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 generally hate YA so yeah that’s always a bummer when a book gets highly recommended only to discover it’s not in the adult fiction section. It’s also annoying when YA authors basically write a YA book but throw in one tepid vague sex scene to break into “adult fiction” (looking at you SJM).
An “adult” rating is not just about the sex and swearing for me. It’s the overall tone, the maturity of the characters, the weight of the themes, what kind of problems they’re dealing with. I would argue that despite The Hunger Games being marketed as Dystopian YA, it is an adult book simply because of the heavy subject matter. It’s very different than “high school girl deals with bullying” or “I’m struggling to get good grades in school and my parents are getting divorced” or “am I a gryffindor or a hufflepuff?” That being said, I’m glad that kids can read it too.