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Growing out of Y.A. Fiction
75 Plays20 days ago
This week, we get on the mic to discuss an unexpected identity crisis: we seem to be growing out of Young Adult (YA) fiction. We try to define what exactly YA is (a tough job!) and what we still love about books in this category, as well as grapple with why we no longer gravitate towards this area in the bookshop. And oh, we took a slight detour into discussing Middle Grade (MG) books as well.
Book club info, detailed show notes, and other links: linktree.com/novel_feelings
Our podcast was recorded on Wurundjeri Land, which is home to both of us in Naarm/Melbourne. Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land.
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Transcript
Outgrowing YA Books
00:00:11
Speaker
we are here to talk about a bit of a getting too old for YA books. And I'm an expected part of aging. I know. And like some people are going to hear that and go, well, of course you are. I know you're not an 18-year-old. like First of all, excuse me. I'll take you.
00:00:33
Speaker
um But like let let us sort of explain throughout this episode why this is sort of a bit of a turning point for us and why it's something that we have been talking about
Defining YA Literature
00:00:44
Speaker
recently. um And I guess we'll start with a little bit of a description about what is YA? What are young adults? What is the YA genre? Just so everyone's about to speak with what we mean when we say YA. If it's even a genre, I guess that's another argument as well.
00:01:01
Speaker
but But that's not going to the weeds, so we'll just cover the basic definition. yeah yeah so What is YA? YA, or young adult, is, I suppose, quote-unquote, genre of books, which is typically aimed at readers aged about 12 to 18 years of age. so The lower age range is about 12 to 15, which is more typical teen fiction, I guess, or books that are aimed at teenagers. But the main distinction seems to be the age of the characters, really. so In children and middle grade books, you have younger protagonists. In YA books, it's usually teenagers, although some arguably in the early 20s will be YA books. We also have new adult and adult fiction, which is I guess an even blurrier genre too. So new adult I think is usually aimed at 20s sort of like, you know, young adults in a more
00:01:52
Speaker
yeah epidemiological sense. um And adult is, I suppose, anything really aged 18 plus, but that's you know that's another question that we can't really answer today. Yeah. Well, I think new adults, like I would argue something like a court of thorns and roses should be new adults because of its content. Like it's not super appropriate for 12 to 18 year olds to read. though no We know they do, but you know.
00:02:20
Speaker
It's not aimed at that audience necessarily. Look, the in YA the characters are usually teenagers dealing with teenage but related issues, but a teenage character doesn't automatically make a book YA. So, you know, with the Court of Thorns of Roses example there, some romantic books feature protagonists that are aged 18 to 19, but due to their themes are supposed to be or a considered adult or new adult, even though they might get shelved in YA sometimes.
00:02:50
Speaker
And then, of course, sometimes there are books that feature children as protagonists that are aimed at older readers.
Marketing Complexities in YA
00:02:55
Speaker
I was thinking of some books like The Book Thief, where the characters, I think, are about 12 to 13 years old, or Room, which features, I think, a five or six year old as the main character, but the themes in that book, if you know, are really not appropriate for children. And then there are also some books which might follow characters over time, from when they are children to when they grow up. So, for example, The Queen's Gambit.
00:03:16
Speaker
um The main character in that is quite young when she starts up. um And then other books like Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, where you see them over time as well. Yeah, and then there are some stories featuring adult protagonists that are marketed as YA, which I didn't know this, but apparently the Hobbit is considered YA? Yeah, which is interesting. um The Webagans might be a Hobbit, but he's still an adult character. I remember reading the Hobbit and it did read young and a lot more accessible than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, despite the fact that the age of the protagonists are
00:03:53
Speaker
I believe more or less the same. Absolutely. And yeah now is the time for my little confession that I've never read Lord of the Rings, just by intending to and trying to a couple of times. I first tried reading Lord of the Rings when I was maybe 12 or 13 and I couldn't get through it. And at the time I'm like, ah okay, I'll try again and when I'm a bit older, maybe that will be okay. And then I tried when I was in my early twenties and I hi and made more progress. I got maybe a quarter of the way through, but I think I stopped at the Elven Council, something like a notoriously difficult part to get through. And it's been another 10 years, so I probably am due to try again. But I'm currently trying to get through June, so that is my my fantasy slog at the moment. i I'm enjoying it. i'm just nice it's a It's a long process to get through it. yeah
00:04:43
Speaker
I've read all of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I read them when I was in high school and each time I read them, I was sick. So I finished them in a day, but I was also delirious. I don't know if I retain anything of it the book's content.
