#is this a side effect of all the mormons in ya fantasy? MAYBE

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

one thing i have been finding with books recently (especially fantasy, and especially YA fantasy, i think) is that so many of them treat life so cheaply. characters die and others immediately move on, skim past it, even if they were responsible or even if they cared about the person. the depth of grief isn't there, and because death is not given the weight it feels like it should have, all of the other emotions also seem... hollowed out, shallow somehow. like, if life is not precious and if these characters are not grievable, why does any of it matter?

and i guess. not every book has to be About Grief™. but books that treat death casually run the risk of making me not care about anything, because the lives of the characters are not valued, are not seen as worth grieving, and so therefore they are not worth my emotional investment, either. it's like they've told me i don't need to care if these people live or die, because none of the other characters will

on the flip side, it means when books DO dig deep into grief and death and the absolute profound awfulness of irreversible endings, i get a lot MORE emotionally affected than i would otherwise because i've got so used to skimming over the surface of characters and never being dragged down into caring, so it catches me out a bit more