How I Nearly Gaslit Myself

"Clown Trashcans (Baeza)" by stinkenroboter is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 

 

It's surprisingly easy to be 'gaslit'. You wouldn't think so - we all think of ourselves as smart and savvy, but the reality is, we are all susceptible to alterations of our memories of events. Sometimes, the people in our lives can use that tendency for evil purposes. Sometimes, we just confuse ourselves.

This is a story of how Lisa freaked herself out and had her questioning her sanity, her memory, and her reality all in one day.

~

Our trash day is Friday. I try to bring out the barrels on Thursday night because I have a standing event Friday mornings at 7 am which makes it a stretch to get out the trash Friday morning. If I leave it for Friday, it means not getting the barrels to the curb until I'm back around 9 am.

A few weeks ago, was one such busy Thursday. On Friday morning, as I headed out for my 7 am, I reminded myself to deal with the trash when I returned.

When I got home, the trash and recycling barrels were at the curbside.

Huh. I could have sworn they weren't there when I left. But maybe I just didn't notice. I figured my husband did the trash before he headed for work. He's normally more pressed for time in the mornings than I am, so it's a task that generally I do. But okay. I added recycling from the house to the recycle bin and went about my day.

The trash collectors came and went sometime late morning. I had a few errands to run and figured I'd put the barrels away when I returned.

When I got home a few hours later, the barrels were gone.

Hmmm. Sometimes our neighbor pulls them in, especially when he thinks we're out of town. So I went next door to thank him.

Readers, he didn't put them away.

Now, he has a good poker face and a sharp sense of humor, so for a moment I considered that he was pranking me, but after a few more minutes of conversation, I was convinced it wasn't him.

My older son has variable work hours, and we usually ask him to take in the barrels if we're going to be away for the weekend. It was possible that he thought this was one of those weekends. So I texted him to thank him.

He hadn't put the barrels away either.

Now, I was starting to get a little weirded out. Yes, it's just trash cans, but still. Weird.

Friday night, when hubby came home from work, I told him about the mystery of the returning trash cans and thanked him for putting out the barrels in the morning.

He looked at me funny and said he hadn't taken them out. He'd overslept his alarm and didn't even have time for coffee that morning. He said I must have done it but not remembered. Then he asked me if I checked the storage shed for the barrels.

I went to the little shed only to find that there was trash and recycling still in both barrels.

Which meant they had NEVER been taken out at all.

Hubby starts asking me if I feel okay.

I start quietly panicking inside. 

I am SURE I didn't imagine the barrels in front of the house that morning. Hell, I added the recycling that was in the house to the green bin. But I start thinking that maybe, just maybe I'm remembering from last week. You do something over and over and over again every week at the same time and sure - I could have just conflated all the memories into one.

Except that doesn't feel right. 

I kept trying to remember anything specific about taking the trash out that morning and bringing it back later in the day, but it doesn't feel real.  But neither does not taking them out.


Now I have, in essence, two competing memories in my head: one where I didn't move the trash cans, one where I did and the more I try to sort it out, the more I cannot determine which set of memories is real. 

I've been more forgetful lately. And I've been blaming it on 'menopause brain', but could this be something else? Something more serious?

I have a medical background, so my FIRST thought is "Oh, God, I have a brain tumor." Logical, right?

But then I remember I had a head/neck MRI a few months ago for a neck issue and surely, if there had been a tumor, they would have seen it then.

Okay, so I'm just really losing my mind. 

My husband keeps asking me if I'm sure I feel okay.

Well, that just makes it all better . . . NOT.

I remember how my mother would spin from confusion to anger when she was confronted by something she had forgotten at the start of her slide into dementia. The only saving grace is since I was adopted, I don't have her genes. But then I start to wonder how much of dementia is genetic. I've been having word finding problems for the past few years (a *joyful* thing when you're a writer). Maybe it is more serious than menopause brain.

I was at the point of calling my primary care practitioner for a recommendation and referral to a neurologist when a new possibility popped into my brain. I wasn't sure if the new thought was a genuine possibility or if I was grasping at straw in my frantic attempt not to be losing my mind.

You see, there had been a bunch of road and sidewalk work over the prior week or so in the neighborhood. So with a desperate kind of hope, I called my neighbor to ask her if by chance, she had put her trash barrels in front of our house.

Even I didn't put a lot of faith in that being the solution. 

~

I was truly holding my breath waiting for her answer.

