YA, why not?

[Michele]

http://observationdeck.io9.com/age-ap... nice blog about YA reading on i09.

[Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth]

I completely agree. I have never quite understood the anti-YA thing, particularly, as the article states, from people who are already fine with things others might consider childish. Personally, I like to read a wide variety of things, and that includes young adult books, which are often excellent (and often terrible, as can be said of any category of books). Nice to see something positive said about them.

[Jennifer]

Nice article. Like the author, I read more adult books than YA as a teen. The books for adults were meatier, more challenging, and better written at the time. These days, YA seems so much better, and more authors write across age demographics.

[Rick]

I'm not anti-YA, but frankly the entire post made me think of someone, well, young.

Perhaps just that I've read those same points about YA over and over in multiple places and reading them again in the tone of this post made me envision the author stomping their foot insisting that their stuff is good, it really is! The problem is that there's good and bad YA... just as there's good and bad adult SFF. Yet while the author tells us that it's unfair to paint YA with a broad brush they proceed to do just that to all adult SFF. It's a tactic that doesn't really convince any but the already converted reader.

At the end of the day I'm generally not a YA reader since I don't care about teen issues (I'm in my 50s... ) and I think labeling books YA has pluses and minuses (it keeps adults out but attracts people looking for that kind of book).

Also, It's an odd post for io9. It doesn't say anything original, but at the end there's a long list of books and I'd much rather have had a post about those - why the author liked them and who else might like them.

[Ken]

The entire post made me think of someone young too, and I am completely at odds with every point it made.

I can't stand any YA stuff. When I was 12 I read Lord of the Rings. When I was 13 I read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, and a bunch of other 'classic' SF&F like Verne, Wells, Carrol, Wilde (yes, I'm counting him), Lovecraft, etc.

Stories without depth never appealed to me, and contrary to what the article claims, that is what YA represents to me: "stories about the experience of being a teenager", as one astute contributor here once wrote. I never was interested in that. Didn't need a manual for how to be what I already was - no, I was interested in what "might be, could be, or should be". Imagination, critical analysis, they interested me. Other teenagers problems did not.

[Dawn]

Can I just get this off my chest since when is young adult a genre? It is a story told for a specific age range and the stories can be in any genre including fantasy, romance, mystery, whatever.

I find it ironic the author of this blog talks about reading whatever he likes then telling people if they don’t like YA books they are wrong. It seems like people talk about reading these books like it is some kind of guilty pleasure and so you have to come out on the defensive. If you like a book why can’t it be about the book?

Anyway I have read my fair share of young adult urban fantasy / fantasy books because I had a kid who like them. As a good mom I needed to keep up with what he read so I could be sure he saw the line between fantasy and real life. Some of it was awesome like Harry Potter, The Dark Angel and Shiver, but there was a lot of crap too.

As a result honestly I am not a fan of most young adult UF books, mostly because I am not a fan of reading about kids – teens whatever that phase of my life is over and when I read for pleasure I don’t want to understand. The second issue I have is often these stories - for me – are watered down versions of the stuff I like or maybe they just seemed a bit more cliché than I would like. Last there is a general lack of diversity – sorry but I am tired of the white beautiful hero/heroine with the mega whatever. Can’t they be another culture? How about a fat kid with pimples or maybe they could have a disability? Heck can’t they even have interesting names? For me to many of the books read like a cookie cutter groundhog day.

Bottom line read what you want and don’t berate people for their reading choices period. There is something out there for everyone find what you like and read.

[Rikki]

I never read YA when I was its intended audience but I really do feel like there are a number of fun and interesting things being done by a lot of good authors. That's kind of the thing. If it's good, I don't really care who the intended audience is.

I just finished reading Steelheart and I really quite liked it (super powers and heroes and villains are quite up my alley). It is marketed as a YA story and I can very much see its a appeal to that audience but it doesn't nullify my enjoyment.

[J.J.]

Being a kid who abruptly transitioned from Roald Dahl to Ken Follett between 13-14, I'm quite at odds with things marketed as YA.

Alfaguara, one of the leading spanish language publishers, did have when I was 12 a 'Young Reader' line, but it included books such as Momo. Those are, I think, way deeper than what you see today in the aisles. More philosophy and less angst, you know...

So, my opinion is that the whole 'YA' concept is more a marketing ploy (which is all right, I'm not a purist) which is making loads of money today. And yes, I think most of the novels marketed as YA lack either depth or plain storytelling quality.

