Amadan
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I don't agree. That doesn't mean there aren't good YA books or that no other genre follows trends - as I have already said.
When oh When Will the YA Trend End?
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I don't agree. That doesn't mean there aren't good YA books or that no other genre follows trends - as I have already said.
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I really don't understand what you mean by "I don't agree". (not trying to be purposefully obtuse, nor using a rhetorical device to in a later post prove a point, I seriously don't understand) Do you not agree that there are adult cookie cutter genres out there? Like romance, thrillers, cozy mysteries, SF/Fantasy . . . heck even literary with such tropes as male ennui etc?
Each genre has strikingly original work in it. But it also has its tried and tested and dare I say cliche. I'm not sure how it is any different than in YA, but it is quite possible I am not understanding your point.
Amadan
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I meant I don't agree that YA doesn't trend towards a greater degree of sameness than most other fiction. I think YA is currently more homogenuous and bland. On average.
(Before anyone accuses me of hating on YA fiction, please note the words I have italicized.)
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Amadan
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And how did you come to this conclusion? (again sincere, not leading question)
... By looking at what is published? By reading a lot in many genres.
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Hmm...I guess I just don't see it the way you do. Even one glance at various genre sections of the bookstore show me sameness. Same kinds of covers, same kinds of stories.
Then I go to the YA section where all genres are mushed together, and while yes I see paranormal romance and dystopian romance taking precedence, I also see many other genres, even on the main tables. Books like CODE NAME VERITY and the works of John Green and Jay Asher (huge bestselling authors).
I suppose the way I see it is most books are bland. I don't see YA having a larger proportion of bland though, compared with adult. I just see adult having a larger number of books published and distributed far more vastly through the store.
I guess since your reasoning is based on personal experience as is mine, we will have to do that obnoxious thing and agree to disagree .
Then I go to the YA section where all genres are mushed together, and while yes I see paranormal romance and dystopian romance taking precedence, I also see many other genres, even on the main tables. Books like CODE NAME VERITY and the works of John Green and Jay Asher (huge bestselling authors).
I suppose the way I see it is most books are bland. I don't see YA having a larger proportion of bland though, compared with adult. I just see adult having a larger number of books published and distributed far more vastly through the store.
I guess since your reasoning is based on personal experience as is mine, we will have to do that obnoxious thing and agree to disagree
.For the longest time, there was no YA. (I know; I went from Charlotte's Web to Rebecca because there was nothing in between.) Once the market was discovered, there should be no surprise there is a bit of an overload. Don't worry about what everyone else writes, work on making what you write the best it can be.
Agreed. I think YA has more freedom to break genre boundaries because so many genres are put together. Something can have magic in a modern setting without having to be quite urban fantasy or paranormal romance, because it's going to be shelved as YA. You can have dystopian stuff with varying amounts of sci fi elements and not worry about whether it's technically literary or sci fi or fantasy.
I actually find YA to be less cookie-cutter in my reading experience, and I think it's because the issue of where to shelve things in the store is already taken care of by the YA label.
Amadan
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There has always been YA fiction. It just wasn't given a marketing label until recently. This is not the first generation of teenagers who like to read books written for teenagers.
You're comparing "everything written for teens" with "specific genres of adult fiction."
If you compare "everything written for teens" with "everything written for adults," there is less variety in YA fiction. I'd argue even if you compare broad categories of adult fiction, YA tends to be less diverse.
A lot of you are pointing at this or that YA author who writes great and atypical books (of whom there are quite a few) and ignoring the implicit point in the OP, which is that most of what's occupying premium bookstore space and getting tons of marketing buzz is pretty-white-girl-magical-boyfriend-dystopian-romance.
Yes, you're right. I'm not comparing the diversity of YA to the diversity of all fiction in the rest of the bookstore. I'm talking about genre fiction (or fiction with strong genre elements) and the boundaries of bookstore classification which, in my opinion, make blending genres harder in adult books than in YA.
Sure, there are books within that trend, but I could say the same for literary fiction and white man - angsty - existential dilemma - beautiful but vapid/useless/morally suspect lady love interest.
But I don't really believe that because I know there are lots of other books out there in grown-up fiction. As there are in YA.
Actually I don't think the point of the OP had anything to do with lack of variety within YA, even implicitly. I think we drifted
I meant awkward as in, 'should have experienced that as a kid' sort of way. My Big Fat Greek Wedding did a rare good job of portraying a modern thirty year old experiencing first love, and first independence. And there are others. But most of the time, putting adult characters in young adult roles falls flat. Personally, I find myself mumbling to the characters, Really? You're forty. You should be able to cope with this breakup better than a fourteen year old. Or, Seriously? You don't live in a cave, or by some kind of religious creed, and you're a virgin? It's like the author wants to play with the powerful themes of firsts, but are too genre-biased to just make it YA. It annoys me, when I see it.
I'm sure you've seen it done badly, but this has to be on a case-by-case basis. There are a lot of themes - love, betrayal, and even independence - that I think most people revisit throughout their lives, in different ways. Plenty of women have gotten married young enough not to have much experience living on their own, and so divorce or death can lead to a new discovery of independence. Losing your virginity doesn't suddenly make you Sex in the City character. Family secrets can be exposed at any age. People deal with crap from their parents their whole lives. Marriages break up because people refuse to grow up, because they are codependent kids looking for parents instead of partners, or because they get swept up with someone new just as intensely as a first love. And have you ever been on a PTA? High school goes on FOREVER.
These aren't issues of first experiences, they are just issues of living that I think can *sometimes* be pigeonholed into YA.
So I get that same sense of annoyance when I see adult characters (especially in urban fantasy) who seem to have everything figured out emotionally.
