Tangentially related, but is it strange to anyone else how many "adult adults" are into "young adult" fiction? I always thought the label "young adult" was used so that middle-schoolers would feel...
Tangentially related, but is it strange to anyone else how many "adult adults" are into "young adult" fiction? I always thought the label "young adult" was used so that middle-schoolers would feel a maturity bump in what they were reading. Kind of a transitory period after which they'd be introduced to fiction-sans-age-group fiction in high-school. It's been a while since I've been in middle-school so maybe I'm not giving them enough credit, but can't imagine the age group that young adult fiction targets would actually spend a lot of energy deconstructing problematic aspects of the stories online. Are the people posting about their problems with this story adults filtering content for their kids...or are they adults whose reading habits kind of stalled? Or...does that genre make for easy-pickings with regards to reviewing and using as a platform from which to espouse one's own views?
If you are an adult reader of young adult fiction can you help me understand the appeal? I realize this can come across as condescending, but I'm genuinely a bit baffled.
I'm a teacher, and I read YA not out of any love for the genre but because I consider it a professional duty. I want to stay current on what my students are into, and I want to be able to engage...
Exemplary
I'm a teacher, and I read YA not out of any love for the genre but because I consider it a professional duty. I want to stay current on what my students are into, and I want to be able to engage meaningfully with them about their books of choice, as well as provide genuine recommendations. I also think it's important for many of them to see an adult, particularly an adult male, who regularly reads.
With regards to your question, I think it's an important one. If you want the short answer, it's probably that YA books are largely made up of romance stories, which is the genre at large that dominates the book market. Unlike a lot of adult-oriented romance novels, however, these aren't blush-worthy and don't cross the line into smuttier territory. While some do have sexual content, it is never explicit and is always a minor part of the book, rather than one of the focuses. People, adults included, can comfortably share and discuss the chaste YA romances that they read, but they aren't often keen to publicly note the more pornographic ones they choose. This gives more visibility and presence to the YA ones. It doesn't mean adult romance isn't being read (it definitely is), it just means it's got a lower profile.
The longer answer is that YA is designed to be high-interest. Reading is a struggle for modern kids, and so publishers have responded by pushing books that have strong and immediate appeal individually, and broad accessibility collectively. They're designed to be directly engaging to a flighty, distracted audience.
As with the members of any broad category, the quality can vary greatly, but I would say that most YA books are at least serviceable. Few surprises, straightforward characterization, engaging if often predictable plots. That said, I can see why people like them because they're almost always accessible, and adults are not immune to this appeal. I'd like to say I read Thirteen Reasons Why because I wanted to be able to discuss it and its portrayal of suicide with my students, but honestly I picked it up out of lurid curiosity. It had an arresting premise and a compelling gimmick in its delivery.
As you note, most kids want to "read up" and tend to seek out stories about kids who are slightly older and experiencing slightly more mature situations than they are. Similar to what @JohnLeFou brought up, I think this inverts somewhat with aging, and some people desire to "read down" and return to younger characters and experiences as they get older. In my 20s I read a lot of queer YA and found it richly fulfilling not because it applied to my life at that time but because I was reading the kind of books I wish I'd had around when I was in school. I wasn't reading them for my adult self in that moment but for the kid I used to be.
That said, at this point I can confidently say that I suffer from YA genre fatigue and have pretty much aged out of it. I don't take a lot of personal delight in reading YA, as I've read so much that the tropes and conventions have worn themselves out for me. I still do it for my students, but, given the choice, I'd much rather sit down with adult books that interest me directly.
If you read a lot you may not always want to read “at your level”. It is exhausting to always read at the top of your comprehension level. YA doesn’t mean devoid of serious content. We could...
If you read a lot you may not always want to read “at your level”. It is exhausting to always read at the top of your comprehension level. YA doesn’t mean devoid of serious content. We could easily put Bradbury, Orsen Scott Card, and Plenty of Asimov into the YA category today.
You can have a book at a modest reading level that talks about high concepts. You can also have books that fall in both modest reading level and low concept/trash fiction.
