What's in a good story?

As far as I'm concerned, whether it is a movie or a book, a good story is one that changes you or elicits some sort of emotion. For the purpose of this blog post, can we agree on that? Thank you.

Young Adult (YA) fiction seems to have the market cornered on books that affect their readers. I was having lunch with my mom over the weekend recalling one of my favorite books from my childhood The Bridge to Teribithia. She told me something I never knew before, that when she read the back of the book at the library or bookstore, she knew right away (spoiler alert) that someone would die in the book. I must have been in 3rd grade when I read this book and I remember crying my eyes out when the character died, however, I don't remember it ruining my week. I just remember wanting more of the story, hungry for answers, to know what happens to the remaining characters. I didn't care about the happy ending, because this kind of story is like real life. Similarly, I was just as satisfied when I finished reading Where the Red Fern Grows, even though I had a dog growing up.

So why are we attracted, even from a young age, to literature that hurts? Earlier this summer I listened to a show on NPR's Around Noon (note: that link has both the show I listened to, which is great, and a list of all the books they talked about) about YA novels and overwhelmingly the books these experts were recommending had characters that had all the odds stacked against them, lost a family member or friend, or were dealing with major life experiences that most real adults don't grapple with. Many parents called in begging for recommendations for their young readers, with aptitude for more difficult books, in which nothing devastating happens to the main character(s). However, these experts were largely stumped by this question because so many YA novels have these themes.

Right now I'm reading one of the books they recommended called The Hunger Games and I am completely enthralled. This book is the first in a trilogy that has young adult readers taking libraries by storm, hungry for more. The second book is called Catching Fire and the third installment of the series entitled Mockingjay will be released in about a month. So what is this trilogy, which young readers are so interested in, about?

The Hunger Games follows the narrative of a 16 year old girl named Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a post-apocalyptic world where every year, 24 children (aged 12-18) are thrown into an arena to fight to the death in order to feed the people in their district. It's basically like The Goblet of Fire on steroids. Within the first 20 minutes of reading (well listening because I've got the audio book for this one) this book I was fighting - hard, and slightly unsuccessfully - to hold back tears at my desk at work. Katniss has every characteristic that Pixar or Disney characters have. 1. She lost a parent at a young age, 2. She is the head of the house because her remaining parent is in such despair over the loss, 3. She is a fighter, and 4. She (hopefully!) overcomes all odds to help her family. She is selfless and strong and an amazingly written character with flaws and a temper and man I hope the feminists get a hold of this book because they'll go nuts for her.

I really don't have an answer to the overlying question in this post though: Why do we like literature that hurts? What do you think? Basically, this was just a long way of telling you to read The Hunger Games trilogy. It is extremely well written and completely enthralling. I think I'll be reading a number of the books on the YA book list from NPR.