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Betwixt and Between: YA in an Adult World

by

Lauren Baratz-Logsted

The other day the Washington Post had a one-hour online chat where they invited people to post questions and comments about summer reading. One questioner asked for suggestions of YA (young adult) books that an adult would enjoy. The responder must have read the question wrong, or perhaps he simply didn’t understand why anyone would want such a thing, because he suggested Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, an adult book that a YA might possibly enjoy. Me, being my usual know-it-all self, immediately fired off a comment that the questioner instead be directed to a Shelfari group devoted to recommending YA books adults would enjoy.

Now you may wonder yourself, if you’re an adult but have not read YA fiction since you were a teenager, why would anyone want such a thing?

How about because it’s the hottest genre going?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First I should define what YA is.

For one thing, it’s far different than what most of us grew up with. When I was growing up, kids read kids books, then graduated to coming-of-age stories like To Kill a Mockingbird or A Separate Peace, books where the narrator is telling a story about childhood from the perspective of an adult. Mostly, by the time we hit adolescence, we made the switch to adult books. By the time I was into my early teens, a typical weekly reading list might include The Exorcist and The World According to Garp—adult books written for an adult audience. Back then there were also writers who mostly wrote for kids or adults, no switch-hitters.

But all that has changed in a post-Harry Potter world. Adults began to see  that there might be value in the form of entertainment or enlightenment in reading books shelved on the other side of the store. And yet many remain resistant to the idea, preferring to regard something they haven’t even tried as something necessarily less than.

Today’s YA fiction, in the overwhelming majority of cases, is written from the authentic point of view of a YA, not employing the benefit-of-old-age trick. That’s the real critical difference between it and adult fiction. But the beauty of the current YA landscape? Everything you see on the adult side of the store—literary, mystery, romance, comedy, you name it—it’s all there on the YA side, but with one more critical difference: because the audience is still discovering the newness of the world in terms of events and ideas, the writing somehow manages to match that newness by being fresh.

That freshness, that sense of an audience that can still be wowed by looking at the world in ways they’ve never dreamt of before, is what I think has drawn so many power-hitting, previously adults-only authors to start writing in the genre. Sherman Alexie, Carl Hiassen, Alice Hoffman, Francine Prose—all have begun publishing books on both sides of the aisle. I suspect that one thing they’re discovering is not just that feeling of freshness but also the wide-open nature of the form, where writers can stretch their wings in astonishingly wonderful ways. Can you imagine an adult novelist writing 600-page prose poems and getting published? YA novelist Ellen Hopkins has done it, with every single book, each of which has made the New York Times bestseller list.

Freshness of ideas, freedom of form. Adults who have fallen in love with the new YA aren’t people who’ve regressed to childhood. They’re people who’ve expanded their horizons, finding a way to make an old thing in their lives—reading—new again.

I came to my own passion for the new YA through the back door as it were. I’d already written several adult novels when one day the idea came to me to do a book about a senior in high school on the fast track for Yale who finds herself pregnant after one spectacularly drunken night. That book was Angel’s Choice. I thought I was writing another adult book, until I realized that the present-tense narration I was using—new to me at the time and very characteristic of much YA fiction—had an authentically teen voice. Now that I found myself, by accident, writing in a new genre, I began reading in it as research. Previously, I’d only read the YA novels of writing friends. But what began as research turned into a love affair, both as a reader and as a writer.

Some people still think all YA fiction is Stephenie Meyer or books about gossip and the wealthy. Or else that each book centers on high school events—Football! Prom! Pimples! But there’s just so much else going on.

If you haven’t read any YA lately, and you prefer your reading literary, you could do worse than to start with the five finalists in the category from this past National Book Award:

  • What I Saw and How I Lied, by June Blundell, a noirish mystery and this year’s winner.
  • Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson, about slavery.
  • The Underneath, by Kathi Appelt, featuring a cat and dog.
  • The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart, power dynamics at boarding school.
  • The Spectacular Now, by Tim Tharp, about a humorous guy with a drinking problem.   
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Who else should you be reading? Short list?
  • Heidi Ayarbe
  • Kristin Cashore
  • John Coy
  • Sarah Dessen
  • John Green
  • Shannon Hale
  • Carrie Jones
  • A.S. King
  • David Levithan
  • Barry Lyga
  • Brian Malloy
  • Dana Reinhardt
  • Meg Rosoff
  • Nancy Werlin
  • Sara Zarr
  • Marcus Zusak
Oh, and if you’re one of the legion adults who have fallen in love with Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, proving your taste for paranormal? Then you really need to read Lisa McMann’s three-book cycle beginning with Wake and Alyson Noel’s new series that launched with Evermore.
 
And that’s just to get you started.

I’ve read every single one of the authors cited in this piece and can personally recommend their work. As a matter of fact, the first time I read a Sarah Dessen book I was so enthralled, I did something I haven’t done with a writer since I was a teen myself: I sought out all of her other books and read them almost without other reading interruption.
 
Every now and then I hear an adult I know lament, “I don’t know what to read next. I went to the bookstore today and left without buying anything because nothing grabbed me—it all looked the same.” Funny, among the kids I know who are readers, I never hear this. Because as far as they’re concerned, there’s plenty, almost too much. And you might just find yourself feeling that way too, if occasionally you’re willing to look somewhere different: on the other side of the store.


Win a free set of Lauren’s Sisters 8 series! The winner will receive the four currently published ones: Annie’s Adventures, Durinda’s Dangers, Georgia’s Greatness, and Jackie’s Jokes. Please note that these are not YA books; they are meant for readers ages 6-10. Send us an e-mail. (Only one entry per person, please.) That’s it. All names received on or before Thursday, June 25 will be entered, and the winner’s name will be drawn that evening. The books will be mailed out via USPS media mail within two days. There is no obligation, and your name and address will not be saved by BiblioBuffet or used for any purpose other than mailing the books. 

Books mentioned in this column:
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
The Exorcist by William Blatty
The World According to Garp by John Irving
What I Saw and How I Lied by June Blundell
Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Underneath by Kathi Appelt
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
by E. Lockhart
The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp
Wake by Lisa McMann
Evermore by Alyson Noel


Lauren Baratz-Logsted has sold twenty books to six publishers since 2003. Her published novels include The Thin Pink Line and Vertigo for adults; Angel’s Choice for teens, Me, In Between for tweens; and the first four of The Sisters 8, a nine-book series for young readers, co-written with her novelist husband Greg Logsted and their nine-year-old daughter Jackie. Her next published book will be the YA novel Crazy Beautiful, due out in September. Lauren still lives in Danbury, CT, where she writes and reads pretty much all the time. You can read more about Lauren's life and work (and contact her) at her personal web site and at the Sisters 8 web site.

 

 

 
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