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Stop using “YA” as an insult

Author:  Published Date: February 19, 2024 Comments: 5 Comments on Stop using “YA” as an insult

This is not for everyone of course.

Stop it.

“This book felt too YA for me.” “It was alright, but it was just so YA.” “I DNF’d that book; it was YA in everything but name.”

Just stop. Stop using “YA” as an insult. But I don’t mean it as an insult. Sure sounds like you do. It’s pretentious and sophomoric to be blunt. And to be clear, I don’t mean that you should automatically start loving every YA book. I don’t expect that at all.

It’s annoying.

Here are some other things you can say instead regarding adult books you might dislike that are commonly attributed to YA books. (Note that I am not saying all YA books have these attributes.)

  • I didn’t like the love triangle or romance subplot.
  • I wasn’t a fan of the writing. It was too dull.
  • Given the plot, the themes were only explored at face value and should’ve been looked into in more detail.
  • This reminded me of [TITLE of Actual YA Book], which I didn’t like because xyz. Unfortunately, this book also had xyz in it.

See how easy it is to not resort to “YA = bad”?

Thanks.

Bye.

Author: Kopratic

He/no pronouns. Book reader (sometimes even in the right order!), collector, mutilator, etc. I’m up for most anything: from Middlegrade, to YA, to Adult. Books that tend to catch my eye a bit more tend to be anything more experimental. This can be anything from using the second person POV (like in Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy), to full-blown New Weird books. I also like origami.

5 thoughts on “Stop using “YA” as an insult”

  1. We all know what YA books are and frankly I appreciate the label. It saves me time and money in my consideration of what I will read. I would think that those who enjoy such reads would find them similarly time saving and economic as well. I think the category should be used with more frequency and should be broadend.

    Reply

    1. That doesn’t surprise me, since YA is a broad age range, so it’ll have books that bleed both into the Middlegrade and Adult categories. Overall, I think it’s a good label, though.

      I just get annoyed when people resort to weaponizing the term and using it as a shorthand for “bad book” for books that the author did not write for a YA audience. (And yes, of course you don’t have to be an adult to read adult-oriented books or vise versa.)

      Reply

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