I did give a go to a couple of YA novels (ex Harry Potter, of course). Sure I had my shot at Eragon, and though it was exciting I recoiled at the juvenile imagery and plot copy-paste. And then I read InterWorld, by Neil Gaiman: seeing one of the best fantasists alive dilute so much the telling of a promising story for the sake of genre was cringe inducing. No more YA for me.

[Tamahome]

Yeah, why not what?

[Viola]

I read a few YA series last year, 7 to be exact and with the exception of 2 they were all rather mediocre. The majority of them started out good but in the end they just couldn’t deliver. Those that were really good had a slow start but the end packed one hell of a punch.

In my opinion they are all starting to look the same and I think we can all blame Twilight for that.

[Michele]

I linked this because some of the books we've read with the club seemed to get snubbed by some people simply because they were tarred with the YA brush. I'm not saying that a lot of YA isn't crappy, but plenty of it is good, and I hate to see people dismiss a book simply because some publisher or marketing person labeled it.

After all, calling a book YA might simply mean most parents wouldn't find it unsuitable for teenagers to read, not that it is automatically dumbed down for youngsters.

Books like Earthsea, Pern, the Belgariad, the Hunger Games, Among Others, Ender's Game, Valdemar - may be acceptable for teens, but I think (hope) adults can find them to be entertaining stories too.

[Molly]

The YA label has grown so much in recent years; I'm often surprised at the books my library decides to shelf in the YA section rather than the SF/F section. Apparently, anything with a sufficiently young protagonist qualifies--the level of the writing/plot development not-withstanding.

Twilight and its ilk have definitely given YA a bad rap, but like with any genre, there are a lot of gems strewn in with the garbage. I think stories about young people have just as much potential for depth and meaning as those concerning adults. Honestly, I think it's pretty demeaning to say that young people's experiences aren't "important" or "meaningful" enough to engage adult readers. If you prefer to read about protagonists closer to your own age, that's fine, but there's no need to invalidate the thoughts/experiences/emotions of the YA folks out there.

[Rick]

Molly - It might be my limited reading the YA space but the stories about young people seem to deal with the issues that teens face. That's fine, but a) those stories tend not to be interesting to those of us significantly older than 20 (sigh...) since we're far past the conflicts and issues that they deal with and b) we've seen a lot of the coming of age plots done. It's not (for me at least) that the issues aren't important or meaningful, it's that I've been, there read that A LOT.

Stories with younger protagonists that AREN'T about coming of age or finding oneself feel different to me. Doctorow's Little Brother for example, was a good story that had teen protagonists but that didn't explicitly deal with 'teen' issues.

Michele - I hear you especially about Earthsea. There are definitely criticisms that feel like they're saying "oh this is for *kids....*"

[J.J.]

You can usually find Ender's Game, Earthsea, Pern and the Belgariad at the SF&F section of your local bookstore, not at the YA.

When I hear those two letters I usually think about the story of a plain, insecure teen girl who meets the love of her life in the figure of a handsome, slightly byronian poltergeist or some other fantastic creature and together they have to overthrow the wicked government of 'The Seat' or whatever that exists now in the post Apocalyptic geography of Baluchistan.

[Andrew]

I'm well into my 30s and I still enjoy reading books that have teenage protagonists, or that deal with issues specific to being a teenager. I wouldn't want to be reading just those books, but for me they add variety to the emotional range of what I'm reading. I may not be a teen any more but I remember some of how it felt at the time, how significant everything seemed, and I'm interested to explore that still.

Many of the best genre novels I've read in the past decade have been labelled as YA. Collins's The Hunger Games, while exploring some coming of age issues, is also a disturbing portrayal of a human being coping with trauma. Pullman's His Dark Materials is a great exploration of faith and purpose, told through young people's eyes. Reeve's Mortal Engines series is, like Pullman's work, a wonderful and distinctive piece of world building.

Sure, the big fuss over YA is mostly a marketing gimmick. But so were the stunning posters advertising the Star Wars films - I bet everyone here has something they love that could be labelled as a marketing tool.

And yes, some YA is just about spotty teenagers finding love. Some fantasy is just sword-wielding wish fulfilment. I don't think either view does justice to the books under that heading, or the great things they're producing.

