Who can resist a trip back down memory lane to a place of rebellion, acne and teen angst?
Though the teen years are not the most glorious part of life (I honestly don’t trust people who had a cozy adolescence), they are the hallmark of finding oneself and growing up.
A majority of young adult writers are not young adults themselves. The desire to write about those younger than yourself could come from the possibility of youth or the desire to guide minds during a troubling period in life.
Whatever the reason, authors have turned the young adult section of the bookstore into a hot commodity.
I started reading young adult novels well before my teenage years.
Writers such as Ellen Hopkins, Laurie Halse Anderson, Judy Blume and Rachel Caine acted as spirit guides when I was holed up in my room, away from others who just didn’t “get it.”
Though I could have done without the bratty characters from Lisi Harrison’s series “The Clique,” and every millennial wants to have their brain swiped of “Twilight,” young adult novels established my love of books.
My question is: are people who are no longer living as young adults allowed to indulge in the young adult category?
Technically, I still have one year left to live as a teenager, but as a sophomore in college, I feel a tad separated from teens who fear failing their driving test and still dislike their parents. I’m sure people who can drink alcohol and rent cars feel the same way ?about me.
It could be my reluctance to grow up or just me romanticizing the past, but the young adult section has almost become my own Fountain of Youth.
I fail to see how reading young adult novels is childish or even a waste of time. You learned from “Tuck Everlasting” that immortality is vain, and “The Hunger Games” is an extensive metaphor about how society brutalizes youth. Only, you’re not a know-it-all yet.
Young adult novels might not teach you about a new life experience, but they connect you with another generation.
Young adult novelists reflect the hopes, dreams, fears, anxieties and angers of the young people reading them.
By ignoring these pieces of representation from a different age group, we diminish the crowd as a whole. We should not greet the calls from our rising youth with silence.
I know from my own experience that these novels helped establish creativity, thought, expression and change in my life, and I hated when people dismissed them as “kids’ books.”
Yes, you might look odd if you’re in the band of mothers throwing underwear at Taylor Lautner or you’re receiving social security while also frequenting the local Harry Potter fan club.
But there’s no age limit on who can read young adult novels. It’s like a board game: “good for ages 13+.” And that plus sign is infinite.
