RiYA: Ideal YA Couple Relationship + Giveaway of The Pace by Shelena Shorts (signed)

 For you, what is the ideal YA couple relationship?

 

Shelena Shorts said: That's tough. Young love is so exciting and intense. For me, the ideal YA relationship would be one that is genuine. As long as people always have the best intentions, you can't go wrong.

Angela Morrison said: In real life, teen relationships should be short-lived and experimental. You learn a lot about yourself and the type of guy or girl you like or loathe. And then you move on and try something else, until you find the perfect combination. But that would never work in a YA novel. The stakes have got to be high in fiction or the reader throws the book down and picks up the next novel on the her/his TBR stack. Life and death. Broken hearts. True love. I like to journey with characters who've stumbled on the perfect combination and fall deeply in love, but for whatever reason, that love is thwarted and they have to fight to be with the guy or girl that makes their hearts whole and, sometimes, learn to struggle on without them.

Cheryl Herbsman said: To me, the ideal YA relationship is one that is real, in which the two people really love and care for one another and help each other grow. Romance and hotness are definite pluses :)

Gwendolyn Heasley said: I think the ideal YA couple relationship is one that isn't all consuming. Of course, I understand that love (especially first loves) feel all consuming and overwhelming, but I think it's so important to balance love with the rest of your life.  Corrinne in WHERE I BELONG struggles with letting her boy crazy tendencies jeopardize other parts of her life, but I am proud of how she starts to figure out a balance. I am not trying to sound like anyone's parent though! I think this is good advice for everyone including people my age!  There's a lot of time in your life to fall in love
and out of love---remember to enjoy the other parts of high school too... Remember: you can always live vicariously through love in books too! We all don't have to date a vampire- we can just read about it.

Jennifer Hubbard said: The ideal relationship would be two people who are self-aware and emotionally healthy. They understand themselves and their own needs. They start a relationship because they genuinely like each other, have fun together, and have a mutual attraction. Their relationship is honest and fun and enriching; they support each other's dreams and goals. They help each other be stronger.

Sara Bennett Wealer said: I like to see a relationship where both people truly respect and enjoy each other. Everybody deserves someone who brings out their very best selves.

Cat Clarke said: I like to see a realistic relationship - where the guy isn't aggressive and/or stalkerish towards the girl because he's secretly a vampire/angel/yeti. Sure, those kinds of relationships can be fun to read about, but I usually prefer to read about  something real, or at least something that COULD be real. Also, I'm not a huge fan of love at first sight in YA novels. I like  a bit of build-up to heighten the anticipation!

Kim Culbertson said: For me, I want to see an authentic telling of a specific, individual relationship so each relationship is going to be totally different based on the two characters involved in it.  In my first novel, Songs for a Teenage Nomad, I had readers write me and say “the relationship with Calle and Sam really bugged me.  He didn’t deserve her.”  I agree with them – in so many ways he didn’t.  But she still loved him, was drawn to him, and I think learned a great deal from loving him.  I teach high school and I see so many of my students choosing relationships for wrong reasons but I don’t blame them.  My own high school relationship was heavily flawed but it didn’t mean I wasn’t in love; it didn’t mean I didn’t learn from that relationship.  So I think, when reading YA, I want to see a believable relationship between two people who are wrestling with the difficulty, and beauty, of loving each other.

Giveaway: Signed Copy of The Pace by Shelena Shorts

*Giveaway Closed*

Weston Wilson is not immortal and he is of this world. But, aging is not part of his existence, and eighteen-year-old Sophie Slone is determined to find out why. In doing so, she could also uncover something about her own life expectancy that she may not want to know. Suddenly, immortality will mean everything and nothing all at the same time.

Shelena Shorts is so generous to offer a signed copy of The Pace, the first book of her YA series to one lucky reader of Fragments of Life!

Rules:

Be a follower.

Comment with your ideal YA couple relationship!
Leave your email address so I can contact you.

Ends on February 28, 2011! Open internationally!

Entries (not required):

+1 spread the word – twitter or sidebar or both (please leave link)

+2 post the RiYA button with a link to this site (please leave link)

+2 blog about it (please leave link)