New Adult Genre
Finally some hope for us twenty somethings
As a kid, every few years you graduate to a new genre of reading. Starting with picture books and ending with YA. Sadly at this point most people either grow out of reading or just simply don't have time because they are in college or working full time. Then they don't pick up reading again until they're in their thirties and life has calmed down. For the record, when I say most people I mean all my friends (and not the blogging community). Because so few people in their twenties read, the market for stories with characters in their twenties is very limited.
A new genre has been proposed for protagonists in college or anyone from the ages of 18-30 ish. I'm not sure if it will really happen since introducing a new genre is a big deal and can't just happen overnight. I really hope it does happen because each year older that I get I seem to have more difficulty relating to characters in the YA genre. For example, I look at love differently than I did in high school. So when a 17 year old protagonist is practically slitting her wrists because a boy dumped her I'm practically yelling at the pages "Move on! You'll meet so many cute guys in college you'll forget this guy!" It can be very frustrating, but I prefer to read about high school rather than a divorced wife with 3 kids, something I have not yet experienced at all yet.
Some argue that there are plenty of YA books that are relate-able for adults, like The Hunger Games. I don't know about you, but to me Katniss is way more mature than any 16 year old I've ever known. And really most stories like Harry Potter and HG have mature characters because they are facing death and obviously death matures you quicker than anything else. So even if I can relate to YA characters on some level, I'd still rather read about someone my own age going through experiences like college, graduating, deciding you don't want to do what you went to school for, not being able to find a job, getting that first job, moving out, not having enough money to move out, all your friends getting engaged, etc.
One blogger has started a New Adult genre challenge. Danya at A Tapestry of Words has started this in hopes of helping other twenty somethings find books in this genre easily and giving them a place to chat about it. You can read her letter to the publishers here about why this genre should exist.
If you are interested in joining the fun click the picture above or join on goodreads here.
Yael Itamar has written a similar post which brings up other good points about this topic. If you'd like to read her post you can do so here.
Yael Itamar has written a similar post which brings up other good points about this topic. If you'd like to read her post you can do so here.
For all my fellow 20ers...How do you feel about this topic?