What is Y A?

[sartorias]

I've gotten into a conversation with a couple of people, and it boils down to: what are the important elements of a YA novel now? Everyone agrees that what makes a story "young adult" is changing--and it's not just the inclusion of cuss words, or sex, both of which have appeared in Problem Novels going back to the late sixties, though they weren't

Comments

[jolantru]

Trying to find a sense of belonging.
Trying to find his or her own identity.
Trying to cope with relationships.
Puberty.
Parents.
Siblings.
Boy-girl relationships (or boy-boy or girl-girl relationships).

[sartorias]

Good--thank you.

[fjm]

bildungsroman

[sartorias]

But what elements make one now, as opposed to ten years ago, or fifty?

[jhetley]

As far as I can tell, YA is whatever Marketing says it is . . .

[sartorias]

Let's pretend Marketing doesn't exist--it's you and a book. You want to read a teen book, what do you expect to find when you reach for it?

Or, what disappoints you in a book that you expected to be a YA?

[jhetley]

I'm totally out of it on defining YA. Being OLD, I boggled a bit when SUMMER COUNTRY got YA recommendations from PW -- fairly explicit sex and violence, no teen cast members, etc. And character growth and change are things we expect throughout good fiction.

I guess my own expectation would be a "good" ending, not necessarily Happy, but satisfactory for the protags. Not Lovecraftian horrors conquering known space and the heat death of the universe.

[sartorias]

Yeah--that one surprised me, too.

"nodding*

[sollersuk]

From a very Brit standpoint, I've never been able to get my head round the concept at all. To start with the only meaning I find obvious for "Young Adult" is between 18 (the present age of becoming legally adult) and 21 (the previous age

[sartorias]

This is all actually helpful, in a roundabout way.

You've put your finger on a part of the problem: the wiggly definition. Books that appeal to the 18-21 reader can be vastly different from books that appeal to a sixteen year old, or a thirteen year old who has a giant vocabulary and reads passionately. . . but is still thirteen.

[sollersuk]

Well, that's part of the problem. You can have three 15 year olds, one of whom would really prefer books that mostly appeal to 12 year olds, and would read them if they weren't labelled as such, one who is nearer the average in their tastes, and one who is fed up with that kid stuff (i.e. books aimed at teens) and wants something that they can get their teeth into. I might have been only a 13 year old when I discovered Dorothy L Sayers, but I found her books immensely satisfying - and continue to do so.

[sartorias]

Very true.

[kalimac]

"it has to be funny, that she's sick of serious books"

I don't know what's changed in the decades since I was in the designated readership group for YA books, but I loathed the serious "message" books we were fed in school. The Pigman. A Separate Peace. I especially hated The Pigman because the opening chapter started promising a different kind of book. Yes, give me something funny, or something fantasy. It can be a serious fantasy as long as it's not pounding you over the head with Message. The Hobbit, my favorite novel from that era (I read it at 11), actually does have a message about maturity and responsibility, but it's not a Message book.

[sartorias]

Yes--I think my young friend was complaining about problem novels, but I couldn't get her to articular much beyond the fact that she hated books assigned at school, especially if they won awards, and why didn't they let people read manga for book reports? Better stories.

[kalimac]

Manga? One of my brothers was a slow reader and wouldn't read anything but the sports pages (because it was the only thing that interested him enough to make it worth the effort). So his wiser teachers let him read and report on the sports pages.

[sartorias]

That was a very smart teacher.