00:04:58
Speaker
I'm sorry, you read them in a day and it's taken me over 20 years of attempts to get through. But I was i was sick and bed-bound, so I'm like, I got through cover to cover, but did I take anything in? There's another question.
00:05:12
Speaker
All right, I'm not going to quiz you. um like any good So a little bit of history of YA as a genre, according to Wikipedia, my favorite source.
Evolution of YA Literature
00:05:23
Speaker
So the designation of young adult literature was originally developed by librarians to help teenagers sort of transition between children's literature and adults' literature. And it was only around World War II that teenagers were sort of seen or started to be seen as a distinct group of young people, which is really interesting.
00:05:41
Speaker
more of like a transitional time point in growing up. That means of course that over the 19th century we had more and more books starting to be classified or at least viewed retrospectively as young adult fiction like The Capture and the Rye which is one of the more iconic 19th century YA novels even though it was written for adults. But these days we still don't have a consensus about the definition of YA literature so the closest we can get is really that stuff we talked about at the start but thematically It's really quite broad, so YA books can feature a lot of different themes. Yeah, and a lot of different genres. That's why I think I sort of challenged the notion that YA is a genre, because if you walk to the section that section in the bookshop, there's fantasy and romance and historical fiction and science fiction all just under that one umbrella. like It's not like romance where there are real rules about what goes into YA, I guess.
00:06:39
Speaker
It's very loosely defined. Yes, like it's yeah about teenagers. yeah And sometimes that's not even the case. And often it's you know not even it's not teenagers that are necessarily deciding that this is a book that's aimed at them or that they're going to pick it up and
Adult Interest in YA Themes
00:06:56
Speaker
like it. um There was a study back in 2012, which found that over half of YA literature was actually purchased by adults, which I thought was interesting. And that's not necessarily like parents picking it for their children, that's adults that may or may not be choosing to read it for themselves. So, you know, again, you can designate a book as young adult, but that doesn't mean the readers are going to just be teenagers.
00:07:19
Speaker
No, well I think that's why we came to this discussion today because I was one of those adults buying young adult books throughout my 20s. Me too, me too, absolutely. yeah I think why books are so compelling I think sometimes because they've featured a lot of themes that are perhaps not as well explored in adult fiction like coming of age and mental health, grief, my first loves,
00:07:47
Speaker
and the pitfalls of that, friendships, breakups, and parents separating. Absolutely. And many adults are of course going to relate to these experiences, um whether it's reflecting back on what they experienced when they were younger or issues that are still relevant to them today. I'll just note that the distinction of YA being for teenagers
Diversity in YA Literature
00:08:10
Speaker
doesn't makes sense definitionally as well. So, yeah you know, young adults, if you look at like the lit the and say the literature, I mean, not the book novel literature, but there the research literature, most studies of like youth health and yeah know trends relating to young people will distinguish young adults as being usually 18 to 25, though some will say 18 to 30 or even 18 to 35.
00:08:38
Speaker
um I remember being, when I turned 30, I was mildly disappointed that I could no longer do a particular annual survey that I used to run through an old job, which was aimed at like 16 to 29. I'm like, can no longer do my annual survey. such But yeah, a young a young adult is a distinct category to a teenager, the way you talk about it.
00:09:00
Speaker
most of the time and yet we call books aimed at teenagers young adult so it's it's a very murky sort of definitional space but yeah thematically a lot of the stuff is going to be relevant to people aged 18 plus. I'll also note that over time YA books have become more diverse and many are covering themes that are underrepresented in adult literature so For example, when we've been doing this podcast, a lot of the books we covered have been young adult books because of the representation of mental health issues or themes that um you know people are talking about these books because they have mental illness represented.
