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…
There was definitely a lot to glean from the responses to your post! I originally dove in because my personal definition of YA is teen angst, illogical/emotionally driven decision-making, and underdeveloped characters (e.g. The Lunar Chronicles series, most especially ‘Scarlet’).
I saw you mentioned Red Rising and was a bit surprised, since I would not classify the series as YA. After Red Rising (already barely on the edge of YA), it rapidly becomes much grittier and has none of the tropes I attribute to YA books. It’s based on rebellion/uprising, revolution, war, and coups. I hope you take a chance on the rest of the series, as it only gets better!
Personally, I’m dragging my feet on starting book 6 (Lightbringer) because of how violent and (oftentimes) depressing it gets. And I don’t mean that it’s gratuitous violence, just that it’s very in-line with the reality of that universe and the situation the characters are all in. I’ve never avoided a YA book for those reasons; only avoided YA for poor writing and dull characters 😆 the audio books for the whole Red Rising series are absolutely the way to go! Hope you continue to enjoy the series.