"Why yes," she said, "sorry I didn't tell you. The sidewalk in front of our house was roped off so we couldn't put the trash out."

Relief flooded through my body. I wasn't crazy. I didn't have this unexplained memory gap. There was a perfectly logical explanation for the appearing/disappearing trash barrels. I was literally shaking for several minutes after I got off the phone. 

~

And that, my friends, is how easy it is to be gaslit, even by your OWN mind.

---

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Welcome to the Dark Underbelly of Social Media

@elizabethforma Rock on. So proud that you are my Senator!

— LJ Cohen (@lisajanicecohen) August 9, 2016

I should have expected this. In fact, I'm pretty surprised I hadn't experienced anything like it before, given that I've been fairly active on social media and the internet for over a decade. But until this week, I've never experienced being targeted by strangers on the 'net because my beliefs disagree with theirs.

And I recognize I've been lucky. Most of the nasty tweets directed my way were scattershot, rather than personally targeted abuse or direct threats. Other women have been 'doxxed' and harassed and threatened for their mere existence.

But this week (among other things) I've been called 'retarded', 'brain dead', a communist, and outed as Jewish by a self-described anti-immigration, anti-islamic twitter account that bracketed my name in triple parentheses.  That last one is pretty bizzare. My last name is Cohen. It's not at all a secret that my heritage is Jewish. Which has nothing to do with my activity on twitter.

And what did I do and say to attract such nastiness? I retweeted some of Senator Elizabeth Warren's tweets and then made my own tweet to her appreciating that she was my senator.



Apparently that was the last straw.

Apparently hordes of anti-everything folks watch the public twitter timelines looking for anyone who uses Elizabeth Warren's name in a tweet and then start the rude message brigade.

I don't understand what these people hope to accomplish or why they targeted me this time. I'm not someone famous. I'm not a spokesman for anything other than my own mind. And I will say what I say because I have the right to say it. If someone doesn't like what I say publicly, they have the right to either block me, ignore me, or enter into dialogue with me about it.

Pro tip: telling someone they are wrong/evil/awful/stupid is really not the best way to change their minds.

— LJ Cohen (@lisajanicecohen) August 9, 2016

I'm a grown up. I can disagree without denigrating someone or threatening them. I can even carry on a reasonable conversation with people I disagree with. Shocking! Right?

All the accounts that have sent rude tweets my way have been pseudonyms with either 'blue eggs' or logos as photos. I use my real name and my real photograph. (Hey Twitter! I'm actually a real person. Why won't you allow me to go through your verification process?)

And I still come back to the main question: What do they hope to accomplish? I'm not going to have some sudden epiphany and decide I support hatred, prejudice, and misogyny. I'm not going to delete my social media accounts and be silent. I'm also not going to attack or otherwise engage people who have already shown me they have no interest in dialogue.

What I will do is report and block, though I know it doesn't address the bigger problem. And then I'll move on, because I have better things to do than name-calling.

---

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What's your enjoyment worth?

No one expects the Spanish inquisition professionals to work for free

When I worked as a physical therapist, I got paid for my expertise. For the first decade of my practice, I was employed by various hospitals that paid me a living wage and no one expected me to provide PT for free, for the exposure.

For the next 10+ years, I ran my own private practice. I was a business of one; I booked appointments, treated patients, filed documentation, sent out billing. I was never criticized for charging for my work. (And I offered sliding scale for individuals who otherwise wouldn't have had access to care. No one expected me to treat them for free.)

I had a very successful practice in which I charged reasonable rates for my time and skill, and provided high quality care that allowed hundreds of folks to recover from injuries and return to full function.

Five years ago, I shut down my practice (for various personal/family reasons) and had the opportunity to focus on my writing. Having been a successful solo entrepreneur, I treated this new enterprise as a business as well. I expected to provide quality reading experiences in return for reasonable recompense in the cost of a book.

And ran right into the disruption of publishing as enabled by the internet.

Now, disruption creates opportunities, just as it obliterates others. I don't need to rehash the way in which the eBook revolution allows writers to directly connect with their ideal readers. However, the very democratization of the internet that we laud is also responsible for the idea that creativity is a public good.

On her blog, Artist Empathy, Sarah Manning wrote a long and cogent post on the criticism the band Pomplamoose received after their breakdown of income and expenses from their most recent tour. The tl;dr version: the indie band paid for their tech crew and backup musicians, slept in a basic motel, etc, and ended up nearly 12K in the red (136K income, 148K expenses) for a 28 day tour.

