*Gulp*

Isn't there already another thread on that article?

ETA: here it is:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=291274

I posted on the other thread, but I'll repeat it again. Enjoying YA and enjoying literary fiction are not mutually exclusive. I loved Meg Rosoff, Neil Gaiman as well as older children's fiction writers (Rosemary Sutcliff, Robert Louis Stevenson.) I have an English BA, and I am not ashamed to say YA sits comfortable alongside my copies of Wolf Hall, The Luminaries and I, Claudius. I actually think Sutcliff remains the best author of Roman HF, none of the contemporary adult writers can touch her.

My last words will go to Robert Louis Stevenson (Author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Jekyll and Hyde, and The South Sea Tales) "Anyone who has not imagined being on a pirate ship, has never been a child." (From a letter to Henry James, who said a similar thing as Graham, and became a close friend to Stevenson.)

Anyone who wants to shame adults for reading YA would have more success herding cats.

As children, many of us were placed in categories solely based on age. Individuality and ability were not considered. If we read too well, or chose books above our assumed reading level, we were weird. It was frowned upon by the adults in charge, and not understood by most of our peers.

Many of us were sold the idea that we had to have the same sort of haircut, wear the same styles, and it was understood we'd only listen to music marketed to people in our particular age group.

Those of us who didn't conform in every way were weird. One of the perks of adulthood is a marked decrease in peer pressure. People can tell us we're too young or too old to do this and that, and we're free to laugh that idea off. And we do.

I'd guess this person doesn't think too highly of genre fiction as a whole either. I think he/she fails to grasp the reasons an adult might read fiction aimed at younger readers.

--Not all YA is mainstream/contemporary fiction dealing with high school and first love. There is YA historic, SF/F etc.
--In SF and F, sometimes YA is cross shelved with adult fiction in the genre.
--Adults who write YA fiction should also read it.
--Not all YA fiction ends as simplistically or joyously as the article's author seems to think.
--Writing from the "deep" pov of the character as he or she is in the story's "now" is a powerful technique that is not limited to YA.
--YA fiction often does have a message, even when it doesn't beat the reader over the head with it.
--Teenagers may not be full adults, but they're not really children either. A lot of adults forget this, and reading stuff written from a teen's perspective can be good for their empathy. Anyone with kids of their own should read literature aimed at young people now and then.
--What's wrong with feeling a little nostalgic sometimes and wanting to revisit some of your childhood or teenage hood favorites?
--I'm guessing most adults who read YA also read fiction targeting more adult demographics.
--Why is it any of the author's business what other people read?

The polite version of my response: I think it's incredibly arrogant to decide what someone else ought to be reading.

The non-polite version just involves cursing and gestures.

YA is a new and rather artificial genre construct. Lots of the books I still love to re-read are considered YA now, but were not when they were published.

Whatever. I read what I like. My reading list is eclectic enough that I don't feel guilty about any one genre.

The very best take home message from that piece is that readers shouldn't limit themselves to one type of story or genre. To be honest, I don't know very many people who are readers who do this over the course of their lifetimes. I think the bigger issue is the relatively high percentage of people who don't read for pleasure at all.

This article gave me a sense of deja vu, however. Seems like it's come up before, somehow. Oh yeah, two years ago, Joel Stein wrote this for the NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...-adult-fiction/adults-should-read-adult-books

And the issue has been discussed and debated since.

http://www.malindalo.com/2013/09/unpacking-why-adults-read-young-adult-fiction/

shelleyo said:

The polite version of my response: I think it's incredibly arrogant to decide what someone else ought to be reading.

The non-polite version just involves cursing and gestures.

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^ This.

I don't read as a character-building exercise. I read for entertainment.

And if I'm entertained, then the judge-y people can go get stuffed.

Maybe someone should ask a mod to merge this thread with the one in the YA section?

Liosse de Velishaf said:

Maybe someone should ask a mod to merge this thread with the one in the YA section?

