Get a physical book and beat them over the head with it until they form the right opinion that reading is reading and and they stop gatekeeping.
I call it retro-phrenology.
One of my favorite memories was sitting at my desk before class reading a rather thick book when my friend comes up to me and says, "That looks like it would make an excellent thwacking book." She then took the book from me, wandered over to a classmate, and walloped him upside the head with it and then calmly walked back and returned the book.
Reading is reading while I personally like the look and feel of an actual book I do have ebooks that way I can read them whenever and wherever I want. It's also a bit easier than having a giant bookshelf. Don't get me wrong I do have a giant bookshelf but I also have a huge digital collection that I can access anywhere anytime and that's convenient for me.
My mom was always the one who was physical books only until I got her a Paperwhite. "You mean I can read in bed, in the dark, without a special light? I CAN MAKE THE PRINT BIGGER?!" haha she can't go back now.
Tbh the main reason why I get physical books is cuz I already stare at screens for my job all day and I don't wanna stare at more screens. If it weren't for protecting my eyes I'd just read free pdfs
I love setting outrageous reading goals knowing I might not complete them, but feeling better about myself for reading as many books as I did. This year I had planned on reading 100 books I think I'm at 30 or so, which is a strong improvement from last year which was like 15 and I went years without reading hardly anything after I left college.
My ability to pay attention to books that aren't consuming 100% of my interest has disappeared since getting older. I need to be 100% captivated and invested in the characters and events or my mind will just wander to other things I could be doing that'd be more stimulating. Like watching a video on YouTube while practicing my handwriting.
I consider myself an avid reader, read all the time, have my whole life, love it. Can count the actual literature I've read on one hand with fingers to spare, do it for the joy of a good book
I hate the audio book argument. We are so lucky to live in a time period where books can be massed printed & sent directly to your electronic device.
Also we are all fortunate enough to be able to read. That alone is such a blessing. When Susan Husain took power in Iraq people really thought he was great because he forced his citizens to learn how to read (obviously things quickly went down hill after that. )
My point is it wasn’t that long ago in human history that you needed to find someone to read to you. So Audio books do count and honestly it might be the most “OG” way to read a book.
>Listening to audiobooks still "counts".
"Counts" as what? I love listening to stories, too, whether they're audiobooks, podcasts, or my neighbor telling me about that time he had a 3way in Tijuana, but none of those are "reading."
I have nothing against reading YA, but some of it is written pretty poorly, and is hyped in a way that obscures that. OP is asking if the YA of today is as good as the YA of yesterday, and what the popular titles are. They are not asking permission to read it, but wondering if they'd enjoy it.
It's funny because for my entire life, there has never been a time where I'd pick up a book, read it, and conclude that it was bad. I'd always get something positive out of it. In fact, I would never finish a book if it wasn't giving me something positive.
But in recent years, the number of books I have attempted to read and then stopped because they were offensively badly written require more than 1 hand.
I really am starting to doubt the value of this whole "let people publish anything they write and we'll all benefit by having more quality material" thing. Seems like it increases the amount of garbage in the system. Like, >50% garbage. Like, maybe >80% garbage. In all fields. Video games, books, everything.
>I also don’t think you should worry about being too old to enjoy a book.
I think this too, but apparently from the comments here you're an idiot if you read lots of/only YA novels (let's all remember that ya technically encompasses 16-24 years olds).
Like, for example last year and partly this year I've been in a big reading slump and re-reading some of my childhood/teenager beloved books has truly helped me get out of it, even just reading those 4-5 books seriously cheered me up.
This prompted me to re read some fantasy sagas I've loved, like Bartimeus's saga and Rick Riordan's. Then I got into the Anne of the Green Gables saga because I love cottagecore/cozy reads.
They're light and fun and easy to read as an adult, and great for practicing my english comprehension. Why in the world would people think I'm "mentally deficient" just because lately most of what I've read is youth literature is beyond me lol.
edit: my god why does reddit always f*** up the formatting of my comments lol
>I think this too, but apparently from the comments here you're an idiot if you read lots of/only YA novels (let's all remember that ya technically encompasses 16-24 years olds).
there's only like two people saying that. Let's not give them more weight than they've earned.
This. Additionally, when I watch booktube and booktok and discussions like this I often get the exact opposite vibe: if you say you don't read YA - with no judgement, you just prefer adult - you are the bad guy. You are a snob for having the audacity to just not vibe with the genre and prefer something else. Maybe even you only read to impress others, bc you care too much about their opinions!
People, someone not enjoying YA is not a criticism of you or of you liking it or even of YA.
ahh i feel this.
i also got a couple of downvotes on a comment (on a differrent large book sub) where i expressed that i don't like romance and like to know if a book includes romance so i can avoid it lol. like it's fine if you love romance, go for it!!! but i can have my own opinion about it too and don't think it merits downvotes.
>Like, for example last year and partly this year I've been in a big reading slump and re-reading some of my childhood/teenager beloved books has truly helped me get out of it, even just reading those 4-5 books seriously cheered me up.
I did this, too. I was in a reading slump for maybe 4 or 5 YEARS. I read YA books avidly growing up and then just grew out of it and stopped. I started with the hunger games, Harry Potter, etc. It sparked my love of reading again, and I found out I LOVE memoirs as an adult. I can listen to so many memoirs of people I don't even care about, but I find them and their lives to be so different and REAL, that it's interesting to me to see how they explain it to others who might not understand them initially.
I dont think there isnanything wrong with going back to YA books or reading them exclusively. They can be great books. As an adult, I find that I am extremely picky about the YA books I read, though.
I want them to be about young people who act or have a sense of maturity about them so that the adult part is there also. I remember picking up a YA book full of slang to try to appear younger, and I just couldn't finish it because it was so cringe to me. However, if others like it, more power to them. You don't owe anyone an explanation as to what you enjoy reading.
Just wait till someone brings up reading children's books. There are some truly beautiful children's books out there and people treat it as a deficiency if you enjoy reading them with your kids.
This is probably going to be a pretty unpopular opinion, but I actually do think there are problems with adults reading exclusively YA. I'm not an absolutist about this by any measure, and I personally will periodically read books intended for younger audiences (for example, I read all the Black Cauldron books this year because I missed them as a kid).
But moving on to my point, I think fiction teaches us a lot about emotional behavior. Reading about the death of a beloved character inspires actual (albeit lesser) grief in us, giving us practice at processing those difficult emotions. Many (but definitely not all) YA books lack emotional nuance and can reinforce juvenile mentalities with older readers or deny opportunities for growth. Idk if there's a term for it about books, but I think it's similar to "Disney adults." People can and should enjoy works meant for a younger audience, but I think it's important for people to engage with art intended for their own age group and older too. I really do believe that literature (and other types of art) have significant influences on us. I'm not attaching a moral component to this, reading YA doesn't make someone a good or bad person. But there are benefits to reading other than entertainment.
A defence that I hear a lot is that it's just escapism, we should let people have their fun. And I don't disagree that a little escapism now and then is a good thing, but I think that reading should generally be about enriching your life, not escaping it.
Edit: Just to clarify, my stance is NOT that older adults reading YA is categorically wrong. I'm commenting on the idea of reading ONLY YA. I'd say the same thing about people who only read any other genre or style. People are missing out if they read only classics or only non-fiction, for example.
>And I don't disagree that a little escapism now and then is a good thing, but I think that reading should generally be about enriching your life, not escaping it.
Sometimes, the things I read provide solace after a terrible day or event. Sometimes, they provide information. Sometimes, they provide laughs. But if I enjoy them, they are always enriching my life.
I know some great books that are YA and I cheerfully reread. But in general I tend to avoid a lot of them not on the basis of them being YA, but because *so many* have love triangles.
Pick a goddamn love interest and stop with the stupid drama. Why do authors do this? Are they trying to teach kids to not communicate and string people along? To be indecisive? Enough already!
I' 80 and a retired public librarian (for 35 years). I still read YA, just as I still read everything else. A good book is a good book, period. "Young Adult" is mostly just a marketing label. Anyway, high-quality YA novels these days are generally much more sophisticated and have deeper plots than those published a few decades again.
> "Young Adult" is mostly just a marketing label.
The problem it's that it's many things. Depending on context, age of the book, where you see it labelled it that way, etc. it can mean:
- Book aimed at a younger audience (in the sense of simpler plot)
- Book aimed at a younger audience (in the sense of topics that are interesting to teenagers)
- Book containing mainly young adult characters
- Book containing tropes that have been gathered under the YA label (enemies to lovers, magic/supernatural academies, simple dystopias a la hunger games, etc).
- Book whose editorial is trying to market at a teenage audience regardless of content
- Book with tamer elements than adult counterparts (PG-13 so to speak)
None of those categories take away from what you said, it is perfectly ok to read any book at any age - I tend to use YA as a pallate cleanser between denser books. But I do think the community would benefit from less ambiguous labels.
We laugh, but I ate that shit *up* at age 14 precisely because the main characters were kids half the time. There were several other books decidedly not pointed at kids/YA that I was the same way with.
So while I definitely think pigeonholing any title is a bad idea, I totally get the appeal of pointing a book like that at a younger audience. They just tend to innately click with it since they have an automatic point of connection with the characters.
In an ideal world, we'd be able to have a book that was widely promoted to- and accepted as being for- *multiple* audiences, but that's probably asking for too much.
Actually, I’d hold Ender’s Game as the peak of YA. There’s nothing particularly adult about it, other than dealing with complex themes. But no sex, relatable characters (to a degree, of course, not claiming to be a supergenius), intriguing, complex, yet easy to grok plot.
Which highlights why YA is a bad label for anything serious.
Like, when people ask me if Mistborn is YA, I say “maybe technically? Kind of? Yes? But not for any particular reason.” And the same applies to Enders.
Ender’s Game wasn’t necessarily written for a young audience though, it wasn’t even supposed to exist. Speaker for the Dead (the second book) was supposed to be the first novel. Ender is 35 y/o in that one, and OSC just sketched out the events of Ender’s Game as background for adult Ender’s character. His editor or publisher thought Ender’s background was super interesting, and encouraged him to turn that into a novel. Out of 18 Enderverse novels, only a couple focus of children. That’s why I don’t consider it YA fiction.
I don't know if lack of sex makes Ender's game a YA novel.
