I wanted, however, to comment on your point about the reaction some adults get for reading YA (or..”reading below their grade level”). On the one hand, we have adults being mocked for reading YA. It seems like some believe that YA is silly and frivolous; why would an adult ever want to read that? On the other hand, we see folks like Meghan Cox Gurdon lamenting about how dark/violent/graphic YA is and how we need to be concerned about what kids are reading. I would think these two lines of thinking contradict each other: either YA is frivolous and silly (in which case it shouldn’t be a problem what kids read) or it’s OMG so dark/violent/graphic (in which case, how can it also be frivolous and silly?).

For the record, I don’t agree with either line of thinking. It just interests me that both seem to exist.

And I got bored of all the disgruntled female mains who used men as love toys. I like the innocent love stories in these books. And the bad boys aren’t really that bad (unless they’re demons dead set on killing the female MC).

And with so many different sub-genres there is just a larger group of reads.

Also, as you’ve said it’s about escapism. As much as adult stories of cruelty, drama, heartbreak, loss of a child, loss of a spouse, bad marriage, dead-end job, can be poignant, it’s not an escape. These things happen to friends and family all around me, so why would I want to use them to escape? No thank you!

Great post! And what you said about authors out for a quick buck, wholeheartedly agree. But you can tell from the writing just how passionate an author is, even if you don’t love their story, you can see the love they have for it. And I find that most YA authors absolutely do love what they do.

I actually had one professor, who has written Young Adult books, that was completely opposed to anything fantasy. I felt like if you wrote and brought a fantasy story into class (it a fiction writing workshop and we had to write four short-stories by the end of the semester) she would grade you much harsher than she would if you brought in a ‘real time’ fiction piece which is the types of stories she wrote. I feel like schools, in some ways, try to dissuade people from reading anything less than what is considered to be ‘high literature’ and having to constantly go over the same works and take them apart over and over again can really take the joy out of it.

YA is certainly a form of escapism for me. I love how it can be so straightforward yet present to me such a beautiful and captivating tale. That I can meet so many wonderful characters and follow them as they go through live, travel, and essentially discover themselves (something of which I am still trying to do). Sure, I still read and enjoy ‘adult’ books (I am even reading Warbreaker and the first book in the Nightrunner series, and I have even recently read some steamy romances), but that doesn’t mean I can’t also read and enjoy YA books just as much.

Authors who are just in it for a quick buck should step back and evaluate again why they should be writing.