Non-fiction

                I agree with what Aimee Bender had to say: as long as the work is interesting, I really don’t care. Even though they are listed as non-fiction, they’re still books. They still have to engage the reader and make them want to keep reading, and to do so they need an interesting plot. If maybe ninety percent of the novel is true, then who cares if the other ten percent is just to make things interesting? The author is doing us a favor, really. They’re adding that ten percent into the plot line because that means there wasn’t enough action to keep us interested the whole way through the story they had to tell.

                Now, I do mind if only half of the novel is true. Then it shouldn’t be labeled as non-fiction writing. When you’re only getting half of the story, but you are lead to believe that it’s the whole story, then that’s a bit deceiving and I’d feel like I was being lied to or cheated. If half of the story didn’t happen, then really that should be labeled as fiction, and the author can make a side note that some of the events in the plot were based off something that really happened. This way the author isn’t being deceptive but can still let their readers know about some things that occurred in their life.

                But in the end, though, it’s the author’s choice. If they want their readers to believe a bunch of false facts that are labeled as true then fine, go ahead and write them. All that matters is at the end they can be happy and proud of the story that they’re telling to their audience who trustingly believe that it’s true.

Readicide

                I think schools should swap out some literary fiction for genre fiction. Not all students like to read the books we read in school, so they just generalize that feeling with all books. But since they’re limited to only one genre, how are they supposed to know if they’d like other types of books or not? I know that my sister hates to read. And the only time she reads is in school, where she’s reading horribly boring books that she doesn’t care about. If schools taught genre fiction, maybe she’d have the chance to realize she actually likes to read, just not reading literary fiction.

                Schools should give us options. Maybe we could read two books a tri – one literary and one genre fiction. And if they give us options for what we can read, then they wouldn’t have to cut out any of the literary ones. They would still give us the option to read it, but not everyone would pick to read each one. For example, when it’s time to read the first book of the tri, we could be given the option between Of Mice & Men and The Great Gatsby. Students will pick which one sounds better to them, and then read it. This way they don’t feel as forced to read something they don’t want to, since they were given an option. Also, it wouldn’t completely replace Of Mice & Men for Twilight. You are still given the chance to hear about it and choose to read it. For the second book that tri, you can be given the choice between, for example, The Hunger Games and Twilight. This, once again, gives options for the kids who aren’t really a fan of the popular books and can pick to not read the one that sounds completely horrid to them.

                I would love if schools could actually do this. I think it would expose the students to more types of books other than literary fiction. But in order for the students to actually enjoy this, and not just end up hating genre fiction, too, then notes and quizzes would have to be limited. Who would want to take notes over Twilight any ways? It ruins the fun of reading. I think an in-class worksheet or two would be good enough. This way it once again takes away the thought of ‘I have to read this book’ since there wouldn’t be a test over it, but still would be enough incentive for the student to read at least some of the book in order to answer the questions on the worksheet right.