Strangely familiar

As Supreme celebrates its anniversary day, I would like to explicitly share my love for books once again. Literature continues and will continue to fascinate me, keep me awake at night, ignite my passions, and make me dream for tomorrow because of the sights and sounds that you can travel to in a matter of a few hundred pages.

 In my bibliophilic study of teen fiction — a.k.a. the elusive quest for the next Harry Potter or Twilight — I discovered that a novel’s locale is a metaphor for one’s age and time. Hogwarts, for example, is more than a school for wizards but an apt encapsulation of how magical growing up is. As you move up from tween to teen, everything that happens in between is nothing short of magical. Every step can be a spell gone “Kapoof” — turning your life into a tangle of vines — or a “Shazam!” that conjures up the sweetest roses that you have seen in your life. As this happens, the world in itself becomes rather enchanting as you realize people and places can transform, appear and even dissipate in a blink of an eye.

So, as much as I thought that teen fiction was meant to lead its readers away from reality, I realized that it actually brings them to a place that they can fit in, even call home or at least feel strangely familiar. I found this out through the latest young adult books that have brought me to the depths of hell, a reality TV show to the death, and to an elitist magical school in New York. I invite you, the reader, to venture to these places as I talk more about them below to discover that youth is not just an age or a period of time but a place that you can visit and revisit.

And the same belief goes for Supreme and this very column; it is more than words and pictures put together for your leisure every Saturday but a plot of living and breathing space on paper. It can be your imagination playground, your creativity classroom, or just your pop culture pool to swim in. What this weekend locale means is up to you. All we want is that you continue to visit, whether offline or online, exchange ideas and give meaning to this spot of paper real estate more than we dreamed its value to be.

Locale A: Heck

What: If you have been a bad kid, this is your afterlife. You are too young to go to Hell because you are not of legal age. You can redeem yourself and reach Heaven, even if only 17 people made it, if you are extra well-behaved when you reach 18. Another option is in trying to revive yourself.

How to get there: Commit all the dastardly deeds that you can do and die before you reach 18. For Milton and his sister Marlo Fauster, that means dying in a marshmallow bear explosion after shoplifting lip gloss. Milton was shocked to reach Heck after being a consistent straight arrow because of one incident with his sister.

Highlights: Dissecting your teacher for biology class. Heck’s environment can be likened to Tim Burton’s creepy campiness à la Beetlejuice. The monsters are horrid and cute in one bundle. The only downside is that former tormentors from your living life can follow you to Heck.

Enhance the experience: If you have read other fictional books on the afterlife such as Dante’s Inferno or John Milton’s Paradise Lost, some names of people and places can be pun-ny.

Metaphor for: Growing up with siblings is — you guessed it — Hell.

Locale B: Capitol, Panem, North America

What: Capitol is the venue for a reality TV show called Hunger Games. Teens of 12 to 18 are chosen from 12 districts to fight to the death. Capitol and its districts are the typical fictional dystopia, where food is scarce and people live in constant fear.

How to get there: You are usually chosen to represent your district. For Katniss Everdeen, it was because she volunteered to save your sister.

Highlights: The death toll is high for a teen book, as you would expect. Kids are stabbed in the backs — literally — among other violent deaths. Also, neighbors who saved you by offering you their last piece of bread are now out to poison you.

Enhance the experience: The novel Hunger Games is quite intense and be fascinating to readers who are into reality TV and how far it can go. I smell a TV series or a film franchise with this book.

Metaphor for: Who can you trust? Like high school or even after, you find that some people can have hidden agendas. Katniss has to face whether her childhood acquaintance Peeta is a possible boyfriend or is playing a role for the cameras only to stab her in the back in the end.

Locale C: The Magicians

Locale C: Brakebills College for magicians and not wizards.

What: It is a five-year college for magical pedagogy. It is hidden in Upstate New York and run by Dean Fogg. It trains people to do magic, not simply to learn to “wave a wand and simply say made-up Latin lines.” Magic in this school is a craft where “people rely on knowledge and skill to make a specific change to the world.” There’s a lot of extravagant activities like year-end celebrations like at You-Know-Where.

How to get there: Be extra smart and practice a lot like Quentin Coldmater. Each class is a small group of 20 of the most intelligent people in the world. No one knows the origins of magic, but smart people seem to have the power to tap it.

Highlights: Imagine Harry Potter going to college. Quentin smokes, curses, gets punched by his friend Penny and a lot more.

Enhance the experience: Quentin loves the books Fillory by Christopher Plover and is a homage to C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series.

Metaphor for: College is enchanting. Quentin comes back home to the real world but isn’t so thrilled about it after spending time in a more captivating school.

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All books are featured at Powerbooks and National Book Store.

Read more:

Heck by Dale E. Basye at http://www.wherethebadkidsgo.com/

The Magicians by Lev Grossman at http://levgrossman.com/magicians.html and http://www.christopherplover.com/

The Hungers Games by Suzanne Collins at http://www.scholastic.com/thehungergames/

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Visit me by e-mail at readnow@supreme.ph.