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Disagree as YA is a fairly narrow collection of genres and its writers can succeed by relying on too many tropes. Young adults would be better served by ignori

Disagree as YA is a fairly narrow collection of genres and its writers can succeed by relying on too many tropes. Young adults would be better served by ignoring YA in favor of the wider book world, and books written before the YA genres existed. As an aside, you’ll find a toxic adherence to supporting the YA genre in the Twitter communities mentioned in the article, most loudly by people who want to be big fish in a small pond, but also have that small pond be seen as large and prestigious. ;)

falcolas 6y ago
> YA is a fairly narrow collection of genres and its writers can succeed by relying on too many tropes. YA, as pointed out in sister threads, includes books like Catcher in the Rye, The Hobbit, Ender's Game, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and so forth. Stereotypes like this one hurt these discussions quite a bit. Stereotypes also prevent people from reading good books. > Young adults would be better served by ignoring YA in favor of the wider book world I might agree with you if it was only authors who were intentionally targeting those genres. It's not. Publishers will take general books and market them as YA. I know of some really good authors who have been shoehorned into the YA market (Forthright, as one example). > books written before the YA genres existed YA has been around for over 200 years now. The YA category (as opposed to children's) came about around 1802 (per Wikipedia).
- 1123581321 6y ago
  That is a revisionist YA history and appropriated booklist with the goal of adding more legitimacy to the genres. YA emerged in the latter half of the 20th century, as summarized fairly well in that Wikipedia article.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    Revisionist... Appropriation... Those words, when used like this, are fantastic at shutting down a discussion without putting any real effort into the discussion. And so, I'll merely wish you a good day.
    - 1123581321 6y ago
      Revising history is a neutral exercise that just happens to have obscured the issue in this case. Happy to continue if you are ever inclined. I will try to use better words, too.

falcolas 6y ago

> YA is a fairly narrow collection of genres and its writers can succeed by relying on too many tropes. YA, as pointed out in sister threads, includes books like Catcher in the Rye, The Hobbit, Ender's Game, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and so forth. Stereotypes like this one hurt these discussions quite a bit. Stereotypes also prevent people from reading good books. > Young adults would be better served by ignoring YA in favor of the wider book world I might agree with you if it was only authors who were intentionally targeting those genres. It's not. Publishers will take general books and market them as YA. I know of some really good authors who have been shoehorned into the YA market (Forthright, as one example). > books written before the YA genres existed YA has been around for over 200 years now. The YA category (as opposed to children's) came about around 1802 (per Wikipedia).

1123581321 6y ago
That is a revisionist YA history and appropriated booklist with the goal of adding more legitimacy to the genres. YA emerged in the latter half of the 20th century, as summarized fairly well in that Wikipedia article.
- falcolas 6y ago
  Revisionist... Appropriation... Those words, when used like this, are fantastic at shutting down a discussion without putting any real effort into the discussion. And so, I'll merely wish you a good day.
  - 1123581321 6y ago
    Revising history is a neutral exercise that just happens to have obscured the issue in this case. Happy to continue if you are ever inclined. I will try to use better words, too.