So ever since I was a little girl, my parents have put a big emphasis on reading.  Whether it be me reading to myself (there is a wonderful picture of a two-year-old me “reading” a dictionary) to listening to my dad read out loud.  When I was really little, the books that I liked to best were those by Dr. Seuss, then that interest was shifted to Mary Pope Osborne, and finally came to rest at J. K. Rowling who I have, and always will, since age 8, loved. 

I have always loved reading and I hopefully always will.  I love finding other people who like to read.  I love to talk about books and authors with anyone who will give me the time of day.  I even love, well I should say respect, all types of books, except, of course, realistic fiction.  Realistic fiction are books that take place in present day, have none of what I call “awesome extras” (like aliens or magic), and that try to emulate a story that is plausible to actually be someone’s life.  This sounds perfectly dandy on the surface, but underneith it is rotten to the core, and I think that people who say that they love realistic fiction or who read it a lot are actually secretly unhappy people because of this.  Many will find that statement either a) offensive or b) stupid, but let me explain:

My favorite genre is fantasy.  Fantasy books have distinct bad-guys and good-guys and end with the good-guys winning.  They have magic and potions and spells and all kinds of things that don’t exist in the real world.  You could say that reflects something about me, such as maybe I am unhappy with the way bad-guys sometimes win.  Or that I believe that everyone deserves a happily ever after.  Or maybe that I really, really want dragons to be real.  Which ever, the majority of books that I read, and the genre that I identify with, is one that reflects my views.  I would say that this is true with anyone's favorite genre- on some level it reflects your beliefs.

Now realistic fiction tries to emulate what a real life would be like for, typically it seems, a high school girl.  (This may be because the target audience is high school girls, because the only realistic fiction books I have read have been about high school girls, or because there are no realistic fiction books being read by teenagers that are about middle-aged people.)  And most of these books have melancholy endings, like the girl gets her dream boy, but her grandfather dies the week of prom. 

My issue with that is real life is not what realistic fiction makes it out to be.  Realistic fiction is an escape, like any book, but to an unhealthy place.  It is too like real life to distinguish, sometimes, between the “reality” and the “fiction.”  Reading realistic fiction is like watching reality tv.  On the one hand, yes, someone’s life out there somewhere is like that, but no, your’s is most likely not going to be.  In fantasy, the world in which the characters exist is so far removed from ours that people can look up to them without wanting to be them.  In realistic fiction, that line is more blurred.  People who read it want their lives to be like those of the characters they're reading about, but it is impossible because it can never happen.  This creates, somewhere deep down inside, bitterness in people and causes them to be unhappy because they now hold a dream that is unreachable.  
“Realistic fiction” itself is an oxymoron.  Fiction is fake, so how can it also be real?  The whole category of books is misleading.  It is saying that the stories that fall under this category are real, but they’re not, and people know this and understand it, but they don't.  It’s a mess!  This is why no sane person would say, “Realistic fiction is my favorite genre.”  All of the books are a contradiction that attract people that want a story they can fantasize about living, but that is not possible because it is all fake.  The people that read these books want to read a story that they can think might plausibly happen, but it won't.  Its all a lie. Which is why I read fantasty.  So long as you know magic isn’t real, no one is going to pull the wool over your eyes.  That’s why us fantasy lovers are so happy- we know we definately aren’t being lied to.