Why Does It Have To Be YA?

Okay, this is just a thing that's spouting off my fingertips on just a tiny inkling of irritation.  Don't know where this is going, but I'm gonna follow the breadcrumbs of my feelings and we'll see where we end up.  So here we go:

So, I love GoodReads, first of all.  Some people love it and others find it a dramatic cesspool.  I'm of the former category because of the latter category.  Sorry.  Me lovey the drama ... at a distance.

Anyway, so I was over there reading some low reviews.  (I needed a good rage-rant in order to catapult my writing motivation; it's my process to try and remind myself how much better my writing is compared to some household names.)  So I was going through one of these and ended up reading the comments at the end.  And I came to a startling revelation: a surprising amount of people weren't introduced to fantasy prior to reading … Twilight.

Say what?

Yep.

And the whole time I'm reading these comments--many of which explain fully my love/hate relationship with the series--all I could think was, Really?  I'm so lucky I got started in fantasy with R. A. Salvatore and Weis and Hickman, and all the others I grew up with.

That's when it hit me.  Not only did I begin with such marvelous creatures like drows and dragons … but I began with adults.

As a child, I was soaking in real fantasy books like a sponge.  And I feel sad that I somehow have to differentiate real fantasy from YA fantasy.

Why is that?

Isn't--shouldn't--fantasy be … fantasy?

I'm sure books such as The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter would agree.  Despite how young Harry is throughout the series, I have yet to hear it referred to as YA fantasy.  It is simply fantasy to us.  Whether because it began as a children's series and has grown as we have, or because it set the stage for all the young heros to follow, I'm not sure.

Having grown up with books such as The Dragonlance Chronicles, and many others, I was immersed in many worlds and stories full of magic and cunning.  Bravery and ambition.  Flawed humans, devilish creatures, and tons of heartbreak.

I learned more from my real fantasy novels than real life has yet to teach me.  Those novels, full of their backstabbing mages and loyal-til-the-end brothers in arms, even the strained lovers being tested by time and circumstance, taught me more about human nature than any other being in the world could do.

And I learned them from adults.

Not teenagers.

Even the most badass of the YA fantasy characters couldn't understand some of the things my real fantasy heros went through.  And while I'm not here to bash YA works in any way, it just got me to thinking … why so much emphasis on YA works?

With the explosion of the YA market these days, I find more and more often that I despise inferior YA works.  I've read so many YA fantasy books lately that I feel like I could explain all of them with just a list of the most reviled tropes in writing history.

Because that's what they are now.

A recycling of ideas or thoughts that used to be original.  In a world that has done lost all of its magic.  Alternate universes.  Fantasy creatures living amongst us.  Forbidden true love that defies common sense at every turn.

It's maddening.  It's formulaic.  And it is boring!  (Which, let's face it, is the worst crime of all in the entertainment industry.)

Somehow, though you can find tropes in thousands of Adult novels, all of these things seemed to have exploded with the rise of YA genres.  And when people declare that Twilight was their first introduction into fantasy, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.  Simply because YA fantasy and the fantasy I grew up with are nowhere in the same vicinity.

I suppose you're all just sitting here saying, "Well, if it's so bad, why don't you just go back to your 'real' fantasy and leave the YA world alone?"

To be honest, I'm trying.  I've gotten to the point where I'm so exhausted by the false portrayal of teenagers and the tropes presented that I can't even look at most YA books without curling my lip in disgust.

Then I look at the stories I write.  How many of them portray young characters?  Almost all of them.  How many tropes have slipped past my critical eye?  I'm not sure.  But do I want them--those beloved teens in my head--to be defined by what is available in the YA world right now?  Absolutely not.

So the next logical step: change the world.

Ambitious, I know.  But what is a world without a little ambition?

I'm so tired of having so limited choices as far as decent books go--YA or Adult.  So why don't we blur the lines?  Better yet, erase them altogether.  Why is it that so many people these days are stuck reading YA because not enough Adult books pack the same punch?  Why do so many readers believe Adult books couldn't live up to the adventures of wild youth and the romance of insecure young teens?

Do you know why Nicholas Sparks books are so popular (despite the fact that the movies are always better)?  Because he doesn't believe that you can love so passionately or lose so much as just a teen or just an adult.  Though his writing isn't the greatest, the fact that he knows that emotions don't just burn away after youth is gone is what makes his books so popular.  Especially amongst adult women.

I understand how the market works.  Teen girls buy the most, so they're published for the most.  But why does that mean that a female protagonist between 15-17 is the only available choice?  Why can a girl of 16 not be marketed to with a book consisting of an MC aged 20+?  And why are women who are 20+ unable to find decent books that entertain them without looking in the YA stacks.

I guess what this sounds like is that I'm trying to singlehandedly advertise for what they are calling the "New Adult" genre.  I'm not.  What I am trying to say is: when it comes to a genre, maybe age shouldn't be a factor.  Why can't we go back to marketing books based on the best in their genre, instead of lumping them into age categories first?

If I want to read a fantasy, I want to read the most recommended fantasy of that time.  Whether it's about a time-traveling magic treehouse with two little kids or an epic filled with dragons and warlords.

If I'm in the mood for romance, I should have the option between a story about a teen's first kiss scenario and a raging romance between two grown, consenting adults.  I shouldn't have to be forced to comb through two sections of the store looking for something 'just right'.  Can we please just put the eroticas on top shelves and the too-sweet-for-non-naive-people ones on the bottom?  What's so wrong with that?

The question really is as simple as:

Why does it have to be YA?

Where's the other age groups in life?

Why can't our young readers buy good books about adult men and women; and why can't adult women and men find a good adventure without searching the YA books?

Why on earth are there lines drawn here?

Bad Reviews

Okay, I know this is a site full of legitimate reviews about a variety of things.  But let's face it, some things should just not be put in print.

Take this one case:

I just finished this one book last night.  It was awful.  Completely horrible.  Too short (barely topping 100 pages and had no right to be called a novel in any way).  Fantastic failures in the editing department.  And the worst case of character development I have ever had the misfortune to read.  And don't even get me started on that not-even-24-hours-of-knowing-one-another romance and that heart-to-heart "trust one another" crap.  As if that wasn't the kicker, let's throw in the biggest trope of all: a love triangle with the bestest guy friend ever.  My Gods, this book was the epitome of torture.

But I digress.

Suffice it to say, this book was so horrible, I would rather burn a copy than write a review.

That's kind of what I'm doing here.  I went on a tour once through this house where a Yale professor used to live.  As a side project, this guy would read and review books.  And in his entire life, he never wrote a single bad review.  Simply burned the manuscript he had been given.

So that's kind of what I have to do here.  Instead of putting a name to this atrocity and blackballing the author with this kind of catastrophe their entire life, it shall remain nameless, and hopefully his/her future writing endeavors will make this mistake an absolute obscurity.

Which is why no review of mine shall exist in a form connected with this work.  If what I have already mentioned is not enough to cause you to steer clear of this, then nothing will.