[Ken]

Michele wrote: "I linked this because some of the books we've read with the club seemed to get snubbed by some people simply because they were tarred with the YA brush. I'm not saying that a lot of YA isn't crappy..."
Of the books you listed at the end there, only two I have read and enjoyed (Earthsea & Enders Game, and I would not consider the latter YA at all).

The Hunger Games is a mismash of disjointed political commentary and teenage love triangle. It's certainly YA, and certainly diluted.

His Dark Materials is an interesting example, because it begins with a rather YA tone, and proceeds darker as the story progresses. I enjoyed that one for the story, but found little depth in it. The message was not between the lines, not the sum of the whole, but could be discerned from the beginning.


As Joaquin wrote, there seems to be a lot of confusion and re-classification as of late of books which are decidedly not YA, being pulled under that marketing umbrella. He nailed the general plot concept as well.

For me the YA "bashing" is not so much about putting down a genre (I try to restrain my personal dislike for it) but a complaint that so many non-YA pieces are being sucked under that moniker for the purpose of argument erroneously.

[Joe Informatico]

Dawn wrote: "Can I just get this off my chest since when is young adult a genre?"

Who said it was?

Can I just get this off my chest since when is young adult a genre? It is a story told for a specific age range and the stories can be in any genre including fantasy, romance, mystery, whatever.

Dawn wrote: "I find it ironic the author of this blog talks about reading whatever he likes then telling people if they don’t like YA books they are wrong."

That's a pretty harsh interpretation. All the author asked was that you don't let the common preconceptions of YA fiction lead you to make a blanket dismissal of the whole label.

If you're not interested in YA fiction because nothing you read while you were growing up stuck with you, or you feel like you've never read any YA that you've liked, then I've put together this helpful list of suggestions for you. Give them a try, or don't. Just think about it, the next time you walk past the YA section at the library or bookstore, or are tempted to dismiss someone's enthusiasm about a new book that they've read just because of where it happens to be shelved.

Joaquin wrote: "So, my opinion is that the whole 'YA' concept is more a marketing ploy (which is all right, I'm not a purist) which is making loads of money today."

Fans, academics, and critics can debate the definitions of genres all they like, but in the end, the publisher decides what they're going to label a book, and the bookstores and libraries are going to shelve it according that. To publishers, all classification, whether genre or age group, is marketing.

In the 50s and 60s, when science fiction was an established genre but adult fantasy didn't really exist as a separate market, a lot of books we'd consider fantasy today got labelled SF, because SF was selling. Right now, YA sells. Books that were written before a separate YA market existed (ca. mid-70s) will be relabelled YA to attract new readers. That's just business. A couple authors and fans get upset that a market they consider inferior is dominating the publishing industry right now. Meanwhile some (possibly smarter) authors like Joe Abercrombie and Gail Carriger write YA books instead.

[Rick]

YA... IS NOT A GENRE. This isn't really open to dispute... it's a taxonomy that classifies things by the age range of the intended reader. Genres are members of a taxonomy that classifies books by subject matter. Conflating the two things (YA and Fantasy or YA and SF) just muddies the discussion. Any genre could be written as YA, i.e. with teen protagonists and dealing with issues that teens face.

The linked article says this right before asking us not to judge YA harshly:

Now that I'm older, I find myself uninterested in many established and newly-written books that are written for adults. Part of this is idiosyncratic – I like what I like, a good book is a good book, and I'm past the point of forcing myself to read something just because it's been widely-praised, or is supposed to be a must-read for a particular genre. I know that I won't live long enough to read everything that I want to read, so why waste time on things I end up not wanting to read?

Um... OK. The first sentence basically dismisses most non-YA fiction, precisely the action we're being asked to avoid when it comes to YA. The rest I can turn that right around on YA. Why should I force "...myself to read something just because it's been widely-praised, or is supposed to be a must-read for..." YA?

I get the author's point - don't dismiss YA simply because it's shelved as YA (especially when you enthuse about, say, anime or comics). At the same time, I apply their last sentence from the above paragraph - "I know that I won't live long enough to read everything that I want to read, so why waste time on things I end up not wanting to read?" I'm generally not interested in what is shelved in YA and have a ton of other things to read. Just as they seem not to want to let go of teen fiction, I'm not interested in revisiting it. To each their own, but don't berate me for my choice.

PS: this is what makes the linked article seem young to me... "A couple authors and fans get upset that a market they consider inferior is dominating the publishing industry right now." You're right, YA is definitely doing very well. However, if YA is doing so well, why is the author of the io9 piece complaining so much?

