Angieville

I am feeling many things, guys, after watching this teaser trailer. I am feeling a complicated number of things. So I require your thoughts. Have you watched it? How many times? What are you feeling? The majority of the reactions I'm seeing seem to be overwhelmingly positive. Like, fawningly so. I'm cautiously optimistic. Just blown away by some things (I love Meg, and all three of the Mrs. W's look amazing ) and a bit befuddled by others (is that really supposed to be Calvin?? the "chosen one" dialogue feels laid on a bit thick for me). And so I need your input. Please.

A couple of days ago Kmont over at Lurv a la Mode posed the question: What's with all the crappy parenting in YA novels? I had to smile when I read her thought-provoking post as it's an old, familiar trope of young adult literature--remove the parental units and BANG! You've got free reign. It makes sense to a certain degree, right? In the absence of authority figures and/or the adults in the teen's life most likely to object to all manner of shenanigans, your protagonist can get up to scads of mischief, thus providing the crisis/plot/problem what have you. Better yet, kill off or mysteriously disappear one parent and you've got some juicy material for teen angst and conflict. This is an old trope stretching back to when orphans were prime protagonists in young people's literature and I do think things have changed over the years. But it does seem to still hold true in a large section of YA fantasy novels, since a kind, involved, non-self absorbed set of paren...