#ya genre

[winwin17]

Help a poor, indecisive writer!

[multi-fandom-lunatic]

Thank you for answering my ask! I also want to add that some protagonists in YA are now made to be characters who are 20, rather than teenagers - which confuses me, because YA really should be aimed at teenagers. Books can be for all ages, but I find it odd that so many adults hold onto/are obsessed with YA/teen media to the point authors are now pushing teenagers out of a space that's literally meant to be for them. As you said, it's a form of escapism sure, but it's strange to force YA to become more gritty and explicit when you can just write adult lit and use that age group as a way to explore things instead.

I think a nostalgia factor plays into it, plus an immaturity factor. Adults cling onto their teenage self because they feel that mentally, they cannot move on. This means that YA becomes darker to acomodate the adults who read the books (authors do this for profit and to become viral).

Also, about the why YA?, it's because the whole YA genre, I think, is the most flexible genre. YA is 13-18 YOs, and there's a world of difference between what kind of books people read between those ages. I personally think that YA authors are trying to write fiction for the late teens (17-18 YOs) and make their work darker, so much that it bleeds into the explicit-ness of Adult Lit, but they keep the tropes similar to typical YA, so they can still market it as YA. And, since YA as a whole genre is teens, even early teens are shown (through Booktok and similar) what the latest popular read is, and this, as a whole, compromises the integrity and teen-ness of te YA genre. In short: YA is the most marketable, and Adult Lit is collateral damage. I suspect middle-grade is next. I certainly hope not, though. I'd cry if Booktok ruined my favourite genre.

Have you noticed that similar things are happening with TV shows and other media? Odd how dark and gory stuff are being shown to teens (and younger) more now than ever. Think about Stranger Things and similar. Casual horror is becoming far more prevalent. YA becoming darker isn't just a phenomenon in Booktok, it's across other media.

But Booktok is kind of perfect to make darker, and this makes it the clearest example. Now, more than ever, books are hugely bought instead of borrowed at a library. Social media feeds into consumerism, so now, authors are writing these hugely dark YA books to keep up with what's trending.

In doing some minor research, I've found that people who defend Booktok in its current state argue to "let people read what they want". I'd like to say to this that that's what anti-Booktokers have been saying the whole time. Compromising the core and integrity of the YA genre is policing people's reading more than anti-Booktokers. Ugh. Things don't exist in a vacuum, and while we can pretend that Booktok only exists for sharing books and thoughts, the reality is that it's become a target to boost consumerism and is more of an industry (buying-selling-supply-demand kind of stuff) than we'd like to admit.

I guess the best way to go about this problem is to make noise about books you like - and not via Booktok. Check out your local library and request a book if they offer those services. Support authors who's books have to brave the upcoming year without being trope-y bullshit.

Thanks for the ask, again! They completely make my day, and I love answering them.

NOTE: I've finished writing all this and just found out that YA is actually 12-18. But my point still stands.

[aleksanderscult]

#I'm sorry but she's not even in the top 100 best YA authors for me

Definitely agree, and her adult stuff isn't better. But I'm wondering, who do you consider the best YA authors?

Unfortunately I haven't read many YA books. In the beginning I was so taken with them but as you grow older you start seeing their flaws and they age like milk (Shadow and Bone and Percy Jackson). So I've distanced myself from this genre for many years now and I can't remember much.

Personally I find the best one to be Suzanne Collins. She created a world that is almost a parallel to our own, with characters that you can sympathize with. And I liked her ending (is this an unpopular opinion or something?)

J. K. Rowling, a despicable person, somehow created characters whose emotions are so relatable and she dived into some dark themes with great insight. Although her books are full of problematic stuff as well. She's proof that a great artist can be an evil person.

Cassandra Clare is decent (?) I guess. She tends to overdramatize the romance and humor for no reason other than to make her fans go "aww" and she tends to repeat herself, as well as refuses to explain some motives and is very shallow at times.

[the-beacons-of-minas-tirith]

BRO?

BRO????!!!!