[Ken]

It is a Genre, and I'm disputing your claim that it isn't disputable. :)

I have no interest in reading about the experience of being a teenager, feeling helpless and angsty and full of hormones. I've been there, that part of my life is over, and I don't miss it. I'm interested in complex issues, human issues, bigger questions, things beyond the here and now physical and emotional needs of a 15 year old.

Joe above rightly claims that it's a marketing tactic to relabel everything possible in order to sell more copies. I think authors who jump on that bandwagon aren't "smart", but are certainly cash-savvy. You'd make more profit, but in the annals of history, will your work be remembered and will you regret playing to the trend to sell more books? Who can say. It's up to each author to decide that for themselves.

If the i09 article's author is trying to say, "don't dismiss children's stories and stories with young adult protagonists" - fine - some great content can be found there. But I contend, as my personal opinion, that the content under the GENRE of "YA" - that is, with the additional stipulation of being concerned with the experience of being a teenager - is largely devoid of those deeper, more complex concepts that I personally am interested in reading about. So I WILL discard such stories, because I have moved beyond that phase of my life and have no need of it.

Just to make it painstakingly clear again:
-There's a difference between books with young people as characters and books about the experience of being a young person.
-The former is not necessarily (but could be YA) and the latter is certainly YA.
-Books with young people as characters but dealing with very adult themes are certainly NOT YA, and tend to (but again, not always) concern deeper, more complex topics that are engaging to the adult mind.
-There's a difference between books being sucked under the fad genre umbrella by publishers and books explicitly written for that genre.
-It's fine to enjoy YA writing. Personally, I don't, but I won't tell others what to read.
-It's not fine to judge people who like it vs people who don't. Perhaps the i09 article meant to say this, and failed.

[Rick]

"It is a Genre, and I'm disputing your claim that it isn't disputable. :)"

In case you're serious... no. It's not. Classifying things by target audience (YA, Children's, Adult) and by topic (fiction, non-fiction, biography, fantasy, etc) are two independent ways of classifying them. That's *why* we can talk about, for example, YA Fantasy or Adult SF.

If you stretch the word 'genre' to mean any way to classify books it's a meaningless term. You might as well call Binding Type a genre since there are hardbacks, paperbacks and audiobooks and those are also ways to classify a book

[Ken]

Rick, it's a genre because it has a descriptive context that classifies the content.

Just as "mommy porn" or whatever it's called, is a genre (albeit one I consider wholly unworthy of reading), YA is a genre.

The genre is about the experience of being a teenager.

YA fantasy or Adult SF to me, are subgenres.

This sounds just like the perpetual discussion about music genres. Some say "rock" is a genre. Others say "post-rock" is not a genre, or that "Norwegian Blackened Folk-Metal" is a genre. Are any of them correct? All of them? It just takes a plurality. In any of the cases, what is necessary is a defining characteristic by which one can identify members of the group.

YA is such a group, and the books within can be readily identified by the tell-tale characteristics. It is undoubtedly a genre, AND a target audience.

[Molly]

Rick wrote: "Molly - It might be my limited reading the YA space but the stories about young people seem to deal with the issues that teens face. That's fine, but a) those stories tend not to be interesting to..."

I understand that. I'm not a big fan of the high school drama type storylines either. But I'd argue that that's only a subset of what we now qualify as YA. I find that especially in the SF/F realm, young protagonists have the opportunity to face issues far above and beyond "teen drama." Ender's Game and Little Brother--two stories where young protagonists deal with some definite 'adult' issues--are both shelved as YA at my local library.

I think part of the problem is that not all of us are using the same definition of YA. Even just 10-15 years ago, YA referred to a pretty specific type of teen drama/romance. But as "traditional" YA became more popular, publishers and marketers expanded the label to the point that it now encompasses any and all books about young people. It seems that those of us who grew up during this YA marketing boom (myself included) have fewer negative associations with the label than those still carrying around the connotations of what it used to be.

[Ken]

Little Brother as YA? What? Since when?

Reclassification again, and then readers encounter it and point to it as an example of "see, YA isn't all about young protagonists and their teenage problems" - IT IS. This is just a case of misclassification which then serves as an erroneous example case when referenced by others.

Publishers and marketers are expanding the term YA to encompass whatever they can sell because it works for profit margins. It doesn't make it an accurate classification system.