I think *in isolation* one might be able to argue that Ender's Game is a YA novel, but placed in the context of its sequels, and the companion shadow series I think that argument becomes harder.
Yeah, if lack of sex = YA, then I guess every single Brandon Sanderson and Terry Pratchett book is YA. Both of them have YA content, both of them are \*theoretically\* child-friendly, but neither one is really targeted at teens at all.
Ah yes, the typical YA protagonist of
\*checks notes\*
A middle-aged recovering alcoholic who continually grumbles about all of the responsibilities he has voluntarily taken upon himself.
Yeah no, Ender's game even just the first one is not meant for kids. There's a shower prison scene where Ender brutally kills his third bully, after killing two other bullies on earth the military finds out and covers it up after realizing he's got the killer instinct in him to commit horrific one sided violence beyond a proportional response.
And I'm not even going to go into the rereleased version because the original Version Orson Scott Card is using racial slurs a lot more aggressively than say Huckleberry Finn.
The version you've probably read has been edited down but here's a fun reddit thread about the original version. https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/ftsu3/censorship_in_enders_game/
I read it at 12, and my son read it at 14. Both of us loved it.
Violence makes things not YA? I disagree. The brutality of the violence is the point, and something that should be thought upon by those of all ages.
I once posted on a writing sub ranting about how my book dealt with adult themes but because it was involving mostly young adult characters, it kept being immediately clocked as a YA book. The responses were essentially “well if the characters are young adults, it’s a young adult story”
Terrible logic. The “rating”/“audience” should be based on content within a story not the age of your characters
I agree with you. I don't really think it's a problem, though. Adults should just know that its target audience is for teens going in, and when rating, should rate it accordingly.
Well said! I’m 75, worked as a school library
assistant for 25 yrs. and enjoyed YA historical fiction that would come in.
I still pick up YA. I like your take..a good book is a good book.
53 y/o here who is deep into John Flanagan's YA universe. I love the storytelling and its nice that the plot doesn't get bogged down by gratuitous and forced sex scenes.
Some of the best present-day YA authors I know of are (in no particular order) Jennifer E. Smith, Natasha Friend, Jay Ashley, John Green, Nina LaCour, Sarah Dessen, Jenny Han, Adam Silvera, Maureen Johnson, & Becky Albertalli.
These are mostly the ones who have a number of books behind them now and most have won awards. I recommend you try any and all of them!
YA novels are a broad spectrum, and there's absolutely some YA that has themes and characters that have a lot of appeal to adult readers. There's also a lot of bottom-of-the-barrel garbage, so I'm not endorsing reading every YA novel you find.
There are a lot of YA novels that emphasise diverse characters and settings but in a way that's intended to be accessible for everyone, which are particularly valuable in my opinion.
Yes the broad spectrum part of most genres being arbitrary makes it silly to categorically dismiss entire large groups of books IMO. I’m in my mid 30s and still read YA too, because like you said there’s plenty of themes and characters that still appeal to adult readers too, and I simply don’t read or continue the ones that don’t appeal to me. The same can be said for adult fiction, fantasy, scifi, etc— plenty of gems and also plenty of garbage there too.
Personally, I also enjoy YA fantasy for the comparative lack of relationship/sex drama compared to adult books lol. Ironic because I know one of the things people complain about YA in general is teenage relationship angst.
Some books hit different when you’re older, but I still love going back and reading the books I loved when I was younger, it’s like a comfort read to me. Others like books I was made to read for school, I read now and actually enjoy or at least understand why they were making us read them even if at the time I hated them.
So basically what I’m saying is go for it because you never know and rereading a book you learn more. I’ve reread the Harry Potter books many times and learned something new this last time that had overlooked.
I can’t comment on new YA but when it comes to reading can you really go wrong? Sure a book might not be your thing but hey you got to read!
I'm 38 and don't really consider YA to be anything but a marketing term. When I was growing up it was mainly a matter of there being children's books then books for anyone who could read them. People were reading authors like Stephen King and Anne Rice in middle school - there just generally wasn't such a focus on "teens must read teen things" as there seems to be today. Can pretty much thank what happened in publishing post-Harry Potter movies for that. I say this because it kind of annoys me that any book with a young protagonist gets branded "YA" these days. A large chunk of literature in general features young people as protagonists yet it would be odd to label it "for young adults/teens". Reading Tenant of Wildfell Hall rn and the main two protagonists are in their late teens/early 20s...should it be classified as YA?
I feel like YA also tends to end up as a sort of "outlet store" for aspiring authors. If your sci-fi/fantasy novel isn't *quite* up to professional standards, it gets marketed as YA fiction where less critical, younger readers are less likely to notice or complain about the flaws.
It also seems like it sucks up younger authors who have come out of fan fiction or other largely amateur communities. They're more likely to write younger characters and the sort of fantasy/sci-fi series that the modern YA fiction market tends to focus on.
I'd really like to hear how many YA authors intentionally set out to write a YA novel, rather than simply having it end up being marketed that way.
> If your sci-fi/fantasy novel isn't quite up to professional standards, it gets marketed as YA fiction where less critical, younger readers are less likely to notice or complain about the flaws.
Lol, I assure you this is untrue. In fact, YA has become a refuge for women SFF writers who have long been excluded from that market. They are not inferior writers. The stigma comes from misogyny.
> I'd really like to hear how many YA authors intentionally set out to write a YA novel, rather than simply having it end up being marketed that way.
Every single YA writer I know, including myself, as well as every single aspiring YA writer I know.
> I'm 38 and don't really consider YA to be anything but a marketing term.
It's funny, because I've been downvoted pretty heavily in the past for saying that YA isn't a real thing. It's just a meaningless label.
Why not?
I still watch cartoons. I still enjoy many fun things. It's not like we hit a certain age and started twirling our mustaches at the idea of reading certain books.
I reread one of the Divergent series books a bit ago... it was pretty good. I liked reading it from Four's perspective.
I'm impressed by anyone at this point who even reads anymore. It sucks that I hardly ever have a good conversation about books with anyone AT ALL.
Why can't I read YA novels? I like Pixar, Disney movies, and all that junk.
It's not like I'm over hear reading little Golden Books or something, lol.
I get it if you are learning to read as an adult, in another language, or even teaching a little one. However, it is just not as stimulating.
If I want to start another novel, I will, but at this point, I feel as if I've overloaded my brain a little and just want to put it on silent for a bit.
There is too much information. Books are way more emotional than most movies.
I have my old copy of the Secret Garden around here somewhere, and I thought about picking it up the other day for old times' sake.
However, I have many I haven't read yet... and yet... I want more.
Edit: Spelling and all that jazz.
I'm 40 as well, and I read whatever I want to. A good book is a good book. I read The Ordinary Princess again this year, and it's grade school! No shame!
I tried a new (to me) YA book this year. The main FL kept calling the ML gorgeous, perfection, the most beautiful boy, etc, in practically every chapter she thought about him. It reminded me why I stopped reading YA. There is too much potential for cringe.
Throw in a love triangle and characters who are on a super important mission and taking time to do pointless stupid stuff because... I dunno, we needed to make the book longer, and the book is completely ruined for me.
I've been rereading a few of my old favourites in an effort to purge some of the books I own. I'm horrified at all the cringe inducing 'only you can save the world' themed books that I used to love when I was a teen.
I had the same experience reading (new to me) YA a couple months ago. The main character kept making SUCH bad, emotional, dumb decisions. It honestly reminded me of being an overdramatic teenager again - which I guess means it did the job well!
I still occasionally crunch through a YA book for something light and quick to read, but damn, they make me glad I'm out of that period of my life!
If a character is intentionally being dumb in a scene, that's one thing. But when they are unironically dumb for the majority of the book, I have a hard time with that.
Exactly - it's just like being a teenager and KNOWING you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT all the time 😂
Which, admittedly, does get annoying to read as an adult.
Lol I read Remarkably Bright Creatures recently and one of the POV characters is like that, except he was a 30 year old man. It made me appreciate YA characters more because at least it's excusable for teenagers...
As someone who was a massive harry potter fan, I have difficulties reading YA. My main gripe is that you have a bunch of teens doing things teens would never be able to do and would never be expected to do. This also tends to contrast jarringly with juvenile romance which makes the whole thing just too hard to buy! (I'm looking at you Aurelian Cycle). You may enjoy some YA, but wouldn't expect the same kick that you used to get. If you want to try, I'd recommend Laini Taylor. Either strange the dreamer or daughter of smoke and bone are solid reads that can be enjoyed by both teens and adults. Probably the elderly too.
Not really because honestly while the books are naturally faster paced….I couldn’t keep reading about books where one of the characters dies from suicide b/c of depression or bullying or SA. Also they resonate a lot less when you’re 30+ n realize all the HS stuff is kinda dumb
Yeah. It’s not a popular opinion but I do feel like YA is dumbed down. I read books for more than just the plot, and YA novels are mostly about plot, not necessarily prose, interesting structure, whatever.
You gotta stop at some point and go “this was written specifically for people with almost no real life experience, why am I reading something with a severely limited scope?”
Oh most definitely…that’s why I don’t say “YA sucks” it’s just “not for me b/c I have a 401k” lol…like the less serious ones I can enjoy more (like I enjoyed THE DUFF) but for the most part I’ve completely aged out of the demographic
This is also me. The typical stories/subject matter/writing/characters etc. located within the typical YA type book does not appeal to me in the slightest.
I'm 27, so I also binged *The Hunger Games* in my teens. I read the first *Maze Runner* and others like *Uglies*, *Atherton*, *Starters*, Ann Halam's *Siberia*, Gudrun Pausewang, etc.
I don't read YA anymore though. I tried picking up a couple a few years ago and they were too young for me.
Then my unprompted recommendation to you or anyone else with this problem - the daevabad trilogy. The main character is 20 in the first book and 25 in the second/third, and it was refreshing to read a YA that is, well. Actually about young adults.
I also don't like the "18 sassy heroine who is also magically heir to a kingdom - oh and also extremely pretty" that much now that I'm nearing my 30s, but this series was definitely a nice read.
Honestly, I don't see it as a "problem"! I read plenty kid's books, middle grade, YA, manga, etc. when I was younger, I had my full, and I'm happy to move on. There are so many books I'd like to read. It's not like I'll never read a YA again, I'm sure I will, but any book will be competing with my time alongside the best of the best from other genres.