[fictiveescapes]

Fangirl Manga Vol 2 adapted by Sam Maggs and Rainbow Rowell |Book Review|

I figured it was finally time for me to get around to finishing my review of this manga series now that all of the volumes are out. Levi looks so handsome in this art style 😍 Where this series shines in getting adapted into a manga is all of the varied character designs. Regan is drawn way more grown up compared to how I originally pictured her… but, a character that did match my minds eye…

[scarlethoodi]

I need some adult queer books; they don’t necessarily have to be romance (though I’m not opposed cause I love the genre) and I’m not against YA but yeah I need some recs please

[full-on-sam]

I am going to make a more elaborate post about this. I am so mad.

More things I hate about modern literature because today is a bad day and I need to be a dick online to feel better:

How much sex there is in everything

And again I am not a prude, erotica has existed for decades and it's okay but every popular YA or adventure book nowadays is a bad erotica with some low stakes adventure in the background

And somehow they are able to be both bad porn and bad adventure

And also people will promote those books as " yes the plot kinda sucks but there's good sex scenes"

The word Mary sue

The misuse of the word Mary sue

Any attempt to make a "LOTR inspired" book made by a man

Because usually the things that made LOTR good go just over the authors head and we end with basically a vin diesel movie set in the middle ages

This is not just about modern literature but books about or set in horrible moments for a oppressed minority(like holocaust or slavery) written by people who aren't part of said minority

Coleen hoover

She did for feminist literature what Seth MacFarlane did for adult animation

The harry Potter/Percy Jacksonification of children's literature

The magical choose one trope being taken to a magical world did irremediable damage to children's literature

The mean girl trope

Books set in fictional middle ages but the protagonist go to balls in fashion show modern runaway style dresses

You know the tacky Pinterest glittery showing shoulders back and leg

Those official arts of the same exactly white women and the same white guy in slightly different clothes with the same 2016 style eyebrows and the sharp jawline and the nothing expression

Characters being described as "golden skin" so depending if the author needs some representation points they can be interpreted as people of color but if no one says nothing they stay as just tan white

Comparing dark skin color to any food

How many authors try to make at the same time "this is brainless wish fulfilment fantasy about being desired by a hot dominating guy" and " this is a profound take about the horrors of abuse"

Usually by having the second love interest to abuse the protag

In the end the message that stays is any abuse is forgivable if the abuser is hot enough

The "I'm skinny but not hot super model skinny I am ugly skinny my bones show because of malnourishment"

"yet I don't feel any other effect of starvation like being weak and I can carry five times my body weight in whatever animal the author needs me to hunt in the beginning of the book because making me a farmer wouldn't be cool"

"I am ugly" cried the skinny girl with locks of auburn hair porcelain white skin and eyes of emerald green.

The jk Rowling stupid name school (she named the werewolf Wolfy mcwolf in Latin and people though it was smart now we have a girl who fights on a island named island and the archer who marries a fae named fae archer )

And again faes because fuck faes

[oliver-burns]

Hii :)) I'm writing a fantasy ya story on ao3 called Oliver Burns, and I'd be thrilled if you checked it out since this is my first try at the fantasy genre

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

I've never read the Pacy Jackson books series before. Even when I was a kid/ young teen, I never had much of an interest in it. I'm sure that's the books are well-written and all, but to literally say that they are the very height of top literature is a massive reach if you asked me.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is my nostalgic favorite childhood book series, I still have a lot of fondness and such great memories and attachment when it comes to this book series growing up for a lot of reasons, but despite that I still wouldn't called them the ultimate top best of literature ever written. Mainly because you got so much out there in the world of books besides just Series of Unfortunate Events.

I personally feel like there's nothing wrong with still enjoying YA books every now and then or rereading your favorites from your teenage years, but too only exclusively just read the YA genre and never reading anything more challenging and more complicated mature stories dealing with actual adult characters and characters that aren't always teenagers or middle schoolers, is I feel deeply limiting yourself.

Seriously, not to say that stories dealing with young protagonists can't also be well-written or good, but doesn't it get tiring to always be reading books dealing with teenagers all the time? Like as a adult wouldn't you want to read stories dealing with actual adult characters that you can resonate with on some level, adult characters dealing with somewhat similar struggles and the sometimes bullshit fuckery that's comes with adulthood and life in general as you get older.

