Assignment 2: I read "New Adult: Needless Marketing-Speak Or Valued Subgenre?" I thought this was an informative read -I'd never heard of "new adult" before. I like learning about how genres change according to what is in demand with readers, and I like imagineing "new adult" as potential genre to be marketed to this age group. I do agree with the bookstore owner, Kenny Brechner, who was quoted in the article. I think that the name "new adult" is confusing and not very catchy. I think it makes more sense to keep marketing to this age group within young adult or regular adult fiction, and that its not necessary to push for it as a new distinct category. Strict genre boundaries can be really limiting: writers who write outside of established genre, or in genre-bending ways can have a much harder time finding their intended audience, and are less likely to be published. It is tempting to just keep creating new genre labels for these writers to try and give them their own space and buzz in the market. But I think keeping to already existing genres and being open to more flexibility within / between these categories is the best way to go in this case, otherwise we could be inundated with new classifications.
The second article I read was "Who's buying teen books?" This article focused on the huge adult audience for YA that has sprung up. A lot of people have been very critical of adults reading YA / children's books, and I think these critics are stodgy. What I see is a trend of people questioning how strictly we define who a book's intended audience is. When I was a teen I thought YA was brain candy - I was embarrassed because I knew the intended audience of the books I picked up was young girls. Even though I was a young girl, I didn't want people to think I was immature, or silly. I wanted to seem like an adult, so I tried to only read heavy important books. A few heavy books in I had a little light bulb moment about "maturity," and letting the fear of how I'm perceived stop me from enjoying what I like. It's definitely fun for us as a society to continue toting those old hefty books around, celebrating our ever increasing weight and depth of experience. But appreciation of what, historically, we have deemed "important," shouldn't ever preclude our appreciation for what is new, different, racially diverse, LGBT, written for small children or medium sized children, young people, adults, or senior citizens. There is an awesome mix going on right now in young adult literature -lots of tension and synergy between exciting innovations and enduring, comforting tropes. I don't think there is one thing wrong with older people being drawn to that. It's excited that so many people seem to be willing to forgo the appearance of "maturity" in the pursuit of new stories they like to read.
Assignment 3:
I followed John Green Books and Forever Young Adult for a week. When I was 15-17 I was really really into John and Hank Green's Youtube vlog, and went to book signing events and participated in the "Nerdfighter" community before John's books really hit pop-culture. I was into the books because they were about nerdy kids like me experiencing and processing young adult life events, but also because there was this whole social movement with John and Hank that made me and my friends feel connected to other teens with similar interests all over the country. When The Fault in Our Stars became super popular, this cool special thing that my friends and I liked was suddenly being judged hardcore by adults. I feel the same way about Twilight too- Before it exploded in popularity, I randomly picked the book up as a young teen and read it with no expectations, thought, ok, that was cool, and moved on. After it became pop culture that adults were reading and writing about, I felt embarrassed that I had liked It's awesome for books written specifically for young teens to become popular enough that adults start reading them, like I mentioned above, but there's definitely a dark side to this attention. Adults get drawn in by the popularity and appeal, and then get disgruntled when the writing or character development or simplicity of the plot can't live up to their adult expectations. When adults criticize each other for enjoying books written for young teens, it sends a message to teens (who are struggling to figure out what it means to be mature, and want to be taken seriously) that enjoying those books is something to be embarrassed about.
I wasn't super into Forever Young Adult. They seem to be shooting for my age-group as an audience, but while I did like a couple of the book reviews that they've posted recently, I wasn't all that into the other stuff.
Assignment 4:
A big trend in teen fiction for awhile now is strong appeals towards female readers. It's awesome to see so many strong female protagonists, dealing with female-centric romances and relationships, because that's something that's missing a lot of the time in mainstream stories. And it makes sense that books written for young people might be a little more strongly gender performative - girls and boys are figuring out their identities and making decisions about what it means to be a woman, man, or non binary. It would be great to see more books exploring male perspectives at this age.
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