00:09:37
Speaker
And, you know, I can't give you the proportion of adult versus young adult books that talk about mental health, but I think it's being talked about more in YA on average than it has been in adult fiction or at least some of the different issues. And I think one of those reasons is because mental health issues, a lot of them do emerge when people are teenagers or young adults. Like it's a very clear transition point um or a point of first symptomology. So it makes sense for that to be covered in young adult fiction.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And there's also the diversity of authors writing in the young adult space as well. The movement, someone listening to this can correct me if they know more, but I feel like we need diverse books was a movement within the YA children literature space first before it became um more But I feel like there's more, I guess, discussions around racism and books written from a person in a minority group, whereas adult fiction is slowly catching up, but perhaps not to the same, right? Or perhaps not as discussed.
00:10:42
Speaker
yeah I also don't have proof of that, but I think that might be true. But it could very much be that we have been so so much in the YA space that this is what we've noticed more ah more than what we've noticed in the adult fiction space. That's true, and I think yeah we purposefully try to read from diverse authors. That's not to say that we...
00:11:05
Speaker
you know, get it right 100% of the time or that we only choose authors based on the demographics of the writers or the issues that are represented. But yeah, we do kind of go out of our way at least a little bit to read from more diverse authors. So yeah, actually pick those up a little bit more than what is necessarily marketed to people as young adults.
00:11:27
Speaker
Amplify Bookshop had an Instagram post a while ago, I think, about the percentage of um authors of BIPOC background in fiction or what was being published. so So we might find that and put it in the share notes. Yeah, we'll find some stats, so it should be a couple with what we're speculating on right now. If this is all wrong, we will cut it out of the air.
00:11:52
Speaker
But still, that being said, like we spent a lot of time talking about like why YA is a murky genre and why we have still been reading it but despite the fact that we have not been teenagers for a long time. yeah But I think we're hitting a point where we're not reading much YA at all anymore. Why do you think that is?
Disconnect with YA Themes
00:12:12
Speaker
It's just sad. I'm just like, oh my god, I'm an old lady now. but I just like, I've just been picking up a few and I'm like, I don't relate to this anymore. You know, I just like, I find myself, there's a part of me that's kind of like, oh, just talk about it. Or, you know. The miscommunication tropes are still really rough in teen and YA fiction. Yeah. And I think it doesn't mean that I can't relate at all, but I think there are certain storylines that are no longer relevant to me. Like high school drama, I think.
00:12:47
Speaker
doesn't hit as much anymore. And um um I think as life has changed, I'm more drawn towards adult issues and, you know, parenthood. And issues around identity, but in a different way than how teenagers might think about about it. oh And i so, yeah, just not feeling connected, I suppose, to some of the storylines anymore. Yeah, that's true. And...
00:13:15
Speaker
and And you have read a lot of YA books as well. They're speaking for myself. I do find some of them a little bit predictable now too. And books that I might've loved when I was a teenager, if I'm picking them up now, unless there's something about them that is sort of universally appealing.
00:13:37
Speaker
i I'm just at a different life stage. Like I'm not sort of drawn to the same themes and the same plot points and the same dramas that are being faced by many of the characters, potentially and probably in particular for those that are set in kind of contemporary settings too. I have found, I suppose there are a few more jean you know genre within genre. but it One even is a genre, that's another question. But a few like fantasy books that I have picked up with younger protagonists that I do
00:14:10
Speaker
still really like but I can't really find myself picking up an average like high school contemporary book these days. um It's just not appealing to me anymore. Yeah well this is where I would think about middle grade because I've picked up a few middle grade books like you know I read Percy Jackson start to finish during lockdown and then like went on to all of the related series in that universe and I still really enjoy that and I i think Daniel Binks' The Year the Maps Change was one of my favourite books in recent years and that's also a middle grade book. Obviously it's okay, like we're not saying why I need to grow up with us because that's not that's not the voice of this episode. It's okay to not be the target audience. Yeah it's just I think
00:15:00
Speaker
I find it fascinating because like you said, Elise, there are some books that are still connecting, and we still really enjoy in these marketing umbrellas, I suppose, or targeted for people younger than us. I was thinking about this, actually, and I think sometimes it's the the voice of the book as well. so For example, Percy Jackson, I think, is you know very much for what age group is middle or grade for.
