“many young teen readers, faced with no books that represent themselves or their experience, simply stop looking”
What are you basing this, and many of the points in this article, on? Have you interviewed any teens? I know there was one article from a 17-year-old complaining about this, but she hardly speaks for all teens.
When I was a teen, I skipped the YA category entirely and read adult. Those were the stories I was interested in reading — mostly classics, which told stories about young adults in worlds very different from my own.
Seabrooke Leckie·It’s true I skipped the YA section too, Carolyn, though it was largely because there wasn’t much of one back when I was a teen, haha. THE OUTSIDERS was the big highlight of teen fiction in my high school years, and it held zero appeal to me so I never read it. I gravitated to Piers Anthony and Terry Pratchett, and I don’t know that I was conscious about it at the time but I think it’s cuz they were light and much more appropriate to my age than other fantasy shelved as Adult.
I admit I didn’t go down to my local high school or send out a call on twitter for feedback from teens when writing this article. I based my comments primarily on that blogger, the teens commenting in her comments section, a few teens in my real-life, and my memory of my own teen years with their paucity of proper teen fiction. Earlier this week, by complete chance and after I’d written that article, I was in fact having a conversation with my daycare provider who said her 14-year-old hadn’t been reading much lately, and when she is reading it’s still MG, because she can’t find anything she feels ready for in the YA section. If a teen is a voracious reader they’ll push through anyway, but lots are only casual readers, and it’s easy to drop the habit if you’re not finding anything that appeals to you.
You’re right that that one blogger doesn’t speak for all teens. But I think she speaks for enough teens that we should pay attention and take a serious look at what’s going on with teen fiction.
- Janine·
Interesting discussion. I once had a 14 year old main character in a (now shelved) YA story and was told to age her up to 16-17 to be YA viable or age her down to 12-13, because 14 year olds don’t relate to the high school experience. Plenty of 14 year olds are in high school. I still think there’s plenty of room for YA for 13-15 year old protagonists. I don’t want all YA to be 16-17 year olds or 20 somethings pretending they are 17. That would be boring.
I think some adults read YA because for the most part, explicit sexual content and graphic violence are absent from these books, as opposed to adult books, where it’s everywhere.
- Seabrooke Leckie·
I’ve heard this a lot, Janine – that 14 is an age that falls through a crack in the current age-category system. Too young for YA, too old for MG. Perhaps if a “crossover” category starts to form in which we can place a lot of the very mature YA there’ll be room left over to start providing 14-year-old protagonists. I agree with you – I was in grade 9, high school, at age 14.
And I think that’s a good point, too – the MG / YA / Adult labels aren’t just about age, but are also an indication of what to expect from the content inside the book. Which is another reason why these mature books taking over the YA category may be somewhat problematic.
This conversation is endlessly fascinating to me. I was a teen with unaddressed trauma who was repeatedly exposed to mature content I wasn’t prepared for through YA and adult fiction family innocently put in my hands. As an adult, I still struggle with some of the upper-end content of YA.
I don’t see different age ranges as telling kids what they can/can’t read, but instead telling them what they can expect. I pick up a fantasy book because I want fantasy — in the same way, when I pick up MG I have an expectation for the types of content I’ll come across. I still prefer books that explore deep themes without a lot of sex/violence, but find that increasingly difficult to pinpoint recent YA. Doesn’t mean others can’t publish/read/enjoy it, but as a reader I have other preferences.
So, I’m curious to see how the market continues to move, and what the industry looks like in the coming years.
- Seabrooke Leckie·
This is a really great point, Alyssa, and a perfect example of why we should be making space in the market for these younger YA novels instead of asking young readers to make a jump some of them might not be ready for yet. I agree that the different category labels serve as much to tell you what you might encounter as who you might, although YA covers a fair spread so on the one hand you have clean stories like CINDER and on the other you get stories like A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES, and it’s not always something you can tell just from back cover copy. Which is, I think, another reason why we need some sort of “crossover”/New Adult/whatever label for more mature teen books.
- Heather·
Loved this discussion!!!
“It’s worth mentioning that a lot of women who write fantasy are pushed into the young adult category even though their books are more geared toward adult audiences. This is publisher-driven because publishers know there is a gender game in publishing. YA sells to girls, and adult fantasy is a bit male-dominant.”
This. This. THIS. I love fantasy, and when people question why I still read books meant for teens, I tell them it’s because I often have issues with how some male writers depict women in fantasy. I would LOVE more adult fantasy by women, but it’s all in YA right now. And then there’s the drawback that there are some YA books I’d love to see more mature but can’t because teens are the target audience. I was disheartened when New Adult fizzled out because I had hoped it would give me more books with well written characters and compelling plots aimed at someone MY age. I really love the idea of the “crossover” appeal, and I hope to see more of that trend in the future!
- Seabrooke Leckie·
It’s so true, Heather! Like the oh-so-popular GAME OF THRONES – while I respect that he’s given a lot of women a lot of power, I haven’t found a single one of them that I actually like the depiction of; plus gratuitous sex is just everywhere. There are some great Adult fantasy women authors, but I do agree that at least among the Big Names they’re outnumbered by men. And then there’s YA, where you’re hard-pressed to find a Y chromosome in the crowd.
Same here about New Adult! It was just starting to take off right as I was hitting my stride with fiction, but then I took some time mostly off writing to have kids and when I came back the category was gone. Hopefully the crossover label finds traction!
I know the con is over and I’m sorry for posting this late but there have been calls to resurrect NA with hashtags like #newadultrevolution. Do you see any changes likely if more social media push calls to renew the category in publishing?
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