Adults in Young Adult
AAR is – and will remain – primarily focused on the adult romance genre, but we often foray into other areas of publishing as books catch our interest that we think might catch yours, too. Young Adult fiction(and New Adult, for that matter) has become a tremendous force over the past decade or so, and many AAR reviewers have been swept up in the wave. In the interest of indulging and sharing our love of YA literature, Caroline Russomanno and Jenna Harper are launching the Young Adult Corner, a series of posts discussing YA titles and topics of interest. So, if there’s anything YA-related that interests you, let us know in the comments.
Perhaps the first step is to talk about what, exactly, makes something a “Young Adult” title. There seems to be much debate, particularly with the rise of the New Adult category. Given the fact that 55% of YA books are purchased by those over 18 (Publishers Weekly), a clearly “adult” demographic. We liked this summation:
“[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][F]iction written, published, or marketed to adolescents and young adults. The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) of the American Library Association (ALA) defines a ‘young adult’ as someone between the ages of twelve and eighteen. Authors and readers of young adult (YA) novels often define the genre as literature traditionally written for ages ranging from sixteen years up to the age of twenty-five, while Teen Fiction is written for the ages of ten and to fifteen…The vast majority of YA stories portray an adolescent, rather than an adult or child, as the protagonist.”
While its current popularity and the media attention heaped upon it is a fairly recent phenomenon, literature aimed at teens is not exactly a new concept. In honor of Teen Read Week, CNN recently published a fascinating online article about the history of Young Adult literature.
“The roots of young adult go back to when ‘teenagers’ were given their own distinction as a social demographic: World War II. ‘Seventeenth Summer,’ released by Maureen Daly in 1942, is considered to be the first book written and published explicitly for teenagers, according to [Michael] Cart, an author and the former president of the Young Adult Library Services Association. It was a novel largely for girls about first love. In its footsteps followed other romances, and sport novels for boys.”
As social media – the province of the teen set – has turned word-of-mouth marketing into a juggernaut-creating tool and Hollywood has embraced the income potential of converting hot books into hot movies, YA is no longer a tiny after-thought niche of the publishing world but a genuine entity deserving its due respect.
One mistake often made by non-YA readers is to lump all titles designated as “YA” into a single, appropriately named Young Adult genre. In fact, to call YA a genre at all is a mistake. Taking from this fantastic article written by Jen Doll:
“One thing Y.A. is not is a genre; it’s a category, as with adult literature, containing all sorts of types of writing, from fiction to nonfiction. As Tracy van Straaten, VP at Scholastic, reminded us, “Something people tend to forget is that YA is a category not a genre, and within it is every possible genre: fantasy, sci-fi, contemporary, non-fiction. There’s so much richness within the category.”
Indeed, Young Adult titles are quite often a mash-up of one or more sub genres with one of the components being romance. Add paranormal and romance, you get Twilight. Take dystopia and throw in a dash of romance and you get the Peeta-Katniss-Gale love triangle of The Hunger Games. Love historicals? Add a twist of romance and a pinch of paranormal and there is A Great and Terrible Beauty.
Sadly, YA titles too often suffer from the same red-headed stepchild status as the romance genre. People assume – wrongly – that the entire genre is based on formulaic, simplistic storytelling aimed at a group of people starving for escapism entertainment and certainly not intellectually capable of appreciating truly good writing. As is the case in romance, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Just one example: John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars was named the number 1 book of 2012 by the very adult Time magazine and received accolades from critics pretty universally across the board.
Perhaps the mistake is assuming that because a book is written towards a younger audience, the quality won’t be as good as something written for adults. As it does in any genre, including highbrow literary fiction, the quality of YA runs the gamut from barely readable to transcendently exquisite and life-altering. Those with the misfortune of picking up an inferior title may believe that all YA books must be the same, and in pre-judging the entire genre, they miss out on some fantastic storytelling.
So why, as an adult, would anyone be interested in reading books aimed at teen readers and/or featuring protagonists who have yet to experience two full decades of life? We can only offer our own personal thoughts about why we find YA so appealing.
