Week 7, Assignment 2
The two articles I read were New Adult: Needless Marketing-Speak Or Valued Subgenre? Publisher’s Weekly, Dec 14, 2012 and YA Comes of Age Publisher’s Weekly, Oct 3, 2011.
Both of these were interesting and offered new perspectives for me.
In the first, a new category of book, called "New Adult," for readers 18 to 23 was proposed for the "post-YA reader." Some bookstore buyers have characterized these books as those that are too old for teens and too young for adults. An editor pointed out the the New Adult tag signals content that has explicit sex and therefore too mature for teen readers.
The second article, which is now close to two years old, discusses the dominence of the YA category as compared to middle-grade fiction and picture books. These teen titles are becoming darker and darker, with titles including words such as "deadly" and "death." And as the content has become more mature, adults are crossing over and picking books from the teen aisles. Some believe that the market has become saturated with paranormal themes, while dystopian titles continue to do well.
Becky,
ReplyDeleteI feel that teen fiction has always had dark titles and even darker themes just goes with the times we are living in. I do think that a New Adult category would help people to decipher the type of teen book they would want to read.
Erika C.
I feel that teen fiction does seem to have a lot of dark titles but this may fit in New Adult heading - I agree with Erika. But this type of types may encourage more adult to read YA fiction.
ReplyDeleteI agree...I think the dark themes are driving this.
ReplyDeleteI think that dark titles and dystopias have always been the hallmark of YA lit. However as the subject matter becomes more "mature" we'll find crossover and also difficulty distinguishing the "more mature content" from other YA. Maybe this is where "new adult" comes into play.
ReplyDelete