I remember when I first started reading YA, I grew very irritated with the books written for that audience within 3 months, and it felt laborious to read them. They were all very similar and were written in a very boring manner. I read a variety of texts before giving up on them. I recently started revisiting some of the more popular titles, and I still find them laughable and grating as ever. Technically, I still fall under the intended age group of these books, and I first read them at slightly younger than their intended age. Why is writing for a younger age group seen as an excuse for poor writing and plot development?
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by Brackets9
14 Comments
because kids generally don’t care and the books sell well so it doesn’t matter anyways
There are plenty of incredible YA books out there and I’m someone who was very opposed to YA for a while. Some of my favourites are The Raven Cycle, Legendborn, His Dark Materials, The Book Thief
The Hunger Games is incredible
Because they don’t need to be good to sell, and a bland book is less likely to offend someone or draw unwanted negative attention than one that takes risks with it’s storytelling, setting, or characters.
It’s always a safe bet to be mediocre, so long as you have a publisher who’ll ensure you get sales.
Because they are written for kids.
They’re written to appeal to teenage audiences. This means, among other things, that they need to be accessible and feel validating for a teenage mindset. For this reason, neither the prose nor the plot can be too complex or nuanced, and there are several predictable elements (a focus on romance and identity, antagonism from parents and adults in general, etc.) which must be included.
I find the way YA books are written to be pretty depressing and patronising on the whole. Most seem to contain very short, choppy sentences that are often a paragraph in themselves. Complex sentence structures or even mildly challenging language are difficult to find. Fantasy and dystopia and overrepresented too.
They’re really not! The most popular ones are, sure – but that’s the case for all genres/marketed age ranges. Many if not most books with mass appeal tend to be mid at best. Digging down past what Booktok is hyping at the moment, though? There are truly spectacular YA gems. Just as many as Adult or New Adult or Classics or whatever else.
Because it’s genre fiction. You see the same thing in adult contemporary fiction, too. There’s still good YA out there; you just have to dig for it.
Oh there are plenty of books written for adults that have poor writing and terrible plots. That’s not just for YA and children’s books.
YA is honestly more of a vibe than an actual genre. It’s about appealing to a certain age demographic. It’s just some authors that write for that demographic are not as good as some of the others. It’s more likely you just don’t like the type of stories that generally appeal to the YA readers.
I promise, there are poor, okay, and magnificent books in middle grade, YA, and adult. I’m in my 30s and some YA novels remain among my favorites.
Ex: *The Scorpio Races* by Maggie Stiefvater, *The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray* by Chris Wooding, The Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy by Laini Taylor, *Never-Contented Things* and *Vassa in the Night* both by Sarah Porter.
You’re probably reading bland ones. I still reread plenty of YA that holds up.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is wonderful. Classic fantasy in plot, but refreshingly modern in dynamic and character building.
Why are all adult books filled with smut?
Oh, they’re not?
I shouldn’t assume all adult books are exactly the same?