Hey, I was wondering: Do you feel YA lit has no substance? Lately, I've been seeing a lot of disparaging comments aimed at adults who still enjoy the occasional YA novel, opinions that go as far as to claim that there is no "good" YA book and it's a little disheartening, I have to admit.
No, I think thatās bullshit. Iāve mentioned this somewhere... And addressed the same issue on romance. Basically, YA is not even a full-fledged genre, which are already arbitrary enough. Itās a marketing denomination designed by publishing houses for its targeted audience. It certainly doesnāt impact aĀ bookās simplicity or complexity, and even less its quality. It's mainly based on the fact that the protagonist themself is, among other things, a young adult, and thatās not something uncommon to find in other, less stigmatised genres.Ā
Genre should just be neutral categorisation, umbrella terms used to group stories by format or similarities or objectives. Theyāre not, of course, because elitism and sexism and ageism, etcābut there areĀ āgoodā andĀ ābadā books in every category, and evenĀ āgoodā andĀ ābadā means nothing in itselfāwhat matters is, did this author manage to pull off what they wanted? Did this given reader find what they wanted (or something more, or different!), were they entertained, did they enjoy it, did they learn something, were they touched, in one way or another, by what the author left behind? I feel like Iām making less and less sense but what I mean isāquality should be a one-on-one thing. A conversation. Something that is yours and that can and will evolve and fluctuate with you and that is steeped in subjectivity; not a game of societal taste.Ā
YA books can be as good or as bad as any other work, and as groundbreaking, and as meaningful (I still think about Adam Silveraās More Happy Than Not and itās been... seven years?), and really, do your thing and read what engages you and if people give you shit for that, ask them why and let them stew in the realisation that they donāt have much to show for their judgement, except a cookie-cutter preconception.