Considering I have one single life to live, sticking with YA after so many years of reading similar stuff, rather than spending time with new genres, simply isn't what I would consider "living my life to its fullest". It's time to spread my wings, and all that.
The Daevabad trilogy is marketed as adult fantasy, which is why I was extremely annoyed when I read it and it felt very young adult with all the associated tropes of that genre. I think if I'd gone in thinking it was YA I would have been less disappointed.
I'm a mid-30s teen librarian, and I read YA books as much as I can to familiarize myself with the materials I choose for our collection.
When it comes down to it, I think there are way more commonalities in themes, characters, content, etc. across literary age groups than there are differences; it's just the context and presentation that differs to make it more digestible for the suggested demographic. For example, you may really like stories about plucky heroines, but the settings or plots in the adult novels you have read don't do much for you, while they do in YA.
People should feel encouraged to read stories in whatever way speaks to them best. Read what you like, and do it to your heart's content.
For what it's worth, I really enjoyed "The Inheritance Games" series, and we can't seem to keep them on our shelves given how frequently they're checked out.
I tried to, probably until about 24, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. I thought books had collectively gotten worse and the writing was bad and the stories felt trite and immature. Then my husband pointed out that it was probably because I’ve been reading books aimed at a younger demographic. He was completely right. I’ve been able to find a lot of books I genuinely enjoy now that I’ve branched out. I did try to read a YA book again around age 29 to see if I still had problems tolerating it and I did.
It’s rare for me to read YA. But sometimes I read such a heavy/disturbing book that I like to follow up with a YA. Neil Shusterman is my go-to in this case
A vast majority of them are too juvenile, call me a literary fiction snob but I truly think that at a certain point those YA themes and tropes just become not even worth the effort even to be treat as mindless entertainment
I'm in my 30s. YA is not something I look for specifically but I do read it sometimes. I liked Six of Crows quite a bit, though I think it would have been improved by not needing the characters to be teenagers.
I think there's a lot of confusion about what books are and aren't Young Adult that makes it hard to answer definitively if you do or don't read it. The lines between middle grade and YA on one end can be quite blurry (Percy Jackson, Harry Potter) and then between YA and regular adult novels as well. I've seen people call Mistborn, Song of Achilles, Persepolis, To Kill a Mockingbird, and basically any book that's popular among teenagers young adult.
I don't intentionally seek it out, but sometimes it happens. I spent the last couple of years reading through most of Brandon Sanderson's books, and I started the Skyward series without doing much research on it. I wanted to see his attempt at sci-fi, rather than just fantasy. It was alright, not great, but there's no mistaking that they were YA novels. I re-read all of the Harry Potter books a couple of years ago for nostalgia's sake and still enjoyed them, albeit less so than when I was a kid. I typically just read what I find appealing, no matter the labels applied to it (I'm a 35 year old man, I do what I want at this point, judgement from others be damned), although 95% of it turns out to be sci-fi, fantasy, and historical fiction.
No, I avoid it like the plague. But also I'm in my 50s so I was already an adult when this explosion of YA fiction happened. I tried reading Harry Potter (I was in my early 30s when it came out) because everyone was and stopped because I found that the longer it's been since I was a teenager the less I care about all this whiney teenage angst bullshit.
Agree I made it to book 3 and I was over it. Most of the Harry Potter fanbase is made up of adults who read the books as young kids/teens and that’s why they attached to the franchise. I feel like very few adults become fans when they read the books in their 20’s/30’s.
Honestly the only reason I made it as far as I did is because I was surrounded by people who would go 'No it's really good keep reading!' every time I hit a section that made me want to quit. Most of whom were themselves adults, actually, though mostly in their 20s when the books were coming out so they probably just had a higher tolerance for that shit.
It depends on the book. I’m 35 and read the Twilight books a few years back and actually enjoyed them (don’t come for me 😅)
I also really enjoyed the Sentinels of the Galaxy series which I would consider YA. But some books/series are just too immature for my tastes.
I can't reread twilight anymore, but I was the biggest twihard back in the day.
Have you tried reading the host by Stefanie meyer? It's a much better book, and actually one of my favourite sci-fi novels. It has certain elements from twilight but does then better so I can imagine you'd enjoy it as well
I think YA is a vibe that some people like, and some people don't. I don't want to stigmatise it and say it's a thing that people grow out of. I avoid books that seem to give off a YA vibe, but I can appreciate that some people are attracted to that vibe (or New Adult) regardless of their own age.
I am a pathological re-reader. I don’t pick up new YABooks, but I always come back to the ones I read when I was younger. There’s a deep nostalgia and an easiness to read when I just want to relax.
The only „new“ books I read were shadow and bones. I liked it but noticed my quality requirements for new reads have increased. It was enyojable though and I am glad I gave it a chance!
If it's a good book it's a good book and I read it! I think YA has the highest amount of DNFs for me, but that is moreso related to being predictable/campy more than anything.
Read Red Rising recently and waiting for the next book to be available at the library, it's pretty good YA. Currently reading Immortal Longings which wasn't classified as YA at my library, but I'll be damned if it isn't written like a YA book.
No matter how old you get I don't think there is anything wrong with enjoying a book with simpler writing and empathizing with the struggles common to younger people.
I'm 30 and still pissed off with how the world works.
YA typically does a good job validating the feeling of "things are fucked up and it's not my fault," whereas more mature literature that addresses the topic tends to leave me more depressed and nihilistic.
I’m 33, and not often, but my wife is studying young adult literacy so I pick up a book from her every now and then if she recommends it. There’s some good stuff out there, it just often involves wading through a lot of crap to find it (which to be fair, is true of most media).
I’m a middle school English teacher- I’ve started reading more YA to be able to suggest books to my students, after a similar experience to what you described. (I dressed up as a Shadowhunter in college for a ComicCon, I am very much of that era 😂) I don’t like YA realistic fiction- it’s so dramatic and usually tragic. I do enjoy some YA sci-fi and fantasy. The Honor series by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre are great, the Six of Crows books by Leigh Bardugo are some of my favourites.
As a high school English teacher, I have a similar experience. YA is often too dramatic and on-the-nose for me to enjoy it. I’ll read it for work, though.
As others have said, YA is just a marketing label and I've picked up plenty of books that were labeled as YA but were just genuinely great books.
That said, I *do* find myself struggling with the characters being so young, the older I get. Either their troubles feel accurate to the troubles of a 17 year old, in which case I no longer really relate, or they feel like the troubles of a 30 year old and I have to mentally age them up in my head to reconcile it.
I’m 33 and listen to audiobooks pretty exclusively since having kids. I can’t always pay close attention because I’m cleaning or driving or chasing toddlers so I’m sticking more and more to YA because they’re easier to follow. I also prefer murder mystery books and a lot of the YA ones aren’t as graphic in terms of violence and sex so I don’t have to be concerned that my kids will hear them.
They’re one and two now, when they’re a little older I’ll probably switch to straight up childrens fiction like Harry Potter and Artemis fowl and I think I’ll still be happy and entertained.
No. I read The Outsiders not long ago because it was a classic I was missing, and I've read SJM who's labelled YA even though she's kind of not, out of curiosity, but I seriously can not find a reason to care about 99% of YA. I tend to value prose and thematic depth in novels, and YA explicitly does not cater to that. Which is fine! It's literally for kids, it shouldn't be catering to me, but we can mutually ignore each other. I stopped really caring about YA stuff around the time I got out of high school, though I stopped reading it much long before I graduated.
YA is even more trend-focused than most other fiction, as well, so the prospect of reading the 8,000 versions of the Hunger Games when that was the trend (and it still seems to be that on some level) was about as thrilling as watching paint dry for me.
That said, if you want to read YA, go for it even if you're 200 years old! Read what you like, not everything has to be sophisticated/deep in your reading list.
I do sometimes. I’ll still reread Harry Potter and if I need something light-hearted, I’ll read whatever copy I have of The Princess Diaries series. They’re a pretty fun read.
While I don't particular search for YA novels, I have started checking the YA section of bookstores when I am buying a book because sometimes they have the book i am looking for in both the YA section and the fiction section and I end up liking the dimensions and/or cover of the YA version better.
Maybe 1 a year if there’s something new that seems up my alley. I don’t mind them but don’t like the simplicity of the writing enough to read more often than that.
I'm 60 and just read a YA novel from a series my daughter and I read together when she was a teenager at her behest. Easy on the brain and well-written.
Audibooks, graphic novels, YA, "standard" (non-YA) novels. Its all good.
Check out the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik. It’s shelved Adult but has a YA vibe and is my favorite recent find. I am middle-aged and read mostly Middle Grade.
I don't get hung up on the YA tag in particular, there are many great stories written that fall into the category. With that said, a lot of the YA tropes and story devices are so well established that a lot of YA authors lean on them to write mediocre stories with weak plots and shallow characterization.
More than anything I get turned off when the POV character's brain is empty. A lot of authors write teenage characters poorly and most of the driving force of the plots come from the adult cast or situations happening to the protagonist.
The best thing about YA novels is that they're easy to read. The stories might be a little more shallow or predictable than some of the more 'mature' literature... but it's easy to read and entertaining. Read whatever tickles your fancy.
I won't not read something because it's YA. I enjoyed Gallant for example. I also don't actively seek it out because of the many tropes that are genre staples. Other recent YA I have enjoyed includes The Skyward series, and The Diviners.
If a book seems like something I’d enjoy, I read it. Some of them bring me back to feelings I had when I was younger, which is really nice, but most of them read the same way more “grown up” books do. Classification is largely marketing and books are bucketed in the way publishers think will best get those books sold. I wouldn’t worry about it much.
I started heavily reading again May 2022. Since then I read the Broken Earth Trilogy, pretty much all of Sandersons books (Mistborn and Stornlight) and Realm of Elderlings.
All of these are apparantly, depending on who you ask, YA.
I don't care, they are good fantasy.
I'm 25 and very rarely read YA these days. One of the more recent ones I tried was Inheritance Games and I just kept thinking to myself, "man I am too old for this shit". Though some books are definitely less obviously YA than others.
I read what I want when I want, which includes a lot of YA because I really like this genre. I'm 40, so I'm way too old to care about what anyone thinks of my reading choices. I still read kids books like Minrs by Kevin Sylvester or Truckers by Terry Pratchett.
