(Excerpt)

When I was growing up, my fairly progressive-minded mom always told that she’d prefer I waited until I was married but that she really hoped I’d wait until I was in love before I lost my virginity. Now that I’m a mother, I put the characters in my books to a similar litmus test. Not married (I didn’t get married until I was 29 and I moved in with my husband when I was 23 so that should give you some idea of what I was up to). No, my test is this: Would I be happy if my own daughters were doing what my girl characters are doing?

In If I Stay, Mia and Adam have sex. It’s never on the page (though there is a sex scene on the page, it’s not intercourse, if we want to get technical about it) but it’s implied that they’re sleeping together. There has been very minimal fuss about this (more people seem upset about the cursing, of which there isn’t much, especially compared to this upcoming book which is like a four-letter-word-o-rama). I like to think it’s because Mia and Adam are so obviously in love. So are Grace and Sam. I haven’t seen much fuss made about their “relations” either in the brief Googling I did.

Or maybe it’s because we’re past that now. With so many of the Gossip Girl-type novels where everyone hooks up with everyone, maybe readers (and adults) have been become inured to a little action between the covers (heh heh). Or maybe parents who are reading books like Shiver and putting it to their own mother litmus test? I don’t know.

Speaking of the mother litmus test, let’s take this scenario: My daughter is dating a guy who might kill her. Then he dumps her and she gets kinda suicidal. But they reconcile and wind up getting married and she has his baby at 18, a pregnancy that near kills her. She’s not going to college. She hitches her wagon to a guy she’s known for a year for all of eternity. Literally.

If Willa were 13 right now and I were helping her with book selections and it was between Twilight and Shiver, I know which book I’d steer her toward.

If you want to read the article in its entirety, be sure to check out Gale Foreman’s blog, the source of the above excerpt. 

I don’t actually know much about the author of this blog article, but I was following a series of posts on the “taboo subject” of sex in YA and this one mentioned our absolute favourite subject so I knew I had to post it here.

Basically, the author, Gale Foreman, discusses Maggie Stiefvater’s popular book, Shiver, in relation to sex in YA lit and how the fact that the main characters do have sex makes it much better than the Twilight series, which, as you probably know, has the characters abstinate until after marriage, thus making it ”morally correct”.  I find this interesting, especially as the author further elaborates that she often writes thinking of her own children and doesn’t think the Twilight series is a good example to base your life on. 

It’s refreshing to hear this opinion coming from another author/mother — comparing to Stephenie Meyer, of course — especially one whose books already seem a great deal better than Twilight, even though I haven’t actually read them (yet).

I’m not sure how I feel about this.  I like steamy YA romance as much as the next girl though, and I really agree with what the post says about how if teens are not completely kept in the dark about every little sexy thing, we’re less apt to try stuff out ourselves. 

The Twilight series has been praised by many people for its message of chastity and abstinance, but frankly, I agree with Gale Foreman when she says that the ends do not justify the means.  And to be quite honest, I am way more interested in reading Shiver, now that I’ve heard such a positive review on it… though I suppose on the other hand you could compare anything to Twilight and have it be a million times better.  Hmm.

Something to think about anyway.  How do YOU feel about sex in YA lit?  Good or bad?  Why?