WEEK 12 PROMPT RESPONSE (Young Adult/ New Adult Literature)
Understanding the Appeal of Young Adult Literature for Adults In order for librarians to serve adults looking for their next YA read it’s important to understand what appeal these books have for adults. This is difficult because YA is not a genre, but a category of books, and a category that is, by definition, first and foremost for 12–18-year-olds. With the rise (or acknowledgement) of YA books’ popularity among adults this distinction blurred. According to Kelly Jensen for BookRiot (2019): “YA, especially over the last decade, has been called a genre over and over...YA books as a genre are fast-paced, intended for quick consumption, often come as a series or come with some kind of media tie-in (in recent years, adaptations are a big part of this), and most importantly, feature a person who is “a young person” as a main character.” However, the age of a protagonist is not an established appeal factor. Saricks (2009) identified the “chief factors that affect our...