How do we determine if a book is for adults?

[Cheryl]

As pointed out in the Catseye discussion, Norton's book was marketed YA. And supposedly this group reads only books for adults. But as CBRetriever pointed out:
"I think that some of these on our shelves might have been originally classified as juvenile

The Neverending Story
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Starship Troopers
A Wizard of Earthsea"

and I agree with her.

I'm not arguing for a policy change or trying to annoy anyone. But I'm very curious about what members here see as the differences (historically and currently, in SF and in other fiction) between Juvenile, YA, and adult. And whether it really matters to them.

[Becky]

I don't put a lot of stock in those kinds of labels, personally. I think about books like The Book Thief, which was not written for young adults or children specifically, but was marketed as YA in the US because... reasons...? And it makes me a little sad, because that's an amazing book, and many would discount or exclude it based on how it was marketed in the US. I think that if the book is worthwhile, I'm not going to get hung up over labels.

I think a lot of it has to do with the age of the characters. Younger characters tend to get the book lumped in with YA/MG labeling, despite the actual story being far more.

I also think that, as books age and become classics, they tend to be opened up to wider audiences, and their potential intended audience matters less and less.

[Anna]

Actually we read adult and YA, just not MG and younger.

Nomination rules: "10. No children's books, although YA is allowed."

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

So, a little context, the no children's/MG stories is also one that evolved overtime, like the others, meaning some made the shelf beforehand and then someone down the line realized people were getting upset and made a rule. We also don't allow short story collections or books under 170 pages and those are also on the shelves. Once, ill-fatedly, we tried to read a whole series.

I think the lines get blurred further back--like with movies, anything that came out before the rating system was in place got lumped with PG, and I think we'd all agree that movies like "Some Like it Hot" or "Victor Victoria," while classics, are probably not actually meant for children under 13. In a sort of reversal, the older a book is, the more serious people seem to consider it--the "classic" seems to carry more literary weight than the newer book aimed at the same audience.

I also think that a lot of content has changed over the years, making it hard to have clear cut rules about what is and is not meant for kids. Older stories seemed to be much more comfortable with having sad things happen, while current things are "happier" but way more violent.

I'd say author intent and whether or not I'd give it to a child under 11 is sort of the defining line for me. It is hard to think of wording that means "a book adults who like serious works with poignant plots would like," which is, I feel, the real intent of our rule.

[John]

There was a time when I might go with a value judgement along the lines of "would I want my kids to read this" to decide whether to call a book "adult." That was a lot of years ago, and my youngest is in his 30s now, so I don't worry about it.

On the other hand, I never passed up a book because it was labeled as a children's or YA book. Seriously, I'm betting I'm not the only "senior citizen" who read and enjoyed the Harry Potter series. Just because a book is judged suitable for younger readers doesn't make it unsuitable for adults.

[CBRetriever]

Maybe because of my age (retired senior), if a book blurb mentions that the book is meant for YA, I tend to steer clear of it. The Harry Potter books mention under the "professional reviews" Ages 8-12. That doesn't even seem like YA to me, more like MG (I presume this means middle grade?). And Neverending story is ages 10 and up.

I'll be reading a blurb on a book that looks interesting and wham, I run into something like those age ranges, and I immediately think the writing will be aimed at a more juvenile crowd and more simplistic. Yes, I have passed up some books for this reason as I don't think they will have enough depth to them (character or situation) if they're written for someone as young as 8 or ten yo.

I'm also aware of a slight "dumbing down" or publications aimed at younger readers. I was apalled, when I took a Community College Historical Geology class and picked up one of the magazines aimed at the HS Biology students who took classes in that room during the day time hours. It was on the order of:

This is a deer. Deers are ruminants (longest word in the whole article) and eat grass, leaves, and shoots.

There was no mention of the scientific name, varieties of deer, ranges they lived in or problems facing deer populations. It was a whole two paragraphs long and in a large font like something I would have read in 3-4th grade.

/end rant

[CBRetriever]

I'm going to add, in a separate post her, that i actually was reading adult books at age 9-10. I'd read my library books and then start on my mother's books (mostly mysteries) and at age 12, she insisted that the library give me an adult library card with no restrictions on what I could read (this is why I was able to read Peyton Place at age 14)

[[deleted user]]

First off, the only category type I consider to be valid and relevant is the one you would call 'For adults only', and not only 'Adult', based on the presence of controversial content that could shock or upset young readers and teenagers, like descriptions of sexuality, violence, profanities and the like. Even that simple classification is complicated by the fact that values and taboos are not the same all around the World. Language that would sound normal and anodine in, say, Glasgow, may shock and anger readers with delicate ears around the U.S. Bible Belt.

