YA Wednesday: Is YA Really Grown Up Fiction in Disguise, Why Adults Write YA, Why Adults Read YA, Teen Book Reviewers, YA/ Adult Pairings

bfesthinghamI recently participated in a Barnes & Noble B-Fest teen book festival event with fellow YA author Melissa Schorr in which we shared our favorite YA reads, and teens shared theirs. I was completely bowled over by the group of teens who chose to spend a Friday night at our book event. They didn’t just like books, they LOVED them, and once they got started talking about them they didn’t stop.

Most were huge fans of YA fantasy, but adult books got mentioned as well. And a twelve-year-old aspiring novelist who shares my taste for dark YA gave me some great reading recommendations! Interestingly, these teens weren’t concerned about marketing categories or whether a book was YA or adult. All that mattered was whether they liked a book.  They made the unending debate about who should be reading YA feel a bit irrelevant, but the debate goes on.

  • This writer argues that Most YA fiction is grown-up fiction in disguise, and this is why adults like it, and problematic for teens. But teens are voracious readers of YA, and I’ve yet to hear a teen complain that a YA novel is too grown up. I believe that the YA authors who tackle the difficult realities that teens face and write about them with intelligence and insight are actually making young adult fiction more relevant to teens.
  • Here are some reasons Why Authors Write YA from the writers themselves. Conspicuously absent is: “I write YA to create an adult novel in disguise.”
  • 3 Reasons Adults Are Reading Books for Teens provides a different perspective on why adults read YA.
  • Not only are teens enthusiastic readers of YA, more and more of them are reviewing young adult books on blogs, Instagram and YouTube. There is even a 16-year-old girl who is a blogger for a national magazine.
  • Personally, I’m tired of all the arguing about YA vs. adult fiction and who should be reading what. Why can’t we all just get along, and let’s start with these 5 YA/Adult Novel Pairings.

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