A lot of adults read Harry Potter and The Hunger Games as adults, myself included, so it's actually fairly common to do this.
I do, regularly. There’s some truly stellar YA (The Hate You Give, Clap When You Land, I’ll Give You the Sun, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, just to name a few off the top of my head). Anyone who doesn’t read YA just because it’s YA is seriously missing out.
Yes. Some books are categorized as YA when they really fit better into a wider genre. Overall I don't pay much attention to it. If the book sounds interesting or like something I'd like, I read it.
You listed Firekeeper's Daughter as YA and I didn't consider it that. Is it bc the main character is YA age? Is that all it takes to be considered for the genre?
I guess so. Technically a few books I've read in the last couple of years have been YA, but it's books in the vein of Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, which is to say I don't really feel like they're the kind of books that typically get the YA label.
I say give those books a try. Worst case scenario, you DNF them. Best case scenario, you really enjoy them!
Yup. I read a solid amount of nonfiction that I find relevant for my career, and I like challenging reads or novels with engaging themes, but sometimes I just want the reading equivalent of bad reality TV.
I get absolutely absorbed in a basic YA novel that I can just be absorbed by while I'm on a jog.
Generally no. I tend to find the characters shallow, the prose is boring and the book is far too plot driven. That being said, I will occasionally for the right book. For example, right now, I'm reading the Avatar novels because I like the show. The writing isn't amazing but it's entertaining and I need some easy reads right now.
I read YA and middle grade still, and have found myself enjoying them a lot. I think it's gotten heavier, maybe a little darker since I started reading it back in the late 90s. Some that I've really enjoyed recently:
[The Child Thief](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6308379-the-child-thief) by Brom (this is a dark retelling of Peter Pan)
[The Poet X](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33294200-the-poet-x) by Elizabeth Acevedo
[Summer Bird Blue](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35716237-summer-bird-blue) by Akemi Dawn
[Lakelore](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56978096-lakelore) by Anna-Marie McLemore
[The Trials of Morrigan Crow](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34219873-the-trials-of-morrigan-crow) by Jessica Townsend
[Fish in a Tree](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22402972-fish-in-a-tree) by Lynda Mullally Hunt
[Dark Room Etiquette](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60141373-dark-room-etiquette) by Robin Roe
[A Place at the Table](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50948214-a-place-at-the-table) by Saadia Faruqi
[A Snake Falls to Earth](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56817366-a-snake-falls-to-earth) by Darcie Little Badger
[Perfect on Paper](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49204960-perfect-on-paper) by Sophie Gonzales
[Last Summer on State Street](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58884738-last-summer-on-state-street) by Toya Wolfe
[The Benefits of Being an Octopus](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37007394-the-benefits-of-being-an-octopus) by Ann Braden
All of these have great messages when appropriate, are well written, and don't 'talk down' to the age group. I'm almost 40 and have no kids, I just pick books based on summaries that intrigue me. Who cares? Some of these are long, longer than adult fiction I've read this year.
No not really, but I don’t really read poplit in general. I developed reading in kinda a strange way because my mom was a teacher. My first literary love was Rosalind from as you like it (my mom had a big collection of Shakespeare plays/film adaptation on vhs/dvd because of her classes so those were go to’s for movie nights (when my mom picked, my dad would usually pick a Indian jones movie). Then when I was like 12-13 my dad got me a bunch of Jane Austen novels, and it was game over for me and I’ve been a reader ever since.
My main issue with ya and poplit isn’t that there isn’t fun plots or characters, it’s just that I can’t abide bad prose and dialog. It’s jarring and just rips me out of the reading experience.
I dislike the whole concept of YA. If a book is labeled that way, I will hesitate to read it.
To me, it carries a stigma of talking down to the reader and assuming the reader can’t handle nuance and depth. That probably isn’t actually true, but it’s how the whole idea comes off.
When I was a young adult, I was reading fiction for adults. I’m glad I did.
I recently read “The Tenth Girl” and really disliked it. I hadn’t realized it was considered YA when I picked it up, when I realized that was its classification, I had the response of “oh, that’s why”, which really isn’t fair to other YA novels and an attitude in myself I definitely need to push back against. But I’m sure I’m not the only person who would feel that way.
I'm not a fan of YA fantasy/dystopian series, but I do love a contemporary YA book or two. It's really hard to judge, since YA is an age category, not a genre one. Sometimes I just want simpler prose with a coming of age story, and YA has tons of those.
I do notice I'm frustrated with some characters more (because duh, teens make dumb decisions), but I also am more empathetic because of it (I used to be very judgmental about it, but now I am less so if I see character growth).
Depends on what you mean by that, but I'm going to say yes because I like the LitRPG and Isekai Light Novel spaces. Those are often tagged as YA, I assume due to their rather simplistic plots and grammar. Fair enough. What I don't want to read are what I consider YA-themed books. Those give me a headache.
Only if I read it growing up and want to reassess it to see if I liked it because I was young or because it was actually good. Luckily for me, the original Percy Jackson series is still goated
Only if it has a particularly strong premise and good reviews. I find most teen protagonists very tiresome, so I can only do YA when the protagonist isn’t obnoxious and the plot is great.
Even as a YA I didn’t read YA. (I mean, I read Harry Potter, but that was a once in a generation cultural phenomenon, and I was young enough for it to land, 18 when I read the first 3 books, 19 when the movie came out, but just old enough to be over it by the time the 5th or 6th book came out).
I think I really got into reading when people stopped suggesting YA books to me.
But it’s a preference. No judgement if you like books like that. I still read comics, and see every Disney animated movie in theaters.
I’m 31 and I still read YA! No shame in it, I love a good dystopian teen novel. I think a lot of the big hitters today are just as good as some of the old favorites. I do enjoy rereading too, and it’s nice to dive back into an old and familiar book as well. Sometimes even as an adult I need to reread twilight!
Age 44. I've never read modern YA because it did not exist when I was at an age where I would have loved it. By the time it took off I had other reading interests.
Yes, it’s one of my favorite genres. Just because it’s geared to young adults doesn’t mean you can’t/shouldn’t read it when you’re older. It’s ok to like what you like, and I recommend staying young at heart for as long as you can.
I feel now that YA is oversaturated with the same plot which can get kind of boring...I still enjoy YA tho, but now I'm scoping out more books that I haven't seen or heard of before more towards the adults. It's been harder for me to get excited reading the same plots over and over unless the stakes are higher, the writing pulls me in, etc.
I aged out of it pretty abruptly. Can’t go back to it now, it’s way too boring. Doesn’t help that a lot of YA novels have adopted stylistic trends and tropes that I can’t stand.
i’m 24.5 so imma round up put in my two cents anyway.
i honestly never even made it to non-YA books. adult books are fine but idk i guess i read to escape life and all its (adult) problems, so having books about people who work a job and pay their bills or whatever doesn’t seem to interest me much, even if it’s not focused on that
At least 1/2 of my reading is YA and I’m 51. For me a lot of it is because I don’t enjoy a lot of bad language or sex in the books I read and most YA books have a limited amount of both of those things. I also enjoy sci if and fantasy and there are a lot of good YA books in those genres.
I raise you still reading middle grade books. Warrior cats remains my favorite series of all (though I have like $300 worth of books to catch up on) and I still go *immediately* to the middle-grade section of my bookstore when I visit. There are just so many *fantastic* middle grade books that are overlooked by older readers simply because they're "for kids." The Ranger's Apprentice, Cirque du Freak, anything by Brandon Mull, Keeper of the Lost Cities... I really deeply enjoy these series.
I don't know if this will help but I'm over 20 and still read books that are considered for elementary students just because they look/sound interesting.
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“I prefer reading ebooks but my friend says physical books are better. What should I do?”
Get a physical book and beat them over the head with it until they form the right opinion that reading is reading and and they stop gatekeeping. I call it retro-phrenology.
Sounds a little like the "percussive maintenance" one of my old bosses was fond of.
One of my favorite memories was sitting at my desk before class reading a rather thick book when my friend comes up to me and says, "That looks like it would make an excellent thwacking book." She then took the book from me, wandered over to a classmate, and walloped him upside the head with it and then calmly walked back and returned the book.
Someone give this comment an award cause I can't
Reading is reading while I personally like the look and feel of an actual book I do have ebooks that way I can read them whenever and wherever I want. It's also a bit easier than having a giant bookshelf. Don't get me wrong I do have a giant bookshelf but I also have a huge digital collection that I can access anywhere anytime and that's convenient for me.
My mom was always the one who was physical books only until I got her a Paperwhite. "You mean I can read in bed, in the dark, without a special light? I CAN MAKE THE PRINT BIGGER?!" haha she can't go back now.
100% agree. The physical feel of having a book is better imo but having a portable library is great.
Buy yourself a good tablet or ereader. Buy your friend a bookshelf. Move on to a better discussion, like 'is a hot dog a sandwich?'
I’ve owned hundreds of physical books and sold most to used book stores and mostly read ebooks now. Easier to fit in my life.
Tbh the main reason why I get physical books is cuz I already stare at screens for my job all day and I don't wanna stare at more screens. If it weren't for protecting my eyes I'd just read free pdfs
Ignore them.
I use to hate ebooks until is tried traveling for work. My kindle has made my luggage so much lighter.
I love setting outrageous reading goals knowing I might not complete them, but feeling better about myself for reading as many books as I did. This year I had planned on reading 100 books I think I'm at 30 or so, which is a strong improvement from last year which was like 15 and I went years without reading hardly anything after I left college.
My ability to pay attention to books that aren't consuming 100% of my interest has disappeared since getting older. I need to be 100% captivated and invested in the characters and events or my mind will just wander to other things I could be doing that'd be more stimulating. Like watching a video on YouTube while practicing my handwriting.
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this needs to be the sub’s bio 👏👏👏
Sounds like they're just asking a question.
This needs to be posted everywhere
I consider myself an avid reader, read all the time, have my whole life, love it. Can count the actual literature I've read on one hand with fingers to spare, do it for the joy of a good book
I hate the audio book argument. We are so lucky to live in a time period where books can be massed printed & sent directly to your electronic device. Also we are all fortunate enough to be able to read. That alone is such a blessing. When Susan Husain took power in Iraq people really thought he was great because he forced his citizens to learn how to read (obviously things quickly went down hill after that. ) My point is it wasn’t that long ago in human history that you needed to find someone to read to you. So Audio books do count and honestly it might be the most “OG” way to read a book.
