Natsu194 OP t1_j6bepko wrote on January 29, 2023 at 3:07 AM

Reply to comment by CaptainSholtoUnwerth in Is it weird to read Teens books as a young adult? by Natsu194

Honestly some the the reasons you mentioned are why I think adults like to read those books. They remind us of simpler times and it's easier to deal with simpler problems. As adults we often need to deal with people that have ulterior motives and just have to deal with a lot of toxic people and drama in general. As you said there are topics that we deal with that we don't like dealing with, YA books allows us to avoid those problems and just focus on the single (fictional) problem the character is dealing with.

I don't think I articulated my thoughts properly here, but I hope you get the idea!!

CaptainSholtoUnwerth t1_j6bgvl8 wrote on January 29, 2023 at 3:25 AM

There's no shortage of easily digestible adult fiction out there. I'm not saying you have to only read Holocaust survivor biographies as soon as you reach adulthood. For example, I read a lot of WH40k fiction. My reddit username is a character from the Eisenhorn novels by Dan Abnett. They're not challenging to read in the slightest, yet they're still very clearly written with an adult audience in mind. I just don't really get why a well adjusted adult who can comprehend higher level reading would deliberately choose to limit themselves to YA.

Natsu194 OP t1_j6bn5eh wrote on January 29, 2023 at 4:17 AM

This isn't about how easy something is to read or not read. It's about the themes talked about. Some people simply don't enjoy those dark themes in the books they read, they enjoy adventures that are "black and white" in the sense that the risks are life and death or something less severe. They may just not like the problematic topics you mentioned in your original comment.

CaptainSholtoUnwerth t1_j6bsenm wrote on January 29, 2023 at 5:03 AM

Again, there are no shortage of adult fiction books without "dark themes". There is quite literally tens of thousands of books outside of the extremely narrow YA genre. If you think you need YA books for a carefree and enjoyable story, you're just wrong. Try Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, for example. One of the most popular goofy and lighthearted stories in the past 50 years. Yet still clearly written for an audience outside of 12-18 year olds lmao. The dark themes and problematic topics you're getting all hung up on are not a requirement. It's purely about who the author is writing the book for. YA books primarily feature teenage protagonists in order to relate to the experiences of their intended audience. Why adults are so obsessed with reading books meant to appeal to teenagers and the growing pains they are facing is very strange to me.

Natsu194 OP t1_j6bu38p wrote on January 29, 2023 at 5:19 AM

Okay, I thought that you were thinking that the problematic themes needed to be there I misunderstood your intent with the first comment. To answer your second question, take Japan for example, manga is ver popular there which almost all are told about teenagers. When citizens of Japan and writers of Manga were talked to about why they said they like to have young protagonists to relive their childhood days or to feel young again while reading even if it is fantasy they relate to the characters and their young problems.