And I’m not doing one now, but Saundra Mitchell asked if she could, and of course I said yes absolutely! She also said smart things about boys and girls: about which I agree completely. a) A girl is not a machine you put kindness coins into until a relationship falls out and b) a girl is not responsible for a dude’s feelings.
She puts it more stylishly, of course. She writes historical: she wouldn’t say dude.
“Do you know what I’ve missed since coming here? Books. I do miss reading novels, don’t you?”
-Zora, The Springsweet
Even though there are two guys and one girl in THE SPRINGSWEET, it doesn’t feature a love triangle. Instead, what it features is—I’ll be honest—my reaction to a weird pop culture insistence.
Namely, the insistence that if a guy really, really likes a girl, she’s somehow obligated to be his girlfriend.
If he makes a crazy big grand gesture like, I don’t know, watching you sleep every night, or watching your whole life through a telescope, or following you around with a boom box*, then obviously, that’s true love and you must respond in kind.
Except, no. There are lots of perfectly great people, but the brilliance of being an individual with agency means you get to decide your own destiny. You’re in charge of yourself and your feelings. Other people’s persistence isn’t currency. They don’t get to buy your love with enough extraordinary acts of attention.
So, I haven’t written a love triangle at all. (I’m not sure I could, they’re pretty complicated to get right.) But I have (I hope!) written a young woman who has agency and who uses it. I think if she weren’t stuck in 1891, Zora would get along splendidly with Mae, actually.
You can make up your own mind, though. Enter to win a copy of Sarah’s THE DEMON’S LEXICON, and a signed set of Saundra’s THE VESPERTINE and THE SPRINGSWEET. All you have to do is comment in this entry, and leave an e-mail address where we can contact you.
And tell us about your favorite book, too. Growing a TBR pile is the best gardening there is! This is the only stop on the blog tour that will be open to international entries.
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THE SPRINGSWEET
A Companion to The Vespertine
by Saundra Mitchell
Hardcover & E-book
From Harcourt
“A high-quality, absorbing drama.”
– Kirkus Reviews, 02/01/12
* A boom box? Whoa, this IS historical fiction… – SRB
