In the last few months there has been an increasing dialogue with patrons in the library where I work. Women approach the desk and ask quietly if I know about “that book” and do we have it? Last year, these conversations tended to be about Fifty Shades of Grey, but now they want to know about The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. While these encounters seemed to make a bit more sense with an erotic novel, it is odd that adults feel the need to be slightly ashamed of loving YA literature. Once we start talking, they open up and share how much they love these books and are always looking for more.
So what is behind this interest? Could it be nostalgia or, gasp, excellent writing? The Fault in Our Stars and Eleanor and Park (which I always recommend to those who loved the first) have gained a different status from many other YA novels and are being featured in reviews, such as People magazine, without the typical YA preface. I believe this in part due to the mistaken belief of many that YA books are predominately fantasy and science fiction or afterschool specials. Certainly many of the books my generation read as young adults tended to sway in either direction, not to discount the excellent writing. However we now have contemporary realistic fiction authors that treat both their characters and reader with dignity and equality. For both of these novels, there is no condescension or moralizing towards the characters, this is who they are and they don’t change to meet the needs of the adults in the book. Eleanor and Park in particular has brought back several young adults who no longer read this genre as they were tired of supernatural, dystopian novels and thought only ‘adult’ books could provide realistic fiction – that also did not include rich beautiful teens or cheerleaders.
The increasing adult audience for YA novels can be linked to the increased social media presence of authors and the ability to share favourite books via Facebook, Goodreads, Tumblr, blogs, and Twitter. See John Green’s Tumblr page discussing the success of The Fault in Our Stars and Rainbow Rowell’s excellent commentary on the dialogue concerning “how fat” Eleanor really is in Eleanor and Park (definitely a topic for future discussion) on her website. These means of interacting with and recommending books allow us to share what we love and interact with the author and other readers, often away from labels such as Adult Fiction or Young Adult Fiction. It also allows readers and librarians to focus on what readers are looking for in a novel and recommend books based on these appeal factors. An example of this is Vulture.com’s reading flowchart “Which YA Novel is Right for You” which brings readers to books through character and plot preferences. My experience recommending these two excellent novels has been marked with great frustration over the perceived embarrassment over reading “teen” books and the general surprise that they are so well written.
For more information on the role of social media in the publication and promotion of books, check out these two articles. Emma Allison’s Social Media Has Fed the Fever in The New York Times and Adriann Ranta’s How the YA Social Media Community is Changing Publishing in the Wolf Literary Services Blog.
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