Fiction à la Mode

Trends sneak into all aspects of life, including literature. Vampires are obviously ‘in’.

With the recent release of both Fallen by Lauren Kate and Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick, teenage girls nationwide will be taking a short break from Facebook and Twitter, instead devouring the ever so slightly borrowed plots of these new releases.

It’s not that they’re bad books; they’re just forgettable. Both depicting shy, bookish teenage girls – characteristics we’ve never seen before – the plot deviates between being predictable and really weird, the author resorting to giving the characters strange names, such as Norah and Luce, in order to make the story more memorable.

The success of the Twilight books seems to have become a double edged sword for millionaire author Stephanie Meyer. While basking in the glory of six books and four films (one currently in production), it must be strange to have started a huge wave of fiction, all jumping onto the band wagon of her own success. Supernatural Romance even has its own section in Waterstones – now that is a revelation.

It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, though. Other successful books, such as the Harry Potter books or the Alex Rider series, have all started a crazy trend for writing in a particular genre. Are we now in the age where fiction is becoming disposable, churned out greedily only to be discarded a few years later?

Of course, there is always the old cliché: the good ones will stand the test of time. Authors expecting to make a few bob on the swiftly disappearing wake of Meyer’s Twilight jet-ski, will soon find themselves bobbing around wildly in the choppy ocean of literary critique. Let’s hope they’re wearing armbands.

By Ellen, Priory Academy Newsroom