In reality, the separation of books/materiel into Juvenile, Young Adult and Adult has more to do about marketing strategies than just to protect moral feelings. I believe that most people would agree with that, especially when you view the incredible level of violence and gore our 'juveniles' are exposed daily through video games and the like. Classifying a book as 'Adult' in certain countries with conservative views would in fact be hypocritical in my opinion in view of what kids see these days in films (horror, slasher movies and the like) and video games. If and when a book is advertised as 'For adults only', it means for me that some of the content could disturb younger readers, but even that could be opened to question. Some teenagers are more mature than the average, while too many so-called adults are much less mature than they should be (personal opinion only).

Overall, are these classifications relevant or useful? Personally, I don't think so, except for very clear cases (illustrated story books for young children and erotica/BDSM stories for adults), in which case the category should be self-evident without the need for a formal classification. Having the author state in his opening book blurb what kind of content is in his/her book (war, nudity, violence, gore, profanity, sexuality, etc.) should be enough to guide the readers.

[Jacqueline]

We only read “adult” books here? OK then.....I thought we read the best science fiction and fantasy books available. If we did that we would be missing out on some of the most wonderful stories. And to be honest if anyone isn’t reading something like Harry Potter because it’s supposed to be ages 8-12 then you are missing out on one of the most magical experiences of your life. Tamora Pierce is an amazing writer. Emily Rodder is brilliant too. And so many coming through. Just because something has kids in it doesn’t mean that it’s for kids only. Some of the best books I read last year were classified as young adult and two of them were MG. Jessica Townsend’s Nevermoor and Wundersmith were brilliant and magical and expertly written. And they’re supposed to be for younger readers. The Illuminae flies are amazing. So many good books. Everyone on here wanted to read Children of Blood and Bone. YA. Many are into the Throne of Glass series...YA. Bear and the Nightingale...YA. In fact some of the best fantasy series are in fact classified as YA. Isabelle Carmody is classified as YA but her books are in both YA and the Fantasy section of many bookshops. The same books. There will be a copy of Obernewton in YA and one in Fantasy in all three of the bookshops in my town.

The Hate You Give is an example of a YA book that has turned up in many of the “adult only” bookclubs on here. Just because something is YA does not mean that it is not good or doesn’t have merit. Or shouldn’t be read by someone because they’re not in the suggested age group.

If a book is excellent then it should be read by the group in my opinion. Some books are written in a childish manner but many of the fantasy books for kids really are written so that they can be enjoyed by kids and adults alike. They don’t dumb it down for the kids. In the other hand a MG book that everyone had on their lists last year “A Wrinkle in Time” does feel dumbed down for kids.

We should read books on their merits and not on where publishers shove them for more sales. As mentioned before The Book Thief is marketed as YA but it definitely isn’t. Maybe, just maybe, there are so many others that warrant your attention.

[CBRetriever]

I never said i wouldn't look at them (I own Grimm's Fairy Tales and the Harry Potter books), but if I know nothing about the book/author/writing style other than what's in the blurb, I do tend to skip past those only found in the YA category.

In my opinion, the physical bookstores tend to segregate books even more than the online/digital bookstores. Often there are some authors like Andre Norton and the early Robert Heinlein books that might not be in the SciFi or Fantasy shelves and just in the YA shelves. I've seen the same complaints about books by African American authors that are not shelved with "regular" books, but relegated to an African American section.

And you're right, A Wrinkle in Time, The Hobbit and even the Narnia series (I own these) seem to be definitely written for a younger audience

[Cheryl]

So, we'll read YA, which is defined here as (written for? reading level of? read by?) age 11 up. That's an interesting decision, indeed.

Lots of good points made above. I especially appreciate Michel's distinction between mature themes of sex and violence etc. I recently moved to the Bible Belt and it's not nearly so bad as I feared it would be, but, yeah, I do see a lot of Americans get more upset by intimacy than by, say, shooting.

At least in contemporary popular Middle Grade fiction the kids can kiss, but they can't carry guns... but the PG13 movies are a whole 'nother story, aren't they...

Point of fact that many of you may not realize: there are a lot of YA books that are a lot more intense than a lot of adult books. Teens go to keggers as a rite of passage into high school, and need AA before they graduate, not to mention the casual sex, including date rape, the abusive adults, the car crashes, the brawls....

Tbh, I'm not too keen on labels myself unless the book is obviously written for *and* most beloved by a particular target audience, for example the Junie B. Jones series. Good books for certain children, but *not* of universal appeal.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I see the conversation and the questions, so please do not think I am ignoring you. I am bowing out as I do want this to be a good and instructive conversation about what we think about "reading levels" and the history thereof. I think my explanation on the group rules muddies the water and will really overblow the whole point which is, as always, to read widely, to explore diverse subgenres with hopefully excellent books, and have enough meat for meaningful discussion.