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I think the subject is better suited to the wider audience of the Roundtable, since many readers of YA don't necessarily write it and therefore don't hang out in the YA forum. (Meaning that if merged, I hope the thread ends up in Roundtable. Not that they shouldn't be merged. )

And I'm with those who think that telling other people what they should and shouldn't read is a ridiculous exercise in pomposity.

Thanks, Liosse and Terie. I haven't heard from my co-mod Torgo on this, but speaking just for myself I agree that it's a good discussion for Roundtable, and is one that can well happen in two places with different focuses. Meaning, it seems apropos for it to also be in YA where it originally appeared.

On topic, my first reaction to the suggestion that adults should "feel ashamed" for reading anything at all is, basically, "Huh?" I mean, even children's books can be an utter delight.

And I also wonder if there is some motive in this to encourage (via shame?) readers to read more in other genres and in more "serious" literature, etc., out of a perhaps misplaced notion of competing for finite audience shares or the like.

As well, article writers pitch to markets and markets (magazine editors I suppose) pick up pitches -- or contract for articles they themselves conceive of -- based on what they think readers will pay attention to, right? So I suspect some of this kind of thing is an attempt to stir up a little controversy over whatever works for that.

In any case, I can't find it in me to take the actual suggestion (about what I, or we, should read) at all seriously. In general my reaction is, "hands off my reading choices! They're mine and none of your business to try to direct."

I know that when I see "YA", my eyes roll of their own accord.
The entire idea behind it annoys me. It suggests that teenagers require their own, watered down, class of literature, because they're teenagers; alternatively, that teenagers can only deal with books centred around other teenagers.

My current WIP is YA by virtue of the MCs being teens, but woe is he that calls it so.

Edit: Shame for reading it, though? Hardly; I'll respect your right to partake of what you will, if you'll respect my right to scoff at it in private.

NRoach said:

My current WIP is YA by virtue of the MCs being teens, ....

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Actually, no. MCs being teens is not what makes a story YA. There are plenty of books whose MCs are teens but are not YA; Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone and Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy are some that leap immediately to mind.

If you think the distinction is this simplistic, you might need to learn more about what YA is... and isn't.

I also can't imagine why you're so dismissive of a category for a target age group whose life challenges are so very different from those faced by younger and older age groups.

Finally, if your story really is YA, you're going to have a hard time making a deal with an agent or publisher if you refuse to let it be called what it is.

Terie said:

Actually, no. MCs being teens is not what makes a story YA. There are plenty of books whose MCs are teens but are not YA; Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone and Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy are some that leap immediately to mind.

If you think the distinction is this simplistic, you might need to learn more about what YA is... and isn't.

I also can't imagine why you're so dismissive of a category for a target age group whose life challenges are so very different from those faced by younger and older age groups.

Finally, if your story really is YA, you're going to have a hard time making a deal with an agent or publisher if you refuse to let it be called what it is.

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I meant that it's YA in the sense that it has teenage MCs, not that it is YA because it has teenage MCs, if that makes any sense. As in, it could be argued to be YA because of that, but it isn't in actuality.
That was bad phrasing on my part.

As for my dismissal, I'm not entirely sure that teenagers do face life challenges all that different to other age groups. Even if, I'm not sure why those challenges need anything to do with the books people are reading.
But then, I've never really understood searching for stuff to which one can relate over other stuff.

Last year while querying my YA contemporary I had an agent tell me she liked the concept but the writing itself wasn't hyper-intellectualized like John Green (who at last glance had three books on the New York Times best seller list). It hurt. But my point is, the YA market is huge right now because there are so many adults reading it, and I guess they're doing so because the genre is more accessible and from the heart. I like reading it. I like writing it. There's nothing to be ashamed of. But damn John Green. Damn him all to hell.

I think Uncle Jim as made the statement repeatedly that genre categories are mostly for shelf-organization by booksellers, and it comes around to target audience more from that perspective. One adult draw of YA writing is experiential. Every adult on this planet was a teenager and younger adult. That means the experiences of that time are frequently etched in the very being of those adults. Any author who can successfully tap into some of the common or understandable aspects of the younger adult lives may well hold a significant appeal to older adults of any age. Also, since escapism is part of reading for many, couple that escapism with the experience of one's younger life, and it's easy to see why YA is not just for young adults.


