Me and YA literature

I read this and wanted to write a blog post about the same topic. Unfortunately, the post started me thinking along so many lines I ended up not having one single relevant idea to post about, which makes me feel stupid, but I hope it’s just emotional overload.

Anyway, YA literature has always meant a lot to me, even back when I was far from an adult, young or otherwise. I’ve been reading books for older kids/young adults since I was about four when it always used to puzzle me that the heroines of my books were up to ten years older than me.

Lately, it’s occurred to me that most ‘adult’ books I read are light-hearted, fun, cheerful stories (often with a dark undertone, but still), whereas the YA books I read are much darker and more serious. I’m not suggesting that less skill goes into writing the books for grown readers, but somehow, I think these writers have different goals, and I think I can understand why.

When we’re young we don’t shy away from serious topics, but when we grow up, life usually takes a turn for the worse and ends up far more menacing than it once was. In (entertainment) literature we (I) seek out distractions from everyday life.

Still, I can’t give up on the YA books either, so I still end up burying myself in serious, dark stories even now. At least the difference between YA and ‘real’ literature is that most YA books have happy endings, just like we’d like our lives to have. (Happy, at least, not endings.)