I Read YA Literature and am NOT Embarrassed

Adults should be embarrassed to read YA literature?? The author that wrote this has sparked my ire, and I need to express all the ways in which this article and author are incorrect. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, feel free to Google the article entitled “Against YA” by Ruth Graham. I will not be providing a link to said article.

Perhaps I should start off by explaining why I think I have any say in this debate. I studied both YA literature and children’s literature in my undergraduate program and graduate program. I’m an avid reader, reading from 50 to 90 books each year, and this reading list includes about 50% YA literature. And I’m proud of these numbers, not embarrassed. Yes, I read current fiction and mix in some classics as well. Most avid readers have classic authors they know and go back to often. Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Alexandre Dumas are just a few beloved writers for me. However, I revel in reading YA literature and am surprised more often than not that certain issues are 1) presented at all and 2) presented with respect and beauty.

First of all, Ms. Graham, have you read enough YA books to be able to criticize the genre as a whole? I’d hate to think that you base your opinion on a small sampling of books or even the one current book you appear to have read – The Fault in our Stars by John Green. I’m not talking about when you were a child reading YA literature back in the early 1990s; I’m talking about a sizable research sampling of current YA literature. From To Kill a Mockingbird to The Lord of the Flies to The Book Thief to Thirteen Reasons Why, there is a plethora of weighty content and beautiful prose provided in YA literature. Yes, the reading level is lower than most fiction written for adults because YA literature is written first and foremost for young adults, but this lower reading level does not mean that characters cannot be complex, plots cannot contain anything of substance, and the writing is just fluff.

Ms. Graham, you say that YA literature from your childhood in the early 1990s helped shaped you into the reader you are today but that you are a different reader than that past time. Therefore, you have grown out of reading YA literature because you have changed. Good for you. I believe most readers evolve in their tastes, and there’s nothing wrong with this evolution. However, there’s no shame in still appreciating and enjoying YA literature. I loved macaroni and cheese and popsicles as a young adult, and even though my tastes have changed and are even more sophisticated, I still enjoy mac-n-cheese and popsicles and am not ashamed to say it. You may have changed as a reader to not enjoy YA literature, but it doesn’t mean all adult readers should follow suit. No two people are exactly alike, so why would you expect all adults to have the same tastes as you?

You go on to say that grown-ups read YA literature in search of “escapism, instant gratification, and nostalgia.” I do have to agree with you on the “escapism, instant gratification, and nostalgia” reasons for reading, but this doesn’t apply to only YA literature. I read because I enjoy it. I read because I like to learn about the human experience. I read because I enjoying learning. Notice that there are a number of reasons why I read including reading for enjoyment. There is nothing wrong with seeking these three things in the books adults read. If we read nothing but books that are starkly realistic and/or books that are written only to convey knowledge and increase IQ, there would be a lot less readers out there. This isn’t to say I don’t read books like this; I simply like a variety in the subject matter of the books I read. I like a variety in the reasons why I read the books that I read.

You write, “It’s not simply that YA readers are asked to immerse themselves in a character’s emotional life—that’s the trick of so much great fiction—but that they are asked to abandon the mature insights into that perspective that they (supposedly) have acquired as adults.” Wow, you must have life all figured out to have such “mature insights” as an adult that the very idea of any sort of immaturity is to scoff at. As a 29-year-old female, I do consider myself an adult. However, I have not left behind my childhood completely. There are times when I still laugh uncontrollably at silly things or even nothing at all. I still enjoy goofing off in the pool and building a blanket fort. I still enjoy eating popsicles on a hot summer day and will perk up when I hear the ice cream truck. I still enjoy playing board games and having friends over after work. I have not abandoned my childish whims and fantasies. I have matured and grown into the woman I am today but refuse to leave behind my youth. Perhaps I am one of those people at which you scoff. Perhaps I would not be mature enough to run in your crowd. But that’s OK with me. Because of my youthful outlook on life, I can enjoy YA literature and remember what it was like to be a young adult. I don’t have to abandon my “mature insights” to enjoy YA literature because, as an adult, I can have more than one idea in my head at a time even if a new idea may conflict with my “mature insights.” Sure, I may be able to see how some maturity or experience may have helped a character in a book, but I can say that about “grown-up” fiction as well.

Ms. Graham, you go on to say that a major fault of YA literature is “endings [that] are uniformly satisfying.” You explain, “These endings are for readers who prefer things to be wrapped up neatly, our heroes married or dead or happily grasping hands, looking to the future.” I do admit that many YA literature books do have some sort of “satisfying” ending, even if this includes the death of a young girl’s whole family, the suicide of a best friend, or the death of a lover. These books do have endings. Shock! I would be interested to see your list of books without your definition of “uniformly satisfying” endings. I can think of Hard Times by Charles Dickens, although that ending is still succinct and wrapped up if not to most readers’ satisfaction. The Great Gatsby had an unsatisfying ending, in my opinion, but according to your definition of a “uniformly satisfying” ending, The Great Gatsby still fits into this definition neatly. Even modern, highly lauded books like The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson have, by your definition, a “uniformly satisfying” ending. Most events and characters are wrapped up neatly in an ending even if it’s not necessarily the ending readers may have been wanting. The definition of ending is “an end or final part of something,” so I guess YA literature does wrap things up in the end. Go figure.

You then allude to the fact that YA literature is filled with only “’likeable’ protagonists.” That can’t be right. What about Katniss in The Hunger Games trilogy? I would say that she wasn’t a very “likeable” protagonist. She was realistic, but she wasn’t someone with who I would go to the mall (if only for the fact that she may push me under a bus if things got dicey). What about Eustace Scrubb in the Narnia collection? He starts off as very unlikeable, and even when he is supposed to be a more likeable character after his mishap with a magical golden bracelet, I still dislike him. Even when he gets a book starring himself and Jill Poole, I disliked him. C. S. Lewis did such a superb job of illustrating him as a spoiled baby in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader that I found it impossible to like him in The Silver Chair. And don’t even get me started on Jill Poole. Ugh. Those characters were much too realistic in their bickering, pettiness, and selfishness. I wonder why Lewis would create such unlikeable characters in his books. (I say with sarcasm.) There are other YA protagonists that I do not like, yet I could at least sympathize with them to some degree. It goes back to that whole human experience I mentioned earlier. The same can be said for particular “grown-up” books as well.

I know you’re worried, Ms. Graham, that this boom in YA literature’s popularity will hinder young adults today from going on to read grown-up books. However, I believe that if a person truly loves reading, there will be no hesitation from switching between different genres. There would be nothing wrong with them continuing to love YA literature, but like most avid readers, young adults today will feel the need to explore the varieties of books that are available. YA literature does not create an impenetrable wall around itself; YA literature creates a bridge to other genres. To the “snobbish and joyless and old” Ms. Graham, adieu.