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…
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.