I was a teenager when my mother said to me: "You look at me and see a grown woman. But I'll never look in the mirror and see anyone other than the girl I was at 16. It never goes away."
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I don't want it to EVER end. Because though I don't read YA, teens do. I want teens to be reading. Because teen readers become adult readers, and when they're ready to move to more adult fiction they'll hopefully enjoy my works. Also, teens reading is good.
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There were 'teenage' books when I was a teenager, but I never read them. I read adult books. To be honest, I didn't like teenagers even when I was one myself, and teenage books seemed to me to be adapted to be less challenging and so they felt condescending to me.
While it's good that teenagers read, they're not the only people on the planet. There should be room for more than one ice cream flavour.
While it's good that teenagers read, they're not the only people on the planet. There should be room for more than one ice cream flavour.
Sure, but you have to admit in this world of social networking, touch screen phones, and TV teens reading anything is good (and nothing short of a miracle). So if YA hooks them, good. In my humble opinion, of course...
Not remotely offensive. Anita Blake is my pet peeve. I've read others and put them down for the same reason - too much of a badass heroine who isn't particularly vulnerable and acts a little too seasoned, even for an adult - but I gave up a few years ago so my memory isn't great... Urban Shaman was a little better, but still didn't have the emotional resonance of a YA for me. Couldn't get through a Kim Harrison book, but maybe I didn't give it long enough. The first Dresden files was okay but again, just no emotional resonance.
I loved the Sookie Stackhouse books, at least at first, and they were what got me looking for more urban fantasy. I didn't really find other books I liked until I switched to YA. Yes, Sookie was a virgin, and it was kind of stupid. That's not why I liked the first book. I liked that she was a fundamentally introspective character.
It's hard to put my finger on. Not always a lack of emotional depth (although I really, really hate Anita Blake-like characters for that reason) but more of a genre focus on action over introspection, as though only teenagers ever think about the deeper complexities of life or the fate of relationships.
And hey, I'm not an expert on any genre. I'm sure I've missed some good stuff (and some bad stuff). These are just my impressions, strengthened somewhat by me telling friends the kind of book I want to write and them saying "yeah, that should be YA", when I talked about wanting to write something slower paced and more focused on relationships, but not any particular theme of first experiences. But my friends don't know everything, either, so if you've got suggestions in the urban fantasy genre I would be THRILLED to hear about them. Because I really do want to read and write complex adult characters.
Although to go back to the context of firsts, I think when it comes to paranormal elements, that's one of the fun parts of putting it in an adult world. You can be all grown up and still have first experiences, still feel the world rocked around you, lose your footing a little. If the character is already an expert in that world, it's less interesting.
People read for different reasons and look for different things. The characters that turn me off are exactly right for lots of people, and vice versa. So an adult character that's just right for me might seem too angsty to someone else. Such is life.
I feel that I need to address both of these points.
Amadan is quite right in that there have always been YA books, but they just weren't identified as such.
For instance, I've lately been reading a lot of the books I loved as a child, and I've noticed some things:
Take What Katy Did - the first book is probably a children's book, although What Katy Did at School and What Katy Did Next are definitely for older readers. Clover and In The High Valley are certainly for older teens/adults. However they are always marketed as children's books.
This is partly because in the past 'child' was a term that encompassed everyone up until they were an adult. There was no inbetween stage.
Hell, look at Enid Blyton - the St Clare's series, Mallory Towers - these weren't children's books. They were teen books of their time.
There are writers I remember from my own childhood - 20 years ago - who were very much writing YA. Judy Bloom, Paula Danziger (who, about 17 years ago, gave a talk in the gym at my school in Belfast and a sports mat fell off the wall with a crack and we, being that we lived in belfast and grew up with that sort of thing, though someone was shooting at her.)
Caroline B Cooney. Or all those Nancy Drew books you read as a kid. They were all marketed as children's books at the time. But looking back they really weren't at all.
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That makes sense.
I heard Stacia Kane's UF series Downside Ghosts was pretty good, and from what I've heard, the main female character is vulnerable and etc. I mean she's also on drugs. So, I think it kind of comes with the territory.
I personally don't like YA but I don't really have a problem with it that much.
People keep saying that teens are reading YA fiction, but adult women are reading more of it than teens are. There's nothing wrong with this; let's just not fool ourselves into thinking that teens are the largest audience for YA.
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I've read very little YA. I enjoyed the Romance and Mystery/Suspense/Thriller genres more, and now Urban Fantasy is added to that list. That's not say that YA is bad; I don't think that at all. I just don't think it's for me. And it's not from it's lack of being out there. I was a teenager during the time when Twilight first came out in 2006 I think. That next year, if not later in the first, that was all people talked about. That was what was the "hot book", and then as I got older, Vampire Academy, P.C. Cast's novels, and so on was added to that list.
And I agree, it's not just teenagers reading YA, it's everyone. I know people who still read it, and they even recommend books for me to read.
However, it is just not a genre I like. It's not my thing. Plain and simple, but that does mean I want other people's favorite genre/niche to disappear either.
And I agree, it's not just teenagers reading YA, it's everyone. I know people who still read it, and they even recommend books for me to read.
However, it is just not a genre I like. It's not my thing. Plain and simple, but that does mean I want other people's favorite genre/niche to disappear either.
Yep. I think adults enjoy going back and reading about those first experiences.
It's kinda like watching a beloved movie. It's always more fun to watch it with someone who hasn't seen it before. See their reaction. I think adult readers feel the same way about YA. How is this kid gonna cope with being in love for the first time? What are they going to do when their parents kick them out of the house? What will they become in life?
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