If someone would like to have a direct conversation in a message with me about that, I welcome it! Otherwise I shall leave you all to discuss :)

[Anna]

I want to quickly add that I think there are at least two different discussions going on here. Since this is a group of adult SFF readers, and the one thing we all have in common is that we read adult SFF, it makes sense that it's what the majority of our group reads are. It's an entirely different discussion whether we like YA/MG/children's books as individuals. And yet another whether YA/MG/children's books are somehow less worthy than adult books.

[CBRetriever]

sorry, the original post didn't specify whether the thread was for:

we like them
or
are they less worthy

the two are entangled to me in that if I buy the book I might love it, but I'm less likely to pick up one classified as YA or Juvenile (prejudice, I know)

[Jacqueline]

Whereas I walk into my bookshop and check out the SFF section and then proceed to the back of the shop to check out the YA section. In one of the bookshops I frequent they are together so that’s easy. I’m just on the lookout for great books and I don’t care where they come from. Many of the YA I have read just like the adult books except they’re marketed as YA. I check the reviews on Goodreads first to make sure they’re not written in a childish manner though. Most are written with great maturity and explore themes that adult books overlook.

Many of them should be 8-80 not 8-12 or 12-18 or whatever. Maybe that should be a new classification. 8-80.

Honestly I believe that there are a lot of people who discriminate against YA because they think they’re only for kids when they are far from it.

I believe that there are many YA books that are worthy to be read as the BOM here. Strange the Dreamer is one of them.

[Jacqueline]

I was just looking at the list for the nominated books for March (women authors) and Warcross is marketed as YA......so they do get into our lists at least.

[Bruce]

I honestly found the Hunger Games (books and movies) more unsettling and adult themed than most adult sci fi/fantasy, past and present. I guess two ways something like that is YA and not adult is that A. the main characters are younger, and B. the action, theories, themes, and descriptions of innovations and society aren’t too deep. Some can be violent or sexual (Hunger Games wasn’t sexual though), but they’re written in ways a teen or someone younger can understand. As much as we hate to admit it, they’re not totally adult themes. They’re a reality for many children in the US and abroad, even though they shouldn’t be.

I agree that this group should be adult sci fi and fantasy. Many more people are reading YA sci fi nowadays than adult, so it’s not hard too hard to find other goodreads groups, or groups where people meet in real life to discuss them.

[Leticia]

When we were teens in the 90s we read most things, from classics to Anne Rice and books based on Star Trek episodes and since Harry Potter was launched there is this whole protection and limits on what a teen should and feels like reading.
I would say most things are suitable, even Sidney Sheldon and Lord of the Flies I read as a teen, and nowadays I also read lots of YA. So this is all nonsense after awhile.
I consider the trilogy of the Hunger Games, that is labelled YA, too violent to read or give to my kids, as well as most S. King or other horror books, but this is my take on it. GOT was ok for me but I would also wait with sharing with young teens or kids, although in tv that is made much worse with the images and all. I know people who could not go on reading GOT.
I already saw a booktuber shocked about a scene of domestic violence and rape on the Tearling trilogy that I didn't consider as bad as other scenes in other books, so I suppose that each person has different thresholds of what they can endure or not. It will still come a time when every book, film or tv program will have a warning of 'contains this or that' but for now I don't miss that.

[Carole-Ann]

CBRetriever wrote: "I'm going to add, in a separate post her, that i actually was reading adult books at age 9-10. I'd read my library books and then start on my mother's books (mostly mysteries) and at age 12, she in..."

I was probably 12 when I read Peyton Place - for exactly the reasons you've stated here :)

[Carole-Ann]

And now adding to the OP....

In all honesty, I think Jacqueline said it right: 8 to 80 is best :)

By omitting the children's and MG books (not to mention some YA too) you are MISSING OUT on some fantastic reads.
OK, personal opinion counts, but there have been some magnificent SFF for younger people.

Harry Potter for starters; what about the Percy Jackson adventures? Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising sequence; CS Lewis and Narnia? Fine: they may be less mind-taxing and easy to read, but the adventure is there!

Djanglo Wexler is writing a "Great Library" series; Jim C Hines has nearly completed a "young" Mage series; Taran Matharu's Summoner series is not to be sniffed at.

Do I need to go on? Reading with an open mind is the first requisite. Accepting that sometimes "children's books" are really quite good is useful too :)

Nuff said :)

[Travis]

NK Jemisin tweeted this relevant article this morning about how YA classification is sometimes (often?) not about the content of the novel but instead about the gender of the author: https://bookriot.com/?p=252317

[C.]

Bruce wrote: "I honestly found the Hunger Games (books and movies) more unsettling and adult themed than most adult sci fi/fantasy, past and present. I guess two ways something like that is YA and not adult is t..."

I totally agree about The Hunger Games, with the theme being children being forced to fight to the death! I have no intention of reading a series with such a disgusting/sickening theme, and no way on earth would I have permitted my children to read such books!

