Just because you pay for a book doesn't make it any better than the stuff you can get for free. It just means the writer was lucky enough to find an agent that was lucky enough to convince a publisher that the idea on paper is mass-marketable. There is utter crap on many of the shelves of your local Borders. Trust me.
I feel I ought to explain myself better here. I haven't read YA in years (obligatory disclaimer), and, I agree that content-wise one would be just as likely to get "elliptical plots" reminiscent of fanfic. Not to mention that perhaps many wouldn't help so much with critical thinking.
That's not what I was referring to, when I valued books over fanfic.
I had a content/mechanics division in mind. I would hope that the vocab and grammar usage would generally be better in a book than most of what is self-published by young writers (tweens and early teens) on the Internet in frequented spaces like FF. I would assume that the writers of a published book have a) more experience and b) editors to help polish. This matters to me because I don't underestimate how much someone can get basic writing skills from reading even the most inane books, provided they read a lot.
Don't get me wrong, I applaud fanfic as a writing excercise. Better than tv, to be sure. But there is no comparison with a published book in my view, especially not with the breadth and depth of crap on the 'net.
alcyone