[Serendi]

Kenneth:

Near as I can tell, you've redefined YA to mean "all this stuff I don't like," then said there's no good stuff in "all this stuff I don't like."

Little Brother was presented as being YA from the start. If I'm misremembering that, I'd be astonished; it was all over the place that this was Cory Doctorow's YA book.

Why do you assume we're misclassifying when your classification scheme seems to be the outlier?

[Sky]

I went to a signing for Steelheart, and while there Mr. Sanderson mentioned that he was not writing it as a YA novel, that is just how it was categorized by his publicist.

I've seen Ender's Game in the YA section at libraries, and I imagine that it was because a librarian thought that, as a story about young adults, it fell into the YA category.

It's almost like YA is an arbitrary label that different people use in different ways.

Chances are good that there are "YA" books out there that you'd like, whoever you are. Chances are good that there are also some you'd hate.

Chances are better that you should only care about labels like YA if you want to give yourself a bias based on someone else's idea of what a couple of words mean.

[Ken]

Au contraire, I've not redefined anything.

I am attempting to correct all the redefining that is happening.

In what way does the classification I present (it's not mine, I borrowed it from others here on Goodreads who described it much more succinctly than my own initial comments) strike you as the outlier? In this thread perhaps?

Sky, my problem is that people have conceptions about genres. It is unfortunate but unavoidable.

The defense of YA is in vogue this decade, perhaps it is appealing to a majority of readers to re-live that part of their lives (if they are adults) or to immerse themselves in it if they are contemporary to that demographic.

[[deleted user]]

I had no idea there was an anti-YA thing. The more you know. Hell, there are children's novels I like, let alone YA. There's good stuff there. Hunger Games trilogy, The Giver books, I recently read my new favorite Discworld novel, which happens to be YA. Not to mention Harry Potter, one of the largest franchise of all-time.

So the whole anti-YA thing is not only silly, but I bet half of them are lying for some reason.

[Ken]

I like some "kids" books, like The Wind in the Willows, for example. It's not YA. It's not about the experience of being a teenager, although you could argue that Toad is certainly the frat-boy in the story.

There isn't an anti-YA thing. There is a crowd slapping the "YA" sticker on a whole bunch of books haphazardly and then demonizing anyone who cries foul. (This goes far beyond GoodReads and is all over the internet and elsewhere). There is a gang-up against anyone who tries to politely (or maybe not so politely, I'm not good at that) point out that there's a difference between books with young characters, and books about the experience of being that age. And no one, I believe, is saying one thing is better than another objectively.

Rather people are saying an apple is in fact an orange, when both are fruit.

[J.J.]

I'm loving this discussion...

I agree that it's not the same 'young adult literature' than any other genre novel with a young protagonist. It's way too forced to call 'Ender's Game' a YA novel as it deals with heavy issues such as geopolitics, the reason of state and the role of militarism.

IMO, if I were a librarian I would classify as neat YA the following:

-Paranormal teen romances
-Decafeinated Dystopias
-And all the HP pastiches, such as Percy Jackson, Artemis Fowl and the like

On the other hand, I don't think HP is a YA series. The first two books are clearly children's lit, but as the series progressed so the tone darkened until it became a bildungsroman more in libe with the german formation novel and of course the english school novel.

I'm pretty sure there should be something of good quality in YA... The Fault in our Stars sounds like a watered down version of 'Tuesdays with Morrie', but recommendable. Same with the Book Thief.

However (and you can take this as a bit of grumpy nostalgia), my main point is that most of what is YA has become a shallow, edulcorated, affected, whinny younger sibling to the lit that was marketed at teens when I was one (this 15 years ago)

[Serendi]

Exactly! There is absolutely a difference between books with young characters, and books about the experience of being that age. The first, which is the set of books known as YA, includes the second!

This is what I meant; you're taking an established marketing label, saying it really applies to a particular subset, but all these annoying people are sticking other stuff under the label so now it doesn't mean the same thing anymore. The problem is, all those books outside the subset have been part of YA for as long as I've been aware of the label, which is YEARS.

I'm not saying it's a good way of categorizing the books in question, I'm just saying it's the way they're categorized, so saying otherwise doesn't actually accomplish anything.

[Ken]

I wonder if age perspective has something to do with it. I'm 29. 15 years ago I was in the YA demographic, and I feel as Joaquin does (except that HP never interested me). I do think that he's right that HP matured in theme as it progressed. I'm not contemporary to the target demographic, but I'm not middle aged yet either.