YA was created as a bridge because there used to be almost no books that fell into that middle ground. Well, there were, but it didn’t get to be a real genre unto itself until the 2000’s. It became a profitable genre to write to and then has become flooded with authors that try to write down to teens and often do so poorly.
I don't think it's fair to assume that YA books are the only things these people are reading. For example, I'm reading both the first Redwall book (YA) and In The Balance (adult). I'm more than...
I don't think it's fair to assume that YA books are the only things these people are reading. For example, I'm reading both the first Redwall book (YA) and In The Balance (adult). I'm more than capable of reading and enjoying more "mature" books, but it's really fun to read simpler YA novels sometimes. For example, the Narnia series would fall under the YA label, I think, and it's just about the most fun and pure display of fantasy I've ever read in my entire life (I read it for the first time in my 20s, btw). It's not bogged down with the detail and bloat of more adult fantasy. I don't care about such-and-such's bloodline, I just want to read about the plight of the anthropomorphic beaver family. This applies to other genres, but specifically in fantasy I feel like everyone's trying to out-Tolkien Tolkien and it's annoying. YA fantasy doesn't suffer from that as much. Although I suppose now it's likely to be people trying to out-Martin George RR Martin.
Kosoko Jackson spends a time scolding writers and works for similar transgressions and personally takes it takes the stance that stories and elements can only be written by people of the relevant...
Kosoko Jackson spends a time scolding writers and works for similar transgressions and personally takes it takes the stance that stories and elements can only be written by people of the relevant group(s). Regardless of whether you agree with those views, should such a person not be given the same scrutiny and criticism that they offer for others?
If psychopathy is people getting riled up about something, it must be a trait shared across the human race, with gamers and anime fans leading the charge.
If psychopathy is people getting riled up about something, it must be a trait shared across the human race, with gamers and anime fans leading the charge.
I'm not sure that twitter is getting uglier. Given the author's keen attunement and voicing in regards to his own issues of representation, his failure to think about the repercussions of the...
I'm not sure that twitter is getting uglier. Given the author's keen attunement and voicing in regards to his own issues of representation, his failure to think about the repercussions of the setting and villain he chose and what that meant for the representation of others is definitely worth pointing out.
Yeah, my biggest question after reading this article is how someone who is apparently so conscious of all these things ended up writing a story like that and didn't expect it to be called out? I...
Yeah, my biggest question after reading this article is how someone who is apparently so conscious of all these things ended up writing a story like that and didn't expect it to be called out?
I can understand if it was all intentional and part of a grander design...but it doesn't seem to be that either.
Tangentially related, but is it strange to anyone else how many "adult adults" are into "young adult" fiction? I always thought the label "young adult" was used so that middle-schoolers would feel a maturity bump in what they were reading. Kind of a transitory period after which they'd be introduced to fiction-sans-age-group fiction in high-school. It's been a while since I've been in middle-school so maybe I'm not giving them enough credit, but can't imagine the age group that young adult fiction targets would actually spend a lot of energy deconstructing problematic aspects of the stories online. Are the people posting about their problems with this story adults filtering content for their kids...or are they adults whose reading habits kind of stalled? Or...does that genre make for easy-pickings with regards to reviewing and using as a platform from which to espouse one's own views?
If you are an adult reader of young adult fiction can you help me understand the appeal? I realize this can come across as condescending, but I'm genuinely a bit baffled.
I'm a teacher, and I read YA not out of any love for the genre but because I consider it a professional duty. I want to stay current on what my students are into, and I want to be able to engage meaningfully with them about their books of choice, as well as provide genuine recommendations. I also think it's important for many of them to see an adult, particularly an adult male, who regularly reads.
With regards to your question, I think it's an important one. If you want the short answer, it's probably that YA books are largely made up of romance stories, which is the genre at large that dominates the book market. Unlike a lot of adult-oriented romance novels, however, these aren't blush-worthy and don't cross the line into smuttier territory. While some do have sexual content, it is never explicit and is always a minor part of the book, rather than one of the focuses. People, adults included, can comfortably share and discuss the chaste YA romances that they read, but they aren't often keen to publicly note the more pornographic ones they choose. This gives more visibility and presence to the YA ones. It doesn't mean adult romance isn't being read (it definitely is), it just means it's got a lower profile.
