"New Adult..."???? To quote a
line from Cool Hand Luke "What
we got here is a failure to communicate." When I hear the term "New
Adult" I think of the power wall at PI that holds the latest adult fiction
and is constantly stripped of its contents. "New Adult" as a subgenre
is a great concept but in my mind the term sends me to the power wall or generates the image of someone
saying "Oh, you're a grown up now (almost)!" We've many readers who
look for suggestions that make a smooth transition from YA to Adult Fiction,
especially in terms of violence and sexual content, so a good identifying term
would be very helpful. I'm just not sure that "New Adult" is it.
The Next Big Thing: Adults Reading Teen Literature. Surprise!!!!
Not really! Many of my coworkers read YA/Teen on a
regular basis--and not because they have to. They like it. While The
Hunger Games and Twilight may be throwing a little
more focus on the genre and generating some increase in readership, I believe
the interest has always been there. We have older customers who read it because
they read it when they were young adults, liked it then and it continues to
hold their interest. We have parents who read YA because they want to be sure
it's appropriate for their teen. We have parents who read the same book as
their teen because it gives them something to talk about. We have adults who
read it because a title was recommended to them.
As a side note: due to some space issues PI moved its Teen display close to the front
entrance of the library. It's interesting to watch how many adults, including
seniors, stop to look over the display and often end up picking a selection
from it.
I posted comments to Becky K. and Theresa M.
Could not agree with you more about the term "New Adult" - it seems like such a pointless moniker. Adults aren't something that are freshly minted when they cross some invisible line, age-wise.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking personally, I tend to read YA literature simply because its interesting, and varied enough in content that I can frolic amongst the stacks and find something of interest. I don't feel the same about "adult" literature - and I know several people agree with that sentiment.