Serendi, I still disagree. In your two groups, the set which is YA is the second group, not the first.

The other books have not been part of YA previously. They were labeled as fantasy, SF, mystery, whatever genre they belong to. They just happened to star young protagonists, but dealt with adult themes, such as Enders Game.

YA is a specific flavor that has specific connotations for content. This is undeniable because people who like it will list these content traits as the reasons why they like the genre. There are norms. Just as with a mystery, you need a puzzle or trail of clues, YA has traits - that is being a book concerned with the experience of being a teen.

I'm saying that the change in categorization is recent. Within the decade or so.

[Hossain]

I think the definition of a young adult novel should be is that the protagonist should be a teenager. Because there is no clear-cut way to define which book is written for teenagers and which ones protagonist is teenager but written for adults.

For example if you have read The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol I: The Pox Party. Although this book is marketed as young adult but I think few teenagers have enjoyed it. On the other hand The Secret Life of Bees is targeted towards adults but many teenagers have read this one. And both of these books protagonist is young adult.

And there is lots fantasy novels with young protagonists. And yet some of these books marketed as young adult and others are not. For example you can label easily Assassin's Apprentice or Mistborn: The Final Empire as young adult and few people will object. And than there is this book The Kingdom of Little Wounds labels as young adult that you wouldn't want your kids to read.

It seems to me that if a young adult book is good enough to be enjoyed by adults then it becomes a adult book.

[Michele]

@Kenneth

Whatever your personal idea of what should be considered officially YA, there are people who will refuse to try reading a book if someone somewhere has put the YA label on it. It could be goodreads or amazon or a review or a comment in a thread. I'm just hoping people won't assume that because a book has a teen MC, or because it isn't full of violence and cursing and sex, that it is somehow lesser and not worth their time. Some books seem to get dismissed arbitrarily, or even a bit sneered at, because an author wrote a book that isn't absolutely, obviously for adults.

**Of course I'm not talking about someone not being in the mood for another coming of age story, or wanting to read about some gore and cursing once in a while.**

The YA label is just getting slapped onto all sorts of stories nowadays, and some people seem to be letting that guide thier reading choices, just assuming that a YA label = teen angst and first love and a whole lot of other nonsense.

Whether you call a book YA or not, whether you consider it a genre or not, whether you hate it or not, has nothing really to do with the fact that plenty of books are getting that label and then being dismissed by people as not worth their time. Another book club I follow here on goodreads won't even consider reading a book that is shelved as YA - this is what I'm arguing against.

I'm 41, if age makes a difference.

[Serendi]

What it comes down to, there are two ways YA is defined, people are rejecting books from the superset because they assume they're from the subset, and we here on Goodreads don't have any say in what the publishers and booksellers call YA. So other than saying on a book-by-book basis "This book is/is not about the experience of being a teen," we're stuck. Trying to use YA by EITHER definition without explaining what we mean by YA *will* send someone the opposite message from what we intend.

And let's just say I'm older still.

[Ken]

হজবরল wrote: "I think the definition of a young adult novel should be is that the protagonist should be a teenager. Because there is no clear-cut way to define which book is written for teenagers and which ones ..."No.

There is a clear way to tell: read the summary or reviews. It's obvious. Books about being a teenager, and books with adult themes in which the protagonist is a teenager. Absolutely not the same. It's not about what a person enjoys or does not enjoy. It's about the treatment of content.

Michele:
Your first paragraph: Absolutely, I agree.

I also agree that the YA label is getting slapped onto all sorts of stories and that maddens me. People let their assumptions guide their choices, and this is bad.

I can understand your perspective.

Serendi: There are three ways that YA is being defined in this decade. The YA genre (experience of being a teenager), YA "wrong" as I will call it (books in which the main character is young, but the story is not about teen problems or directed at a teen audience), and YA demographic (books aimed at young people)

And yeah, it is frustrating because it is reduced to a book-by-book basis of classification because the waters have become so muddied.

Trying to unmuddy them, but I'm Sisyphus.

[Pickle]

thank god for the internet as i have to admit i do not have the balls to go stand at the YA section in a bookstore, i feel like an old perv!

Ive never intentionally read a book cause its 'YA' but of the few ive read they have been very good and not so teeny as id expect.]

[Dawn]

Joe Informatico wrote: "...Dawn wrote: "I find it ironic the author of this blog talks about reading whatever he likes then telling people if they don’t like YA books they are wrong."

