Hi, my name is Rosina. I’m 28, and I’ve been reading pretty much all my life. But it seriously helped me survive through my teen years.
This post might seem random and out of the blue. But I just finished What I Like About You by Marisa Kanter. And after reading it and some of the reviews? I just have some things I want to say.
YA is for teens. That doesn’t mean people of different ages can’t read it. That’s fine. But sometimes adult readers of YA can be a bit much and scare the actual teens off. This isn’t every adult blogger or reader. Obviously not. But it is something actual teenagers have said before, so it’s something we should keep in mind.
That being said, YA isn’t any less. You still get comments with people looking down on it. And that sucks. As YA is slowly growing to become more diverse and inclusive. There’s still a lot of work to do. But that’s something I want to support, and I will do. I’m not going to stop reading and talking about YA. But I also want teenagers to feel they have a place in the community too.
Reading this book made me happy. Because I was seeing teenagers do so well with their content creation. I wish I’d done that sort of thing as a teenager. I came into it late, and that was probably best for me. But it would have been fun to shout about those books back then.
Some of the reviewers got a negative idea from the book. They think the book was saying only teenagers can blog about and read YA. It wasn’t. The protagonist was even asked at the end what she was going to do as an adult. She was still going to read and love YA. But she was going to listen to teen voices too. And I think that’s how we should all be. Let’s celebrate YA! Let’s read and adore it. But let’s also remember that unless you’re a teenager? These books aren’t written for you. Even if you can still enjoy them. The only exception is if a book that isn’t YA is for some reason published as so. But then remember teenagers will be reading it. So maybe tone down the thirst?
Basically, YA is good, teenagers are an important part of the community and let’s bear that in mind from now on.
Lace and Dagger Books 