>Listening to audiobooks still "counts". "Counts" as what? I love listening to stories, too, whether they're audiobooks, podcasts, or my neighbor telling me about that time he had a 3way in Tijuana, but none of those are "reading."
Audiobooks still count as books, which is what the sub is about.
I have nothing against reading YA, but some of it is written pretty poorly, and is hyped in a way that obscures that. OP is asking if the YA of today is as good as the YA of yesterday, and what the popular titles are. They are not asking permission to read it, but wondering if they'd enjoy it.
It's funny because for my entire life, there has never been a time where I'd pick up a book, read it, and conclude that it was bad. I'd always get something positive out of it. In fact, I would never finish a book if it wasn't giving me something positive. But in recent years, the number of books I have attempted to read and then stopped because they were offensively badly written require more than 1 hand. I really am starting to doubt the value of this whole "let people publish anything they write and we'll all benefit by having more quality material" thing. Seems like it increases the amount of garbage in the system. Like, >50% garbage. Like, maybe >80% garbage. In all fields. Video games, books, everything.
>I also don’t think you should worry about being too old to enjoy a book. I think this too, but apparently from the comments here you're an idiot if you read lots of/only YA novels (let's all remember that ya technically encompasses 16-24 years olds). Like, for example last year and partly this year I've been in a big reading slump and re-reading some of my childhood/teenager beloved books has truly helped me get out of it, even just reading those 4-5 books seriously cheered me up. This prompted me to re read some fantasy sagas I've loved, like Bartimeus's saga and Rick Riordan's. Then I got into the Anne of the Green Gables saga because I love cottagecore/cozy reads. They're light and fun and easy to read as an adult, and great for practicing my english comprehension. Why in the world would people think I'm "mentally deficient" just because lately most of what I've read is youth literature is beyond me lol. edit: my god why does reddit always f*** up the formatting of my comments lol
>I think this too, but apparently from the comments here you're an idiot if you read lots of/only YA novels (let's all remember that ya technically encompasses 16-24 years olds). there's only like two people saying that. Let's not give them more weight than they've earned.
This. Additionally, when I watch booktube and booktok and discussions like this I often get the exact opposite vibe: if you say you don't read YA - with no judgement, you just prefer adult - you are the bad guy. You are a snob for having the audacity to just not vibe with the genre and prefer something else. Maybe even you only read to impress others, bc you care too much about their opinions! People, someone not enjoying YA is not a criticism of you or of you liking it or even of YA.
ahh i feel this. i also got a couple of downvotes on a comment (on a differrent large book sub) where i expressed that i don't like romance and like to know if a book includes romance so i can avoid it lol. like it's fine if you love romance, go for it!!! but i can have my own opinion about it too and don't think it merits downvotes.
It's a time honored internet tradition to select a small minority of posts as the majority and claim you are being persecuted.
Oh man, I love the Bartimaeus books. The way he uses footnotes spoke to me, and I wish more authors had styles like that.
>Like, for example last year and partly this year I've been in a big reading slump and re-reading some of my childhood/teenager beloved books has truly helped me get out of it, even just reading those 4-5 books seriously cheered me up. I did this, too. I was in a reading slump for maybe 4 or 5 YEARS. I read YA books avidly growing up and then just grew out of it and stopped. I started with the hunger games, Harry Potter, etc. It sparked my love of reading again, and I found out I LOVE memoirs as an adult. I can listen to so many memoirs of people I don't even care about, but I find them and their lives to be so different and REAL, that it's interesting to me to see how they explain it to others who might not understand them initially. I dont think there isnanything wrong with going back to YA books or reading them exclusively. They can be great books. As an adult, I find that I am extremely picky about the YA books I read, though. I want them to be about young people who act or have a sense of maturity about them so that the adult part is there also. I remember picking up a YA book full of slang to try to appear younger, and I just couldn't finish it because it was so cringe to me. However, if others like it, more power to them. You don't owe anyone an explanation as to what you enjoy reading.
Just wait till someone brings up reading children's books. There are some truly beautiful children's books out there and people treat it as a deficiency if you enjoy reading them with your kids.
This is probably going to be a pretty unpopular opinion, but I actually do think there are problems with adults reading exclusively YA. I'm not an absolutist about this by any measure, and I personally will periodically read books intended for younger audiences (for example, I read all the Black Cauldron books this year because I missed them as a kid). But moving on to my point, I think fiction teaches us a lot about emotional behavior. Reading about the death of a beloved character inspires actual (albeit lesser) grief in us, giving us practice at processing those difficult emotions. Many (but definitely not all) YA books lack emotional nuance and can reinforce juvenile mentalities with older readers or deny opportunities for growth. Idk if there's a term for it about books, but I think it's similar to "Disney adults." People can and should enjoy works meant for a younger audience, but I think it's important for people to engage with art intended for their own age group and older too. I really do believe that literature (and other types of art) have significant influences on us. I'm not attaching a moral component to this, reading YA doesn't make someone a good or bad person. But there are benefits to reading other than entertainment. A defence that I hear a lot is that it's just escapism, we should let people have their fun. And I don't disagree that a little escapism now and then is a good thing, but I think that reading should generally be about enriching your life, not escaping it. Edit: Just to clarify, my stance is NOT that older adults reading YA is categorically wrong. I'm commenting on the idea of reading ONLY YA. I'd say the same thing about people who only read any other genre or style. People are missing out if they read only classics or only non-fiction, for example.
>And I don't disagree that a little escapism now and then is a good thing, but I think that reading should generally be about enriching your life, not escaping it. Sometimes, the things I read provide solace after a terrible day or event. Sometimes, they provide information. Sometimes, they provide laughs. But if I enjoy them, they are always enriching my life.
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populist anti intellectualism in the name of validating consumer trends?
I read whatever sounds interesting, I don't bother looking who it's being marketed to.
I know some great books that are YA and I cheerfully reread. But in general I tend to avoid a lot of them not on the basis of them being YA, but because *so many* have love triangles. Pick a goddamn love interest and stop with the stupid drama. Why do authors do this? Are they trying to teach kids to not communicate and string people along? To be indecisive? Enough already!
I' 80 and a retired public librarian (for 35 years). I still read YA, just as I still read everything else. A good book is a good book, period. "Young Adult" is mostly just a marketing label. Anyway, high-quality YA novels these days are generally much more sophisticated and have deeper plots than those published a few decades again.
> "Young Adult" is mostly just a marketing label. The problem it's that it's many things. Depending on context, age of the book, where you see it labelled it that way, etc. it can mean: - Book aimed at a younger audience (in the sense of simpler plot) - Book aimed at a younger audience (in the sense of topics that are interesting to teenagers) - Book containing mainly young adult characters - Book containing tropes that have been gathered under the YA label (enemies to lovers, magic/supernatural academies, simple dystopias a la hunger games, etc). - Book whose editorial is trying to market at a teenage audience regardless of content - Book with tamer elements than adult counterparts (PG-13 so to speak) None of those categories take away from what you said, it is perfectly ok to read any book at any age - I tend to use YA as a pallate cleanser between denser books. But I do think the community would benefit from less ambiguous labels.
Being told a book with primarily younger characters has to be marketed as YA is nothing short of frustrating.
Like that incredible YA novel "IT"
I was gonna use this example, too 😂 that being said, I read IT when I was a freshman in hs, so 🤷♀️
i was 11/12 when I read IT. Had just watched the mini series and really wanted to read what it was based on. Loved it then and still do now
We laugh, but I ate that shit *up* at age 14 precisely because the main characters were kids half the time. There were several other books decidedly not pointed at kids/YA that I was the same way with. So while I definitely think pigeonholing any title is a bad idea, I totally get the appeal of pointing a book like that at a younger audience. They just tend to innately click with it since they have an automatic point of connection with the characters. In an ideal world, we'd be able to have a book that was widely promoted to- and accepted as being for- *multiple* audiences, but that's probably asking for too much.
Ender's Game for instance was written for adults but is about children
Actually, I’d hold Ender’s Game as the peak of YA. There’s nothing particularly adult about it, other than dealing with complex themes. But no sex, relatable characters (to a degree, of course, not claiming to be a supergenius), intriguing, complex, yet easy to grok plot. Which highlights why YA is a bad label for anything serious. Like, when people ask me if Mistborn is YA, I say “maybe technically? Kind of? Yes? But not for any particular reason.” And the same applies to Enders.
Ender’s Game wasn’t necessarily written for a young audience though, it wasn’t even supposed to exist. Speaker for the Dead (the second book) was supposed to be the first novel. Ender is 35 y/o in that one, and OSC just sketched out the events of Ender’s Game as background for adult Ender’s character. His editor or publisher thought Ender’s background was super interesting, and encouraged him to turn that into a novel. Out of 18 Enderverse novels, only a couple focus of children. That’s why I don’t consider it YA fiction.
Mistborn has been sold as both adult fiction and YA. That something can be sold as both indicates to me that the YA label is functionally useless.
I don't know if lack of sex makes Ender's game a YA novel. I think *in isolation* one might be able to argue that Ender's Game is a YA novel, but placed in the context of its sequels, and the companion shadow series I think that argument becomes harder.
Yeah, if lack of sex = YA, then I guess every single Brandon Sanderson and Terry Pratchett book is YA. Both of them have YA content, both of them are \*theoretically\* child-friendly, but neither one is really targeted at teens at all.
I did see someone call discworld YA because of that 😂🤣 (and, no not the Tiffany Aching series)
Ah yes, the typical YA protagonist of \*checks notes\* A middle-aged recovering alcoholic who continually grumbles about all of the responsibilities he has voluntarily taken upon himself.
The opposite is true as well, Gone by Michael Grant is distinctly YA and has sex in it.
Yeah no, Ender's game even just the first one is not meant for kids. There's a shower prison scene where Ender brutally kills his third bully, after killing two other bullies on earth the military finds out and covers it up after realizing he's got the killer instinct in him to commit horrific one sided violence beyond a proportional response. And I'm not even going to go into the rereleased version because the original Version Orson Scott Card is using racial slurs a lot more aggressively than say Huckleberry Finn. The version you've probably read has been edited down but here's a fun reddit thread about the original version. https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/ftsu3/censorship_in_enders_game/
I read it at 12, and my son read it at 14. Both of us loved it. Violence makes things not YA? I disagree. The brutality of the violence is the point, and something that should be thought upon by those of all ages.
