BY SUSANA MEDEIROS

In print | Published September 8, 2011

The fact that young adults buy and read YA (Young Adult) fiction isn’t surprising. What’s surprising is the fact that our moms read YA, college students read YA, that train conductor in the SEPTA station reads YA — popular culture now commands a basic knowledge of the genre, and it seems everyone is at least familiar with heavyweights like “Twilight” by Stephanie Meyer, “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins and the Harry Potter series.
Explanations for the upsurge in YA fiction are varied: acclaimed author David Levithan pondered in Newsweek’s blog, The Daily Beast, whether YA recently recognized the growing sophistication and emotional maturity of its audience; the NY Times, in an article reporting that YA e-books comprised 25% of the YA market, remarked on what is commonly referred to as “the Harry Potter phenomena;” a book published in June called “Bringing Light to Twilight,” focuses on why Twilight has reached a wide and diverse audience.
But these explanations seem too specific to me, and at times inaccurate. If you’re a fan of the acclaimed science fiction novel “Ender’s Game,” published in 1985, then you know that YA can be rich and heart-wrenchingly dark. Harry Potter et al. can be seen as a bookend, even a catalyst, but it did not cause the YA surge. And let’s pretend I didn’t know about an academic book on Twilight.
YA, I think, is both the answer to a decade of strife and sustenance for a generation that routinely looks to the past.
Books reflect the time in which they were written, and this surge in fantasy, post-apocalyptic plots, illicit romances and the like, provides an escape from our own disaster-laden lives.
Most importantly, YA novels feature adolescent protagonists, most of whom overcome great odds to combat school bullying or their evil arch nemesis.
Who doesn’t want to be reminded of the years they knew they could accomplish anything, be anyone, back when they didn’t have to pay taxes or rent, when they only had to worry about boys or girls or dragons, back when they were someone who never smarted in the face of danger (or sarcasm)? I remember being ten and waiting for my Hogwarts acceptance letter, so I wonder whether the adults in the audience of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” this summer were hoping for the same.
The other day, I was reading a review of “Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past” by Simon Reynolds, which worries that our “obsession with antiquity” has stunted the art of music, limiting it to remixes, mash-ups and the next Bob Dylan. Then I had a Eureka! moment. What is the “Hunger Games” but a rehashed “Battle Royale” (2000)? Shouldn’t the title of First Book to Feature a Wizard School go to “Wizard’s Hall” (1991)? Isn’t Twilight just a reborn obsession with Dracula and Anne Rice?
They say the same plots are repeated over and over, and that it’s the way you tell the story that counts, which I think is true, but I think there’s something to be said about the proliferation of adults reading YA on the train, or the way parents and teens/tweens have shared books.
Never before have we seen such an established, mutual appreciation of culture between Generation Y and their parents (who can themselves range from Generation X to the Baby Boomers). My mom and I steal songs from each other’s iTunes libraries, are avid True Blood fans; we read the Bartimaeus Trilogy, Christopher Paolini’s books and The Artemis Fowl series together. I’m not verifying this 100%, but maybe, just maybe, she lent me a Portuguese translation of Twilight (Crepúsculo) a few weeks ago.
Some of these books have been helped and/or popularized by their movie adaptations, but the success of the genre is significant, especially because reading YA has become less stigmatized for older readers. Fantasy and Science Fiction seem to be having a resurgence as well (and don’t even get me talking about YA Fantasy!). I’m particularly glad that Fantasy and SF, typically marginalized by the literary significance of literary fiction (or something), have been met with growing respect.
Maybe another day you’ll get a list of all the books I wish I had time to reread, but today I want to emphasize what I think is an important point about YA: not all YA is brilliant. Like any diet, you need a healthy serving of leafy poetry and meaty non-fiction or whatever in your food pyramid, but it has become a significant part of our culture, and I’m up for anything book-related that can do that.
Reading is already a burden in a busy world and people seem to be dropping the habit altogether. There are countless books we are supposed to have read and are pretending we’ve read, most of them erudite and intimidating at first glance, boasting girth and a prize in incomprehensible fiction, so is it surprising that we’ve retreated to our comfort zone? Good YA manages to be multi-layered, generally easy to read and an absolute page-turner. I haven’t heard the same about “Gravity’s Rainbow” lately.
Susana is a sophomore. You can reach her at smedeir1@swarthmore.edu.

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