Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted by Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Since April 2022, the meme moved to another host, Aria @ Book Nook Bits.
Let’s Talk Bookish is a meme where participants discuss specific topics, share their opinions, and share their love by visiting each other’s posts.

Hello! so, here this week’s post.

Since the early 2000s, YA literature has been one of the most popular genres. Readers and authors, however, frequently have divergent views: you either like it or you dislike the idea of reading or writing it. But unfortunatly It happens to be my favorite.

What actually makes a book YA? Is it just the characters’ ages, or more about the content and themes?

Although YA literature is popular among adults over 21, its target readership is still primarily teenagers. This is not to suggest that books in the young adult (YA) genre are unimportant; in fact, many of these works are incredibly well-written and have a genuine appeal to adult readers.
Teens find YA fiction to be particularly appealing when it comes to themes like friendship, relationships, first loves, and identity issues. Problem novels or coming-of-age books are other names for these types of stories, which center on the difficulties of growing up.

– The age of the protagonist/s
A book has to have at least a single teenage protagonist, often between the ages of 15 and 19, to be classified as a “young adult.”(Since middle-grade literature is a whole separate genre, protagonists that are closer to the lower end of the adolescent age are more prevalent there.) A book is classified as YA when it effectively conveys the viewpoint of a teenager.

– The voice
Even though YA literature is almost exclusively written by adults, well-crafted YA novels nevertheless have a genuine voice that captures the essence of the young adult experience.
The worries, goals, and inner thoughts of the protagonist, as well as the style in which the story is written or conveyed, are the main methods by which this voice develops itself.
Young adult fiction often depicts the priorities, anxieties, and ideas of teenagers as being different from those of adults.
This helps to explain why certain themes (like friendship and self-discovery) and tropes (like love triangles) are so common in young adult fiction. Teenagers often focus more on these kinds of events than adults do, as they are typical of young adults.

– The themes of the story
A lot of people have made the mistake of presuming the topics handled in young adult novels are more minor than those of adult fiction, or that themes explored in adult fiction are off-limits in YA. This simply isn’t true.
Certain themes, like coming of age in YA fiction, are undoubtedly more exclusive to one genre over another. Consider romance and love, for instance. As much a part of the young adult experience as it is of the adult is this theme and everything associated with it, including sexuality.
Another example is violence, which is definitely acceptable in YA.

Are there any books that have been marketed as YA that you feel are really adult?

Sarah J Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses. However, this is because the publisher (Bloomsbury) themselves intentionally marked this book as YA

What about you? What Counts as YA?

Let’s chat in the comments below!