I think the problem is that people that will recc young adult novels see them as just as good as adult novels

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:

• YA is an extremely broad and loose classification, to the point that there can be significant disagreement on what constitutes YA or whether a specific title should be considered YA.
• There is large variation in the quality, complexity, and maturity of novels that may fall within the YA spectrum.
• There is large variation in the quality, complexity, and maturity of novels that are considered adult fiction.
• “Good” is very highly subjective, so there is no objective way to measure whether one book is better than another, let alone whether one vast, broad category of books is better than a different (though potentially overlapping) vast broad category.

When you ask for a recommendation, essentially you are asking people what they like. YA novels are fairly popular, including with adult audiences. So it is completely unsurprising that, when you ask for recommendations from a broad audience (like r/books or any moderate-sized to large sub), you will get YA recommendations.

The smart thing to do when asking for recommendations is to not only mention things you like, but also things you don’t like/don’t want (such as YA).

That should help, but is complicated by the fact that there is not a clear definition of what constitutes a YA novel (e.g. you declared that Red Rising is “definitely YA” while many comments in this thread have stated that it is not, with varying degrees of certainty).