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15 Ways to Avoid Embarrassment Over Your Young Adult Fiction Habit

Writing

Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Twilight, even A Wrinkle In Time … technically, these books were never meant for those of us over the age of 18 or so. As Young Adult (or in the case of Harry Potter, Middle Grade) fiction, they were intended for the younger generation, and yet adults–by which I mean possibly you and definitely me–are still reading them by the bookmobileful. I think we’re supposed to be reading more serious stuff–maybe The Grapes of Wrath, or Moby DickWar and Peace is probably good. I always tell people I’m reading War and Peace, and I’m at that part right near the end. This helps make sure they’ll change the subject quickly so that I don’t have to prove I don’t know what it’s about. Except, you know, obviously war, and also peace. Probably there’s something there about Russia invading … I don’t know, somebody. Maybe Russia invading Russia. Russia is pretty big: they could probably get away with that.

Anyway, my point is that it’s not always impressive and mature-sounding to say “Oh, I just read this great book written for 12-year-olds …” Here, as a public service, are some excuses writers and readers can use to cover for an addiction to young adult fiction.

  • I have a teen at home, so I have to know what they’re reading to be a good parent.
  • I work with teens, so I have to know what they’re reading to do my job.
  • I know my kid is only four, but I have to be up to speed by the time she hits middle school.
  • While I don’t have or work with kids now, I might someday, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.
  • I mistook it for the latest long, boring novel about the grim reflections of an emotionally deprived settlement camp volunteer. That’s what I really meant to read.
  • I’m a writer, and that market’s hot right now.
  • I’m a writer, and I just want to make sure that I know what’s Young Adult so that I don’t write some by mistake.
  • Actually, I’m pretty sure Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is classified as a technothriller.
  • What, that? That’s not mine.
  • Well you know, it’s interesting: it turns out that there are moral and ethical threads to the subtext that really delineate an entirely separate and more cerebral story not immediately evident if you don’t really dig in, but that with energetic literary analysis really emerges with a characteristic–wait, come back! Don’t you want to hear about the affective parallelism?
  • Young adult fiction is where all the really steamy stuff is these days. Who wants to read about two old people doing it?
  • Oh, I just have that because I’m translating it into Serbo-Croatian.
  • That’s just one of the fake covers I use to hide my D.H. Lawrence books.
  • That’s from when I was a kid. I only read eBooks now.
  • Yes, I’m reading young adult fiction. When’s the last time you read a book you couldn’t put down?
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