The YA Stigma

[kcf]

[url="http://nethspace.blogspot.com/2008/10/ya-stigma.html"]From the blog[/url]:


I’m noticing a sad, somewhat disturbing, and growing trend – the disdain and dismissal of anything even hinting at being ‘YA’. This trend is most noticeable on some of the message boards and blogs I read regularly. One of the most prominent examples comes from many of the reviews by Patrick over at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist – here is an example of [url="http://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2008/09/way-of-shadows.html"]one such review[/url] (and [url="http://fantasybookreviewer.blogspot.com/2008/09/i-dont-get-this-review.html"]a reaction[/url] from a puzzled reader). But I’m not here to single out Pat (who I certainly consider an on-line friend) since he’s not nearly alone on this – for further examples check out [url="http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?showtopic=30895"]these discussions[/url] [url="http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20839"]on some recent books[/url] (I chime in occasionally as ‘kcf’). The basic point is that many ‘adult’ readers of SFF flat-out reject anything they perceive as being YA.

I react to this in many ways – I find it disturbing, ignorant, and simply sad while trying to not fall into the same trap. Why all the hate for YA? Is it a misunderstanding of what the meaning of YA is? Is it a rejection by younger adults (say 18 to 25) of what they now perceive as kids books since they are past their adolescent years? Is it simply ignorance due to the different shelving locations and marketing pushes?

First, let’s get some definitions out of the way. What is YA?

[quote]Young-adult fiction (often abbreviated as YA fiction, or simply YA) is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents, roughly between the ages of 12 and 18.
-[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_adult_literature"]Wikipedia[/url][/quote]

Of course the wiki articles does go on from there, but I find this tidbit to be one of the more interesting points:

[quote]From its very beginning, young-adult fiction has portrayed teens confronting situations and social issues that have pushed the edge of then-acceptable content. Such novels and their content are sometimes referred to as "edgy."
-[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_adult_literature"]Wikipedia[/url][/quote]

I’m not here to debate this article, and I’m certain it can be debated, but it does provide a common ground to begin a discussion. The impression I get is that the perception of YA by many adults is that it is simply ‘kids stuff’, that tough issues are glossed over and simplified. I disagree. Remember what it was like being an adolescent? The world wasn’t simple, conflict was everywhere, and some the moral and social issues that need to be dealt with are by no means ‘kids stuff’. This is the turf of YA – we aren’t just talking about coming-of-age stories, but real human issues that have to be dealt with in life – issues that don’t (necessarily) go away in adulthood. Basically, while it may be aimed at young adults, it certainly can apply to any adult.

One of the biggest problems as I see is the same everywhere – bad writing. If a book is full of simplified, moralistic ramblings in an entirely predictable plot that has been used hundreds of times, the problem isn’t that the book is YA, the problem is poor writing. If an adult novel is despairingly called YA, then perhaps the real issue is the quality of writing of the book and not some perceived notion that it’s really just a ‘kid’s book’. A well-written YA novel is equally accessible to both adults and young adults, and it will likely deal with issues that apply to both, at least if you take the time to think of it.

Now, admittedly, I’m not that well-read in the YA field (and I hope to remedy this over time), and I’m pointing toward Harry Potter. I enjoyed those books, but they are far from the best that YA has to offer. Take a look at [i]Little Brother [/i] by Cory Doctorow or anything by Margo Lanagan – her latest is [i]Tender Morsels [/i]. While these may be aimed toward young adults, they provide prime examples of how YA is not just for the young. Remember Peter S. Beagle’s [i]The Last Unicorn[/i]? That’s certainly YA, but a beautiful work of fiction as well.

In [url="http://nethspace.blogspot.com/2008/08/john-scalzi-answers-questions-five.html"]a recent interview[/url], I asked John Scalzi (author of recent YA-adult crossover, Zoe's Tale) a simple question: Why YA? This was his answer:

[quote]Seriously? I think getting kids to enjoy reading is a pretty necessary step, and also essential for genre, which lives or dies on its ability to hook readers on its product before they're old enough to be convinced by a bunch of illiterate teenage popularity mongers that reading genre isn't cool. So we really need to lay the table for young readers. Not every SF/F writer can or should write YA, but we need to make sure that those who do write YA in SF/F are really good writers.[/quote]

Now he’s taken this in a bit of different direction than most of what I’ve discussed above, but it is another aspect worth discussion. And for more discussion, take the time to read Scalzi’s [url="http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=702"]more robust[/url] [url="http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=721"]answers [/url]that are found on his blog. In those discussion he points out (and rightly so from a certain point of view) that Scott Westerfeld is the most significant SFF writer out there right now, and he’s (primarily) a YA author. He also dives into the financial side of things as well and that aspect is simple – YA sells a lot more than SFF and authors writing YA stand to make a lot more money.

