#PROMOTEYAINSTEAD: Slate, YA and Reading What You Want

Bookish Musings is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to share our thoughts and opinions, talk and discuss things happening in the book and blogging community or share a personal book related issue we have. Today, Amanda is talking about an article was published on Slate about how adults should be 'embarrassed' to read 'young adult' books and it's fair to say that that article irritated, angered and frustrated her beyond recognition, so in a clear retaliation against that article, she's going to both pick apart the article and give an unique angle on the entire situation, the angle from a 19 year old, teenage adult.

The first issue the article gave was that young adult books are written for teenagers, an age range focusing on 12-17 year olds who read books, which is in fact, false. According to Erik Erikson's stages of human development -

a young adult is generally a person in the age range of 20 to 40

- whereas an adolescent -

is a person ageing from 13 to 19

- which would therefore make young adult categorised books written for ADULTS between the ages of 20 to 40, not 12 to 17 year olds and means that adults should be far from embarrassed about reading something that was clearly written for them. Later on in the article, it once again comes back to age at which people are reading young adult books.

As you can see, it further demonstrates how the 'phenomenon' has come from a large percentage of people finding it 'acceptable' to read young adult books when they are in fact, according to the writer, not a young adult. Well, I've already covered the young adult ages issue, but what I have a huge problem with the fact that people have to at some point find it acceptable. I don't have to walk onto a golf course to play golf and have someone ten years my senior come over and tell me they think it's acceptable for me to play, therefore I can, or have them tell me it's unacceptable for me to do such a thing and to leave the golf course completely, because that wouldn't only be completely and utterly insane, but it'd also be prejudice and morally wrong. Reading is a hobby and therefore should be treated as a hobby, not something that should slowly become accepted by society like equality for women or marriage for same-sex couples. The writer then comes back to issue of age in that 28 percent of all YA sales are from people between, as we've already seen, the scientifically suggested young adult age range and almost sarcastically mentions that society is reminded YA is worldy and adult-worthy. My problem with this is that it's blaringly obvious that YA is now worldy and adult-worthy, because lets be honest, it had to have been in the first place for 30-44 year olds to even consider it. The premise must have been intriguing, or the charcater more compelling or relatable, or maybe, just maybe, the young adult genre is and has always been more advanced, contained more depth and been written much better than people give those authors credit for. Maybe, just maybe, adults don't give two stinking shits about being embarrassed and feel they don't need to defend what actions they want to take with own lives. Maybe, just maybe, a well written, meaningful and thought-provoking book is just a book, no matter what the genre..

Now, just after they refer to Divergent and Twilight as 'trashy', for which I would love to go into depth about why Divergent which I haven't read by the way is far from trashy and evokes a large number of different themes and messages, the writer then delves into how when they were a 'young adult' reader, they didn't expect satisfaction or sophistication. Now, don't get me wrong, writing doesn't need to be sophisticated to be good, but satisfaction is surely something that anyone expects when they do anything. I would not spend hours making a meal if I wasn't going to appreciate what I've achieved at the end. I would spend hours writing a book in the hope that would people would enjoy it to find out that people read it because why not and din't find any form of enjoyment from it. I would not read a book that I didn't think would give me some sort of satisfaction in reading, so either this author doesn't understand the primary principles in writing, or he seriously lost out on some extremely powerful literature that gave life lessons and gave a sense of satisfaction after reading it, for which I can only feel a huge amount of sorrow for them for losing out.

