WORD NERD IS… NOT QUITE GROWN UP
Recently I saw the film YOUNG ADULT with Charlize Theron (it’s good, I recommend it) and got to thinking about its title. In the context of the film, “Young Adult” is a play on words: the protagonist is a 30-something author who acts half her age and writes a sugary fiction series aimed at teenage girls.
“Young adult” (or “YA”) is a term that is used throughout publishing for literature of any genre that is written for an audience of about 12-17 years old. YA novels are often shorter and less stylistically complex than adult works, but contain some exploration of adult themes. These include (but are not limited to) love, sex, peer abuse, substance abuse, family problems, growing pains, irrational adolescent anger, and so on.
There are certain genres where the YA market is particularly strong. Recently, this has been the case with fantasy, science fiction and horror… it seems we can’t get enough of supernatural teenage thrillers.
Quercus’ fantasy/sci-fi YA list is small but strong. Our book Ashes fits pretty cleanly into the dystopian fiction genre and has been sweeping up praise from critics left and right. John Marsden’s series, which begins with Tomorrow When the War Began, is another example.
That said, YA doesn’t always have to be genre fiction. Many of the best examples are set in the modern day and centre around the banalities of school cliques, embarrassing siblings, and teenage hormones. Cat Clarke’s novel Torn, for instance, is a brilliant example of non-genre YA, albeit with a slightly macabre twist.
Now, we at Quercus are all 18 years + and huge fans of Torn, This brings me to the heart of this thought exercise: it appears that YA fiction is no longer the sole domain of sprightly fifteen-year-olds (if you need proof of this just look at the number of adults with Twilight tattoos.)
At some stage in the not-so-distant past YA starting attracting a pretty significant adult fan base. When did this happen? Was it after the emergence of that book-which-will-not-be-named? Or, was it some time earlier? Is it nostalgia alone that makes us older folk love YA or is there another, more profound, reason?
Send us your thoughts and you may just get to read Torn for free (hint: it never pays to teach that annoying popular girl the lesson she so deserves.)
Comments
Someone that I used to know got me into reading some titles from the fantasy side of the genre and quite liked them, however it is hard to convey with words how averse I am from the idea of a twilight tattoo…
Does Ender’s Game count as YA? It is fairly violent, but the protagonist is a teenager and the plot is pretty simple.
If so perhaps adult readership of YA started back in 1985, at least for sci-fi. Well before the book that must not be named.
The burning question has to be, do any of the 18+ years of age members of the Quercus office have any Twilight tatoos?
On a serious note, this article makes an interesting point!