Cue the hate

The comments, both on Manning's piece, Jack Conte's (one of the principals of Pomplamoose) and the Gawker article that condemned the band, are the expected: the band is scamming everyone, Conte posted his article as a publicity stunt (he's a co-founder of Patreon), they should have lived in the van, they shouldn't have paid their back up musicians or tech crew, and on and on.

Somehow, there's this expectation that artists need to create for the sheer love of their art. They should release it for 'the exposure.' That asking fair recompense for creativity is somehow crass.
 

The Price of Entertainment

From Manning's post:

"The reality is that we’ve reduced American culture to a system of arbitrary donations and pats on the head. That isn’t sustainable."

Music, photography, digital art, vidoes, and writing can all be distributed, shared, and downloaded virtually. And because it's so simple to find what you want and freely take it, we have devalued the creation itself. But if creators can't eat, house, or clothe themselves, then who will create the art we want?

Sure, creators understand the need for day jobs. I know very few writers, for example, who expect to make a full living from their books. Some will, but they are the outliers. Same with musicians, actors, photographers, painters, etc. But if we (and by 'we' I mean society) buy into and promulgate the myth of the starving artist and suffering for one's art, what are we saying about creativity itself? Especially when we open our wallets to blockbuster movies, tie in toys, big-venue music tours - in effect supporting corporate creativity while starving individual creativity.

I have two sons in college. One is majoring in theatre, the other in music composition. Both know the chances of 'making it' on a big scale in either discipline are slim. Both know they will need to earn income in more traditional ways while they pursue their art. (I don't have a problem with this - I spent nearly 25 years working as a physical therapist before pursuing a full time writing career. There's idealism and there's reality, especially in a tough economy. The thing is, it becomes impossible - not just difficult -  if creatives are expected to give away their work.)  I've gotten flak from friends and family for letting my sons study such 'useless' things, given the return on investment of college.

But what about a return on investment of life? Again, from Manning:

"Repressing artists by making it impossible for them to survive as valued members of the working class represses our whole society."

As humans, we are inherently creators. Look at children: they create every day in the context of their play. We know that we are hard-wired for story. Study after study tells us that creativity and original thinking enhances the productivity and success of all kinds of work. So why do we throw our creators under society's bus?

We are our own Worst Enemies

And we have bought into the fiction that art needs to be free. Case in point: I was looking through Deviant Art for an artist whose work spoke to me, so I could obtain cover art for a short story collection. I found such an artist. Her screen name is Verismaya and her work is magnificent. I contacted her for permission to license one of her images to use for my short story collection: STRANGER WORLDS THAN THESE.

Art by Verismaya. Isn't her work beautiful???

She was flattered and excited and told me to help myself.

What she didn't understand was that I was looking to pay her for the use of her art. She had never had anyone offer to pay her before. She had bought into the 'work for exposure' myth. I live in the north east where winter is fierce. I know that 'exposure' can kill. (Yes, I'm being flippant, but it's also a serious matter.) We negotiated a fair price and I paid her for the ability to use the art.

We Value what we Pay For

In addition to my writing work, I'm also a potter. I create functional ware in clay, both on the wheel and handbuilding. It takes time, patience, practice, and skill to make pottery. Hand made work is more expensive than buying a mass produced cup or bowl from a store like Pottery Barn. But the set of dishes we use are not pieces of art. The serving pieces and coffee mugs I have collected over the years (buying from other artists) and have made for myself are functional art. They are worth a few dollars more, not only because of the skill and artistry of the maker, but because they bring beauty and enjoyment to my every day life.

This is what I value. It is what I am willing to pay for.

I also buy books and music. I am paying for my enjoyment and recognizing the skill of the creator.

We value what we pay for and we pay for what we value. What do you value? What are you willing to pay for it?

Another misinformed pundit tries to shame me for reading YA books

The First Lady, Michelle Obama, reads "Where the Wild Things Are"
to a group of school children. Yup, still an awesome book.
photo used with attribution, cc license

In a recent article she wrote for Slate, Ruth Graham wants me to be embarrassed for reading YA books.

Sorry, Ruth. Not going to happen. I started reading Young Adult books when I was a kid. Back then, they were books shelved in the Children's section of the library, more than a genre called 'YA'. I had read all the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys books, and was starting to look for some more engaging stories when I found The Chronicles of Narnia and A Wrinkle in Time. Thus was a lifelong love of reading born.

