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…
This gets a bit complicated because, even though you feel like Red Rising is a YA book, it’s not. It’s pretty firmly marketed and sorted into the adult genre of Fantasy.
They way a book is marketed and shelved doesn’t change what is written inside. Not that goodreads should be the authority on anything, but it is tagged as YA on there.
When I think of YA it is mostly about the structure and style of writing. A book can have a bit of sex and murder in it but be written in a very YA manner. I’ve had this come up a few times recently. Books with distinctly adult themes so you can’t market them as YA, but they otherwise feel like they are written for teens.
They way a book is marketed and shelved doesn’t change what is written inside. Not that goodreads should be the authority on anything, but it is tagged as YA on there.
When I think of YA it is mostly about the structure and style of writing. A book can have a bit of sex and murder in it but be written in a very YA manner. I’ve had this come up a few times recently. Books with distinctly adult themes so you can’t market them as YA, but they otherwise feel like they are written for teens.
Part of the issue imo is that there are at least two distinct definitions of 'YA" people use.
The first is content based; that YA is defined by a specific sort of prose style, plot, character approach, or focus on emotional drama and angst. And people will label any book with these qualities YA regardless of how the book itself is marketed or what its intended audience is.
The second is marketing; it’s YA because the publisher marked it as such.
And as much as YA is a marketing category and term, not all readers regard it as such and instead draw comparisons and similarities based on the content and style of the books rather than their market packaging.
Isn’t it? I’m currently reading the saga and I would easily put the first book in the same category as the hunger games, and in fact the marketing blurb in my edition mentions both hunger games and enders game.
I’m told the rest of the series evolves into a more adult feeling in later books, but I definitely got some shonen manga / teenage adventure vibes from the first one - not that I don’t like it, I bought it expecting exactly that.
Can confirm, I work in both a library and a bookstore and Red Rising is shelved in adult sci-fi in both places. Don’t know why the OP thinks it’s YA.