Frustration and facepalms

Let us be clear about something.

I love Young Adult books. I think they are fun, interesting and are often a lot better written than most Adult fiction. But in the last week, while doing some research for a group activity and my publishing project (more on that later) I came across something that I really don't like.

Young Adult genres.

This may sound confusing to some who have not heard my rants about this so allow me to explain. While researching a specific genre within the banner of 'Young Adult', I was struck by how difficult finding information on the topic was. Not YA fiction (that was present in abundance) but rather the sub-genres that make it up. Simply put, YA is being treated like a genre rather than an age bracket.

'Young Adult', supernatural romance or something to heat your home in the depths of winter?

Now this is irritating on many levels, apart from making my research incredibly difficult. With the sheer growth of YA fiction because of 'Twilight' (love it or hate it, it did impressive things to the teenage market), you would think that it would start being treated as part of the bookshop as opposed to something that's tagged onto the end of the children's section under the title of 'Young Adult'. It's too broad a term to make navigating it easy. Why not sub-divide it into 'Fantasy', 'Horror' or even the elusive 'General fiction' (which also bugs me but that's another story) and recognise YA for what it is?

Even if the range is not that large at present, just a handy little label on the shelves would be helpful. Yes, trends come and go but as anyone who has bought a book knows, there are some fundamental genres that go on regardless. Vampire romances may be in decline, but romance and horror still appeal, so the excuse that 'Teenage tastes change' just doesn't cut it. Especially when there is so much crossover with many adults  buying YA fiction and older titles being rejacketed for a younger generation. Even some adult fiction would quite happily sit on a teenage bookshelf if it were only marketed properly.

So go check out a bookstore and maybe stand in the middle of the teenage/YA section and loudly bemoan the fact that everything is clumped together with no clear distinctions.

And if you want to start a camp-fire with the 'Twilight' series then I have no problems with that.