New Adult

[MonkeyGirl18]

There's this new genre called New Adult (I have no idea when it became a thing tbh) and I'm just like "Why?"

Supposedly, NA is for those in their 20's or something. But that's still Young Adult. Teens aren't the only young adults out there, I think that's what some people don't get. Once you aren't a young adult, you're just a plain old adult, not a new adult, an adult. New adult is just another term for Young Adult essentially. It's just useless.

What do you guys think?

[Diana]

I believe it was George Carlin who said "There's flammable and inflammable, and then there's inflammable," it's so stupid "the thing either flams or it doesn't"


With new adult vs young vs adult, my guess is young adult was used for teenagers, but new adult might be intended for the "first-time on their own" folks-- like those moving out to college, instead of just moving out of childhood.

[MonkeyGirl18]

But young adults are categorized until they're around the age of 30 (18-30), which many people are on their own in their 20's and are young adults, so that's the thing I don't get. Either they need to change Young Adult to Teen Fiction or get rid of New Adult because that's the same thing as Young Adult because they categorize New Adult for those 18-25, or 18-30, within the age range of Young Adult.

Some say Young Adult is 18-30, some say 18-22, some say 18-25, but my point is, they're the same exact age range. They're for the exact same people as YA.

[Silverfire]

Probably because people were tired of hearing the whole 'Oh so you still like CHILDREN books?' when you tell people you like YA books.

..... People are weird tbh.

[MonkeyGirl18]

Really, seeing as how a lot of YA is geared towards teens, they need to create Teen Fiction.

Young Adult to Teen Fiction

New Adult to Young Adult

That's how it should be.

[Silverfire]

Hmm yeah that would make sense

I guess they are trying to do that though? Since a lot of people see teens as 'young adults' anyway. At least around here. Although New Adult sounds like a silly name for something tbh.

[MonkeyGirl18]

It does.

YA characters are 17, they're not even in the YA age range which makes it more useless for YA to be YA.

Teens are the weird age for books. There's childrens books which teens aren't suited for, but teens aren't necessarily young adults according to every website I've seen which said it started at 18. That's why Teen Fiction (better name for a genre than New Adult which sounds like New Age in music, not very pleasant to the ears in terms of name of the genre). Teen Fiction is obvious for age range, 13-19 (technically 19 is still a teenager nineTEEN. And Young Adult would be 18-25 or 18-30. Whatever you think YA should go to (I personally think til 30.)

[Maro]

I have to agree new adult is kind of just... dumb? teen fiction and then young adult sounds good to me as well... too bad they probably won't do that.

[Ryvvi]

mm i look at books in the young adult section and theyre certainly not geared towards me (22yr old) it is pretty dumb i agree! so either im stuck reading the YA, a lot of which is dumbed down i find and aimed at a much younger audience than me, or i go straight to "older" adult fiction, which i tend to find so dry
theres a much different tone to older adult fiction which im not a fan of. I feel like they try and make it super srs so its considered more "literary" and it ruins half the fun of a book.

[Mousy]

I use the good ol' "I need to read what my students are reading so that I can have book discussions with them" excuse for my reading habits, but I agree. Many of my 10 yr olds are reading things considered YA and
they are more teen fiction than anything. YA is such a broad category. Sometimes it makes me nervous knowing that they are reading from that section because the other end of that range can get pretty racy, but their reading level belongs in that area. It's tough.
Anyway, all of that to say, I agree. XD Keep YA, YA, but make it truly Young Adult and not Teen.

[MonkeyGirl18]

//goes onto nanowrimo.org and changes genre to teen fiction because that's where it truly fits

You gotta start somewhere, honestly.

[Maro]

Very true gotta start somewhere

[Corvidae]

I work at a bookstore and honestly, it's about getting the attention and keeping what might -also- be interesting to the reader close to what they're looking for, so that they might stumble across them easier.

I think it's fascinating: my store has Juvenile Young Readers, Teen, and then the rest for the "general" audience. Juv has Harry Potter, for instance, Teen has Hunger Games, and the general Sci-Fi/Fantasy has Lord of the Rings.

However, Suzanne Collins' (Hunger Games) other series, Gregor the Overlander is in Juv, Ender's Game and Shadow are in Teen as well as Sci-Fi since the movie tried to be Hunger Games for boys, and Narnia is in all three sections.

Often, it's just marketing. I mean, you'll find something really young in Teen, like the Looking Glass Wars, and you'll also find something literature-level like The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

[Lemon Cheesecake]

iNteresting Corvidae.

I generally have only gone into a bookstore looking for a particular author but you are right, sometimes in trying to find their books I have "stumbled " across something else that piques my interest.

That and I look at the sale tables!