Truth in Memoirs

I'm 15 live under the sea, love pizza, have two brothers, and take Best Sellers.
The majority of that sentence is true, except as you probably know, I do not live under the sea. Just because most of that information is correct that does not make the sentence nonfiction. Readers deserve to know if what we are reading is the truth. Shields says this does not matter; you can even plagiarize as long as the end result looks different. But that argument only works if you're reading to be entertained. For example, some people may have read A Million Little Pieces to get inspiration to overcome their own addictions. In this case they deserve the truth, because this book if affecting their lives in a tangible way. To come out and say you didn't do as you told them you did is like telling a little girl you can fly so she can too. You may make her happy momentarily but later she'll feel cheated. And I for one wouldn't want to write a biography on Abraham Lincoln and call him a vampire hunter because fiction and nonfiction are no longer there to tell me what is true and what isn't.
If you want to bend the truth in a memoir like other authors we looked at today did, then you either need to tell us that in an author’s note or make the novel fiction. Like I said before the readers deserve to know if what they are reading is the truth so that they don't recite false information to others. By not telling someone what is false you are spreading ignorance and letting people become blind to the truth.
If you want to obliterate the differences between romance and love stories, magic realism and fantasy, that's one thing, it's something totally different to blur fiction and nonfiction. When I pick up a nonfiction book I know that I am getting the truth and I can use the information on assignments and won't get called out for telling lies. If I no longer know what is nonfiction than I could pick out Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and write my essay on information gained through that source not realizing that I was going to get a F for falsified information. Although Shields says it doesn't matter the truth is a powerful thing with the ability to change life for the worse or better, spread awareness, and bring more meaning into the world. When you can no longer distinguish truth from lies it either all becomes the truth or its all lies. Is that how you want the book world to look like? A bunch of half-made truths with only the purpose to entertain? That may be okay for some people in this class who love to read for entertainment (including me) but that's not okay for this world. Not everyone reads for the same purpose and genre lines help guide us in the right way. Especially the genre lines of fiction and nonfiction.

Readicide

I do not believe that genre fiction should be taught in the same fashion that literary fiction is taught. Imagine reading the Hunger Games in class. Instead of rushing through it in a sitting you're forced to drag it out, making it last a month instead of a day. And rather than getting lost in the beauty of star-crossed lovers from district 12 you're forced to analyze it, look for metaphors, take notes, and pass quizes on it. The millions of readers that loved it and we're obsessed about it would be greatly diminished. Some kids hate books just because they were taught school, others may have failed the test and hold a grudge, some kids maybe just couldn't get over the fact that, like the example of the movie projector, their reading experience got disrupted every four minutes. This doesn't mean that some people would not enjoy reading the Hunger Games in school, just that the number of people it touched would not be quite the same. People would tell you the message behind the Hunger Games, not the way it blew their mind and kept them up all night.
Believe it or not literary fiction does have a purpose and will actually be more helpful in more jobs. References to classics are made everywhere, including the workplace, and if you didn't study it in school it is unlikely that you will understand these references. However even if you did not read Twilight, Harry Potter, or the Hunger Games you probably know enough about them to understand most comments made about the book. It is also said that literary fiction is not as relatable as genre fiction. But if you ask me it's just as hard to relate to a futuristic fireman burning books as it is to a girl  desperately fighting for her life while trying figure out if she loves the baker or the hunter in a poverty stricken future society.
I do believe that genre fiction needs to be used to get kids to start reading. I just believe we can find better ways to do it than making kids take tests over Harry Potter, Twilight, and the Hunger Games.

The Da Vinci Code Trailer