Addicted to YA discussion

Hi all, am new to this YA group but have read a fair number of books that are considered YA, and yet I don't think I could define YA in any exact way or decide if a given book really qualifies or not. Does this group have a formal definition of YA? Then there are things like "YA adjacent" and "New Adult". I have not seen good definitions that help to clarify among these either. Thoughts welcome!

To my understanding YA and New Adult (or NA) are more about demographic marketing than they are a genre. Those two in a nutshell could be defined as marketed to roughly a high school market versus to a college market, respectively.

If you have a fantasy book for toddlers (fantasy board book) grade school (fantasy picture or chapter book), middle school/junior high (middle grade fantasy), high school (YA fantasy), College (NA fantasy), anything above (adult fantasy, or usually just fantasy).

This is by no means researched or necessarily correct, so if someone has a better answer, by all means, provide it.

Tommy, sounds like you nailed it!. I, too, have been struggling to define what constitutes a YA book. With every definition provided by knowledgeable readers, I get closer to an understanding of the term. Thank you, Tommy.
Regards,
Andrea

I’d say (and Thai is for romantic YA )a book were the characters are under 30 and it’s clean and theres somewhat of a “life lesson”

New Aduly is considered seperate, college age. I have see some coming of age 12-14 yr olds considered YA. I am suprised by the different YA genres. So much adult content seems to be in YA books. Sometimes it seems justified because it realistic fiction and other times it seems over the top to bring in readers who might not be ready for the violence or sex. Hard to weed out which readers can handle the content. Trigger warnings are sometimes needed. I also find eome realistic YA books can be both YA and Adult fiction because it usually involves family drama affecting everyone.

Ultimately it is up to readers, there is no one size fits all.

These are great comments, thanks. I think Beth brings up some important points - if you only define YA by "target age group" and not think at all about content, it seems to miss the point. It also needs to be appropriate for the age group. On the other hand, how do "we" decide what is appropriate for a 12, 15, 18 year old reader? I've had people tell me "kids nowadays are exposed to everything (sex, violence) by the time they're 12, so don't worry about it." But I do worry, a little.

Full disclosure - I've just published a novel that has some (not a lot) of sexual and mildly violent situations, and I think the 16-19 crowd would be fine with it (and would like the book, since it is about that age group). But a) I'm not so sure about 13 year olds, and b) I also mostly hope to market it to an adult audience, not just older teens. So I really hesitate to say anything about YA in marketing it. Maybe "New Adult through adult"? Pretty awkward.

PS I just looked up New Adult, and the AI answer is "18-25, sometimes up to 30". Vague, but interesting. Then there is the question, how many people even know the "NA" designation or the age range? Young Adult is clearly much better known and probably better understood.

From a public library perspective - well the ones I work at anyway - they have a junior fiction/middle grade section, teen fiction and then adult fiction which is broken down in sci-fi, fantasy, horror, crime so I think the lines are a bit more blurred. Personally I've thought of it as covering that time of transitioning from child to adult and learning important life lessons, with an edge to it. For example, Harry Potter starts at middle grade/junior as it has quite a cosy, fantastical feel to it and the characters are mainly 12/13 year olds. Where as later on, when darker themes start to become more prominent and relationships and responsibilities change, the books shift to young adult.

I think another thing is sometimes people think that just because it says Teen or Young Adult that means only people in that category can enjoy it? When most of the time I feel like its about the contents and the age of the main group of characters.

When we read books as staff for reading panels in the build up to the yearly children's book awards this is a conversation we revisit every year!

