So lately I’ve had several book recommendations here and in other subreddits for novels or audiobooks that sounded great, but when I pursued them, I found these were young adult novels. Despite long discussion threads, no one mentioned this.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the occasional YA book. But it seems like something people should mention it is YA, like you might mention if something was softcore. It makes me wonder: Is this is not a big deal to people? Or do people not even realize these are YA?
The most recent was Red Rising, which was suggested as an audio book recommendation. One comment mentioned that they found this after looking for something like Game of Thrones . This is a fun book, and the audio narrator is great, but it is definitely YA and nothing like Game of Thrones, lol.
Anyway, just a thought…
I think the problem is that people that will recc young adult novels see them as just as good as adult novels, whereas the people who actively don’t read YA novels think the exact opposite. So this means it’s only a problem for one side of the equation, but luckily Goodreads is pretty good about tagging novels YA so that’s the easiest way to find that out IMO.
It also doesn’t help that some books are marketed as YA purely from a sales perspective even if they’re not; most of the time because the writer is a woman. I still remember The Hunger Games being marketed as a YA ROMANCE.
I just finished Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher. I can’t figure out why it’s YA. The main character is in her 30s, her love interest is in his 40s. There is nothing terribly gory and there is no explicit sex, but I still don’t understand how it’s YA. It’s not about teenagers or a coming of age story. It’s more about finding one’s self in middle age than anything.
Same issue with Strange the Dreamer (which is phenomenal). Because there’s no explicit sex, and because Laini Taylor had written other YA books, it’s marketed as YA.
In no world is this book YA.
That’s really odd to me because I’m a librarian and Nettle & Bone is firmly in our adult section and we didn’t have to reclassify it.
Yeah, I re-read Daughter of Smoke & Bone recently, and it really doesn’t feel like YA.
What other examples come to mind besides the obviously young adult hunger games?
Because it is? It’s written like a young adult romance book. I took the book blinldy after reading it’s a take on Battle Royale and it took 10 pages to know that I am too old for this style of writing.
It’s not a romance series by any stretch. The fact that it includes a relationship between the MC and someone else doesn’t make it a romance. Its a YA dystopian novel, it primarily highlights class disparity and dehumanization. The central conflict is not a question of “will their romance work out” it is “will MC survive this grotesque game”.
No offense but maybe if you actually READ it you’d know why it was a weird classification…
I’m 90% sure this is just victim complex nonsense by people who are upset that the fiction they read/write is classified as YA. You thinking Hunger Games isn’t YA and the person below saying they think Game of Thrones would be classified YA if it was written by a woman isn’t helping the situation either.
Is this better or worse than novels that add a gratuitous sex scene so they don’t get cast as YA?
It is YA though…
Because it is…
It also doesn’t help that some books are marketed as YA purely from a sales perspective even if they’re not; most of the time because the writer is a woman. I still remember The Hunger Games being marketed as a YA ROMANCE.
I wouldn’t say that is problem as much as a more or less objective truth, based on the following facts that I hope we all can agree on:
Terry Pratchett’s “Nation” is also technically a Young Adult novel, so it’s not that reliable as an indicator of bad writing.
(Nation is fantastic by the way)