Tuesday, May 13, 2014

(News) Young Adult or New Adult?

I do have the feeling, that Young Adult ist the most popular genre by now. And that's cool since everybody always complaints, that teens don't read enough. But why do so many adults buy these kind of books too?

I think that is the question of the day and who knows, maybe we find out today? I love Young Adult books too (surprise, surprise, since I'm reviewing the here lol). But I wouldn't consider myself as a teen anymore since I'm 25-years-old. So why did I get hooked on by them? It's probably the writing style and the topics. If grown ups want to by a book, they have to decide between crime, thriller, love story and so on. If teens by a YA novel, they often get all of that in one book spiced with a great deal of humor! So, I guess that's the secret.
People my age want this too and publishers needed a solution: New Adult!
They do have the same flair than Young Adult books, but deal with issues people in there mid twenties would have.

But are YA and NY really so different? They do have a lot of similarities, but some major differences as well.

Young Adult:

  • The protagonists are between sixteen and eighteen years old.
  • They go to High School
  • They deal with issues like relationship-problems, new school, problems with there parents and so on.
  • There are rarely some sex scenes in it and if, then they are without any details.
  • Most of the female characters are virgins or pretty inexperienced.
New Adult:

    • The protagonists are between eighteen and twenty-six years old.
    • They go to college or start working.
    • They deal with problems like finding an affordable college and apartment, getting a part-time job, starting there own life and living on there own.
    • Detailed sex scenes are no problem and most of them already had sex.
    • Most of the published books are contemporary love stories.
    Personally, I like both genres and you? What do you prefer? I even have some books, I can't put in a category, because they combining features of both.

    2 comments :

    1. Hi there!
      (Are we supposed to answer in english, cause this is your english blog?:D)
      Anyway, I never heard of this "new genre", but Google helped me out.
      I find it very interesting that people made up a new category, to establish a new market. Personally I think, maybe the teenage version (YA) books, wasn't enough anymore, cause lots of older people were reading the YA books. So it was time to come up with something for older people. Something that still feels like YA, but where you could break the limits to adult issues (all the sex stuff for example).
      And there is something more convenient about New Adult for writers: no parents required! Now you are free to write what you ever wanted. No topics you have to handle careful, no guardians to take care of... .Honestly, in YA there are sometimes the weirdest reasons to eliminate parents, just to get rid of them. (Otherwise they are to disturb the plot.)
      Those books should be more "straight forward" (I imagine).
      But it's a mystery to me, how you can have books that are combining both features. Can you name examples? I'll be interested.

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      Replies
      1. Hey :)
        Yes, because I want this blog to become international. I know, it's still a long way to go, but we already have 3 followers from oversea yay!
        That's exactly, what NA is about. Hahaha, and yes YA has a lot of problems, dealing with modern issues. But parents are still important in NA, they just don't have to be present all the time.

        Yes, Shutter me by T. Mafi is official YA, but they are dealing with sex and living on there own as well.

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