#and none of that cool teen centered seating area with magazines and board games and video games or whatever

[tomatoluvr69]

Sure I’m glad (mostly) that YA is the booming juggernaut it is today because it’s cool that 14 year olds can have stories for them. Sure. More books is always better. That’s fun— thoughts on book influencer culture and grown-ups and literature as soulless and ever-churning product aside. It’s cool to walk into any tiny neighborhood library branch and see a dedicated space for teenagers. When I was a young teenager there were a couple of small shelves in between adult audiobooks and the biographical section where you walked in and your choices were either Twilight, Eragon, or some candy-pink Sex And The City-lite dishy little book like the one that has got some reason come rushing unbidden to the forefront of my memory this morning called “Vegan Virgin Valentine” which I never wound up reading but was always compelled by through a mixture of intrigue and condescension. The YA landscape pre-Hunger Games mania was like…here’s a super scandalous book about anorexia or teen pregnancy written in verse. Or a pandering Book For Boys about combat or fart humor. Or a twilight knock-off about a girl who has sex with a ghost. So while any glimpse of the bloated realm of teen publishing makes me feel exhausted on account of the feverish adult fans who populate it it’s probably full of important stories for teenagers. But like truly Kids These Days have no idea what it’s like to have your only option be called “The Earth, My Butt, And Other Big Round Things” (real) or “Everlost: Soulfyre Book 3” (fabricated poorly for effect)