Jenna: As I’ve become an adult with all of the responsibilities that status confers, I think, in a way, I’ve become too jaded to truly buy into an overwhelming, all-consuming love that involves adults with real world lives and problems. How can a couple spend an entire weekend in bed together when there are lawns to be mowed, dry cleaning to pick up, and kids who need a lift to soccer practice? If the story manages to circumvent real life intrusions (perhaps with younger protagonists), I still wonder how two adults are delusional enough to believe that their new love interest is perfect in every way and won’t ever leave dirty socks on the floor or get angry if an anniversary is accidentally forgotten. Being an adult comes with a lot of baggage that is hard to ignore. Love is hard and takes a lot of work, so the fantasy of a traditional adult romance is just that – a fantasy.
Because the characters in YA books are not adults yet, I can leave behind my skepticism and fully lose myself in the idea of a love that takes over a person’s every waking thought. I can believe that the young hero and heroine are blinded by their feelings and view their love interest as pure perfection, absent of normal human flaws. And I can buy into otherwise off-putting tropes such as insta-love, constant mental lusting, and, to a degree, obsession with another person to the point of stupidity.
Too, YA stories offer the butterflies-in-the-stomach excitement of first times that adult romances can’t sell as realistically. Everything is so much bigger, so much more deeply felt, when a person is going through it for the first time. I thoroughly enjoy the fact that YA books have the ability to give me that same thrill as I vicariously experience these first times all over again.
Caroline: I first got into YA as a sci-fi fan. The line between YA and non-YA sci-fi/fantasy has been blurry since long before “YA” became its own classification, and adult consumers in this area seem more open to reading about teen protagonists. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was set in a high school, for instance, and practically everybody in my generation read Harry Potter despite being much older than Harry. I also read YA as a teacher, with an eye towards requesting library orders and recommending books to students.
I don’t mind reading about young people in love. The idea of being a “teen” is a relatively modern and developed-world concept, so there are many settings in which HEAs, marriages, and other life-altering decisions are on the table. Contemporaries can fall into the trap of “too serious too soon,” but a good contemporary author is aware of this hazard and avoids it deftly. Yes, I’ve definitely rejected a YA contemporary for excessive navel-gazing and melodrama, but it was Catcher in the Rye, so let’s not assume that’s limited to romance.
Several YA trends and traits also coincidentally align with my preferences. First, the level of sex and violence is lower. I can enjoy explicit books, but “instalust” or “sex in lieu of relationship development” is such a common problem in my review books that it’s nice to pick up a book knowing in advance that at least one issue is off the table. I think the authors have to work harder to make the attraction believable. Second, YA books tend to come in trilogies or stand-alones, and even the trilogies typically follow the same couple. I really enjoy the lack of endless sequel-bait characters and the reassuring feeling that the conflicts will actually be resolved in my lifetime and not reopened arbitrarily because Hunky Male Teammate #17 needs his novel. Third, I enjoy the man-versus-society conflict type, and it’s a more natural fit for younger characters, who can be constrained by parents, laws, schools, etc. in ways that seem less plausible for older protagonists. This connects to my love of dystopias, sci-fi, and fantasy, which are dominant in YA.
I don’t know why YA seems to be in such a golden age right now. Perhaps there’s more money in YA since Harry Potter, and therefore the genre is drawing talent. There seem to be multiple YA movies coming out every few months, whereas I have yet to see a major studio release based on a romance novel. (Nicholas Sparks does not count). I find a high level of risk-taking with characters and settings in YA. I could tell you about novels set in feudal Japan, Roman Africa, or colonial Brazil, or starring Mexican gang members, scarred survivors of fairy wars, and good-guy bakers-next-door. The dedication shown by YA librarians to spending budgets to acquire diversity may have something to do with it
As has been said above, there are rotten apples in YA, and in some cases, my students love YA books which I found mediocre at best. But as the great philosopher Bret Michaels has also said, every genre has its thorns. Sturgeon’s Law states that 90% of everything is crap, in which case I think YA is batting significantly above average.
