As a part-time librarian who works in the Young Adult section, I realize much of the content passed through the library to our section every day is primarily romance novels. Teen girls (and even some boys) read a lot of romance novels, whether or not they'd like to admit it. It's a focal point in most teen books because it's something most teens focus on. There's pressure to find your special person, to have a high school sweet heart you're going to spend the rest of your life with.
In Prized, the sequel to Birthmarked, there's an awful love polygon going on right now and it's honestly ruining the plot. It's a polygon so ugly its mother probably left out for the wolves at some point during its childhood and even the wolves didn't want it. As a result, it grew up in the wild to one day reemerge into the civilized world and evolve into the next ugliest thing, the politician. It will procede to drive the country further into depression until it is time to evolve again and slink back into the sea as everything goes crazy around it.
Trust me, it's so how this love polygon has spent its life.
The polygon drives me insane. My advice to Gaia is to stop being naive, because we all know she's not, pick a guy, and get the hell out of dodge. The society Gaia currently lives in only has 250 women and over 2000 men as a result of some freakish mutation. The women are in charge, naturally, and they're insane as Star Wars fanboys at Comic Con in San Francisco when George Lucas walks onto the stage.
The Birthmarked triology isn't the only teen series insisting on using this blood thirsty method of moving a dead plot along. Some books, such as the Twilight series, the Shadow Falls series (surprisingly not all about vampires), Theatre Illuminata (Shakespeare's Ariel thrown in with other play's characters love triangles), and even the Hunger Games are using awful love triangles. I know you're writing for teens, but even teens like to be thrown a scrap of plot every now and then. Even the Hunger Games is guilty at times, using the triangle to move the plot along, with the tension between Peeta, Katniss and Gale to hold the plot up.
Honestly, for the sake of your reader and your main character, make the choice easy for them. Sure, make them fight and claw for the love of their life and by all means, don't take it easy on them. That, my good authors, is a plot. A plot isn't when the main character spends her entire time thinking about the men (plural, men) of her dreams while sitting in the shade or mercifully being run over by a van. Give your readers a bone, something to make them think or cry or do something! Just don't let your character do the thinking for them.
I need to be educated about this whole love polygon thing ... very confusing.
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