In her article, Graham says:

"These [realistic YA fiction, such as "The Fault in Our Stars"] are the books that could plausibly be said to be replacing literary fiction in the lives of their adult readers. And that’s a shame."

But I'm left scratching my head wondering *why* that's a shame. Is there some standard reading that creates a litmus test for being a grown up? What makes acceptable literary fiction? Who decides what the appropriate canon is?

She goes on to say:

"I’m a reader who did not weep, contra every article ever written about the book, when I read The Fault in Our Stars. I thought, Hmm, that’s a nicely written book for 13-year-olds. If I’m being honest, it also left me saying “Oh, brother” out loud more than once. Does this make me heartless? Or does it make me a grown-up?"

No, Ms. Graham, it makes you a person with an opinion and a personal set of tastes. Just because you do not enjoy these kind of books (and hey, neither do I - my love of YA books centers around genre fiction and I am decidedly not ashamed to proclaim that), it does not make you the arbiter of all YA books, nor of all literary books. I read the synopsis and the reviews for JK Rowling's adult literary fiction novel, "The Casual Vacancy" and had absolutely no interest in subjecting myself to page after page of absolute misery. However, one of my favorite 'grown up' books is "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle," so I am neither lazy nor immature in my reading.

Some of my favorite books are in the YA canon. I defy anyone to tell me that the His Dark Materials books by Philip Pullman ask the reader ". . . to abandon the mature insights into that perspective that they (supposedly) have acquired as adults." On a less dark scale, Neil Gaiman's work, including "Coraline," "The Graveyard Book," and "Stardust" are all ostensibly children's or YA books, yet they work their magic on countless adults because they are brilliant novels that reach the reader on a myriad of levels.

Ms. Graham's essay continues:

" Most importantly, these books consistently indulge in the kind of endings that teenagers want to see, but which adult readers ought to reject as far too simple. YA endings are uniformly satisfying, whether that satisfaction comes through weeping or cheering. These endings are emblematic of the fact that the emotional and moral ambiguity of adult fiction—of the real world—is nowhere in evidence in YA fiction."

 And again I wonder what she has and hasn't read in the YA canon. To pick several books from the recent NYT Best seller lists and extrapolate the entirety of YA work is as unfair as chosing "The Life of Pi" (a book I read and loathed*) as representative of every adult work of literary fiction or maintaining that all adult litfic is pointless, plotless, naval-gazing.

Sure, there are some overly dramatic, highly improbable wish fulfillment storylines in YA fiction.

Just as there are in adult litfic, or any other genre.

Ms. Graham worries that ". . .  the YA and “new adult” boom may mean fewer teens aspire to grown-up reading, because the grown-ups they know are reading their books."

This makes no sense to me at all. As the parent of two emerging adults, I can tell you that they would be more apt, not less, to chose books other than the ones I am reading.

Ultimately, the point I believe Ms. Graham misses utterly is that reading (like all appreciation of art) is a constructivist activity. Whatever book the author has written, the reader brings their sensibility, experience, maturity level, and emotional understanding to the words and the story comes alive in ways the author cannot hope to predict or control. When I read a beautifully crafted YA book with my adult eyes, I create an experience that is different from that which my teen self could have.

Which is why when I re-read magical books from my childhood like "A Wrinkle in Time," they have the power to move me even now.

---

*Why did I loathe The Life of Pi? Because after reading rich and magical prose for 95% of the story, the author couldn't leave it alone and had to nudge us in the ribs, wink, and make sure we knew how gosh darn CLEVER he was. Do NOT get me started on this. Seriously. Don't.

Spam a lama ding dong

Magic Wand,  Photo by Caro'H, used with attribution, cc license

I guess I must have hit some invisible threshold of view and popular posts on the blog, because I keep getting the same spam email left by an anonymous commenter. And it's pretty amusing, actually.

