Justine Larbalestier

reading, writing, eating, drinking, sport

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YA and other animals

Diana Peterfreund and Carrie Ryan saved me from writing a post I’d been sort of planning for awhile—on the various lame ways people dismiss YA—but which I kind of couldn’t be arsed actually writing. So bless them both!

I’ve come across this example all too often:

“XYZ is pretty good, for a book for children, but I doubt the author will be allowed to take it to the next level, because children’s books rarely do that.” (The “that” in question, by the way, is a rebellion against the powers-that-be by the teen main characters, which is so common in YA fantasy and SF books that it’s practically a cliche.)

Succinctly put, Diana!

Though mostly what I get from adult writers and readers in place of dissmissals, are blank expressions. “What’s YA?” they ask. This happened to me most recently here in Sydney. I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen since we were studying for our PhDs together. She’s a successful (and fabulous—I love her work) writer of adult fiction and memoir, winner of many awards and grants, very clued in to the Australian publishing scene, but when I told her what I write, she didn’t know what I was talking about, and hadn’t heard of any of the top YA writers or novels I named. It was very disorienting. She didn’t even know Twilight.

I’m trying to decide whether that’s better or worse than all the people who assume that all YA is exactly like Twilight. Yes, I have had people seriously say to me, “YA? Isn’t that the vampire romance genre?”

Sigh. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Twilight. In fact, I’m a hundred per cent for it. Stephenie Meyer’s success has created a whole generation of readers. Many of whom, I’m convinced, wouldn’t be reading without her. A few of her fans have gone on to read my books. Bless her and bless them! I feel the same way about Meyer that I feel about Rowling. Grateful bordering on worshipful.

But as the readers of this blog know, there’s more to YA than vampire romance. Why, we have zombie romances, faerie romances, troll romances, robot romances—we have any kind of romance you can name. My next novel is a liar’s romance and the one after that is a 1930s romance.

See, stupid YA knockers or ignorers, we has much variety in YA! Why, I’ve even heard rumours that there are YA novels that aren’t romances at all. Though I’m yet to confirm it.

Posted by Justine at 4:49, 20 December 2008 under 1930s NYC novel, Bloggery, Praising, Sydney/Australia, Young Adult literature, Zombies | 3 Comments »

Comments

  1. smartass Says:

    Zombie romance? Really?

    December 20th, 2008 at 4:32 pm

  2. Seth Christenfeld Says:

    In a sense, almost every story is a romance of some sort–not necessarily a romance between humans. The Book Thief, for example, is a romance between a girl and books (to a lesser degree, between Death and all of the world). (Actually, a lot of novels are romances between people and books–I’m reading John Crowley’s The Solitudes right now, and that’s something of an exemplar of the form.)

    December 20th, 2008 at 8:58 pm

  3. 3. Justine Says:

    smartass: The love of two zombies for each other is the one true love.

    Seth: Everything is romance. Even most medical text books.

    December 21st, 2008 at 7:18 am

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