Say That Again: A Reaction to Book Debates/Controversies

(*The article referenced is called "Against YA: Read whatever you want. But you should feel embarrassed when what you're reading was written for children." by Ruth Graham*)

I am a big YA Fiction reading. BIG. My bookshelf is full of John Green, Rainbow Rowell, Becca Fitzpatrick, Veronica Roth, Natalie D. Richards, Sabaa Tahir, Gayle Forman, Jay Asher, Emma Mills, Cassandra Clare, Jennifer Niven . . . do you want me to go on? I know YA Fiction like the back of my hand, so when someone, somewhere, turns against it, you know I'll be defending it.

So you can imagine that, just by this title, I got mad. Livid. I'll take you through exactly what made me mad. I'll start with the quote.

"The largest groups of buyers in that survey--accounting for a whopping 28 percent of all YA sales--are between 30-44."
I don't know about you, but I'm in high school and before I got a job, I begged my mom to buy me books. I wrote essays as to why my mom should buy me particular books. I waited and waited and waited for books to be released and then as soon as they were, went to my mom's office and (in extreme cases) went down on my knees and pleaded for her to get me books. If you're anything like me, your mom or your dad is going to buy you stuff, including books. So why does this author automatically assume that all the 30-44 year olds are reading YA books? My mom buys them for me, and I know a teacher who teaches a freshman English class and periodically reads popular YA books to recommend to her students. But also, why does it matter that they're reading them?

"These endings are emblematic of the fact that the emotional and moral ambiguity of adult fiction--of the real world--is nowhere in evidence in YA fiction. These endings are for readers who prefer things to be wrapped up neatly, our heroes married or dead or happily grasping hands, looking to the future."

This is not true. A lot of books that I've read don't wrap up at all, and leave the reader with a feeling that there's something next but the book and the author don't give it away. Take "The Spectacular Now" by Tim Tharp. I'm not going to spoil that for anyone, but that sure doesn't wrap up nicely and it's a YA Fiction novel. Also, "Eleanor and Park" by Rainbow Rowell ends like that. Which is hilarious, because the author of this article targets "Eleanor and Park" as the kind of YA book that adults should be ashamed reading because it seemingly has an ending like that.

Also, the author only supports her argument with two of the most well-known YA Fiction books (Eleanor and Park and The Fault in Our Stars) out there, compared to the 153 YA Fiction books on my bookshelf (and yes, I just went through and counted them all) and then compared to ALL the YA Fiction books. So if she wanted to support her arguments by using two books that could fall under her fire, fine. But that doesn't automatically mean that ALL YA Fiction books fall under those same criticisms.

This author just generalized too much and didn't relate at all with the adult population whatsoever. She didn't understand that maybe when adults go to bookshops and buy YA Fiction books, it's because they want to read something with a happy ending instead of a heavy, mature, metaphoric book full of themes about the future and death and whatever stuff adults talk about that are too cool for us young adults. She didn't get that sometimes adult lives get tough and that YA Fiction, like all other books, are meant to be a source of entertainment to take that stress away. It's a sin to kill a mockingbird, as Harper Lee writes, so maybe it's a sin to hate on an entire genre that really hasn't done anything to harm you except to make other people happy. I don't know, maybe this author thrives off of young adults' happiness when they're reading YA Fiction, or just anybody's happiness when they're reading YA Fiction.

That was probably too intense. I apologize, but at the same time, do you understand where I'm coming from?

I can get it if you're criticizing adults who only read YA Fiction. I want to be an author, and that's the genre I want to write in, so it makes sense if I'm buying popular YA Fiction when I'm in my thirties, to keep up with contemporary writing and themes and whatnot, but I can bet that won't be all I'm reading. For now, it is, because I haven't found anything as much to my liking as YA Fiction, but who knows. I'm only in high school.

The adults who only read YA Fiction are like me, maybe, adults who don't like to venture too far out of their comfort zones, but I would say they should go for it and try something new (and even if you hate it, YA Fiction will still be there for them). The adults who only read YA Fiction probably have a good reason, like the mature adult stuff is just too heavy, too depressing, too mature after a long workday, or maybe they're doing it for work in the sense that my teacher does. The adults who only read YA Fiction probably like teenagers better than adults and by the way they're criticizing our genre, I don't blame them!

When kids are young, parents don't care what they're reading because at least they're reading. As kids get into high school and start hating the books teachers assign, adults don't care what we read as long as we read because they thought they ruined it for us and just reading proves to them that they haven't yet. So how come when high schoolers become adults, it's such a big deal as to what they're reading? At least they're reading something, right, because you'd have thought maybe college and jobs and a "mature adult life" might have ruined that. Why can't we keep that kindergarten parent mindset throughout our lives. We should be promoting reading, no matter what we're reading, even if that means an adult is reading YA Fiction, fiction written for young adults.