And anyone who takes a squinting "pinky in the air" view of YA literature should explain to me why all of the serious newspapers in this country still publish a daily comics page.

I don't read YA. Doesn't interest me. Though I do wonder about those who are interested. What are they up to? Why are they taking my Hollywood? Why are they taking my bookstore?

It absolutely pisses me off to no end when someone says that good, satisfying endings aren't realistic or "adult". It's a pseudo-literary, pseudo-intellectual, on my God aren't I the great realist son of a buck notion.

I'm all for unhappy, or less than complete, endings, but they are no more realistic, and certainly no more literary than a happy, satisfying ending.

A few months ago I read the very literary novel Submergence, which ends with a death so shattering it’s been rattling around in my head ever since.

Literary, my ass. If submergence is literary, then God save me from ever reading another literary novel. It's a poorly written novel, and teh only thing "literary" about it is precisely what is stated in the above sentence, a death at the end.

When did unhappy endings, death, and destruction become the mark of a literary novel?

And "escapism"? This is just one more silly statement by those who want to appear all grown up and literary. What they need to do is escape from the tiny confines of their own pitiful lives and ideas.

And this is truly stupid: But don’t take my word for it. Listen to Shailene Woodley, the 22-year-old star of this weekend’s big YA-based film. “Last year, when I made Fault, I could still empathize with adolescence,” she told New York magazine this week, explaining why she is finished making teenage movies. “But I’m not a young adult anymore—I’m a woman.”

She may be a woman, but what she's feeling is not adulthood. She's simply reached that age where she thinks being an adult means she's now above emphasizing with teens. She has a huge, huge surprise coming. Right now she's simply between milk and meat, and doesn't realize what she's feeling is the opposite of being an adult.

Dumb article, dumb sentiments start to finish, and everything that's wrong with so much of today's fiction is summed up perfectly by the attitudes expressed within it.

NRoach said:

I know that when I see "YA", my eyes roll of their own accord.
The entire idea behind it annoys me. It suggests that teenagers require their own, watered down, class of literature, because they're teenagers; alternatively, that teenagers can only deal with books centred around other teenagers.

Click to expand...

It's a marketing category. It is not watered down, or lesser literature. It's just a marketing category. And many, many people who love YA are perfectly happy to read other categories of literature.

My current WIP is YA by virtue of the MCs being teens, but woe is he that calls it so.

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Well, if it fits the category, then I don't see why it shouldn't be called that. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

Edit: Shame for reading it, though? Hardly; I'll respect your right to partake of what you will, if you'll respect my right to scoff at it in private.

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I respect your right to have that opinion, but that doesn't mean I respect your opinion itself. It seems clear to me from your comments that you haven't read much recent YA, and really don't know much about what it's really about.

Which is fine. No one has to read anything just because someone else says so. But to start at that place of ignorance, and then "scoff" at people who read and write YA, many of whom are on the forum and incredible people and writers, seems a bit ridiculous.

I agree that YA is definitely a genre and that merely having teenage protagonists does not make something YA. It took a long time to figure out that I write a lot with young protagonists that is definitely not YA.

I do feel like YA lacks something that I enjoy reading. When I pick up any kind of fantasy/sf I expect more wonder, more exploration, and less internal drama. When I pick up a historical romance or whatever I am okay with the internal drama. YA is very, very internal drama heavy which is why a lot of the times I can't stand it. But I guess that's something a lot of people are looking for... so from my perspective YA and literary fiction tend to have the same problem, and why a jump from MG to adult literature is easier for me than the majority of YA.

I think the main thing for everyone to realize is, the YA genre is about teens, not necessarily for them. That means anyone and everyone should read it, if they so choose. It's non-exclusive, and just as valid a genre as any other.

*twitch* YA IS NOT A GENRE. It is a category that contains just about every genre of novel (sans erotica obviously) that has a few (very few) hallmarks that tailor it to its target market. BUT IT IS NOT A GENRE UNTO ITSELF.