We’ve all been there, enamoured by our bookshelves bursting with adventure, love and mystery. But have you ever wondered why you love a certain type of read? I’m first and foremost addicted to Young Adult (YA) Literature. It’s my first love, the one genre I can always count on for security and a thoroughly great read. So, if you’re like me and you love YA above anything else, I’ve been thinking about this post for a while. After talking with some fellow book lovers, I settled on the idea. Why YA: the life of a Young Adult Lit Lover, for example, all the reasons why I love YA (and you might too).
So, sit back and relax, grab a cup of tea (or coffee) and read on…
The Characters are role models
It’s touch-and-go who you can count on to look up to these days. For people who haven’t got a female or male role model in their lives, book characters can be a ton more reliable than celebrities that from reading on social media, can sometimes commit actions that lose a little of our respect for them.
When I read Anna and the French Kiss, Lola and the Boy Next Door and Isla and the Happily Ever After, they remained fixed in my mind as stand-up, kind-hearted girls that had my respect. When I read them, the girls were around my age (and still kind of are at twenty one) and I found myself finding myself looking up to them. They made mistakes, sure, but they were human and had this lifelike personality that made them feel like my best friends. Just because they’re fictional doesn’t make them any less of a role model, and I think they’re pretty cool.
The community is like family
I’ve made so many friends because of the YA community, mainly on Twitter and Instagram (shout-out to my bookstagram family!) and they’re the sweetest, most passionate people you will ever meet. I love that I can tweet a question and get a response from people that share the same mindset. Recently, YALC took place and I wish more than anything EVER that I could have been there, but I sadly had other commitments I made months before. I’m determined to go next year, because all those tweets I saw from the event made me so book envious! But being a part of the YA community made me feel like I was there, because of all the pictures and videos and talking to people who were right there in the heart of it. I’m lucky to know some amazing book bloggers who share my great love of YA and without that community, YA would be nothing but a sub-genre – it’s the people within it that create a ying and yang balance with authors that makes some kinda of magic.
The authors get it
When I’m reading an Adult book, sometimes I just can’t relate and that can make me stray away from the plot..but with YA, I can always feel some kind of magnetic pull to the characters who share my thoughts and mindset. Yes, some authors can totally miss the point of teenage and young adult years, but others? They TOTALLY get it. It just makes reading all the more enjoyable when you can relate to the main character (or secondary ones) and feel some kind of belonging amongst the plot. I’m not saying adult authors don’t get it, because they do (just for adults, more than YA readers) but it’s open to discussion. I remember reading the Morganville series by Rachel Caine and even though it was a fantasy novel and Vampires totally don’t exist, I still felt like I shared the same thoughts as Clare, who was in college when I was reading (and so was I at the time).
So, do you feel the same way about these things?
Let me know in the comments or on twitter @LittleMemoirs! I’d love to know your thoughts on why YOU pick YA.
happy reading!
