Books for kids, teens, & those who are young at heart

Tag: Twilight

Young Adult Literature Should 100% Be For Teens

Do I agree with the article called “YA Isn’t Just for Young Adults”? Absolutely not. Young adult literature (or what is commonly shortened to YA) is 100% for teens. (We’ll get into whether a teen is a young adult in minute.) Does that mean adults can’t read YA? Also, no. Does that mean teens can’t read things other than YA? Again, no.

I’m not presuming to tell anyone what they can or can’t read. What I’m saying is that young adult literature should be written for teens. Period. We don’t need to age YA up because some adults read it and wish that it had more mature content. Adults have their own huge category of books already. Romance novels alone are a billion-dollar industry.

I recently expressed this sentiment in a TikTok video. The text of the video reads, “YA books are made for teens. No one’s stopping adults from reading them. They should still be for teens. Let’s stop trying to make YA for adults, and let’s stop labeling books YA if they’re not for teens.” It sparked quite the debate, which I’m happy about.

Let’s talk about what YA books are, who they should be for, and what’s appropriate content for a YA book!

One of the most frequent comments on the video pointed out how it’s weird to call books for teens “young adult” because young adult people are ages 18 to mid-20s and teens are ages 13 to 18. I get that, so I created a follow-up video to explain the industry term of “young adult,” which was coined in the 1960s.

While I think debating about whether it’s an appropriate term is a related issue, it’s not the main one. The fact is “young adult” is a widely used term that has been around for a very long time and has always meant books for teens. And everyone–the publishers, authors, editors, and booksellers–in the children’s publishing industry (because YA falls into the bigger category of children’s books) knows this.

But what’s happening in recent years is that people in the YA publishing industry– like YA author who penned the article positing that YA isn’t just for young adults–have been pushing the YA category into older and older content. This means that many new YA books have characters that are 16 and older and content that is more appropriate for older teens and adults.

Why is this happening? Starting in the early 2000s, YA saw huge growth with the rise of worldwide bestsellers like Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The first books in both those series released in 2008 and spawned popular movie franchises. In short, YA books became big money.

Then in 2012, a study by Bowker Market Research revealed that 55% of YA books were purchased by adults 18 and over with the largest chunk of those adults being between the ages of 30 and 44. The YA publishing industry realized that there was a huge market of adults buying YA…thus began the trend of moving the YA market into older and older territory.

Another issue with the label of “young adult” is that it’s being used on books that are actually adult books. This seems to happen most often in fantasy books written by women (patriarchy at play here). Two examples being a A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas and Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Full disclosure, I haven’t read either of these books, but it’s clear that both of them contain spicy sex scenes, meaning scenes that are meant to be titillating. Spicy sex scenes do not belong in YA.

I’m not saying sex and sex-related topics don’t have a place in some YA books. I wrote a whole post called “Why I Included Abortion in My Young Adult Fantasy Novel” back in 2020, which is about my book Elixir Saved. But labeling books YA when they have sexually explicit content is a disservice to all readers, and it continues to muddy the waters on what YA is.

Young adult books can have all manner of edgier content like gore, violence, and sex. After all, YA is an age category, not a genre, so it contains most book genres, like mystery, thriller, fantasy & sci-fi, and romance. The key is to always keep the core audience of teens in mind when considering what content is appropriate. Also, it’s key to understand that YA is range. What is appropriate for a 13-year-old reader varies greatly from what’s appropriate for an 18-year-old one.

Why is it a problem that YA is skewing older? There is clearly a market for YA books that have more mature content and there’s profit to be gained. But at what cost?

We’re leaving a lot of teen readers behind. Where are the books for the 13-15 year-old readers? Where are the books for older teens that don’t want mature content? What will happen to the book industry in the future if we fail teen readers now? Who’s going to buy YA then?

Teens of all ages deserve books that are written for them. And not just a handful of books. They deserve a wide variety of books and a wide number of books in all kinds of genres. Teens need books that are specifically written for them at all stages of maturity.

Adults have plenty of books to read that are written specifically for them. Adults are guests in the YA space. And those of us who make YA books need to remember that.

Females in YA: Part 10 Hot, Rude Boys

Tell me if this sound familiar.

Young woman in a YA novel meets young man. He’s rude to her, maybe even outright mean. He might talk to her in a demeaning or condescending way. He doesn’t seem to care about what she wants because his agenda is the only important one. He’s probably done some things that make him morally questionable. Said young woman notices all these shady characteristics about him.

But he’s hot, and has a mysterious air about him. Maybe she suspects he has some sort of special power. So the young woman hangs out with him willingly or allows herself to be coerced into spending time with him. As she gets to know him, she’s impressed by his piercing eyes or muscular physique. And that time he flashed a perfect smile at her just made her heart skip a beat.

Young woman clings to every small act of kindness he shows her or anyone else. Maybe he even saved her from some terrible fate that was brought on by either her own stupidity or his arrogance. He mostly still acts like a jerk, though. But he’s really, really hot, and now she knows there’s something special/unique/supernatural about him. So she lets him brush a lock of hair out of her face and gently caress her face. Maybe she lets him kiss her because even though the kiss was originally forced on her, once it’s happening, it’s just so magical.

Recognize this scenario? Feeling sick yet? Because I feel like this type of relationship is in soooo many YA books I’ve been reading lately, particularly, but not exclusively, paranormal romances. I blame Stephenie Meyer, but moreover I blame our culture.

