Lit-shaming is the new black: In defense of adult readers of YA fiction

I take this moment away from binge-watching Orange is the New Black to bring you an important message:

If you see this headline in your Facebook feed, remove it immediately. Because the only person who should be ashamed of herself is the author.

I am a fan of YA, and I am a reasonably well read adult. And I have a few bones to pick with the author of this piece. So let's begin.

Read whatever you want. But you should feel embarrassed when what you’re reading was written for children.

You know how when someone tells you to calm down, it just makes you angrier? Statements that in any way tell me how I should feel only succeed in making me actually feel rage. There is SO much shame in popular culture that it's now entered our lexicon, (See fat-shaming, slut-shaming, etc.) and articles like this one take pot-shots at one of the few safe havens left - reading. 

Let’s set aside the transparently trashy stuff likeDivergent and Twilight, which no one defends as serious literature.

...and I won't start now, although having read both of those series, I can tell you that Divergent is a far cry from sparkly vampire tales, and does have some interesting ideas about societal archetypes, but that's a conversation for another day. Anyway, the point is that I think it short-sighted and unfair to lump the entirety of YA fiction in with two of its least -compelling samples. Not when there are decidedly adult offerings out there like Fifty Shades of Grey that sat at the top of the best seller list for over 50 weeks straight. Because really, submitting oneself sexually to a privileged, sadistic mysogynist? That's serious literature.

I'm talking about the genre the publishing industry calls “realistic fiction.” These are the books, like The Fault in Our Stars,that are about real teens doing real things, and that rise and fall not only on the strength of their stories but, theoretically, on the quality of their writing. These are the books that could plausibly be said to be replacing literary fiction in the lives of their adult readers. And that’s a shame.

So here it is. The author of this opinion piece thinks that one subset of YA fiction stands to obliterate the whole of quality adult fiction. Which just illustrates how very narrow this woman's experience of literature really is. The body of her article reads like a English major's summer reading list - Dickens and Wharton and Updike. What about some of the other genres and sub-genres out there? Some of the best writing I've come across in the last few years has been in YA fantasy. It's like the Hunger Games opened the door to a wealth of dystopian young adults novels - some veer more toward the trashy, but others are haunting and beautifully crafted (The Evolution of Mara Dyer; Daughter of Smoke and Bone, the Grisha Trilogy; the Raven Cycle). In many ways, they are much more literary than their adult counterparts, which tend to be characterized more by graphic and/or sexualized violence than conflict of self (The Road; Game of Thrones).

Most importantly, these books consistently indulge in the kind of endings that teenagers want to see, but which adult readers ought to reject as far too simple. YA endings are uniformly satisfying, whether that satisfaction comes through weeping or cheering.

This is actually kind of funny. I can practically hear the sneer in the way the author talks about satisfying endings. She is just adding credence to the stereotype that respectable fiction has to be dismal and avant-garde, and end mid-sentence so you are left smoking on the patio of a coffee house in New York City and murmuring about it with your hipster friends over a plate of charcuterie and ennui. To which I say simply: get over yourself. And maybe even "get a life." Because if your life doesn't hand you darkness and ambiguity and unresolved conflict in spades, you are clearly luckier than I am. I'll take my resolutions, happy or sad, wherever I can get them.

But I remember, when I was a young adult, being desperate to earn my way into the adult stacks; I wouldn’t have wanted to live in a world where all the adults were camped out in mine.

Did she seriously just say that she would rather die than have her parents read "her" fiction? For someone who purports to be so much more sophisticated than YA, that's awfully dramatic language. And it misses one of the biggest perks of reading YA as an adult - Having a secret weapon when trying to actually communicate with young adults. Over the holidays, we had dinner with a friend of my husband's who is stepfather to two teen girls. These girls were extremely polite and pleasant but definitely out of their depth conversation-wise until I asked one of them about a book I'd been reading. And then suddenly, it was this magical conversation with laughter and insights and genuine interest. It was a mature discussion about literature not demanded by a syllabus. And it was fun.

And finally:

Fellow grown-ups, at the risk of sounding snobbish and joyless and old, we are better than this. I know, I know: Live and let read. Far be it from me to disrupt the “everyone should just read/watch/listen to whatever they like” ethos of our era. There’s room for pleasure, escapism, juicy plots, and satisfying endings on the shelves of the serious reader.

Snobbish? Check. 

Joyless? Totally. 

Old? You said it, sister, not me, but in my opinion, thats 3 for 3. 

While, granted, the author generously gives you permission to read what you want (Thank goodness, right!?!) she wants you to feel bad about it if you don't read what she does. She's like those girls in middle school who make fun of other kids because their brand of clothing is different. Doesn't she remember that those girls always get what's coming to them? 

Sounds to me like someone needs to read a little more YA.