Only just mainly reading YA novels and nothing else is doing a great disservice to your own growth in some way. There's so much more to adult literature than what you were forced to read in high school okay.

the last time disaffected 20-somethings decided they didn’t have to read anything by old people bc old people ruined the world and that this was a legitimate political statement, many of those 20-somethings ended up basically inventing fascism

[langernameohnebedeutung]

ngl, I'm beginning to take issue with how in conversations about anti-intellectualism almost automatically, the face of girls and women will be slapped on the problem.

[fuckmeyer]

the choice between Edward & Jacob is not a question of which relationship is healthier or which partner is best suitable for Bella. neither is correct. neither is best. neither produces a happy ending for Bella. at the end of the day this is still a vampire novel. any choice Bella could make would yield, at best, a bittersweet happily ever after.

if she chooses Edward, she gets the terrifying Breaking Dawn ending: a girl who rejected her call to grow up has hung her love & her eternity on an emotionally stunted partner who hates himself marginally less than he loves her. she's a teen mom with a kid she never wanted who perpetuates the generational trauma passed down from her parents. by keeping this child, the Cullens have set the stage for an uprising/cold war against the Volturi who are likely to take revenge in order to maintain power. Bella is living in a tenuous "dream come true" wrapped in a nightmare & doesn't realize it.

choosing Jacob is the true coming-of-age ending that rips the stitches out of a wound that never fully healed. even if we ignore the fact that she ends up with a man who sexually assaulted her (we must bear in mind Jacob's character is influenced by smeyer's racism, but it did happen), they can't have a secure romantic relationship. based on the high imprinting rate of the pack, Jacob will likely find his imprint in his lifetime & will lose himself to the imprintee. he will no longer be her Jacob. he will inevitably abandon her (whether he wants to or not), & she must reconcile with the reality that she will always be inadequate to Jacob's imprint. & say he never manages to escape the vampires? he will presumably not age for a long time, meaning the relationship Bella always feared with Edward (her being an old grandmother while he stays forever young) remains a possibility. this is the story of a girl who slaps a Band Aid on an open wound & calls herself healed while flinching every time she sees the shadow of the knife that cut her.

if she chooses neither (team therapy), her healing requires her to lose or be at least partially disconnected from everyone she cares about. Bella must spend the rest of her life shut out from one world while never fully existing in her human world ever again. she must always keep secrets. she can never go back home. even in the unlikely event that she manages to escape the Volturi, the threat of being hunted by vampires will never leave her. in addition, she must face her worst fears (aging, losing Edward) while always keeping in mind the immortal life that could have been hers, if only.

even the "healthiest" option produces scars that will never quite heal.

Twilight is a horror. Twilight is a vampire novel. Twilight is gothic. Twilight is fiction. neither Edward nor Jacob is a "bad" choice because neither will give Bella her happily ever after. the choice between Edward & Jacob is simply a matter of which horror story you prefer to read.

[fictiveescapes]

Attached At The Hip By Christine Riccio |Book Review|

I have been a major fan of Christine Rissio’s since the early Book Review days of her YouTube channel. Attached At The Hip is her third published novel. Christine has playlists on her channel that she created while writing her novels (this one, and the previous two Again, But Better and Better Together). This is an excellent resource for inspiring other authors; and as a bonus, readers and…

[rhiandoesfandom]

I chose no. My rule for minors is always: if you wouldn't read it in a published YA Novel that's being carried at Barnes and Noble, then it's too spicy for minors. I have read YA Novels where the character pleasures themselves even but it's still vague. I think the farthest I've seen a scene go in a YA novel is the insinuation that they have sex. Or blowjobs, oral, framed as 'fooling around', etc.

I think exploring sexuality is really important in YA as it can not only teach lessons of boundaries and safe sex, but also relationship dynamics and especially we need more queer relationship rep in this aspect. It's important that explicit sex scenes are reserved for adult novels and teens/parents decide when they are mature enough to read them.

(ie theres nothing stopping a teen from checking out an adult novel from the library. Just like there's nothing stopping them from watching a mature show except their parents. But I also don't condone policing your child's readiness and listening to them when they say they're ready.)

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[incognitopolls]

Anon is autistic and thought the genre being called "young adult" meant it was for 18–25, but they saw a tiktok saying YA was for 12–18. This confused them and they want to see whether this is a common confusion or if they misinterpreted it due to being autistic.

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