Could You Be Anymore Annoying...

As you probably know by now I love and adore a lot of things.  I'm obsessive and addictive that way.  So it may come as something as a surprise to find out that there are some things that do kind of annoy me -  just a little - okay maybe a lot.

Not liking something is really okay because it would be a pretty boring world if we all liked or disliked the same things, so taking my inspiration from Scriven and Laura here is my list of things that bug the hell out of me.

Reality Shows

All of them.  Really.  They should all just die a fiery death

Action movies with romantic interludes

Please just because I'm a chick I don't need to have romance thrown just for the sake of it.  I'd see a romance movie if I did. I want shoot them up, blow them up and hold the smooching for another movie.

I hate you, you hate me but hey lets fall in love

I love a good love story but what really irritates me are shows like Bones and Castle and others where they hate each at first sight but you just know that the shows creators are planning on for them to fall in love - they just stretch it out for a REALLY long time. Come on people just jump each other and have sex in the 1st episode and then we can all be happy.

Literary novels (or Worthy Reads)

I know what you're thinking.  I'm a librarian so I should like books that win literary prizes like the Man Booker or classics like Wuthering Heights but the truth is I don't. 

I'm a trash reader. I've learned to accept it, embrace even. Trash is good people.

Hunger Games and Jennifer Lawrence

Sorry I just don't get the fuss.  Jennifer, I'm sure, is a lovely young woman but as far as wanting to see in her something whether it's Hunger Games or not I'm leaving the cinema and looking for something else.

Oh woe is me females

I lay the blame for this entirely on Twilight's shoulders.

And yes Bella I'm pointing the finger at you.  Get a back bone girl and tell both Edward and Jacob to take a hike.

Where have all the real men gone?

Twilight. Again. Really it has a lot to answer for.  How anyone could think that Edward Cullen was a romantic hero I'll never understand. Seriously the guy was basically a stalker. 

And the trend seems to have continued with a number of guys in YA fiction (Hunger Games - again) being all kinds of creepy or just plain wussy.  

Give me a man with a gun, a sexy smile and a bad attitude any day.

Embracing your inner teenager

A few years ago the genre barely existed; now it's a major money-spinner for publishers and movie studios alike.

Hands up how many of you have read a young adult novel in the past year. Some of you will be teenagers, (like, duh), but many of you will be well past the age of adolescence, if not the angst part. And you are a major reason why teen fiction is doing so well. Thanks to Harry Potter, adults need no longer feel ashamed to pick up a book for "children". While they should actually be ashamed of picking up a book about sparkly vampires and vapid heroines, those days are long gone. In fact, publishers are now packaging books with separate covers for adults and teens.

This, my friends, is the age of the crossover. Now that the stigma of reading teen fiction is gone, so is the writing of it. Every big-name adult author is writing for teens now - Philippa Gregory, Elizabeth George, Harlan Coben, Gena Showalter, John Grisham, James Patterson, Jodi Picoult. They're all at it. Once Lee Child figures out how make his sentences any shorter, no doubt he'll get round to it too.

If you're like me, you probably want to forget your adolescence entirely, but the teenagers in the best of today's books are dealing with a lot more than what to wear to the prom, and the stories are generally easier to get into than the stuff written for adults. They're perfect escapism with bite. Ignoring The Hunger Games, which I've already written about at length, there are futuristic books in which evil regimes are overthrown, by heroes with complex problems. There are fantasy quests (think the Eragon series). There's historical fiction with intrigue. There are even stories based on real events, about refugees and concentration camp survivors.

And lots of paranormal stuff, of course.

So here it is: a list of crossover YA and adult books that will appeal to all audiences. Give one a try!