00:15:26
Speaker
eight to twelve for like, you know, ah slightly younger than young adults. Yeah, I think like upper primary school. Yeah, and it's written in that sense of like, simple, pacey writing, but there are some there are so many themes in that. That's like the Apollo series, which I don't remember what it's called right now, but it's all about like a god reflecting on his immortality and that his actions and the consequences he's had on mortals and death. You know, ah quite serious topics, but packaged in this very very pacey action novel. So in that way, that still really appeals to me. And it's also a lot of fun.
00:16:10
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
Critique of Certain YA Books
00:16:12
Speaker
But there have been some books we've read, both of us have read in the last couple of years, that we didn't like at the YA. And I'm talking beyond, I suppose, just the like, oh, maybe this wasn't for us and we didn't particularly enjoy it, but there were a few that we really disliked. I don't want to get cancelled for this. I have to say, we didn't like fourth wing. Sorry, guys.
00:16:39
Speaker
you're You're obviously allowed to like it. We just can't. We just did not. but So i I read the whole book. what I listened to the audio book of it and what was that about it? It's not and again it's not inherently that it's YA. I think it was that I couldn't quite pick who the audience was because at times the characters were acting very young and they are ah teenagers i think I don't think they're quite 20 yet, but ah a lot of the times the drama and the issues they were facing felt like 14 or 15 year olds.
00:17:13
Speaker
but then the internal rules of the world I felt didn't make a lot of sense. And then it just randomly got very steamy. And I'm like, what genre even is this? I think it is YA, but it's trying to also be middle grade and new adult. I don't know. It's just as odd. Yeah, there was something about it that didn't work for me. And then I didn't love the writing and the characters as well. But that's another issue. Whereas I know you could not get through it.
00:17:40
Speaker
ah do I want to admit this on mic, but I DNF it at like 30%. I think it was like very obvious tropes and I think I'm looking at our list of the books that we did both didn't like and I think our issue is now the not like other girls trope.
00:17:59
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Not like other girls. There's a couple of others that we have both read. um Cinderella is dead is one surface breaks is another, which I think it was a not like other girls thing, but also books that we felt were handling very serious topics. um So Cinderella is dead has a big focus so on racism and misogyny. The surface breaks is very much about misogyny, but it was done in such a heavy handed way.
00:18:29
Speaker
um yeah and like what quite black and white I feel. Very black and white and you know if you again if you like those books and you found meaning in them or entertainment in them for sure but you know it didn't sort of have the nuance of the discussion that we were Hoping for considering the seriousness of the topics that were really at the forefront of these books. And I think with the surface break, it was particularly disappointing because we know that authors written other books that handle really serious topics and has done it done them well. ah But here it just felt like trauma porn in a sense. yeah Bad thing after bad thing after bad thing. Yep, 100%.
00:19:09
Speaker
yeah I just sometimes when I read middle grade and it feels like the author's putting on a child's voice, it's very hard to put into words I think, but you can talk in quite a mature way but still relate to children and that's different from talking in this kind of voice, you know, the whole time. Yeah.
Timelessness of Certain YA Stories
00:19:29
Speaker
Well, let's talk about some of the books we did like. Yeah. sorry Some books that we think have transcended the target audience in a way. I do you want to mention that I reread The Hunger Games recently and I still loved it.
00:19:41
Speaker
yeah I think ah that is just a book that stands the test of time. It's such a well done book for a dystopian novel and a novel that really started like the dystopian craze of the early 2010s, which I really want someone to do like a deep dive into all those dystopian books. I i suspect it's around the corner because the Uglies Netflix series just came out. Another is Tiger Daughter, which is technically middle grade, but you know we will include it here. And that's an example of a book that captures that.
