My Problem With YA Fantasy - PT. 1 (History/Context)

[DanielGreeneReviews]

I do want to point out I have lumped in Middle Grade with YA. That was intentional and will be addressed in Pt2. Before reacting too strongly one way or the other, please wait for the video where I break down my actual "Problem"

That green screen shirt effect is killing it.

[saltybuns]

Man really loved Harry Potter so much he put on an invisibility shirt

[Magicme]

My problem with YA fantasy is mostly because of how so many of those books do romance. It’s 2020. We need to stop telling girls that the asshole they’re crushing on will change for them and become a wonderful person.

[Yotanido]

I never understood the term "Young Adult". To me, that means something like 18-25.
To be a "young adult", you still have to be an adult.

[LordofFullmetal]

"It's not really a genre"
As a YA writer, I agree with that. I've tried to look up the requirements so many times, because I'm trying to figure out how to brand myself - literally all I can find is "main protagonist must be a teenager or young adult". There are no other major genre restrictions, that I can find.

[myciemouse]

I still love Percy Jackson, Percy Jackson is what got me into reading and gave me a place to go to whenever I had problems or something was going on, I will forever love it.

[jonathondunn]

I’m 40 and still read some”YA”. If it’s well written, it doesn’t matter to me if it’s marketed to high school and college kids

[stranger]

Without YA books, I wouldn’t even read books at all. Now I read anything fantasy from middle grade to adult.

Also: Thank you for including 6-7 Rick Riordan books in the thumbnail 😂

[RobertWF]

It's funny how the covers of the books in the children's section in Barnes & Noble tend to be bright & colorful. Then you walk to the other side of the store, where readers are several years older, and books in the YA section have dark and dramatic covers, lots of black and red colors.

[ebyfay]

Man, Harry Potter release days where somethin else, never have I seen that many ppl desperate for a book. Specially for the final book, stores everywhere around me opened early so people could go to the bookstores, there would be police at the line up spot and at cash register. People where terrified of the book stores selling out before they got a copy.
I'll never forget walking through a dark mall at 6 something in the morning, surrounded by a huuuge group of ppl of all ages wearing wizard robes, all beyond excited. All for one single book.

[aubreyjane]

I think a large problem with YA is marketing. Books that really should be marked as Adult (Sarah J. Maas I'm looking at you) are given to teens. But at the same time books are put into YA that are really more middle grade! The fact that the YA age range is considered 12-18 is insane. YA has improved greatly imo but I'm not as well read in it anymore tho.

[Joharis]

It's really annoying to see books marketed as YA when they should be NA. I love Six of Crows but those characters should not have been 17

[neilpatrick]

Hey where did you buy a shirt that makes you invisible.

[Doctorfudge]

Percy Jackson and the Rangers Apprentice books are still my shit.

[spokeforhours]

As the YA genre becomes more A than ever to meet the desires of its grown readers, something odd is happening, where the themes, dialogues, and personalities no longer match the 12-18 age gap. You showed Six of Crows on the background, which clearly only kept the ages of the characters bellow 20 for the book to be marketed as YA, when actually all of them read as above 20 (ok, Wylan could be 18). Fans make some mental gymnastics to explain they behave maturely because of the world they grow up, but in reality, it just reads more mature than YA was meant to. Similar issue with A Court of Thorns and Roses, where explicit sex is included in every book of the series, yet, given the young female lead and focus on romance over usual fantasy themes (magic system, world-building, etc), it was basically forced to be marketed as YA, because there is no in-between genre or better, age group.
I personally believe that a better rating system should be implemented, there were short-lived efforts to star a New Adult rating in traditional publishing, which did not ultimately work, I believe bc New Adult is often confused with erotica. So perhaps a similar system to movie ratings? However, YA has come to mean more than the age-group it targets, we know that a YA fantasy, compared to adult fantasy, won't just be more "clean", it will also be likely more focused on character over plot, a smaller cast of characters, focus on friendships, romance, first experiences, etc. So I guess the challenge remains on how to still direct the audience to the books they wish to read if the YA label isn't attached to it.

[metsfanovan]

The original Percy Jackson pentalogy will always be my favorite series. That franchise could have been the next Harry Potter if the movies were better and if the book releases were more staggered so as to build up hype.

[jasonschmucker]

I wish I had been able to get on board the Harry Potter hype train when I was a kid. But my parents wouldn't let me read or watch it cause they thought it glorified witchcraft and satanism.

[lenalovesrats]

I read both YA and adult fantasy and I find that both have their pros and cons. As an adult I find myself generally enjoying adult fantasy more, but there are gems within YA that outshine even most adult fantasy(imo).

[sarahp]

My issue is that things that were labeled as YA that had more mature themes were still marketed towards young teens/preteens. When I was in grade 5/6 I read books that had really mature themes that I wasn't ready for, but I didn't know going in because they were in my middle school library. It's not a problem that YA is growing up, but grown up YA should be marketed to high school and college students, not preteens.