Why YA?

"...few genres have experienced as much growth and innovation as young adult literature in the last thirty-plus years. If you haven't read a children's novel since, well, you were a child, you have missed one of the great renaissances in modern books."
-- Nathan Bransford in a recent blog

One glance at my recent reading trends and exploding Amazon Wishlist screams YOUNG ADULT is clearly the genre I am devouring right now.
Latest additions include:

• Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter (teen heists)
• Spoiled by Heather Cocks (teen celebutantes)
• The Magnolia League by Katie Crouch (teen southern belles)
• Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (teen beauty queens survivor style)
• Demonglass by Rachel Hawkins (teen witches)

We all go through reading phases where a particular genre dominates. I went through my classics phase in highschool until I discovered Fantasy and spent the next decade flying on dragons, dodging magic bolts and discovering new worlds and creatures -- and this in turn was followed by many years of indulgening of a spot of chicklit, dripping in Jane Austen references, fashion, New York, London, and men bearing a striking resemblance to Colin Firth.

Why YA? About six years ago when I felt I had run out of good quality chicklit, a trawl of Amazon's latest releases brought up Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar. It seemed to have the elements of my favourite contemporary women's romance, such as the work of Plum Sykes, Helen Fielding (and Jane Austen) -- fashion, romance, social discord and real estate. And so, deeply satisfied with Gossip Girl whose popularity resulted in the successful and salacious TV series series the same name, I fell in love with my first YA series and have been reading the genre ever since.

The former Curtis Brown literary agent Nathan Bransford (quoted above) was writing in response to another blog entry from another Curtis Brown agent Sarah LaPolla in her discussion on the history of YA:

"For being such an important part of the industry, YA is practically a baby. It's a genre that keeps growing, not only in numbers (though that is true too), but in definition. Novels for teens used to be its own category, relegated to the back of the bookstore with a simple sign above it reading."

I would add to Sarah's history that the concept of writing specifically for teens is parallel to the increase in movies and television programming specifically targetted at the teenager. Where I was left to re-runs of 1960s and 70s sitcoms, today's teen has entire TV networks dedicated to their entertainment


So YA as we now know it, and the publishing phenomenon that continues to grow, didn't really take off until recently, but when I was in high school up to 1991, the foundations of the genre were still being laid. I hadn't read a book for children and teens since Judy Blume in Year 7, at which point my reading habits graduated to novels for adults. Given how much I have come to love the books of CvonZ, Anna Godbersen. Melissa Marr, Melissa de la Cruz, Libba Bray and Meg Cabot, why I didn't pick these books until I was in my 30s is less mysterious?
 
Another blog writer whose reading experience mirrors my own:

"Readers in my age frame had to leap across a massive gap in our early to late teens.  We went from R.L. Stine to Stephen King, Sweet Valley High to Danielle Steele, Nancy Drew to Kinsey Milhone.  With few exceptions (God bless you Lois Duncan, Judy Blume & Christopher Pike) there wasn't a market for edgy, intelligent YA—definitely not in the numbers we're seeing now."

And YA, for me, bridges a "massive gap" in simple, entertaining mass market fiction that authors aiming at adults seem increasingly difficult to capture as they veer between portraying twitty single women and their latest hangover, frustrated mums and broken down relationships (therein lies a miserable narrative!!) -- one of the reasons I became disenchanted with what chicklit was evolving into.

Whereas the better YA novelists are weaving together entertaining stories filled with romance, social intrigue and adventure, using protagonists with time on their hands to chase vampires or shop for Prada, while the rest of us grown-ups deal with our hangovers, get frustrated by our kids or deal with broken down relationships!