My name is Sandra and i want to testify of the good work done by a faithful [redacted], a spell caster. in my life i never thought there is such thing as spiritual intercession. my problem started nine months back when the father of my kids started putting up some strange behavior, i never knew he was having an affair outside our matrimonial home. it dawn on me on that faithful day 19th of April 21st 4:23pm when he came to the house to pick his things that was when i knew that situation has gotten out of hand and he then told me he was quitting the marriage which i have built for over five years, i was confused and dumbfounded i called on family and friends but to no avail. two months after i started having problem with my kids welfare rent-age and all of it, i really went through hell. until a day i was browsing on the internet and i happen to meet a spell caster i never believed on this but i needed my man back so i gave the spell caster my problem at first i never trusted him so i was just doing it but you know a problem shared is half solved after a week my husband called me telling me that he his coming back home and that was all. now we are living happily and i still do contact him on this email: [redacted]@yahoo.com

I really have no idea what something like this is supposed to accomplish. Do they really think the readers of this blog are going to run to their email programs and contact this spell caster to solve all the problems in their lives?

Okay, blog readers, fess up. This is *really* why you read Once in a Blue Muse, right? It's because you need a spell caster. I'm so sorry I keep deleting this comment. :)

 What's the best spam comment or email you've ever received? Unless it's really NSFW, post it in comments. 

Tetris, anyone?

So I was walking from my house to my local library this morning and admittedly, my amusement was fueled by lack of caffeine and sleep, so it might not be that funny. But it made me laugh and I figured I'd share it with you.

These are new signs my town just put up, but I have no idea what they're supposed to mean. I stopped and stared at them for a good minute or two but I can't imagine what a driver speeding by at 40 mph will make of them, especially since the intersection they are ostensibly supposed to clarify is an eyeblink away at that speed.

My first thought is that someone must be missing some tetris pieces.

My second thought is that someone was drunk when they either designed or installed the signs.

My third thought is that I definitely need more coffee this morning.

I've lived here and driven, walked, and biked this road for the past 21 years. For all that time, there's never been any need for signage to tell folks that the road forks. You can see it clearly from the main road. And even if you take the wrong fork, you can just turn at any one of the following intersections, as the two roads essentially parallel their way to the next main road.

So here is a perfect example of life getting unnecessarily complex and confusing in the guise of clarification.

I think I'd rather play tetris.

And definitely get some more coffee.

Will curiosity be a national security offense?

Muddy Puddle, photo by aston5man, used w/attribution, cc license
(trust me, it is relevant to the post)

Over the past nine years, I have researched information on such topics as:

• using chemicals to set fires
• poisons that simulate death
• how to garrote someone
• hand to hand knife fighting
• assessing the time of death from the condition of a corpse
• the difference in damage a straight gunshot does vs a ricochet bullet
• how to hack into computer networks
• brainwashing techniques 

I have also done quite a bit of reading on the role of women in middle eastern cultures, genetic engineering, conspiracy theorists, inner city gangs, and drug cartels.

I haven't yet had the occasion to look into explosives or sabotage,  but given my curiosity and the range of the novels I like to write, it's probably only a matter of time.

My work is firmly in the range of SPECULATIVE fiction. It lives in the land of 'what if'. But because I care deeply about maintaining the suspension of disbelief and not breaking the spell for a reader, I do a lot of research to ensure the details are based in fact. I only hope that when the NSA or some other agency comes calling, they'll let me show them the novels I've written before carting me off somewhere.

Given that my internet searches will alternate discovering the correct dose of arsenic to cause death from the phone number for the self-service dog wash in my town, I'm obviously a dangerous sociopath who wants clean dogs.

What's the strangest or most outlandish thing you've researched?
What do you think that says about you?

The Perils of a Public Life

First of all, greetings from a warm and sunny place. This is the morning view from our porch.

This afternoon, we will be scuba diving in the Florida Keys. My husband and I have been certified divers for 25 years. Our teens are now certified and we'll be taking our youngest (eldest is in college on a different break cycle) on a wreck dive. Stay tuned for underwater photos!

But what I really wanted to talk about today is the less comfortable side of leading a (semi) public life. For the most part, my experiences in social media and the internet have been completely positive. I've been part of several online communities for over a decade and have gone on to meet many of those individuals in 'real' life. All these people have been lovely and gracious and exactly as I had expected, given our interactions over the 'net.

Recently, I have enjoyed participating in Google+, finding a wonderful community of intellegent and creative individuals. Google+ has a text chat feature and I've had some lovely conversations with folks. While I generally don't chat with folks I haven't already developed some relationship with through posts or a g+ community, I also don't believe in being rude, so when a gentleman from the other side of the world began to chat with me, I was polite, while giving clear boundaries.

I had to remove this individual from my circles and delete comments from him on my posts because his interactions with me went from 'interesting conversations with someone from a different culture' to 'stalkerish and inappropriate'.

