Hello and welcome….

Hello, welcome to the first post of my blog – grownupscanreadteenfictiontoo.com! A bit of a mouthful I know but, hey it gets the point across! So, the first point of order has got to be, what classifies a book as YA or Young Adult? Secondly, why is this genre so popular? is it just that there is such a wealth material or does it just mean that young people can access more challenging fiction that is written specifically for them?

Well, therein lies the problem. Who is regarded as a Young Adult? according to Wikipedia it is any person aged between 12 and 18. Does that mean that if you aren’t in that age bracket then you can’t read them? Well the answer to that is a categorical no. In 2012, a US study revealed that 55% of YA books were purchased by people older than 18 – sometimes by a considerable margin.

Some books deal with sexuality, the LGBTQA+ section is growing by the week; there is a misery lit section to rival Jodi Picoult and the romance gives Barbara Cartland a run for her money but, throw them all together and you have got a gold mine.   Film tie-ins also generate a huge response, most teens I know need  to read the book as well as the film, a great money spinner for the author.

Obviously the most famous of these is JK Rowling and HP. Some say that JK is the foremother of all YA fiction and many authors that I have met cite her as the one that sparked the YA revolution. Certainly she was the first author who openly acknowledged that she was writing particularly for the teen market and the characters in her novels follow her audience as they grew through adolescence. A neat trick which ensures that she will never have to work again.

‘Many authors say they didn’t write their book specifically for a YA audience – either it was a marketing strategy decided upon by the publisher or the YA audience found the book on its own.’ (AbeBooks.co.uk)

As a fully grown up person I can safely say that there is something in there for everyone; even if you are over 18. So, read on and I promise you, there is a book out there for you and you might just learn something about how this generation of teens tick…