On the Chocolate Lady's Book Review Blog was this question (which had come from this blog):
Have you ever looked at the young adult book section in a modern bookstore and felt out of touch or old?
This got me thinking about what I had read as a teenager. This includes teen romance series like those in these photos:
I read a great deal of these books in junior high school and in high school. They were popular among others at school. The Sweet Dreams books were at my junior-high library, but I only ever got to check out about two of them! They were so popular! I had some many of these that I bought, along with other series. Several years ago, I discovered this blog that looks at teen book series from the 1980s (when I grew up). This includes some other series that I did not know about and some I'd had but forgotten about! Mystery series as well as romance are included.
I don't recall the term "young adult" being used when I was a teen. Nor do I recall paranormal romances being a thing then. This seemed to come along well into the 2000s, perhaps even in the 1990s. I got hooked into the popularity of the Twilight series, and have been reading more since then. I still enjoy the YA genre.
As for feeling out of touch, looking at the selections of YA books in stores today does not surprise me. They seem to be keeping with the times by including texting messages in books and with more LGBTQ+ teen books on the rise. I imagine if series like Sweet Dreams and Wildfire and others link in the blog were still around, they would keep up with the times as well. But thematic series such as those seemed to have disappeared in favor of series of two or more books, such as Twilight and The Vampire Diaries. Nearly all the Sweet Dreams books were standalones, except for one or two that was a sequel to an earlier book. Same for Wildfire, though there were a few sequels such as the Christy books seem in the picture above. The Silhouette books had several sub-series, including one that followed a couple from their teens all the way to marriage and having children. But now separate series seem to be the way many YA books are constructed, as opposed having a single series monk that contains mostly standalone books. Though series books did exist back then as well.
What is your take on YA books of today? How do they differ from those of your childhood?
The question above is from a blog hop at Ramblings of a Coffee-Addicted Writer. Click here to see others's responses. I'm including my post at this as well.
6 comments:
The very first book I read for my own enjoyment was Cujo by Stephen King. I was 15 years old and read horror for years after that. I read paranormal romance now.
In our library system, the Young Adult label is being replaced with Teen. What goes around comes around. I don't even remember a teen section when I was that age, but I had a very small library and no book stores. Today's teen books, in general, are too serious and tragic, for me.
I don't remember these romance books. I really don't remember much of young adult teen books growing up. I did read tons of Agatha Christies, and I still love them today. I also loved Nancy Drew.
The YA book explosion happened after I was an adolescent. The terms "YA novel/author" didn't even exist then. All we had for that age group were those cheesy mystery series like the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, etc.
I don't remember any teen romance books when I was growing up. Guess we weren't supposed to know about those things. Linda in Kansas
This is an interesting discussion. I'm a Boomer, so I knew I was an outlier as far as YA is concerned, but I'm surprised so many other bloggers missed YA as well.
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