Now, as you can see at this point in the article, the writer proceeds to talk about how adults 'abandon' the mature perspective they have acquired during their lifetime. I don't know about you, but I don't suddenly forge that murder is completely both illegal and morally wrong when I read about tributes in The Hunger Games murdering each other for societies entertainment, neither do I suddenly find rape and controlling and demanding relationships attractive or swoon worthy when I read about a stuck up arsehole treating a women like shit, or a women abusing their male partner, because trust me, shit like that does happen, and as a 19 year old, I know that more personally that others might, so it's fair to say that this writer is making brash and abrupt assumptions on society. I personally haven't had a romantic relationship in quite a while, but I'm pretty sure there's couples out there, married, engaged, together or long distance who share sweet moments where they can't imagine their life without them, or they just can't get enough of their company, their humour, their caring nature. I know for a fact that this is true because how many elderly couples do you see who cannot appreciate their partners anymore than they show they do; the simplest of touches of hand holding, or sharing the same sandwich, it's not a special teenage love story, it's love in every form, and yes, I admit I'm a cheesy as fuck person, but having a love like that is perfectly normal, realistic and sweet. Roll your eyes all you want, but the world isn't and doesn't canter to please everyone in the world.

Then they continue to talk about endings and how unrealistic they are and not at all like life because they have happy endings. I admit, at this point into the article, I had so much pent up anger, I would have been willing to guess that the writer has either had no romantic involvement in his lifetime whatsoever, or he just wants to make up arguments, because I promise you, I've read plenty of books that don't give me all the answers, that don't give me a 'happy ending', that don't provide me with a 'uniformly satisfying ending' because believe it or not, authors try their very best to make these stories both FICTIONAL and as REALISTIC as possible. I wonder if the writer has ever tried to balance these two OPPOSING features into a storyline, because I know that I have, and it's difficult, it's extremely difficult, and it's never, ever going to be perfect. I also forgot that I should want books that provide me with depressing storyline, teach me that government is an almighty powerful being and that I am but an ant, a mere person with very few rights, very little that I can say and do and little control over anything in my life whatsoever, because god forbid I read something somebody else has written that just mirrors what I feel, think and see EVERYDAY OF MY LIFE. People read books to escape the realism of life, to gain the use of their imagination, and you know why older and older people are reading books written for the young population? It's because sometimes, just sometimes, people like the reminded that there is a light at the end the tunnel, that there is happiness and joy in a world full of restrictions and war, and that there is a hope, that somebody out there is getting some sort of happy ending. Maybe I'm a cheesy little shit, maybe I'm a sucker for happiness, or maybe, just maybe, I'm more realistic.

Of course, the writer than finishes with a 'powerful' paragraph on how teenagers, who are, as we discussed earlier, NOT THE PRIMARY MARKET FOR THESE BOOKS, might not want to grow up into the adults they need to be, or learn the lessons about sex, life, love, and everything in between that they need to make it through life. So, in the same format, I'm going to end my article in the same fashion. Teenagers will not struggle to grow up because of what material they read. Adults will not begin to feel ashamed of what their reading because one middle aged writer says they should be. The book industry has not and will not affect the bigger lessons in life, if anything, it will help teach them. I can count of easily the books that affected my life and taught me lessons that I needed to learn and appreciated learning through these authors words, that are in fact, in the young adult genre, books such as Dangerous Girl, which reminded me of how the justice system doesn't always work, and how it's not about the evidence, but the act you provide, or Thirteen Reasons Why, which helped me identify that I was suffering from a mental disorder and give me the courage to speak out and tell people, people like my family and friends whom I'd been avoiding confiding in because I wasn't 'brave' enough, or 'strong' enough, or 'mature' enough. These books are the novels that have helped me grow into the adult I am today. These books are the novels that helped me grow up. These novels are just a minute example of what the genre of young adult can provide teenagers and adults alike, of any age.

I, both a teenager and an adult, will not be changing my habits because of this article. I will continue to read whatever books take my fancy, whether those be childrens, young adults, new adults, adults or classics, and I will gain satisfaction from them, I will learn lessons from them and I will became a stronger, better human being because of it. You should never feel shamed for what you choose to read. You should never feel that your choices are undermined or unacceptable. You have the freedom to read what makes you happy and gives you pleasure. You, with your own mind, and your own morals, can decide for yourself what you want to do.