The longer answer is that YA is designed to be high-interest. Reading is a struggle for modern kids, and so publishers have responded by pushing books that have strong and immediate appeal individually, and broad accessibility collectively. They're designed to be directly engaging to a flighty, distracted audience.
You can find books about nearly every subject and life experience. Almost all of them will have a snappy or unconventional premise. Just this year I've read a book about a boy grappling with the decision of whether to kill the murderer of his brother, a mystery story involving a girl with no arms, a brother and sister trying to escape from East Germany, and a boy experiencing schizoaffective psychosis.
As with the members of any broad category, the quality can vary greatly, but I would say that most YA books are at least serviceable. Few surprises, straightforward characterization, engaging if often predictable plots. That said, I can see why people like them because they're almost always accessible, and adults are not immune to this appeal. I'd like to say I read Thirteen Reasons Why because I wanted to be able to discuss it and its portrayal of suicide with my students, but honestly I picked it up out of lurid curiosity. It had an arresting premise and a compelling gimmick in its delivery.
As you note, most kids want to "read up" and tend to seek out stories about kids who are slightly older and experiencing slightly more mature situations than they are. Similar to what @JohnLeFou brought up, I think this inverts somewhat with aging, and some people desire to "read down" and return to younger characters and experiences as they get older. In my 20s I read a lot of queer YA and found it richly fulfilling not because it applied to my life at that time but because I was reading the kind of books I wish I'd had around when I was in school. I wasn't reading them for my adult self in that moment but for the kid I used to be.
That said, at this point I can confidently say that I suffer from YA genre fatigue and have pretty much aged out of it. I don't take a lot of personal delight in reading YA, as I've read so much that the tropes and conventions have worn themselves out for me. I still do it for my students, but, given the choice, I'd much rather sit down with adult books that interest me directly.
If you read a lot you may not always want to read “at your level”. It is exhausting to always read at the top of your comprehension level. YA doesn’t mean devoid of serious content. We could easily put Bradbury, Orsen Scott Card, and Plenty of Asimov into the YA category today.
You can have a book at a modest reading level that talks about high concepts. You can also have books that fall in both modest reading level and low concept/trash fiction.
YA was created as a bridge because there used to be almost no books that fell into that middle ground. Well, there were, but it didn’t get to be a real genre unto itself until the 2000’s. It became a profitable genre to write to and then has become flooded with authors that try to write down to teens and often do so poorly.
I don't think it's fair to assume that YA books are the only things these people are reading. For example, I'm reading both the first Redwall book (YA) and In The Balance (adult). I'm more than capable of reading and enjoying more "mature" books, but it's really fun to read simpler YA novels sometimes. For example, the Narnia series would fall under the YA label, I think, and it's just about the most fun and pure display of fantasy I've ever read in my entire life (I read it for the first time in my 20s, btw). It's not bogged down with the detail and bloat of more adult fantasy. I don't care about such-and-such's bloodline, I just want to read about the plight of the anthropomorphic beaver family. This applies to other genres, but specifically in fantasy I feel like everyone's trying to out-Tolkien Tolkien and it's annoying. YA fantasy doesn't suffer from that as much. Although I suppose now it's likely to be people trying to out-Martin George RR Martin.
Kosoko Jackson spends a time scolding writers and works for similar transgressions and personally takes it takes the stance that stories and elements can only be written by people of the relevant group(s). Regardless of whether you agree with those views, should such a person not be given the same scrutiny and criticism that they offer for others?
If psychopathy is people getting riled up about something, it must be a trait shared across the human race, with gamers and anime fans leading the charge.
I'm not sure that twitter is getting uglier. Given the author's keen attunement and voicing in regards to his own issues of representation, his failure to think about the repercussions of the setting and villain he chose and what that meant for the representation of others is definitely worth pointing out.
Yeah, my biggest question after reading this article is how someone who is apparently so conscious of all these things ended up writing a story like that and didn't expect it to be called out?
I can understand if it was all intentional and part of a grander design...but it doesn't seem to be that either.