Let’s Talk Bookish – What Counts as YA?

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December 22: What Counts as YA?

Prompts: Young adult fiction (YA) is aimed at 12 to 18 year old readers, but what actually makes a book YA? Is it just the characters’ ages, or more about the content and themes? Are there any books that have been marketed as YA that you feel are really adult?

Welcome to another week of LTB at DTRH, everyone! Today’s topic is all about YA. Except, what is YA exactly, and what counts as YA? I have a feeling it might be slightly different to everyone. But what is YA in the general community?

I suppose the prompt has the right of it, and the most “correct” way of describing YA fiction is that it is aimed at 12–18 year old readers. I can definitely accept that. But what does aimed at an age group even mean? Most often, the characters will be about the same age, but again, is this a defining feature? Is it possible to have “YA” with older charaters?

YA has mostly been explained to me by the characters’ ages and the themes of the story. Whether it is adventure or fantasy, I imagine that for the most part there is a type of development that comes with the story. Not that the characters necessarily age within the book (or even series…) but usually there is some sort of growth or change that will accompany the story, perhaps even teaching a lesson. So I guess for me, I feel like it’s very quintessential YA when there are teenagers or even pre-teens going through school or some other sort of journey and “growing up” through the experience. Or at the very least, they often reflect on the experience afterwards.

I think my view of it is probably fairly accepted in the YA community (correct me if I’m way off though!), although I think the difficulty doesn’t come from categorizing the quintessential YA fiction novels. It’s really those novels that are aimed at a slightly younger audience (9–12) or perhaps slightly darker tales aimed at those 16+. Do those still count as YA?

I think for me, YA is already such a general umbrella term, that it’s fairly safe to be over-inclusive. I think people in the community (or even those who are not) understand that this is generally quite a broad term, and that a more direct question is needed if you are trying to figure out if a book is appropriate or not. Like any label, it is really there only for convenience, and overly scrutinizing the boundaries of such labels may not be that useful for anyone, especially for such a broad term. I myself definitely need more information than just “it’s YA” if I want to know about a book.

I think there are certainly a couple of books that I have read that have quite adult themes and I did wonder if a book like The Gilded Wolves does fall on that boundary line. I think it does mostly still classify as YA in my books, but the themes and events do make me think that it is more appropriate for a slightly older reader within that range. I suppose 12–18 is quite an interesting range, as 12 is quite young, and 18 is basically the age of majority. This makes for interesting classifications of books, but I think I haven’t really run into YA books that were simply completely incorrect.

What counts as YA to you? And do you think that there have been any egregious mis-classifications in a YA book? Let me know in the comments below!