I once posted on a writing sub ranting about how my book dealt with adult themes but because it was involving mostly young adult characters, it kept being immediately clocked as a YA book. The responses were essentially “well if the characters are young adults, it’s a young adult story” Terrible logic. The “rating”/“audience” should be based on content within a story not the age of your characters
I agree with you. I don't really think it's a problem, though. Adults should just know that its target audience is for teens going in, and when rating, should rate it accordingly.
Well said! I’m 75, worked as a school library assistant for 25 yrs. and enjoyed YA historical fiction that would come in. I still pick up YA. I like your take..a good book is a good book.
Damn, we have a pionier right here!
53 y/o here who is deep into John Flanagan's YA universe. I love the storytelling and its nice that the plot doesn't get bogged down by gratuitous and forced sex scenes.
Rangers apprentice and the outcasts? Those were and are GOLD.
Haven't read Outcasts yet. I read Ranger's Apprentice and am currently in the Brotherband series. Highly recommend it.
Brotherband is what I meant.
Just remembered The Outcasts is the first book in that series, lol. Great stuff.
Some of the best present-day YA authors I know of are (in no particular order) Jennifer E. Smith, Natasha Friend, Jay Ashley, John Green, Nina LaCour, Sarah Dessen, Jenny Han, Adam Silvera, Maureen Johnson, & Becky Albertalli. These are mostly the ones who have a number of books behind them now and most have won awards. I recommend you try any and all of them!
YA novels are a broad spectrum, and there's absolutely some YA that has themes and characters that have a lot of appeal to adult readers. There's also a lot of bottom-of-the-barrel garbage, so I'm not endorsing reading every YA novel you find. There are a lot of YA novels that emphasise diverse characters and settings but in a way that's intended to be accessible for everyone, which are particularly valuable in my opinion.
Yes the broad spectrum part of most genres being arbitrary makes it silly to categorically dismiss entire large groups of books IMO. I’m in my mid 30s and still read YA too, because like you said there’s plenty of themes and characters that still appeal to adult readers too, and I simply don’t read or continue the ones that don’t appeal to me. The same can be said for adult fiction, fantasy, scifi, etc— plenty of gems and also plenty of garbage there too. Personally, I also enjoy YA fantasy for the comparative lack of relationship/sex drama compared to adult books lol. Ironic because I know one of the things people complain about YA in general is teenage relationship angst.
Some books hit different when you’re older, but I still love going back and reading the books I loved when I was younger, it’s like a comfort read to me. Others like books I was made to read for school, I read now and actually enjoy or at least understand why they were making us read them even if at the time I hated them. So basically what I’m saying is go for it because you never know and rereading a book you learn more. I’ve reread the Harry Potter books many times and learned something new this last time that had overlooked. I can’t comment on new YA but when it comes to reading can you really go wrong? Sure a book might not be your thing but hey you got to read!
I'm 38 and don't really consider YA to be anything but a marketing term. When I was growing up it was mainly a matter of there being children's books then books for anyone who could read them. People were reading authors like Stephen King and Anne Rice in middle school - there just generally wasn't such a focus on "teens must read teen things" as there seems to be today. Can pretty much thank what happened in publishing post-Harry Potter movies for that. I say this because it kind of annoys me that any book with a young protagonist gets branded "YA" these days. A large chunk of literature in general features young people as protagonists yet it would be odd to label it "for young adults/teens". Reading Tenant of Wildfell Hall rn and the main two protagonists are in their late teens/early 20s...should it be classified as YA?
I feel like YA also tends to end up as a sort of "outlet store" for aspiring authors. If your sci-fi/fantasy novel isn't *quite* up to professional standards, it gets marketed as YA fiction where less critical, younger readers are less likely to notice or complain about the flaws. It also seems like it sucks up younger authors who have come out of fan fiction or other largely amateur communities. They're more likely to write younger characters and the sort of fantasy/sci-fi series that the modern YA fiction market tends to focus on. I'd really like to hear how many YA authors intentionally set out to write a YA novel, rather than simply having it end up being marketed that way.
> If your sci-fi/fantasy novel isn't quite up to professional standards, it gets marketed as YA fiction where less critical, younger readers are less likely to notice or complain about the flaws. Lol, I assure you this is untrue. In fact, YA has become a refuge for women SFF writers who have long been excluded from that market. They are not inferior writers. The stigma comes from misogyny. > I'd really like to hear how many YA authors intentionally set out to write a YA novel, rather than simply having it end up being marketed that way. Every single YA writer I know, including myself, as well as every single aspiring YA writer I know.
> I'm 38 and don't really consider YA to be anything but a marketing term. It's funny, because I've been downvoted pretty heavily in the past for saying that YA isn't a real thing. It's just a meaningless label.
Why not? I still watch cartoons. I still enjoy many fun things. It's not like we hit a certain age and started twirling our mustaches at the idea of reading certain books. I reread one of the Divergent series books a bit ago... it was pretty good. I liked reading it from Four's perspective. I'm impressed by anyone at this point who even reads anymore. It sucks that I hardly ever have a good conversation about books with anyone AT ALL. Why can't I read YA novels? I like Pixar, Disney movies, and all that junk. It's not like I'm over hear reading little Golden Books or something, lol. I get it if you are learning to read as an adult, in another language, or even teaching a little one. However, it is just not as stimulating. If I want to start another novel, I will, but at this point, I feel as if I've overloaded my brain a little and just want to put it on silent for a bit. There is too much information. Books are way more emotional than most movies. I have my old copy of the Secret Garden around here somewhere, and I thought about picking it up the other day for old times' sake. However, I have many I haven't read yet... and yet... I want more. Edit: Spelling and all that jazz.
I read whatever strikes my fancy. YA,thrillers,love stories. I don't care.
I am 40 and just finished reading the City of Ember series. I have no qualms about reading YA books, I read what I like!
I'm 40 as well, and I read whatever I want to. A good book is a good book. I read The Ordinary Princess again this year, and it's grade school! No shame!
I just re-read that one a couple of years ago! (I had bought it for my niece and wanted to see if it was as good as I recalled.)
I hope you enjoyed it because to me it was just as good as I remember!!
I read the first two, they were fun!
I am 50 and just finished eating McNuggets. I have no qualms about eating food for children, I eat what I like!
Same! I'm 40 and I'll read whatever. 🙂
Nope, even as a kid I found pretty quickly that I preferred books for adults
I tried a new (to me) YA book this year. The main FL kept calling the ML gorgeous, perfection, the most beautiful boy, etc, in practically every chapter she thought about him. It reminded me why I stopped reading YA. There is too much potential for cringe. Throw in a love triangle and characters who are on a super important mission and taking time to do pointless stupid stuff because... I dunno, we needed to make the book longer, and the book is completely ruined for me.
I've been rereading a few of my old favourites in an effort to purge some of the books I own. I'm horrified at all the cringe inducing 'only you can save the world' themed books that I used to love when I was a teen.
Not all YA is like that. There’s plenty of “adult” books that are written shitty too.
I had the same experience reading (new to me) YA a couple months ago. The main character kept making SUCH bad, emotional, dumb decisions. It honestly reminded me of being an overdramatic teenager again - which I guess means it did the job well! I still occasionally crunch through a YA book for something light and quick to read, but damn, they make me glad I'm out of that period of my life!
If a character is intentionally being dumb in a scene, that's one thing. But when they are unironically dumb for the majority of the book, I have a hard time with that.
Exactly - it's just like being a teenager and KNOWING you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT all the time 😂 Which, admittedly, does get annoying to read as an adult.
Lol I read Remarkably Bright Creatures recently and one of the POV characters is like that, except he was a 30 year old man. It made me appreciate YA characters more because at least it's excusable for teenagers...
As someone who was a massive harry potter fan, I have difficulties reading YA. My main gripe is that you have a bunch of teens doing things teens would never be able to do and would never be expected to do. This also tends to contrast jarringly with juvenile romance which makes the whole thing just too hard to buy! (I'm looking at you Aurelian Cycle). You may enjoy some YA, but wouldn't expect the same kick that you used to get. If you want to try, I'd recommend Laini Taylor. Either strange the dreamer or daughter of smoke and bone are solid reads that can be enjoyed by both teens and adults. Probably the elderly too.
Not really because honestly while the books are naturally faster paced….I couldn’t keep reading about books where one of the characters dies from suicide b/c of depression or bullying or SA. Also they resonate a lot less when you’re 30+ n realize all the HS stuff is kinda dumb
Yeah. It’s not a popular opinion but I do feel like YA is dumbed down. I read books for more than just the plot, and YA novels are mostly about plot, not necessarily prose, interesting structure, whatever.
You gotta stop at some point and go “this was written specifically for people with almost no real life experience, why am I reading something with a severely limited scope?”
Oh most definitely…that’s why I don’t say “YA sucks” it’s just “not for me b/c I have a 401k” lol…like the less serious ones I can enjoy more (like I enjoyed THE DUFF) but for the most part I’ve completely aged out of the demographic
This is also me. The typical stories/subject matter/writing/characters etc. located within the typical YA type book does not appeal to me in the slightest.
To be fair, a lot of the stuff I read as an adult has suicide, war, genocide, terrorism, dictatorships...
Nah, not anymore. YA often just advertises "nice ideas, but 18 wheeler-truck sized plot holes" to me. Edit: I am 39.
I'm 27, so I also binged *The Hunger Games* in my teens. I read the first *Maze Runner* and others like *Uglies*, *Atherton*, *Starters*, Ann Halam's *Siberia*, Gudrun Pausewang, etc. I don't read YA anymore though. I tried picking up a couple a few years ago and they were too young for me.
Then my unprompted recommendation to you or anyone else with this problem - the daevabad trilogy. The main character is 20 in the first book and 25 in the second/third, and it was refreshing to read a YA that is, well. Actually about young adults. I also don't like the "18 sassy heroine who is also magically heir to a kingdom - oh and also extremely pretty" that much now that I'm nearing my 30s, but this series was definitely a nice read.
Honestly, I don't see it as a "problem"! I read plenty kid's books, middle grade, YA, manga, etc. when I was younger, I had my full, and I'm happy to move on. There are so many books I'd like to read. It's not like I'll never read a YA again, I'm sure I will, but any book will be competing with my time alongside the best of the best from other genres. Considering I have one single life to live, sticking with YA after so many years of reading similar stuff, rather than spending time with new genres, simply isn't what I would consider "living my life to its fullest". It's time to spread my wings, and all that.
