This week, we've talked about the #IreadYA campaign a lot this week! There's good reason for that...we DO read YA!
More specifically for me - I read Contemporary YA fiction.
This is a big departure from my other reading preferences. With middle grade and even adult books, I prefer Fantasy and Sci-Fi.
As a collegue said to me yesterday, "you really don't need any additional drama when you are dealing with the YA years." If my teenage years were any indication, that's about right!
In fact, that is the real reason why I read and enjoy YA. I can find characters that I identify with.
I've written on OOM before about how I found so much of myself in Ever from Skinny - her eating habits, her feelings and her shame.
The first YA book I can remember loving, though, was David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy. It was fantasy for me at the time. High school in N.J. was nothing like the one in the book but watching Paul struggle with relationships and falling in love kept me from feeling alone.
Lia said in her post yesterday, "I sometimes think that we're our truest selves before we become so-called adults." I'm going to take that one step further - the world is all about what's possible in our teen years. Our decision making isn't reliant on budgets, responsibilities and commitments. We have the freedom to experiment, make mistakes and eventually see ourselves for who we really are.
For a teen, YA helps that process along. Reading about the emotions, errors and discoveries of others helps us define our own possibilities.
For an adult reading YA, you are reminded of those possibilities and the excitement that came with them. While I'd never like to return to my teen years, it's a wonderful thing to dream and YA helps us hold on to them!