Such violence ,plus descriptions of sexuality, profanity, and sexual immorality , are elements that I consider should be absent from all, but " books intended for adults."

[Micah]

You know ... I think it's a bit pointless trying to define the demarcation between YA and Adult literature or whatever.

YA seems to me to be a lot like the term New Age Music in the '80s (which originally lumped together soft jazz, non-dance oriented electronic music, ambient music, neo-folk, and even some contemporary classical works under one banner heading). My cynical self says it's an attempt by marketers to classify works that don't fit comfortably into preexisting genres. You take books that are obviously not children's books but don't strictly appeal to adults and you cram them into their own genre to be able to direct marketing campaigns.

Then one or more of these books makes a sudden splash and EVERYBODY starts creating works specifically designed to fit that made up genre. (In the '80s people started making music specifically to fit the New Age genre which began as a random conglomerate of unrelated musical works...i.e. they took the idea of a new genre and made a music to fit that genre title.)

OTOH there is a very real trend in our society of adults not rejecting the stuff they loved as kids. It's no longer dismissed when an adult is into Star Wars or Dr. Who or Marvel Comics. Disney is huge with adults. So are super hero books, comics, movies, TV. And the entertainment industry has been milking that for every cent they can.

So my non-cynical self says that YA is also reflecting our realization that it's OK to accept the children in us and have some fun.

P.S. the Bible has some pretty hardcore explicit sex and violence in it too so ... not sure it's so YA friendly.

[Anna]

We also have a whole can of worms thread about Sex and violence in books

[Joon]

I basically don't distinguish between YA and "adult" anymore. I just don't care. A good book is a good book regardless of the age group it's aimed at. There's nothing I demand in a book that might knock it out of one or the other of those categories.

And in any case, as has been said, the classification is often used too arbitrarily. Some people think that if a book is SUITABLE for kids, it's MEANT for kids.

[Jacqueline]

Exactly....just because it’s suitable for kids doesn’t mean it’s exclusively a kids book.

How many TV shows, movies and books are multilayered and are for everyone?

And I don’t want to join a YA only group. When I joined this one I though I was joining a SFF group that read excellent books including YA that can cross from kids only to “this is for all ages”. 8-80 just like the board games.

[Sarah]

YA isn’t excluded from this group though. We read Six of Crows not that long ago. That’s labeled YA.

I think YA books just have a harder time gathering the majority vote because a lot of this group sticks to the realm of adult.

There’s always the buddy reads. Those discussions are often pretty lively even if it isn’t an official group read. And we’ve had a couple YA buddy reads last year too, Trail of Lightning and Akata Witch both come to mind, I’m sure there were others that I didn’t participate in and just don’t remember. Children of Blood and Bone was one too.

[Beth]

Micah wrote: "So my non-cynical self says that YA is also reflecting our realization that it's OK to accept the children in us and have some fun."

My way-too-cynical self adds that these debates have been going full bore in the larger public consciousness since That One Series caused the NYT to create a separate bestseller list for YA titles. It's existed as an age category in bookstores and libraries in the U.S. since at least the '70s.

[Elizabeth]

How many of us have read a book when we’re young and reread it as an adult, on an entirely different level? I actually enjoy reading YA books with my teenage daughter. Quite interesting to see how differently we relate to the story. So, I see YA as a suggestion, not a limitation. Some YA books are simplistic and lack depth, but honestly, does anyone really want to be reading that book?

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon]

Elizabeth wrote: "Some YA books are simplistic and lack depth, but honestly, does anyone really want to be reading that book? "

Sometimes?

(Also, some adult books are also simplistic and lack depth. But even popcorn books have their place.)

[Beth]

Sometimes for me, too. I will pick up a YA action-adventure if I want the fun without some of the more unfortunate aspects of "adult" content.

[Sarah]

I personally love books that are simplistic and lack depth- sometimes I just want to be entertained. Not everything needs to be an award winning masterpiece that makes my head spin.

And I’d agree that there are plenty of adult books like that.

[[deleted user]]

colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "Some YA books are simplistic and lack depth, but honestly, does anyone really want to be reading that book? "

Sometimes?

(Also, some adult books are also simplistic and lack dep..."

A good example of such adult books with simplistic plots and lacking depth would be the Harlequin romance series, which enjoy a lot of popularity with the older population in Canada. Many YA books are probably more mature sounding than many such romance books.

[CBRetriever]

Barbara Cartland books in the UK

[Topher]

You can tell by the pictures 😬

[DASL]

I think it should be based by the age of the main character and their peers. I know this is kind of a sketchy plotline, because the main character might be 16 and the book could mention abuse from an adult. I believe you can tell by the way the story was written which category it belonged to.

The story Precious seems more like adult literature compared to say the Fault in Our Stars. Though both deal with adult themes.

Literature, it's complicated and that's why I like it :D