There's nothing like a good book to make you feel like a hideous troll.

For the first few years after I moved to New York, I worked in publishing—a fact which, in the context of this blog….uh, has absolutely nothing to do with anything. All told, it was one of the most miserable times of my life, career-wise (as previously alluded to), and the only thing I took away from the entire experience was a bunch of free books that I didn’t even really want to read. (Um, oh, yeah, I also got Brad out of the deal. Hahaaaaa, Penguin Books – you may have won the battle, but I made off with the last of your straight male employees!)

However, based on my days as a book publicist, I do still have an enduring interest in publishing-centric gossip and news – news which, of late, has been a bit disturbing. I’m not so much angry as… concerned. Publishing seems to be getting a bit off track, such that if it were my child, I’d probably be sitting it down right now for an Important Conversation about its future.

First there was the product placement. Over at HarperCollins, a bunch of bright young publishing things have gotten together and decided that the wave of the future – the most innovative new way to make money from book-making – is to gratuitously dump brand placement directly into the narrative.

Genius, right? I mean, just the other day I turned to a friend of mine and said, “Hey, you know those awesome movie scenes in which a character, for no plot-pertinent reason whatsoever, suddenly grabs a bag of Doritos and begins eating from it with the label conveniently facing camera-ward? Don’t you wish so hard that we could have that same thing in books, too?!”

And now we can. Giving rise to such gems as the following tidbit from “Cathy’s Book”, a YA novel in which there is nothing odd whatsoever about the flow of conversation in this scene where the distraught protagonist is being comforted by her friend:

“Hey—no crying,” Emma said. “You’ve got a driver’s license and you can vote. You’re wearing your favorite silk shirt and your coolest leather jacket, right?”

I made a sad little hiccupping laugh. “A killer coat of Lipslicks in ‘Daring’, and strictly smear-proof mascara,” I said, wiping my eyes.

…Well! No, certainly, there was nothing at all awkward about that. That is some quality, intuitive – hell, damn near organic prose. It almost reminds me of that famous line, arguably one of the most delicate and beautifully-worded in all of contemporary literature, in which Daphne du Maurier’s nameless protagonist writes,

“I dreamt last night I went to Manderley again WEARING A KILLER COAT OF LIPSLICKS IN ‘DARING’!”

The most pitch-perfect beginning to a novel ever!

That is how it read, isn’t it?

Oh God... or was it another kind of lipstick -- that sparkly Maybelline lipstick that made everybody’s mouth look like a disco ball? Or that coveted clear gloss by Elizabeth Arden? Shit! I can’t remember! This is awful – I’m only hours away from a trip to the British countryside where my lovely estate home is being haunted by the memory of my husband’s dead wife and the ghastly, evil Mrs. Danvers, and I don’t know what kind of lipstick to wear!

...Oh, wait, I remember – Rebecca didn’t mention lipstick at all.

Because lipstick would totally get in the way of people enjoying the motherfucking story.

Which is simply to say: If the only way to make money from a book is to litter its pages with paid advertising in the form of complete conversational non sequiturs, then it is not a very good book.

And then, as though all of this weren’t proof enough that young adult literature is headed straight for the toilet, I then came across this lovely excerpt from a press release for the update and re-release of the Sweet Valley High series. It details the Many Important Changes that have been made in the books to make them once again relevant to the modern age:

Now, back by popular demand, SWEET VALLEY HIGH is returning to the shelves with a modern new look and updated content to appeal to today's reader. Some differences that fans from the 80s might notice:

1983 (vs) 2008

The Wakefield Twins wore "a perfect size 6."
The twins are now "a perfect size 4."

The twins drove a red Fiat.
The twins drive a red Jeep Wrangler.

Elizabeth was an editor at the Oracle, the school newspaper.
Elizabeth is an editor at the Oracle, the school's website.
(Elizabeth also has an anonymous blog.)

(Please do take a look at the entire letter, painstakingly scanned here.)

Wow, right? A lot has changed since the 80s! A Wrangler is cooler than a Fiat, schools have websites instead of newspapers, and… hmm, what was that third thing?

Oh yeah, where a size six was once considered “perfect”, it now makes you a FAT FUCKING COW.

Because while concrete updates like automobile trends and the invention of the internet are important in keeping a book’s content current, nothing says “relevance” like giving teenage girls a whole new reason to hate themselves.

Well played, Random House.

It’s possible, I supposed, that the publishing industry will step back from the abyss and reclaim its soul over the next several years. I hope. But as of right now, given the state of things, I have no intention of ever teaching my children to read.