In Defence of YA Literature

 by  Anjali Arackal

Young adult (YA) novels are often seen as not “real” literature. Amongst the myriad of genres and subgenres available today, the YA novel scene stands as a widely accessible platform that offers readers optimism and a happy ending. Arguably, this has led to the widespread misconception that it is a medium purely for wish fulfilment, filled with formulaic plots and token diversity. 

This category of novels typically features protagonists in their teens, and is aimed at readers of the same age. It bridges the gap between children’s and adult’s fiction. There are YA novels of almost any genre imaginable - romance, slice-of-life, mystery and the oft-derided dystopian. The huge following of dystopian novels like The Hunger Games and Divergent may have helped to kick-start the popularity of the category.

The main criticism levied against the young adult novel is based around a wide perception of them being “non-literary”. Steeped in tropes, they seem like straightforward, simple stories to read and write. Why would any self-respecting reader choose yet another basic, unacademic work from the YA shelf when they could be reading something serious and enriching like War and Peace or Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy?

Simply put - escapism. Readers want to be taken to a whole different world, and YA makes this possible. Usually, you can rely on a young adult novel to have minimal death (Matthias in Crooked Kingdom notwithstanding) or graphic depictions of violence, and the protagonists are sympathetic and have unknowable power. Who wouldn’t want to live in a world where the villains are outsmarted and our leads always manage to save the universe in the end? 

An example of this is the hit Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey Mcquiston, a romance following the First Family of the US and a British royal. It’s a feel-good story, with the classic romance tropes (enemies-to-lovers and even a modern twist on the epistolary novels, with the exchange of heartfelt emails), and it creates a universe where a divorced woman with biracial children won the 2016 US election and swung Texas blue four years later. It’s easy to feel burnt out from hours of doomscrolling (“the act of spending an excessive amount of screen time devoted to the absorption of negative news”, according to Wikipedia) - this lighter, more hopeful alternate reality is a balm to the stresses of living through…everything we’re living through. 

Some view a happy ending as an indication that a work isn’t “grown up”. I think this is an incredibly desolate perspective on books. When we as a society are facing information overload, these novels can reaffirm that when all hope seems lost, there is always a slightly happier reality between the pages. The negative perception of YA as unrealistic is actually it’s biggest strength - the daring optimism of the good guys winning in the end offers its readers unconditional catharsis.