Can people just please, please, please back off of my favorite genres?
Earlier this week we had the #romancekills fiasco, and now adding insult to injury is this article on the Wall Street Journal website wsj.com.
I’m not going to make you read it, (as it’s totally asinine anyway) but in a nutshell it attacks current Young Adult trends such as dystopia and violence. Some contemporary YA books discuss things like cutting, suicide, depression, coming out of the closet, and addiction. And it wonders “why this is a good idea.”
So, on twitter the #yasaves hashtag was born with YA authors such as Libba Bray and Maureen Johnson leading the charge.
While the #romancekills tweets were hilarious, the #yasaves tweets came (again) from readers, writers, and publishing giants, and some made extremely valid defenses, while others pulled at my heartstrings.
Here’s a brief sample:
Books are, at their heart, dangerous. Yes, dangerous. Because they challenge us: our prejudices, our blind spots. #yasaves -@libbabray
YA makes you a survivor when you live in a f-up home. YA paints rainbows in a dark world. YA shows you are not alone. #YAsaves -@YABliss
Honestly, @wsj, do you think we just make this stuff up? The darkest parts of many of my books came directly from my teenage life. #yasaves -@HollyBlack
Because sometimes pretending everything is fine will kill you faster than suicide #YAsaves -@JosinMcQuein
#YASAVES reading YA saved me when i was diagnosed with cancer, ten years later I am still here and proud to still read YA – @RavenousReadr
Yeah. Go on. Tell teenagers that they shouldn’t read books. Know what you’ll get? Guaranteed literacy. #YAsaves -@AletheaKontis
Define irony: recommending Fahrenheit 451, about the burning of books, in an article about how some books shouldn’t be tolerated. #yasaves -@JasonPinder
YA helped me stay alive when an abusive home and being gay made me not want to be anymore. #YAsaves -@sickcuriosity
Just curious, @wsj, do you have some kind of WRITTEN POLICY that you will only let idiots write about YA? Is it, like, a THING? -@maureenjohnson
Seriously, search the hashtag. We trended worldwide for a while. It really makes you understand the impact books can have on people.
And to the Wall Street Journal… as author Sarah Dessen said:
“If you’re not seeing a VAST variety of stories out there for teens, you aren’t looking hard enough.”
Unfortunately the “dangerous” issues in many YA books are things many teens have to deal with. Even in other “less dark” YA books, they have to deal with things like being ostracized at school, divorce, the death of someone close… why not give them characters they can relate to? Don’t you think that it would have the effect of assuring them that they’re not alone? Maybe, even if they’re not dealing with it, they should be aware that there are people out there, maybe even some of their friends or peers who are? And don’t you think that YA, just like Adult fiction, is extremely varied, with genres within genres?
I’m twenty-two years old. I’m still a Young Adult. I fully anticipate to still be reading Young Adult books for years to come, whether the issues are dark or not. Because I love the voices of the YA genre. It’s not a bunch of pretentious crap. They tell it like it is, or at least how they think it is. They let us see different issues from a multitude of viewpoints.
YA is for everyone: old, young, and young-at-heart.
And if the Wall Street Journal would stop thinking that the world is sunshine and daisies until you’re “fully-grown,” maybe they’d get it.