So, I’ve jumped around quite a bit here and worked fairly hard to tone down my annoyance about the YA stigma and keep this from entering the ranks of rant. So, what are your thoughts? Do you decry YA or are you a fervent reader of it? Are you relatively ignorant of what it has to offer? What did I miss (and what did I get right)? Please…discuss.

[sio]

Well, all I can say is this:

I read, and will continue to read until the day I die, /good/ YA fiction. Phillip Pullman, Ursula Le Guin, Madeleine L'Engle, Tamora Pierce. It doesn't matter to me what the bookshops choose to call it - if it's good, I'll read it.

[Peadar]

A lot of really interesting points here. Like you, I don't know the answers to any of these questions, but I agree about the bad writing aspect of things. I've just read a book of the "badass-with-a-heart-of-gold" genre, which was a male adolescent's wet dream -- huge explosions, every female available to our Gary Stu hero etc. Clearly, the content would make many readers consider this an 'adult book'. Equally clear, is the fact that there's far more adult thinking in one page of a Scott Westerfield novel than there was in the whole of the one I just finished.

I'd be particularly interested to see the response to this bit:

[quote]Is it a rejection by younger adults (say 18 to 25) of what they now perceive as kids books since they are past their adolescent years?[/quote]

This is a description of my own behaviour. Disdain for YA was something I had to grow out of. But once again, we come back to the problem of the writing. A lot of literary snobs will say that a well-written book set in the future is 'literature', while a poorly written one, is 'SF'. The same prejudice is often visible on SF boards, but with regards to YA, hence maybe, the review you linked to.

[TakLoufer]

I might be showing my prejudice, but when I think of YA fiction I (rightly or wrongly) tend to think of it as either angsty vampire melodrama marketed towards teenage girls, Harry Potter, or, at best, a watered down version of adult fiction. It might deal with mature issues but it still to has to be glossed over so as to make it okay for the kids.

On the other hand, the last time I read anything that might be considered YA was when I was in 6th grade, so maybe I'm not giving the genre a fair crack of the whip.

[kcf]

[quote name='TakLoufer' post='1546501' date='Oct 7 2008, 12.31']I might be showing my prejudice, but when I think of YA fiction I (rightly or wrongly) tend to think of it as either angsty vampire melodrama marketed towards teenage girls, Harry Potter, or, at best, a watered down version of adult fiction. It might deal with mature issues but it still to has to be glossed over so as to make it okay for the kids.

On the other hand, the last time I read anything that might be considered YA was when I was in 6th grade, so maybe I'm not giving the genre a fair crack of the whip.[/quote]

Well, I think you're missing out on a lot good books. You should give some a try - perhaps the one's I mentioned in article, though I'm sure others who are better read in the YA field could recommend more. Heck, Peadar replied in the thread - [i]The Inferior [/i]was marketed as YA in the UK and as SFF in the US, so it falls squarly into this discussion. And it's damn fine book to read as well.

[Ebenstone]

[quote name='TakLoufer' post='1546501' date='Oct 7 2008, 15.31']I might be showing my prejudice, but when I think of YA fiction I (rightly or wrongly) tend to think of it as either angsty vampire melodrama marketed towards teenage girls, Harry Potter, or, at best, a watered down version of adult fiction. It might deal with mature issues but it still to has to be glossed over so as to make it okay for the kids.

On the other hand, the last time I read anything that might be considered YA was when I was in 6th grade, so maybe I'm not giving the genre a fair crack of the whip.[/quote]
You aren't all wrong on that front, but I think that's more of a marketing thing right now. You go with the trends and right now that hot emo vampire type stuff is hot. It's all over the shelves.

I think there is some terrific YA stuff out there right now. I'm reading Tamora Pierce right now...and I'm still angry at the world for not telling me about her sooner...and her stuff is high quality fantasy. A lot of her early work might seem watered down only because it was the nature of the market when she wrote the books. As she began to realize kids were capable of reading "bigger" books, her writing expanded.

I started really getting into YA when I took a class on it in college and started sampling some of it. There's some really good stuff genre and otherwise.

As for the stigma, it doesn't make any sense to me. Lots of established genre and non-genre writers have crossed over to YA (Chabon, Gaiman, Barker, Lupica, Doctrow, Scalza) with a great deal of success and publishers have tried to blur the lines between adult and YA many times: repackaging the first two books of WOT for YA readers, "adult covers" for Garth Nix's works and the HP series and crossovers in series (I'm thinking heavily in the media tie-in market).