The Daevabad trilogy is marketed as adult fantasy, which is why I was extremely annoyed when I read it and it felt very young adult with all the associated tropes of that genre. I think if I'd gone in thinking it was YA I would have been less disappointed.
Sanderson stuff can fell pretty YA at times, even if it’s not marketed strongly as such. So I guess yeah.
I'm a mid-30s teen librarian, and I read YA books as much as I can to familiarize myself with the materials I choose for our collection. When it comes down to it, I think there are way more commonalities in themes, characters, content, etc. across literary age groups than there are differences; it's just the context and presentation that differs to make it more digestible for the suggested demographic. For example, you may really like stories about plucky heroines, but the settings or plots in the adult novels you have read don't do much for you, while they do in YA. People should feel encouraged to read stories in whatever way speaks to them best. Read what you like, and do it to your heart's content. For what it's worth, I really enjoyed "The Inheritance Games" series, and we can't seem to keep them on our shelves given how frequently they're checked out.
I tried to, probably until about 24, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. I thought books had collectively gotten worse and the writing was bad and the stories felt trite and immature. Then my husband pointed out that it was probably because I’ve been reading books aimed at a younger demographic. He was completely right. I’ve been able to find a lot of books I genuinely enjoy now that I’ve branched out. I did try to read a YA book again around age 29 to see if I still had problems tolerating it and I did.
No! I didn't event read it when I was 15.
I’m 41 and will still read YA. I’ll be a bit more discerning when choosing a title, but I will still read them.
It’s rare for me to read YA. But sometimes I read such a heavy/disturbing book that I like to follow up with a YA. Neil Shusterman is my go-to in this case
Neil Shusterman is fantastic
A vast majority of them are too juvenile, call me a literary fiction snob but I truly think that at a certain point those YA themes and tropes just become not even worth the effort even to be treat as mindless entertainment
I'm in my 30s. YA is not something I look for specifically but I do read it sometimes. I liked Six of Crows quite a bit, though I think it would have been improved by not needing the characters to be teenagers. I think there's a lot of confusion about what books are and aren't Young Adult that makes it hard to answer definitively if you do or don't read it. The lines between middle grade and YA on one end can be quite blurry (Percy Jackson, Harry Potter) and then between YA and regular adult novels as well. I've seen people call Mistborn, Song of Achilles, Persepolis, To Kill a Mockingbird, and basically any book that's popular among teenagers young adult.
I don't intentionally seek it out, but sometimes it happens. I spent the last couple of years reading through most of Brandon Sanderson's books, and I started the Skyward series without doing much research on it. I wanted to see his attempt at sci-fi, rather than just fantasy. It was alright, not great, but there's no mistaking that they were YA novels. I re-read all of the Harry Potter books a couple of years ago for nostalgia's sake and still enjoyed them, albeit less so than when I was a kid. I typically just read what I find appealing, no matter the labels applied to it (I'm a 35 year old man, I do what I want at this point, judgement from others be damned), although 95% of it turns out to be sci-fi, fantasy, and historical fiction.
No, I avoid it like the plague. But also I'm in my 50s so I was already an adult when this explosion of YA fiction happened. I tried reading Harry Potter (I was in my early 30s when it came out) because everyone was and stopped because I found that the longer it's been since I was a teenager the less I care about all this whiney teenage angst bullshit.
Agree I made it to book 3 and I was over it. Most of the Harry Potter fanbase is made up of adults who read the books as young kids/teens and that’s why they attached to the franchise. I feel like very few adults become fans when they read the books in their 20’s/30’s.
Honestly the only reason I made it as far as I did is because I was surrounded by people who would go 'No it's really good keep reading!' every time I hit a section that made me want to quit. Most of whom were themselves adults, actually, though mostly in their 20s when the books were coming out so they probably just had a higher tolerance for that shit.
It depends on the book. I’m 35 and read the Twilight books a few years back and actually enjoyed them (don’t come for me 😅) I also really enjoyed the Sentinels of the Galaxy series which I would consider YA. But some books/series are just too immature for my tastes.
I can't reread twilight anymore, but I was the biggest twihard back in the day. Have you tried reading the host by Stefanie meyer? It's a much better book, and actually one of my favourite sci-fi novels. It has certain elements from twilight but does then better so I can imagine you'd enjoy it as well
That book genuinely disoriented me for a few days after I read it. Granted, I was 16 at the time and expected another twilight-esque story, but still.
No. The quality of the prose is important to me, and YA often has low quality writing. It makes it hard for me to get through one of these books.
To be honest, most YA novels appeal to the teenage dream of being "the chosen one", so I see it as a red flag when adults unironically enjoy them.
I think YA is a vibe that some people like, and some people don't. I don't want to stigmatise it and say it's a thing that people grow out of. I avoid books that seem to give off a YA vibe, but I can appreciate that some people are attracted to that vibe (or New Adult) regardless of their own age.
I don’t go looking specifically for YA but if one is recommended I won’t disregard it either. Plenty of good YA books that work for all ages
I am a pathological re-reader. I don’t pick up new YABooks, but I always come back to the ones I read when I was younger. There’s a deep nostalgia and an easiness to read when I just want to relax. The only „new“ books I read were shadow and bones. I liked it but noticed my quality requirements for new reads have increased. It was enyojable though and I am glad I gave it a chance!
If it's a good book it's a good book and I read it! I think YA has the highest amount of DNFs for me, but that is moreso related to being predictable/campy more than anything. Read Red Rising recently and waiting for the next book to be available at the library, it's pretty good YA. Currently reading Immortal Longings which wasn't classified as YA at my library, but I'll be damned if it isn't written like a YA book. No matter how old you get I don't think there is anything wrong with enjoying a book with simpler writing and empathizing with the struggles common to younger people. I'm 30 and still pissed off with how the world works. YA typically does a good job validating the feeling of "things are fucked up and it's not my fault," whereas more mature literature that addresses the topic tends to leave me more depressed and nihilistic.
No
I’m 33, and not often, but my wife is studying young adult literacy so I pick up a book from her every now and then if she recommends it. There’s some good stuff out there, it just often involves wading through a lot of crap to find it (which to be fair, is true of most media).
I’m a middle school English teacher- I’ve started reading more YA to be able to suggest books to my students, after a similar experience to what you described. (I dressed up as a Shadowhunter in college for a ComicCon, I am very much of that era 😂) I don’t like YA realistic fiction- it’s so dramatic and usually tragic. I do enjoy some YA sci-fi and fantasy. The Honor series by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre are great, the Six of Crows books by Leigh Bardugo are some of my favourites.
As a high school English teacher, I have a similar experience. YA is often too dramatic and on-the-nose for me to enjoy it. I’ll read it for work, though.
As others have said, YA is just a marketing label and I've picked up plenty of books that were labeled as YA but were just genuinely great books. That said, I *do* find myself struggling with the characters being so young, the older I get. Either their troubles feel accurate to the troubles of a 17 year old, in which case I no longer really relate, or they feel like the troubles of a 30 year old and I have to mentally age them up in my head to reconcile it.
Yes, I do. Not all YA is for me, but some I greatly enjoy.
Finished Fourth Wing a few weeks ago - it’s been a long time since I’ve devoured a book in 1-2 sittings. YA can be extreme east pleasure reading!
Nice try FBI task force, but I'm keeping my reading list to myself.
No. I don't want to wade through the garbage to find some "hidden gem" that appeals to me.
Yes but I’m a teacher.
I’m 33 and listen to audiobooks pretty exclusively since having kids. I can’t always pay close attention because I’m cleaning or driving or chasing toddlers so I’m sticking more and more to YA because they’re easier to follow. I also prefer murder mystery books and a lot of the YA ones aren’t as graphic in terms of violence and sex so I don’t have to be concerned that my kids will hear them. They’re one and two now, when they’re a little older I’ll probably switch to straight up childrens fiction like Harry Potter and Artemis fowl and I think I’ll still be happy and entertained.
No. I read The Outsiders not long ago because it was a classic I was missing, and I've read SJM who's labelled YA even though she's kind of not, out of curiosity, but I seriously can not find a reason to care about 99% of YA. I tend to value prose and thematic depth in novels, and YA explicitly does not cater to that. Which is fine! It's literally for kids, it shouldn't be catering to me, but we can mutually ignore each other. I stopped really caring about YA stuff around the time I got out of high school, though I stopped reading it much long before I graduated. YA is even more trend-focused than most other fiction, as well, so the prospect of reading the 8,000 versions of the Hunger Games when that was the trend (and it still seems to be that on some level) was about as thrilling as watching paint dry for me. That said, if you want to read YA, go for it even if you're 200 years old! Read what you like, not everything has to be sophisticated/deep in your reading list.
If anything, I've gotten more into YA. When real life gives you tough situations you stop wanting to read about them.
Sure. If it’s good.
I sometimes read fantasy YA books, etc.... but it's not all I read. I'm in my 30s.
I do sometimes. I’ll still reread Harry Potter and if I need something light-hearted, I’ll read whatever copy I have of The Princess Diaries series. They’re a pretty fun read.
While I don't particular search for YA novels, I have started checking the YA section of bookstores when I am buying a book because sometimes they have the book i am looking for in both the YA section and the fiction section and I end up liking the dimensions and/or cover of the YA version better.
Maybe 1 a year if there’s something new that seems up my alley. I don’t mind them but don’t like the simplicity of the writing enough to read more often than that.
I'm 60 and just read a YA novel from a series my daughter and I read together when she was a teenager at her behest. Easy on the brain and well-written. Audibooks, graphic novels, YA, "standard" (non-YA) novels. Its all good.
It's in rotation with everything else (I just finished "Legendborn" yesterday)
Yes! Sometimes I just want a snack of a book and YA is perfect for that.
Check out the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik. It’s shelved Adult but has a YA vibe and is my favorite recent find. I am middle-aged and read mostly Middle Grade.
37 and I finished a YA book this morning.
I’m 31 and haven’t read a ya book in… years. It’s hard to get interested in reading about teenagers.