Aimee, from a Librarian’s viewpoint, I worked in a University Library for five years … and there were no holds barred! Of course, that was long before “Huckleberry Finn” became a banned book … we studied it in first-year English, when I was 18 … Percival Everett’s “James” makes clear what was “wrong” with Twain’s version … they should probably be taught as a two- volume set these days!
Regards,
Andrea
by Mark Twain
by Percival Everett

It is generally based on the age of the main characters with the age needing to be teenage or high school students.
Middle grade the main characters are usually 8-12
YA 13-18
NA (New adult) 18-30
Adult 30 and over
I also had to look all of that up a while ago because I thought it was kind of based on theme, but even YA can have super dark themes at times.
(Sorry for copying and pasting my other post, but I'm too lazy to retype it, hahaha)

Bailey wrote: "It is generally based on the age of the main characters with the age needing to be teenage or high school students.
Middle grade the main characters are usually 8-12
YA 13-18
NA (New adult) 18-30
A..."

Some YA is exceptionally dark and if you look at the ages of some of our newer members they are as young as 12 and 13 and many have read some YA books with dark themes.

Around that age I read Flowers in thd Attic which had dark, adult themes but not as graphic. Newer books are dark but the realistic fiction ones many teens can relate to whereas the more sensationalized ones seem as just that, unrealistic escapism for the most part.

Bailey and Beth, where do graphic novels fit into the equation? I saw the graphic novel version of Rick Atkinson’s book, “The British Are Coming; the British Are Coming,” and I was appalled … however, some graphic novels are simply drop-dead gorgeous … the art is such you could care less about the plot, what there is of it.
Regards,
Andrea

by Rick Atkinson
by Rick Atkinson

Bailey wrote: "It is generally based on the age of the main characters with the age needing to be teenage or high school students.
Middle grade the main characters are usually 8-12
YA 13-18
NA (New adult) 18-30
A..."
You are correct. Young adult books are books with Teens as the main character no matter the topics they cover.

So, does anyone feel there are some YA books (or some that are tagged as YA, marketed as YA) out there that are truly inappropriate for, say, 12-13 year olds? Is this an ongoing concern for anyone?

McLeod, you’ve hit the nail on the head!. Everyone matures at different rates, and it is seldom age-specific. The loss of innocence is rarely reversible; so I shudder when I recommend books for the “young.” Some writers are so marvelously able that I always feel comfortable recommending them (like, say, C. S. Lewis), but other books …
Regards,
Andrea
by C.S. Lewis
by C.S. Lewis

Andrea wrote: "Tommy, sounds like you nailed it!. I, too, have been struggling to define what constitutes a YA book. With every definition provided by knowledgeable readers, I get closer to an understanding of the term. Thank you, Tommy.
Regards,
Andrea."

Glad you found the answer useful, and thank you so much for such kind words in reply :)

McCleod, after reading your replies (and a different post elsewhere further clarifying your positions), I actually find myself agreeing with you more than not, and even for similar reasons (I myself am editing a few drafts that are, for the most part, YA, and I feel a responsibility for what I put in front of, say, a 13-year-old). That said, I stand by my answers even while not personally loving them haha. YA and NA are a lot closer to "PG13" and "R" ratings than they are a description of tropes or plot devices. Thing is, the rules as applied to print vs. TV/movie are incredibly different.

In general, a book that stars a 16-year-old is going to be classified YA regardless of genre or content. There are certainly exceptions, but that's the general rule of thumb. Hence Perks of Being a Wallflower and Hunger Games being sold in the same aisle despite being wildly different in most ways, aside from young kid burgeoning into adulthood and dealing with the issues that come with that in their particular world.

Movies and T.V., Tommy,are absolutely clueless when it comes to assessing age-appropriate content. Case in point: Many, many years ago I snuck my under-age brother into a PG13 movie, “The Magic Christian”, because of its music offerings. The music was indeed grand; however, I had the socks shocked off me … and I was all of 18!
Regards,
Andrea

(perhaps not the basis for the film … I don’t know)

Hi there!
As a YA writer, I feel like I've asked myself this a hundred times. Just because a protagonist is a teen doesn't always make it a YA book, right? There has to be events that really show a coming of age for the character. Usually, a scene like school or some other place a young adult learns something about themselves from. Issues teens face is also what makes YA YA. I don't think if a young protagonist is facing adult scenarios, like in Stephen King's 'Fairytale', that should be considered YA.