More often than not, a lot of these choices are made by the publishers. And I'm sure that the Summon Author spell can correct me if I'm wrong. (Example, I think Peadar said [i]Inferior[/i] was not intended as YA.

And as someone else said in this thread, it's a financial choice. YA is hot right now....actually it's always hot. Even at my school, with low test scores and low literacy rates, I can tell you KIDS READ!!

As for writing YA, I'm unpublished, so perhaps I'm not much of an expert, but I can tell you that it's different than writing for adults but not that different. I decided to write my present WIP as YA because I felt that there is a lack of really, really good epic fantasy on the shelves. Now if someone picks up my book and decided to tell me it's not YA, then so be it.


I'm sorry, rambled a bit there, I hope I made sense.

[chitman13]

I must admit, I'm not a big reader of YA at all. It's not that I don't enjoy it, or that I think myself above such stuff, it's simply that I don't really come across many YA novels that I want to read (especially more sci-fi orientated stuff) - there's more than enough 'adult' stuff out there for me at the moment.

I think it boils down to the basic question - is what you're reading well written or is it a steaming pile of monkey turd? It's not difficult to know what you like and don't, and if you're not partial to reading certain stuff, don't, even if that means putting it down halfway through (which I've done plenty of times in the past).

[Bellis]

So I'm interested, on that note, whether Peadar will enlighten us to exactly why The Inferior was marketed as YA.

[Peadar]

[quote name='Ebenstone' post='1546531' date='Oct 7 2008, 20.50']More often than not, a lot of these choices are made by the publishers. And I'm sure that the Summon Author spell can correct me if I'm wrong. (Example, I think Peadar said [i]Inferior[/i] was not intended as YA.[/quote]

Nor was it intended as non-YA. But the language was kept deliberately simple for reasons that will be obvious to anybody who's read it (i.e. [b]you[/b] Eb. :) ).

[Larry.]

Funny in the timing, Ken, as I was considering linking to my [url="http://ofblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/ya-lit-just-what-is-it.html"]blog post[/url] on this subject from last month after I read Pat's latest odd comment. But you pretty much covered most of the same ground I did back then, so I don't have much to add other than I think some people might need to reconsider their labels before blithely tossing them about in a careless fashion :P Oh, and that I second the rec of Margo Lanagan. "The Goosle" and [i]Tender Morsels[/i] are among my favorite short stories and novels this year and both happen to be "YA."

[kcf]

[quote name='Dylanfanatic' post='1546652' date='Oct 7 2008, 14.16']Funny in the timing, Ken, as I was considering linking to my [url="http://ofblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/ya-lit-just-what-is-it.html"]blog post[/url] on this subject from last month after I read Pat's latest odd comment. But you pretty much covered most of the same ground I did back then, so I don't have much to add other than I think some people might need to reconsider their labels before blithely tossing them about in a careless fashion :P Oh, and that I second the rec of Margo Lanagan. "The Goosle" and [i]Tender Morsels[/i] are among my favorite short stories and novels this year and both happen to be "YA."[/quote]

I remembered that post, but I must have remembered wrong, because I though it's focus wasn't on YA, so I didn't search it out to link. Oh well, I'd say we are both in relative agreement on this.

[Werthead]

[quote name='chitman13' post='1546551' date='Oct 7 2008, 21.02']I must admit, I'm not a big reader of YA at all. It's not that I don't enjoy it, or that I think myself above such stuff, it's simply that I don't really come across many YA novels that I want to read (especially more sci-fi orientated stuff) - there's more than enough 'adult' stuff out there for me at the moment.

I think it boils down to the basic question - is what you're reading well written or is it a steaming pile of monkey turd? It's not difficult to know what you like and don't, and if you're not partial to reading certain stuff, don't, even if that means putting it down halfway through (which I've done plenty of times in the past).[/quote]

Isn't PFH's new series after the [b]Void[/b] series going to be YA? I keep meaning to check out [b]The Web[/b] series that a bunch of SF writers put together for a YA audience (PFH, Baxter and others).

[Krafus]

I admit to being uninterested in YA fiction simply because my teenage years were not happy ones, and I'm not eager to read novels where most of the characters and themes are from that age period. I know I might be missing out on some great books, but I just can't muster any enthusiasm for the genre.

[Starkess]

I enjoy YA books...hell, I suppose technically I still [i]am[/i] a young adult, so why shouldn't I? Some of the better authors have already been mentioned upthread. The first one that comes to mind for me is Tamora Pierce. One of my favorite authors, period, as is Diana Wynne Jones. There's Ursula K. LeGuin and Tanith Lee and Robin McKinley and Madeleine L'Engle and Lloyd Alexander and so many others. I have zero problems reading a YA book because it's a YA book. They should be judged on their own merits, not their category.

