Sieruta, a children's literature blogger, talks about many of the things that makes a book good in a popular sense. You might find it interesting.

http://collectingchildrensbooks.blogspot.com/2009/03/you-know-its-good-book-when.html

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

This one's my favorite:

You know it's a good book when you happen to see a copy on the shelf at a bookstore or library...and feel like you've just run into an old friend.

I'll go so far as to take it off the shelf, open the cover, possibly sniff it (love the smell of books - it's my drug!), thumb through the pages, maybe even look up a favorite passage... sigh happily, put it back, and say, "See you next time!"

[chocolate-smash.livejournal.com]

Once when I was in an teeny little bookstore I ran across a copy of TT, with the awful cover, and did pretty much what you just said. It made me very, very, unreasonably happy.

[booksrgood4u.livejournal.com]

Whenever I see one of my favorite books, especially in a used bookstore, I always take it out and put in a more prominent position so the next poor, book-hungry soul who passes by willsee it and have a good book to read. ;)

[tenar-padmire.livejournal.com]

That is so true! It's similar in a passage I read somewhere.
"You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel as if you've lost a friend."

[creative-lefty2.livejournal.com]

Themes relevant to the audience. This might be hard to back up, since each person connects with different themes. But, when looking at children's/YA titles, there are common themes between the books. For example, middle grade books take on themes that include school, family relationships, early romantic relationships, friendship, that sort of thing. Meanwhile, YA focuses on, well, pretty much any theme you want. School, taking on the world, independence (actually, all books should deal with that on some level), relationships...this is just a short list.

[bluejayfic.livejournal.com]

Something that matters a lot to me is the quality of the language - not the "writing", which is a very vague concept, but the very concrete words-on-the-page-language. There are many books that have good prose and still suck, because they fail in other ways, but the number of books that can take poor language and redeem it in other ways is vanishingly small. And then you have the sentences that you read over and over, that you learn by heart, because they are just so beautifully written. Personally I can forgive a lot of plot or character faults for a sentence like that.

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

I don't know if anyone is still coming back to read this thread, but It was so fun to see a certain thing I ran across when doing my research for this paper (because as I mentioned we must have "scholarly sources").

I found this article: Not Just for Teens. By: Benedetti, Angelina, Library Journal, 03630277, 6/15/2011, Vol. 136, Issue 11
At the end of which is a list of the 12 Top Crossover Authors, and guess who made the list?

MEGAN WHALEN TURNER What to give a fan of the complex political fantasies of Guy Gavriel Kay? Or the historicals of Sharon Kay Penman? Eugenides, Turner's "Thief of Eddis" (e.g., The Thief, The Queen of Attolia), wins my vote as the single sexiest man in teen literature. Most recent project: The fourth book in the series, A Conspiracy of Kings (2010), was just crowned winner of the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature.



:D

[beth-shulman.livejournal.com]

That's awesome!

I actually just came back to this post - I've been thinking about it all week and I think it's a great essay topic, but that ultimately the answer might be that there is no answer. I'd say good writing, good characters, and a good plot are all necessary, but every person values one or two of those over the other(s), and no person's barometer is alike. I know that good writing will improve an otherwise mediocre book for me, and that good characters will make me love a mediocre story or less-than-great writing. That's not true, though, for a lot of my friends, who want good story first.

Respecting the reader is a really interesting point - I think it ties into creating great characters and a great story (also, not preaching).

Have you figured out what you're going to say? I'd love to hear if you don't mind sharing.

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

Still putting it together. I might post a summary of my essay in my journal when I'm done, we'll see.