Be More Bookish - Week 7, Assignment 2

So I guess the main point of contention I have with these articles is that the one from 2012 (Who's buying teen books? Lots and lots of adults.) from the Christian Science Monitor feels pretty outdated. The question of whether lots of adult are reading YA novels may have been a burning one in 2012, but in 2015 it's not much of a conversation as the answer is an obvious and overwhelming "yes." To be honest, I don't think I ever stopped reading YA, and I wasn't even really aware that it was a classification until I started working at the library. The first YA series I started reading after entering BCPL was The Hunger Games, and like everyone I was hooked pretty much immediately. More than the author of the article herself, I relate strongly with Angelina Benedetti, who's quoted in the article reminiscing about when she first realized her mistake in ignoring YA and discovered that there is something extremely satisfying about reading it. Of course, the author goes on to say that one of the reasons why adults might enjoy Young Adult fiction is because it presents less of a challenge than a literary novel and may "offer a relaxing experience for an adult reader tired from commuting, working all day, and taking care of kids," which is endlessly condescending and makes it difficult for me to lend her writing credence.

It's interesting that the two articles I read could have been written in direct opposition to one another. Meg Wolitzer, the author of the New York Times article A Not-So-Young Audience for Young Adult Books, approaches the topic from the perspective of someone who enjoys and has consistently enjoyed YA novels her entire life. Wolitzer even goes so far as to quote from another article written by Ruth Graham, claiming that reading YA as an adult is something worth being ashamed about, so even though Molly Driscoll didn't write the article that Wolitzer is quoting, she and the real author obviously have a lot in common in their opinions of the topic. Wolitzer's evidence is compelling; she writes about the "kid lit" book club she's in, cites the impressive (and often literary) careers of the other members, and points out the growing number of so-called adult authors that have written books aimed at YA readers. Her goal is to demonstrate that Ruth Graham's hasty dismissal of YA books is an outdated point of view based on misinformation and unsubstantiated criticisms. Perhaps the most flawed argument that she draws attention to is Graham's notion that, because we can't read every book before we die, our time is wasted on YA. For my perspective, her arguments falls into the same trap that many critics and readers do, which is to operate under the assumption that there is some sort of master list of literature that is worth reading. If you ask me, a book's worth is entirely based on what the reader gets out of it.