Over the next few months in a series of posts, we will be taking on specific sub-genres that fall under the vast umbrella of Young Adult. (Our first topic will be YA American Contemporaries). These won’t be traditional book reviews, but more of a comparison of reading experiences and an exploration of some of the “big issues” of the YA world. We hope that you’ll add to our conversation in the comments section, and also that you’ll offer titles you feel might be interesting to fellow YA readers. We’re looking forward to it!
– Caroline Russomanno and Jenna Harper[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
I started reading what my teen and preteen boys were reading. Except an adult friend recommended Divergent. Like both my boys, I tended to love and race through the first and second, but lose interest or dislike third, fourth in the series. But, I wouldn’t have picked them up if I didn’t want to know what the kids were reading.
We are actually planning to do a column about sequels and series(es) – patterns in how they go wrong and when (if ever!) they’ve gone well. If you have any to recommend, please let us know!
I liked the first of ‘The Shades of London’ books, but was really disappointed in the second. Also, it ends with a crashing cliff hanger – I think YA is particularly prone to that.
Other favourites, off the top of my head, (romancish YA) – definitely the Stephanie Perkins books ‘Anna and the French Kiss’ and ‘Lola and the Boy Next Door’. Also Andrea K Höst’s Touchstone series, ‘The Sea of Tranquility’ by Katja Millay – and some of Sherwood Smith’s books would qualify.
I think one of the things I like best, romance wise, about YA, is that not only is there less sex than in romance proper, but the sex is less formulaic. In ‘Lola and the Boy Next Door’, for example
(spoiler to follow)
Lola is sleeping with her current boyfriend through the book, in defiance of her parents, and she never does more than kiss the boy next door.
(end spoiler)
I can’t imagine an adult romance giving the heroine that freedom.
Also, while the first official YA may have been ‘Seventeenth Summer’ you can’t help but think that some earlier books were written for that age group – something like ‘Daddy Long-Legs’ seems unquestionably YA. While many of us may have read it as children, it’s hard to think Webster was writing for children as she includes all the details of college life – and it’s not really aimed at adults either.
I’ve been listening to Gail Carriger’s steampunk YA Finishing School series and am really enjoying it. The first two books in the series are Etiquette & Espionage and Curtsies & Conspiracies.
I have read very few YA books, because I’m a little bit picky with a category that is not one of my favourites.
But I really enjoyed those few books. ‘Hunger Games’ was one of my favourite reads of the year 2012, I read the three in a row in a weekend I was completely absorbed by the story!
What I like about them is not the romantic part, I think, but the freedom they have exploring different plots and places. The variety of voices spoken.
I think I’d like to read ‘the best of the genre’ -that 10% that is really good- so these AAR columns are very helpful. But I have a little problem about genres. I like dystopias, and sci-fi, but I’m not really into paranormals, so vampires, teen-wolfs are out of the question.
So, in my case, it could be more a question of genre: I like reading sci-fi in a young voice.
And the movies help, of course. Now that they have made the movie I can say that ‘Ender’s Game’ has been one of my All-Times Favourite, whereas for years nobody knew what I was talking about. But that is a different topic, I guess.