An interesting note, all but one of my favorite YA authors who came to mind are women, and I would say in general I tend to read women authors less than others. I wonder if there is some sort of statistical aberration in number of female YA authors? :dunno:

[chitman13]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1546729' date='Oct 7 2008, 23.15']Isn't PFH's new series after the [b]Void[/b] series going to be YA? I keep meaning to check out [b]The Web[/b] series that a bunch of SF writers put together for a YA audience (PFH, Baxter and others).[/quote]

That's what he's saying so far Werthead - it's one that I'll be reading, especially if it's anything along the lines of the Void sequences in the current books :) I've never read the Web series, although like yourself, it's one that I wouldn't mind checking out at some point in the future.

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1546729' date='Oct 8 2008, 00.15']Isn't PFH's new series after the [b]Void[/b] series going to be YA?[/quote]
I wonder if he keeps gratuitous sex scenes ;) After all they are PFH's trademark and it is difficult to imagine his novel without them.

[Astra]

I am not happy with protagonists who are younger than 20+.
So much happen to them, they are so valiant, they fall in love and feel such deep feelings that young people usually don't.
Just...I prefer when a protagonists are 20+

That's why I didn't read yet...Ysabel by G.G. Kay or Overland? series by Tad Williams. I don't like stories about kids.
[I think HP is a huge exception but than kids were behaving very belieavle in HP.]

[Gigei]

Weeeell...I must now admit to some small prejudice here. I enjoy YA and even children's books such as the fantasy stuff already mentioned and also I regularly reread the Narnia series (C.S. Lewis), Prydain Chronicles (Alexander Lloyd), Grimm's Fairy Tales, The Little Mermaid (Hans Christian Andersen) etc.

...but I hate books set in High School. Every single book that I have ever read which is set in HS has always been complete crap.

I don't mean books with main characters who are aged 13 or so; I mean books that revolve around going to high school. Ew.

BTW didn't some famous writer advise people to write their YA books by making the main character 12 years old and keep everything the same?

I think this idea encapsulates good YA. Make the protagonist 12 (thereabouts anyway) *but* keep the plot, characterization and writing the same quality and complexity as an "adult" book. No need to dumb it down, especially plot and themes. Even young people live in a complicated world.

[Werthead]

[quote name='Astra' post='1547583' date='Oct 8 2008, 11.36']That's why I didn't read yet...Ysabel by G.G. Kay or Overland? series by Tad Williams. I don't like stories about kids.
[I think HP is a huge exception but than kids were behaving very belieavle in HP.][/quote]

[b]Otherland[/b] has about twenty POVs, exactly three of whom are under 20. And it very definitely isn't a YA series.

[Muttering Bill]

I don't think I've ever read a YA book. The biggest problem that I have is that is that I just know what makes a book YA. After reading this thread it still isn't clear.

So where is the distinction between YA and adult fiction? Is it a difference of themes? Simplified language (because of younger people having less vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension)? And absense of sex or over-the-top style violence? Or is only that the characters are predominately teenage?

The only YA books I'm even aware of are [i]Harry Potter [/i]and those [i]Twilight [/i]books. I have no interest in the latter. And I've always had an aversion toward HP, just for the fact that I see a good many adults who will read those, but nothing else. The idea of it seems really sad, and has tainted my acceptance of the books. I just can't bring myself to read them.

And the fact that the YA shelves are usually in or near the childrens section of the book store (with SFF being on the other end of the building), I can't be bothered looking there. I'm just not in the habbit of buying books from that section. Sure, I shop out of that section all the time, but there is sort of an embarassment factor involved. I can go to the register with some picture book and know that the clerk will understand that I'm buying such and such book for a child. But if I walk up with a bunch of YA titles... well, I'm too young to be buying them for my own kid, or for a neice or nephew, and I don't want to be seen as one of those people who only reads kids books.

So, there is a bit of an aversion to them in that they are "kid stuff", but also a confusion, based on ignorance, of what the designation really means. Add that to the fact that there are still a good amount of regular (or adult) books that I haven't read yet, and I don't need go over there to find new good books.

And on a side note, I have been planning to check out [i]The Inferior[/i], and Barnes and Noble does stock them in the childrens section. I saw it there soon after it's US release (but didn't have any money to spend at the time), and it's also listed that way on their website. I just recenlty went looking for a copy, but it's out of stock at all of my local stores (and I prefer not to shop online).