That's a pretty harsh interpretation..."

Harsh but true.

Here is the thing...I like people to read and I really don't care what they choose to read sci-fi, comics, baby books, politics, history, erotica, whatever...just read. If something does not interest you then it just doesn't so don't read it.

This conversation has been going on for years and you know it is a little tiresome. In this case if you love Vampire Academy and Twilight that is awesome and if you want to convince other people that book was amazing then go for it. Here is the rub when someone says I hated it or flat out I am not interested why do people want (and in some cases insist) you to give other books similar to that style a chance?

There are only so many books you can read in a life time, if you are not curious then keep it moving to what does make you curious. If people dismiss the entire YA genre market share whatever who does it hurt?

Furthermore I dismiss all kinds of labels...books that say contemporary romance not interested, young adult not interested, biography not interested. I may change my mind at some given time or I may not but here is the thing why on earth does anyone care??

[Dawn]

@Michele

You are absolutely right! If I am searching for a new book and I see certain labels I am more likely than not to dismiss it. The only exception to that is in fantasy because I know people will call a coming of age story YA when in reality it is not.

You are also correct that many people will snub the label but I think that happens with other genre's too. For example I have seen people snub their nose at urban fantasy and say it is not real fantasy.

I think it is what it is.

For what it is worth this has been the benefit of GR and booklikes is I hear about books I would not have normally encountered.

I feel like I maybe rambling a bit

Hope it makes sense.

[kvon]

This feels like when people say The Road or The Handmaid's Tale aren't sf. Because they like those books, and they don't like sf.

I also want to invoke Sturgeon's Law here, "90% of sf is crud. Of course, 90% of everything is crud." It's finding that 10% that makes the search worthwhile. Bruce Coville can make me laugh and cry, Tamora Pierce made me imagine girl knights in the early 80s, and I still don't understand why more people haven't read Diana Wynne Jones.

My personal definition of YA is what I find in the teen sections of libraries and bookstores. Give them a look sometime, you might be surprised by what you find there.

It's of course not everyone's cup of tea. If your idea of sf is hard science and the physics of spaceflight, you might now like the more social aspects of YA.

Books in kenneth's bookshelf which I consider YA: Howl's Moving Castle, Neverending Story, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Phantom Tollbooth--all excellent books that I would expect to find in the teen section of my local library.

[Ken]

Neverending Story is pretty YA, I'd agree, as was the Phantom Tollbooth, & Something Wicked. Howl's Moving Castle is more childrens' than anything. All I enjoyed.

All are much better than the junk on the shelves now. I don't remember any of them being shelved as "YA" either then or now.

[kvon]

Checking my library system (about 26 linked libraries), PT and HMC are filed in children's/YA sections, NS and SW are half YA and half adult. Again, showing the murkiness of any boundaries of this section.

When I was growing up our small branch didn't have a YA section, just the children's and adult.

[Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth]

kvon wrote: "When I was growing up our small branch didn't have a YA section, just the children's and adult.
"

This comment has made me curious about how people perceive a YA section. Most bookshops I know (I live in England, though I've seen the same elsewhere in Europe - I can't clearly remember from my one visit to the US if it matches) have a separate children's book section, and that tends to be organised into age. So first you'll get picture books for the little ones, then it will move into very thin novels, which still have a few pictures, and large print, for slightly older children to begin to read, and these merge into books for 9 to 12, then books for older teens/ young adults. I have always assumed that the latter section is what everyone means, but maybe it is something different. In my experience, a number of books are suitable as YA but also appeal to adults, and I have often noticed these books located in both the adult and children sections of bookshops and libraries.

[Michele]

Ruth that sounds pretty much the same as bookstores in the US, though I've noticed the YA section takes up a pretty big chunk of the kids section and it usually has its own 2 sections - series and other stuff. There are tons of YA series stuff and whatever is most popular along with the copycats, the other stuff has always seemed poorly stocked when I checked. And some books do end up in both adult and kid's, like Ender's Game, Narnia, the Redwall series.

[J.J.]

Yes, the criteria tends to be erratic.

In the B&N I consider 'my local' (when visiting my family in Southern California) they have a large children section and a two large YA shelves separated by the Christian and Mysteries/Thrillers sections.

In my local bookstore in Mexico (Gandhi Bookstore) children and YA are mixed up in the same section.