Thanks for the post and I look forward to the future ones! I am in my mid-40s and still enjoy YA. I was in my teens in the early 1980s and read a lot of “”teen fiction”” back then – Judy Blume, Lois Duncan, Sweet Valley High. In the 1990s I read mainly romance and mysteries but came back to YA with Harry Potter and have read more and more of this category in the past 5 years. I read it for many of the same reasons Jenna and Caroline stated – I love reading about first experiences and it makes me remember my own teen years. I have gotten most of my recommendations online and whereas some have turned out to be too simplistic in storyline or character, I have found many that I put on my “”keeper”” shelves. Here are some of those (not in any particular order):
Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling (I debate whether to consider these middle school or YA but Harry is a teen for most of the books so in the end, I think the series counts as YA)
Percy Jackson series – Rick Riordan
Mortal Instruments/Infernal Devices series – Cassandra Clare
The Princess Diaries series – Meg Cabot
The Hunger Games series – Suzanne Collins
The Twilight series – Stephenie Meyer (yes, I know all the arguments why this is not supposed to be good fiction but they are supremely readable and I think she does an excellent job of setting a specific mood/tone to the books)
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series – Ann Brashares
Anne of Green Gables series – L.M. Montgomery
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer – Michelle Hodkin (1st in a series)
The 5th Wave – Rick Yancey (1st in a series)
A Wrinkle in Time – Madeline L’Engle (1st in a series)
The Fault in Our Stars – John Green
Divergent trilogy – Veronica Roth (although I disliked the 3rd book so much that I am thinking of kicking the trilogy off the keeper shelf)
The Shiver trilogy – Maggie Stiefvater
Anna and The French Kiss; Lola and the Boy Next Door – Stephanie Perkins
The Name of the Star (Shades of London series) – Maureen Johnson (warning: do not read late at night, huddled in bed, as I did – scared me to pieces!)
The Summoning (The Darkest Powers series) – Kelley Armstrong (ditto about scariness)
I am Number Four (The Lorien Legacies series) – Pittacus Lore (what can I say? I am a sucker for action and superpowers)
The Treasure Map of Boys (Ruby Oliver quartet) – E. Lockhart
The Mother-Daughter Book Club series – Heather Vogel Frederick
My YA tbr pile is also getting unwieldy. I want to next try one of Rainbow Rowell’s books – either Eleanor & Park or Fangirl….
I read quite a bit of Young Adult sci-fi/paranormal, so I’m looking forward to the Young Adult Corner too.
Looking forward to the Young Adult Corner. I’m am always looking for recs. in the NA genre. I’ve enjoyed books by Rainbow Rowell, Katja Millay, Theresa Weir (I love this author in any genre), and Amanda Sun…have many, many more in tbr.
Thanks for this column and endeavor. I have enjoyed quite a bit of YA Sci-fi and other fiction, but so far the YA and NA romance hasn’t attracted me at all (I’m probably too far removed from this time period in my life) and no review here at AAR has tempted me to read one either!
This column, with it’s clear distinction that YA includes many genres, is very helpful to me in understanding where my reactions are coming from.
I read only one YA, Rainbow Rowell’s Eleonor & Park, and I enjoyed it very much.
Can you tell me the title of the novel set in colonial Brazil, please?
Looks like I made a mistake on the date – technically the book is in 1912 so that’s Republic-era Brazil. I was misled by the prominent Portuguese-surnamed oligarchs and the plantations. But in any case the book I was thinking of is Eva Ibbotson’s A Company of Swans, about a young woman who joins a ballet company which travels to Brazil on tour.
The important thing for me was Brazil, colonial or republican it’s the same, but I already read A Company of Swans.
I wouldn’t consider it a YA book and Eva Ibbotson herself was surprised that it was rebranded as such.
I suspect that it was rebranded as such because YA is selling better? Eva Ibbotson definitely falls into an interesting classification gap.
There is also Isabel Allende’s City of the Beasts, which I have not read yet. I’m not sure if it’s Brazil but it’s certainly Amazon, and there’s a Brazilian character. I don’t know if it’s good.
That’s the case for a lot of books these days. In fantasy, especially, there have always been lots of books with young protagonists. These books are often now branded as YA when a few years ago they would have just been ‘Fantasy’.
Paola, have you read Linda Howard’s Heart of Fire? I really liked the romance, and thought some of the details of the Brazilian setting sounded right (others didn’t -the heroine has to “”smuggle in”” through customs her birth control pills, WTF?).
The other one that comes to mind (and I hesitate to suggest this book to you, because I read it many years ago and don’t remember much about it) is Tigress, by Jennifer Blake. It has at least some sections set in Brazil -Rio, if I remember correctly. It sound like it might be a bit Harlequin Presents-ish from the description, though, with “”Brazilian”” being used as shorthand to justify the hero being a sexist pig. Sigh.