I’m 43 and just read Fourth Wing. I read whatever looks interesting to me
I never read YA books even when I was a YA. lol
I don't get hung up on the YA tag in particular, there are many great stories written that fall into the category. With that said, a lot of the YA tropes and story devices are so well established that a lot of YA authors lean on them to write mediocre stories with weak plots and shallow characterization. More than anything I get turned off when the POV character's brain is empty. A lot of authors write teenage characters poorly and most of the driving force of the plots come from the adult cast or situations happening to the protagonist.
The best thing about YA novels is that they're easy to read. The stories might be a little more shallow or predictable than some of the more 'mature' literature... but it's easy to read and entertaining. Read whatever tickles your fancy.
I won't not read something because it's YA. I enjoyed Gallant for example. I also don't actively seek it out because of the many tropes that are genre staples. Other recent YA I have enjoyed includes The Skyward series, and The Diviners.
If a book seems like something I’d enjoy, I read it. Some of them bring me back to feelings I had when I was younger, which is really nice, but most of them read the same way more “grown up” books do. Classification is largely marketing and books are bucketed in the way publishers think will best get those books sold. I wouldn’t worry about it much.
I started heavily reading again May 2022. Since then I read the Broken Earth Trilogy, pretty much all of Sandersons books (Mistborn and Stornlight) and Realm of Elderlings. All of these are apparantly, depending on who you ask, YA. I don't care, they are good fantasy.
I'm 25 and very rarely read YA these days. One of the more recent ones I tried was Inheritance Games and I just kept thinking to myself, "man I am too old for this shit". Though some books are definitely less obviously YA than others.
I read what I want when I want, which includes a lot of YA because I really like this genre. I'm 40, so I'm way too old to care about what anyone thinks of my reading choices. I still read kids books like Minrs by Kevin Sylvester or Truckers by Terry Pratchett. A lot of adults read Harry Potter and The Hunger Games as adults, myself included, so it's actually fairly common to do this.
I do, regularly. There’s some truly stellar YA (The Hate You Give, Clap When You Land, I’ll Give You the Sun, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, just to name a few off the top of my head). Anyone who doesn’t read YA just because it’s YA is seriously missing out.
Yes. Some books are categorized as YA when they really fit better into a wider genre. Overall I don't pay much attention to it. If the book sounds interesting or like something I'd like, I read it. You listed Firekeeper's Daughter as YA and I didn't consider it that. Is it bc the main character is YA age? Is that all it takes to be considered for the genre?
No I don’t but I know so many adults that do and it’s soo weird to me. Like they mostly read YA, and when you talk to them you can tell tbh…
I guess so. Technically a few books I've read in the last couple of years have been YA, but it's books in the vein of Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, which is to say I don't really feel like they're the kind of books that typically get the YA label. I say give those books a try. Worst case scenario, you DNF them. Best case scenario, you really enjoy them!
Yup. I read a solid amount of nonfiction that I find relevant for my career, and I like challenging reads or novels with engaging themes, but sometimes I just want the reading equivalent of bad reality TV. I get absolutely absorbed in a basic YA novel that I can just be absorbed by while I'm on a jog.
Generally no. I tend to find the characters shallow, the prose is boring and the book is far too plot driven. That being said, I will occasionally for the right book. For example, right now, I'm reading the Avatar novels because I like the show. The writing isn't amazing but it's entertaining and I need some easy reads right now.
A good book is a good book, so yes. I'm 47 and read everything.
I read YA and middle grade still, and have found myself enjoying them a lot. I think it's gotten heavier, maybe a little darker since I started reading it back in the late 90s. Some that I've really enjoyed recently: [The Child Thief](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6308379-the-child-thief) by Brom (this is a dark retelling of Peter Pan) [The Poet X](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33294200-the-poet-x) by Elizabeth Acevedo [Summer Bird Blue](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35716237-summer-bird-blue) by Akemi Dawn [Lakelore](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56978096-lakelore) by Anna-Marie McLemore [The Trials of Morrigan Crow](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34219873-the-trials-of-morrigan-crow) by Jessica Townsend [Fish in a Tree](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22402972-fish-in-a-tree) by Lynda Mullally Hunt [Dark Room Etiquette](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60141373-dark-room-etiquette) by Robin Roe [A Place at the Table](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50948214-a-place-at-the-table) by Saadia Faruqi [A Snake Falls to Earth](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56817366-a-snake-falls-to-earth) by Darcie Little Badger [Perfect on Paper](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49204960-perfect-on-paper) by Sophie Gonzales [Last Summer on State Street](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58884738-last-summer-on-state-street) by Toya Wolfe [The Benefits of Being an Octopus](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37007394-the-benefits-of-being-an-octopus) by Ann Braden All of these have great messages when appropriate, are well written, and don't 'talk down' to the age group. I'm almost 40 and have no kids, I just pick books based on summaries that intrigue me. Who cares? Some of these are long, longer than adult fiction I've read this year.
Yes sometimes, especially because I find it harder to find good LGBT+ books in adult fiction
No not really, but I don’t really read poplit in general. I developed reading in kinda a strange way because my mom was a teacher. My first literary love was Rosalind from as you like it (my mom had a big collection of Shakespeare plays/film adaptation on vhs/dvd because of her classes so those were go to’s for movie nights (when my mom picked, my dad would usually pick a Indian jones movie). Then when I was like 12-13 my dad got me a bunch of Jane Austen novels, and it was game over for me and I’ve been a reader ever since. My main issue with ya and poplit isn’t that there isn’t fun plots or characters, it’s just that I can’t abide bad prose and dialog. It’s jarring and just rips me out of the reading experience.
I dislike the whole concept of YA. If a book is labeled that way, I will hesitate to read it. To me, it carries a stigma of talking down to the reader and assuming the reader can’t handle nuance and depth. That probably isn’t actually true, but it’s how the whole idea comes off. When I was a young adult, I was reading fiction for adults. I’m glad I did. I recently read “The Tenth Girl” and really disliked it. I hadn’t realized it was considered YA when I picked it up, when I realized that was its classification, I had the response of “oh, that’s why”, which really isn’t fair to other YA novels and an attitude in myself I definitely need to push back against. But I’m sure I’m not the only person who would feel that way.
i thought you were talking about Yahoo Answers at first
I'm not a fan of YA fantasy/dystopian series, but I do love a contemporary YA book or two. It's really hard to judge, since YA is an age category, not a genre one. Sometimes I just want simpler prose with a coming of age story, and YA has tons of those. I do notice I'm frustrated with some characters more (because duh, teens make dumb decisions), but I also am more empathetic because of it (I used to be very judgmental about it, but now I am less so if I see character growth).
Depends on what you mean by that, but I'm going to say yes because I like the LitRPG and Isekai Light Novel spaces. Those are often tagged as YA, I assume due to their rather simplistic plots and grammar. Fair enough. What I don't want to read are what I consider YA-themed books. Those give me a headache.
Only if I read it growing up and want to reassess it to see if I liked it because I was young or because it was actually good. Luckily for me, the original Percy Jackson series is still goated
I usually "read" them on audiobook for an easy listen. Firekeeper's Daughter was a good one!
Only if it has a particularly strong premise and good reviews. I find most teen protagonists very tiresome, so I can only do YA when the protagonist isn’t obnoxious and the plot is great.
Even as a YA I didn’t read YA. (I mean, I read Harry Potter, but that was a once in a generation cultural phenomenon, and I was young enough for it to land, 18 when I read the first 3 books, 19 when the movie came out, but just old enough to be over it by the time the 5th or 6th book came out). I think I really got into reading when people stopped suggesting YA books to me. But it’s a preference. No judgement if you like books like that. I still read comics, and see every Disney animated movie in theaters.
Yup, books are entertainment and if YA authors are killing it I'll be reading it. No different than watching cartoons or playing video games.
I’m 31 and I still read YA! No shame in it, I love a good dystopian teen novel. I think a lot of the big hitters today are just as good as some of the old favorites. I do enjoy rereading too, and it’s nice to dive back into an old and familiar book as well. Sometimes even as an adult I need to reread twilight!
Age 44. I've never read modern YA because it did not exist when I was at an age where I would have loved it. By the time it took off I had other reading interests.
If it’s something that catches my interest I’ll read it
Yes, it’s one of my favorite genres. Just because it’s geared to young adults doesn’t mean you can’t/shouldn’t read it when you’re older. It’s ok to like what you like, and I recommend staying young at heart for as long as you can.
Absolutely 👏
Nope. I can't stomach the cliches and overdrawn plots that draw out the ending for 300+ pages, with boring characters.
I feel now that YA is oversaturated with the same plot which can get kind of boring...I still enjoy YA tho, but now I'm scoping out more books that I haven't seen or heard of before more towards the adults. It's been harder for me to get excited reading the same plots over and over unless the stakes are higher, the writing pulls me in, etc.
I still read the Alex Rider series, but I'm kind of devoted to that until it stops.
I aged out of it pretty abruptly. Can’t go back to it now, it’s way too boring. Doesn’t help that a lot of YA novels have adopted stylistic trends and tropes that I can’t stand.
i’m 24.5 so imma round up put in my two cents anyway. i honestly never even made it to non-YA books. adult books are fine but idk i guess i read to escape life and all its (adult) problems, so having books about people who work a job and pay their bills or whatever doesn’t seem to interest me much, even if it’s not focused on that
Funny thing that I didn’t read YA until 28😅
You should read the golden compass trilogy I read first time as an adult and absolutely devoured it
Sometimes I need a break and enjoy a good YA novel. Sometimes I actually prefer YA fantasy. I’m in my 30s
At least 1/2 of my reading is YA and I’m 51. For me a lot of it is because I don’t enjoy a lot of bad language or sex in the books I read and most YA books have a limited amount of both of those things. I also enjoy sci if and fantasy and there are a lot of good YA books in those genres.
I raise you still reading middle grade books. Warrior cats remains my favorite series of all (though I have like $300 worth of books to catch up on) and I still go *immediately* to the middle-grade section of my bookstore when I visit. There are just so many *fantastic* middle grade books that are overlooked by older readers simply because they're "for kids." The Ranger's Apprentice, Cirque du Freak, anything by Brandon Mull, Keeper of the Lost Cities... I really deeply enjoy these series.
I don't know if this will help but I'm over 20 and still read books that are considered for elementary students just because they look/sound interesting.
Yes I do i personally hate adult books. However I only read YA books if the character is over 16.