What made me the most uncomfortable was the way he felt as if he had some owership of my physical appearance, judging by his constant comments about my profile photos on whatever I would post publicly. I have never had this kind of clear experience of the male gaze before.

Regardless of the fact that this man lives a world away from me and doesn't have access to my full name or address and that he never actually threatened me in any way, I still felt unsafe and uncomfortable in the way he assumed my time and my physical appearance existed for his benefit.

That, to me, is the essential danger of the male gaze. That it makes of a woman an object that has no inherent rights to her own self.

That this man kept proclaiming that he only wanted to be my friend, while offering nothing except his desperation and his demands on my time was, in fact, a kind of emotional blackmail in which my reluctance to be mean placed me at risk.

The fact that I was reluctant to block him and felt guilty about it says a lot about the vulnerability of women--even someone like me who considers herself a strong individual and a feminist.

Show me a sign!

I'm not much of a photographer. Ask my husband. He'll tell you. I have a hard time framing what I see in three dimensions into a 2 dimensional photograph. Likely the visual/spatial center in my brain doesn't do its job as well as it could. So I don't really bother schlepping a camera around with me.

I do, however, almost always have my iPod touch in my pocket and it has a camera. While the photos aren't award-worthy by any stretch of the imagination, it does allow me to take quick snaps of whatever I find amusing in the world.

The past few days it's been signs.

This is the door a few doors down from my hotel room in Southern California. Maybe it's a newfangled Californian spelling initiative. Or maybe it's just an expression of the laid back life style. (Yeah, that suite is really sweet, man.) I get a giggle out of it every time I head to the elevator.

                                                                                                                                                                       

Um, really? So which is it?

I'd never seen a sign that told me something *wasn't* and exit. Usually they tell you where the exits are. And isn't it kind of hard to have a path outside that isn't an exit for something?

This was a tattoo parlor. I couldn't decide what bothered me more--
the rabid weasles (sic) or the fact it would be open Tomaro (sic).

There is an enormous amount of beauty here in Southern California. The Pacific ocean is a constantly changing, mesmerizing landscape. I cannot help but stare at the contrast between the ice-blue sky and the dun-colored scrub of the hills and canyons. It is lovely to see the green of trees and flowering shrubs well into November.

Those photos are my husband's department. He'll have the patience to fuss with a camera, lenses, and exposures to get the perfect photograph. His pictures will outshine mine in terms of balance, composition, and artistry, but I think mine are much more fun.

Adults should read adult books?

So someone on my FB feed linked to Joel Stein's opinion column in the NYT today:  Adults should read adult books.

This is how it begins:

 "The only thing more embarrassing than catching a guy on the plane looking at pornography on his computer is seeing a guy on the plane reading “The Hunger Games.” Or a Twilight book. Or Harry Potter. The only time I’m O.K. with an adult holding a children’s book is if he’s moving his mouth as he reads."

He then proceeds to mock both the YA books themselves and the adult readers who enjoy them.  His diatribe offends me on so many levels, I'm not sure where to begin.

It's bad enough that those of us who love genre fiction already feel like the poor stepchild of literature.  Now YA literature is ground into the dirt.

I'm a 48 year old.  I read YA literature.  I write YA literature.  I also read classics, literary fiction, mysteries, SF&F, thrillers, and poetry.  Mr. Stein seems to believe that YA writing must needs be simplistic and one-dimensional.  As if all writing for 'adults' is automatically better than that written for children and teens.  I vehemently disagree.  Mr. Stein feels that YA books don't (or can't) challenge one's thinking.  I vehemently disagree.

He says:

"Let’s have the decency to let tween girls have their own little world of vampires and child wizards and games you play when hungry."

As if there is nothing in YA books that can or should appeal to the adult reader.  Let me tell you what a YA story can do.  It can remind us of a time when we struggled to find personal power and agency.  It can help us find our way back to the passion and fire of first experiences; an antidote to the cynicism that pervades all our media. It can rekindle hope and optimism in the face of great obstacles. It can provide a touchstone for our relationships with the teens in our lives.  And it can be powerfully good entertainment.

Rather than continue to promulgate such a false dichotomy between YA and adult books, between genre fiction and literary fiction, between popular and classics, why can't we agree to judge each story on its own merits? A good book is a good book.

In the end, I feel sorry for Mr. Stein, for he seems to have lost his way in the morass of adulthood and confused maturity with condescension. Truly, it is his loss.