Let’s Talk Bookish: What Counts as YA?

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted with Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Book Nook Bits has hosted since April 2022.

Although I have been focusing on Blogmas for this month, I couldn’t resist today’s Let’s Talk Bookish topic, which is something I absolutely love reading – Young Adult!

Let’s Talk Bookish December 22nd
What Counts as YA?

Prompts: Young adult fiction (YA) is aimed at 12 to 18 year old readers, but what actually makes a book YA? Is it just the characters’ ages, or more about the content and themes? Are there any books that have been marketed as YA that you feel are really adult?

Yes, it is aimed at teenagers, but let’s face it, plenty of us adults read it, as well. YA is great, and I could do a whole blog post about why it’s so great, but for now let’s dive into these questions. ‘YA’ isn’t a genre in and of itself; it’s an age category, and it’s interesting that Middle Grade and YA are the two ages where books really do need to have characters approximately the same age (or around the same age) as those reading them. Younger books can have wide ranging characters, and books for adults can feature any age of character, but in YA, there has to be a YA-age main character.

As well as this, there are common themes in YA – although some of these can cross over in adult as well, many of the themes are tackled in more age appropriate ways. There are differences between younger and older YA, too – there is, after all, a big difference between a thirteen-year-old and eighteen-year-old. But mostly, YA focuses on themes and settings that will resonate with the YA audience – coming of age, first loves and unrequited crushes, youthful dreams. They might be set in some sort of school or have a school element, characters won’t be bogged down with work or debt, they might be dealing with overbearing or absent parents, etc.

Good YA does an excellent job of connecting with their audience, and characters are more likely to be similar to the readers than you might find in adult. They have the same worries – even if it’s a second world fantasy where they have to defeat A Big Bad to Save the World, the protagonist might be experiencing love for the first time, or be dealing with arguments with their friends, or worrying about an upcoming test. In Contemporary, they might reference current pop culture that the audience will be familiar with.

There are often instances where books are misappropriately marketed as YA, simply because the character is a teenager, and the problem often seems to impact SFF written by women. One of the biggest examples is probably The Poppy War – although there are YA elements (the MC is a teenage girl, she attends a school, there’s a coming of age feel to parts) the themes and the writing itself are very much adult. It’s a book about war, that doesn’t shy away from war as the gruesome, horrific act it is.

YA is one of the most diverse, ground-breaking areas of the book world, and it does a lot to foster the adult readers of tomorrow. Yet it is still looked down on, any controversary or so-called ‘drama’ is often instantly attributed to YA writers (the majority of the time it is not!), and it’s one of the most scrutinized, censored genres we have – look at how many books being banned right now are YA. That’s not to say YA readers can’t read adult books – they absolutely can, but in YA they are more likely to find books written directly for them, and it’s a shame it’s so looked down on by others, and so badly mistreated.

If you are an adult who, like me, enjoys reading YA, or if you’re thinking of dipping your toe in – there really is just one crucial thing to remember: we are not the target audience! YA shouldn’t be judged on what we, likely avid readers, think, but on how the target audience connects and responds to it.