February 6, 2013

The Fiery Hearts: Young Adult Love

On Monday I had a guest post featured on Literati Literature Lovers blog. As part of their Lovers Month, I decided to write about love but focus my post on the different aspects of young adult love we see so often in books but might not think about. Or, the aspects we brush off as young. I talk about things like the speed at which young lovers fall in love, the desperation they have for each other, their want for love, and, mainly, the idea that young love is more fearless than adult love. 

I focus on the idea that, although we are certainly more mature as we age, we are also more aware of things that make love more difficult. We begin to have baggage, past heartbreaks. We have more and more reasons to say no. The truth is that most of these "adult" things happen without us knowing, without us even meaning to, without any reason at all - but all these adult reasons make us a little more fearful. Cautious.

But see. Young lovers are rarely fearful.

And that's an incredibly good thing.

These days, we often see teens in books fighting for the end of the world, battling paranormal creatures, or something equally extreme - and yet most of them are still willing to fall in love. Most often, love is their reason to fight in the first place. 


For them, love may happen quickly, but for these young characters, love is real. Love is so real it's worth fighting for. 



Really, that's a truly incredibly beautiful thing we're teaching teenagers. I couldn't be more proud to be a part of a community so involved in the advocacy for young love. Perhaps, though, we should all be a little more fearless when it comes to following our hearts.

Check out my full article HERE.



What do you think about young love?




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