(A note on the Twlight series. I’ll fully admit I loved the books. They sucked me in from the start and I devoured them. I’ve read them several times and still enjoy them. Intellectually I can recognize the issues of the whole Edward/Bella relationship, but when I first read these stories, I just didn’t care. I wanted them to be together. Here’s the thing, Stephenie Meyer tackled this type of relationship better than all these other books I’ve been reading and rolling my eyes over. I didn’t roll my eyes when I was reading the Twilight books–though I can’t say the same for the movies! And she did it before all these other books, so they just come across as knockoffs that aren’t nearly as successful. I also found Edward to be a more nuanced character than the young men in other books.)

Back to our culture. We’re raising our young men to think it’s okay to treat women like a means to an end, like objects, like something that is theirs to use as they see fit. And if they’re hot, rich, and white then it’s even more okay. Just as bad, we’re raising our young women to think it’s okay, even desirable, to be treated this way.

And it’s not okay…let me repeat, it’s not okay! A man treating a woman this way does not make a healthy relationship, and it certainly isn’t love, not the mutual, respectful kind of love that is true.

I get that novels serve many purposes and one of their main functions is to entertain. I’m not saying we can’t have dysfunctional relationships in books or that every book needs to set an example for young people. There are certainly YA novels out there that show healthier love than my above example, and it’s okay to read novels with this type of love in them.

My problem with this type of relationship is how normal is has become in YA novels. So normal that it’s almost become a cliche. It feels like every other YA book I pick up has this in it (one of the reasons I’ve have more DNFs–did not finish–on my reading list in the last year than ever before). Yet the characters in these books never seem to think the unbalanced relationship is a problem. No one else recognizes there is a problem, and if they do, they’re opinions are quickly dismissed.

Young women are voraciously reading these novels. I want these young women to know that it might be fun to read about these kinds of relationships, but that it’s not okay to be in one of these types of relationships. I want young men to know that this is not how they should be treating women. I want YA authors to understand that they are writing their characters this way and think about the impact they might be having on young readers.

Okay, I’ve said my peace. Rant over. What are you thoughts on “love” relationships in YA?

 

Females in YA: Part 3 Current YA

*There may be some spoilers in this post for the following books*

Thirteen Reasons Why   Twilight (Twilight, #1)   The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games #1)   The Fault in Our Stars

 The Book Thief   Speak   Graceling (Graceling Realm, #1)   The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Sisterhood, #1)

So far in my Females in YA series, I’ve discussed my own experiences as a female growing up and the roles females play in my own writing. Since then I’ve come across two more articles about this topic you all might find interesting: That’s Not Very Feminist of You, Bella: Feminism in YA by Chelsea Condren (thanks to Ann Herrick for directing me to this one) and Screw Writing Strong Women by J. Anderson Coats.

For part 3, let’s open things up beyond my experiences and writing and take a look at what has been going on in other YA books. So what are females in YA doing these days? For examples I’m sticking to blockbuster selling books (and ones I’ve actually read) because that seems to be what most teens are reading in large numbers (and it would be hard to intelligently talk about books I haven’t read).

So we’ve got a girl who committed suicide and posthumously leaves tapes for those responsible for her death (Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reason Why); a girl whose sole reason for existence seems to be becoming a vampire so she can spend the rest of her life with the vampire boy she’s been pining after (Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight); a girl who is forced to fight to the death in a reality TV show (Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games); a girl with terminal cancer who meets a boy, who also has cancer, and falls in love (John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars); a book stealing girl whose family is hiding a Jewish boy during WWII (Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief); a girl who is afraid to speak the truth about having been raped at a party (Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak); a girl who has the Grace, or magical talent, of killing (Kristin Cashore’s Graceling); and a group of four girls, with different personality and physical traits, who share a pair of jeans on their first summer away from each other (Ann Brashares’ The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants).

I know that’s a lot of examples, but I really wanted to demonstrate the breadth of what is being covered in YA. There are lots of heavy issues, including suicide, rape, cancer, death, killing, losing one’s virginity, and war. And the books above above seem to be a good sampling of the different genres, with paranormal, contemporary, dystopian, historical, and fantasy represented. There are strong, physically and/or mentally, girls; broken girls; sensitive girls; codependent ones; and numerous other adjectives that could be used to describe these females characters.

Boys do play a prominent role in pretty much all these stories, but romance doesn’t necessarily dominate them all. And in several boys play a very negative role in the narrative. (This list of books I’ve mentioned is certainly not exhaustive, but I found it unwieldy enough with eight so I was reticent to include anymore.)

So it seems (bringing the conversation back to my original post) that the reality of boys not being everything to teen girls is reflected in YA, though boys do factor into most girls’ lives and the popular stories written about them. Also, I believe different types of females are represented in these stories, which I think is a good thing.

One thing I found surprising when compiling this list was how heavy so many of these stories were. I can only speculate, but I imagine teen girls read about these heavy topics so widely because the stories evoke strong emotional responses (at least all these books did so in me).

Before I started this post, I imagined going into more specific details about the female characters in these books, but I think the post has grown longer than I anticipated. Maybe I’ll continue this discussion further and look at some of these characters in depth…I’ll have to think on it (feeling a bit mentally fatigued right now).

I’d love to hear your thoughts and keep this conversation going in the comments. What YA females have resonated with you? What do you think makes these (and other stories you’ve read) so popular with teens? Do you think a variety of females are represented in current YA?

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