00:20:09
Speaker
child's voice, but handles very... It's not talking down to children. No, that's it, thank you. Handles very serious topics in an age-appropriate way, but can so also appeal to people who are not of that age group. For sure. And then a couple of fantasy books that we've both read and enjoyed. So Six of Crows is one. yeah um you know You got me into Six of Crows. I don't love the full series, but I did enjoy that duology.
00:20:38
Speaker
quite a lot, but it was very clever um and obviously beloved. So I'm not alone in that. And you got me into the Cruel Prince. The Cruel Prince is an interesting one because I think a lot of people go into it expecting it to be adult or new adult romanticy. And it's not, it's YA that happens to have a enemies to lovers um central romance. But I really love that. It reads more like a fable, I think, than a, you know, a quote unquote classic romanticy novel. But yeah, I think that's sort of done in an age appropriate way. But the the writing and the storytelling in that I find to be really appealing and interesting.
00:21:18
Speaker
Yeah. There are Nils Schusserman's books as well, like the Ark of the Scythe novels and Challenger Deep, which we covered on the podcast recently. Nina Kenwood's books, of course. Which we've talked about at length. Yeah. And Alice Osman's books, like Lovelace and Heartstopper. I'm actually, wait, have I read Heartstopper? I've read the first one, I think. I've read the first one as well, yeah which I suppose is a graphic novel. It's such a beautiful story that, you know,
00:21:47
Speaker
We tried to include a range of different books in this sort of laundry list of YA books that we like from different genres and different ages of protagonists and target audiences. But yeah, there's a lot that we we still do love and we think do stand out and are more universally appealing. um Another good example of a writer that I don't think talks down to the audience is John Green. I know you don't have the same emotional attachment to as I do with someone who still follows like John Green's podcasts and YouTube channels and that kind of thing. um I haven't read his books for a number of years, like his YA books for a number of years anyway, but I think that was one thing that, at least back when I was in my Tumblr era of book blogging, um people really loved that he didn't
00:22:28
Speaker
like I'm a better word, dumb down his protagonist and his dialogue. Yes, at times that might sound like they're adults talking about teenage issues, but people that treat teenagers as smart, fully, yeah maybe not yet fully formed, but like keep people with personalities and interests yeah and intelligence, I think that's really at the core of it is let's treat these teenagers with the respect that they deserve. And that's when I will still relate to a teenage protagonist.
00:22:57
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
Shift from YA to Adult Preferences
00:22:58
Speaker
And I think for me, aging out of YA, as I said before, it's not me finding issues with the genre. It's more about me looking at myself and thinking, Oh God, I am growing up. Suddenly, I'm reading books about like sad women. Sad, middle-aged women. Somehow appealing to us. it's like Oh God. Okay, so maybe my interests are changing. And It's, I guess, less grappling with the genre and more grappling with my own identity, I suppose, because it's for such a long time. YA is part of my identity as a reader. That's where I go to. That's what I like. And now I'm like, oh, that's not it anymore. It's a bit like when she who must not be named turned out to be transphobic and you're like, oh crap, that can't be part of my identity either.
00:23:52
Speaker
I do feel bad for all the millennials with Harry Potter tattoos. Yeah. I'm glad I never got one of those. but yeah right um Okay. Well, I think that kind of wraps up our little deep dive into our own.
00:24:06
Speaker
our own aging. our own aging. That should be the title. Yes, that means our own aging. Perfect. Well, thank you everyone for listening. Please um let us know if you relate to what we've said. Please don't yell of it yell at us for not liking fourth wing as well.
00:24:23
Speaker
You are welcome to enjoy it, we just don't. Yeah, different strokes with different folks. yeah But in any case, if you like us, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. The best places to find us online at the moment are Instagram and YouTube at novel underscore feelings. If we have entertained you or taught you something, consider buying us a coffee to show your thanks.
00:24:46
Speaker
Links are in the show notes. All proceeds go towards making the show stronger and more sustainable. Thank you for listening today. Thanks everyone. Bye. Our podcast was recorded on War Entry Land, which is home to both of us in Naam, Melbourne. We also acknowledge the role of storytelling in First Nations communities. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.