The Great YA Debate

This morning on my drive to work, an interesting question was posed on one of my favorite podcasts, Overdue. Overdue is a podcast in which the two hosts, Andrew and Craig, alternate reading a book each week, and then discuss it (and I promise it’s better, and more entertaining, than my description could ever make it sound).

This week, Andrew read Looking for Alaska, by John Green, which was recommended by a listener who also posed an interesting question:

Is it okay for grown-ups to read young adult (YA) fiction? This listener works at a large chain bookstore and sells a large number of YA novels to women in their early 20s to mid 30s. He fears adults flock to YA fiction for the “wrong reasons,” i.e. the “ease of reading level or an inability to deal with adult subject matter.”

As I’ve pondered this question, I’ve come to a few conclusions:

General

1. John Green writes some of the best YA fiction, in my opinion. He is a clever, thoughtful, witty writer who makes even adults think hard about the subject matter. Furthermore, as a high school English teacher with her Master’s degree, even I’ve had to look up the definitions of some of the vocabulary Green uses. In short, comparing most other YA fiction to John Green’s is not a fair comparison.

Relatability

2. Andrew and Craig talked, in this episode, about how teenagers are most impressionable between the ages of 14 and 22 because everything they’re experiencing is for the first time. So, for example, the music you listen to or the books you read during those times in your life, are the ones that stick with you as your favorites. I think this is part of the allure of YA fiction. We, as the readers, get to turn back the clock and experience some of these events all over again, but through the eyes of someone who’s experiencing it for the first time. In Looking for Alaska, the loss the characters feel is raw and new and heart-wrenching. Same goes for The Fault in Our Stars and even Paper Towns. John Green expertly handles these major life events, and puts the reader in the passenger seat next to these characters as they experience raw emotion and, often, pain. His characters are likable, relatable, real: the kind of real teenagers feel, not the kind of real adults project upon them. The main characters are awkward, shy, average. They’re the underdogs. In these characters, we see ourselves: the good and the bad. We root for underdogs. In these characters, we root for ourselves.
3. The supporting characters are quirky, funny, life-changing, extraordinary. We all have those people in our lives. Most of us do not view ourselves as those people. Those people do not often view themselves as those people. In ourselves, we see weakness, awkwardness, faults. By comparison, in others, we see strength, confidence, defining characteristics. The supporting characters in YA fiction, especially John Green’s, are the people we wish we were. The people teenagers think they can still be. The supporting characters provide us with a model for living life fully: experiencing, feeling, hoping, loving. Deeply.

These are a few reasons I think those in my demographic -  early 20s to mid 30s - flock to YA fiction: Young adult fiction offers us a fictional do-over, as well as a model for how to live life freely and fully. In this respect, the lessons and take-aways are universally meaningful.