I just read something that really surprised me. It turns out one my favourite authors, Meg Cabot had a really crappy childhood. I don’t really know why I just assumed that everything was really easy for her – I guess mostly because of the types of books she writes. I was wrong, really wrong. Her dad was like this raging alcoholic and she would come home to him unconscious most days. It took her family a really long time to get away from that. Then when she was in her 20’s she used to work in a university dorm. I knew this because she talks about it ‘cause the Heather Wells series is based on it. Well, while she was there 4 students committed suicide in a year and she had to be in charge of… cleaning up. And on one occasion she even made the joint decision with a police officer not to give a family a suicide note because it was too disturbing.
I never would have thought that and I kind of met her once. Well, not exactly. I was too scared to go up to her because I knew I would say something stupid I didn’t want to make someone I admire think that I am an idiot (even if the memory of my idiocy only lasted a couple of seconds).
She said that the reason she started writing the romance novels was because of how crappy her childhood was. When she was younger, romance novels are what saved her because they so totally take you away from everything.
She was talking about this in the first place because of an article released recently about how much teenage girls love “trauma porn” (miserable books about suicide, etc). People like these books because it enables them to look at other people’s lives and feel better about their own problems, Meg Cabot talked about a friend that she had who loved those books while her parent’s were breaking up. But, for her they were just more depressing. Like, considering how crappy her home life was, why would she want to read about someone else’s problems? So yeah.. romance novels. She said that that is why she writes them, too. She wants to make sure that all the people with the crappy lives get some chance to escape.
Which I think is really nice.
I, however, have no idea where I fit into this. I don’t have a particularly hard time. I just think too much and so need to moan on here all the time so my head doesn’t blow off/ I don’t throw up (which I haven’t done over a problem in over a year! Seriously I think I’m cured, I managed through exams and although I’ve felt kind of crap through I haven’t thrown up! Sad, I know, but seriously, PROGRESS!!!)
I read romance novels and really miserable books. So I don’t know where I fit into that. Also, what does a Sarah Dessen book count as? There is romance in them but books like Just Listen (AMAZINGAMAZINGAMAZING) are based around pretty bad events. Hmm..
Sorry, I know this is probably totally boring to anyone who isn’t me, I just thought it was interesting J
www.megcabot.com/diary (If you want to read the blog this was based on)
Track: Never Said – Liz Phair
