i'm wanting to sing the title like "they didn't teach you that in prep school so it's up to me, but no amount of vintage dresses gives you dignity"
a lot of the youth books I read as a kid like percy jackson, john green, anne of green gables, louis sachar, even harry potter-- really balanced voiceyness, humor, character development, plot. these books, i felt, had style without excessively pandering to young people. meanwhile i really did NOT enjoy the prose/pov in the hunger games or eragon. ultimately it was the GOOD youth books that primed me to become yk...a reader of ferrante and tolstoy and most recently a charming manga inspired novella called A Magical Girl Retires.
i think we overestimate the extent to which kids will just read "schlock." some young people are just discriminating readers!
lately i'm really vibing with this CS lewis quote
“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
Exactly. A lot of the Booktok-popular books are just a waste of hours and angry defensiveness by their authors and fans (thinking of that incident some years ago when some YA author, Sarah something? did a taylor swift on some college student for daring to assign her reading group a book on inequality while stating her reasons why she felt this Sarah's book wasn't college reading level) does not reflect well on them, but that doesn't mean every 'non-literary' popular book is fit for the bin.
You're right that the good stuff usually primes the reader to investigate something else, even books condemned as 'mediocre' like Harry Potter have led readers to check out the books and authors that JK Rowling cites as influences, in my case I ended up learning a lot about early 20th century history thanks to her thing for Jessica Mitford. Even Jilly Cooper - queen of UK adult schlock - is confident enough to litter her books with casual references to poetry or art, things that even a passive reader can pick up on. But not all fun tropey YA/romance books are created equal - Emily Henry and Sherry Thomas or Sarra Manning or Paddington Bear can happily coexist on my bookshelf with Ferrante, Rushdie or any of the magical realists, can't say the same about the kind of books that come with a blurb literally consisting of a list of tropes (like fanfiction?!) and it should not be controversial to point that out.
Also agreed on some young people just being discriminating readers who like to raid the 'literary' side of the bookshelf because it's new and interesting to them and they don't believe in being restricted to YA.
this was sarah dessen! she punched down so hard with that; is a college student not allowed to critique the curriculum of the university she pays to go to??? i don't get the entitlement considering that becoming a scholarly subject wasn't even her goal as an author.
"not all fun tropey YA/romance books are created equal"--totally agree, and i think a lot of cultural omnivores enjoy books that are the best of its kind! we're not prone to making Paddington and Emily Henry compete lol
It was absolutely ridiculous, it turned into the Sarah and a whole bunch of her YA author flying monkeys cyberbullying a 22 year old for ....... thinking college students i.e. people in her age group should maybe be reading/studying something a little more challenging than the average YA author output.
The disgraceful part was that the college(?!)........ apologised to ......the YA authors?! i.e. the grown middle-aged people bullying their student! Coward move and unbecoming of an educational institute.
I'm honestly as distrustful of the 'I only read YA, if you have any criticisms of any YA ever you are a mIsOGYnIST who hates young people!' type of people as I am of the kind who huff about how anyone over age 12 who reads Harry Potter is intellectually inferior and everyone should be reading [insert approved text here] instead. They're just two sides of the same unpleasant coin.
“I read books that didn’t make me engage in insane discourses, I allowed myself to rediscover what reading for pleasure actually meant. It’s relaxing, it’s peaceful, I can shut my brain off and enjoy myself.”
i love this. reading for pleasure and self nurturing has been medicine to me these last couple of years because i do it to feel good. everything by marian keyes has this effect for me bc it is both deep and uplifting (and makes me feel seen). 🎀
yes!! while I’m tired of people reading for the vibes, I also can’t be mad about the fact that it’s bringing more support to authors….
also, I felt so bad about liking Fourth Wing (I’m a lit fic girl! what’s wrong with me!!!) until I was like, you know what? I enjoyed it and that’s all that matters.
A very timely read for me. I’ve been eating up Sarah J Maas’ Throne of Glass series because it’s fun and inviting and I get lost in it, just as I did when I was in middle school and eating up The Hunger Games and Divergent series (and dozens of vampire-themed stories, the Twilight series included ofc). And yet, despite my enjoyment, I’ve had to fight off feelings of inferiority or embarrassment? Because, as a 27-year-old, I'm not spending my time reading something more deep or profound or thought-provoking? Idk! Some people think she isn't a good writer (I don't care for the discourse and haven't dug deeper) but my only rebuttal is that *I* enjoy her writing and storytelling. So I think that's okay. I feel you can also apply the general message in this piece to music as well (something I've had to work on myself as a former "music snob" -- I embarrass myself, really). Great piece! Thanks for writing. :)
i love the comparison to music! i'm glad you enjoyed this and as a former hunger games-divergent-twilight FANATIC i have to say that reading any form of fantasy has been so comforting!
loved this assay!! i’ve been reading classic novels for a while, not because i felt i was forced to to feel like a real reader, but because i found them interesting and had the idea that they would bring me more than general romance novels. however, in the last period of time i began to desire to read romances, which i was never really that drawn to, and get back at reading fantasy and science-fiction. this article really gave me that push i needed to really start doing that!!
I really loved this!!! So much!!! Can I also say I loved the Emily Henry mention because I once had the same feelings about romance novels as you: turn my back on them 🤣 but! Emily Henry was so key in opening up a whole new world for me 🦋I feel like my reading experience has been more enriching than ever thanks to these kinds of realizations and I am sharing this far and wide with my friends 🥰
yes to all of the above!! i read Redwall this summer & am putting the series on hold at my library, about little mice who live in an Abbey in the English countryside. also i would recommend Elif Batuman’s books for anyone who resonated w this post :)
i'm wanting to sing the title like "they didn't teach you that in prep school so it's up to me, but no amount of vintage dresses gives you dignity"
a lot of the youth books I read as a kid like percy jackson, john green, anne of green gables, louis sachar, even harry potter-- really balanced voiceyness, humor, character development, plot. these books, i felt, had style without excessively pandering to young people. meanwhile i really did NOT enjoy the prose/pov in the hunger games or eragon. ultimately it was the GOOD youth books that primed me to become yk...a reader of ferrante and tolstoy and most recently a charming manga inspired novella called A Magical Girl Retires.
i think we overestimate the extent to which kids will just read "schlock." some young people are just discriminating readers!
lately i'm really vibing with this CS lewis quote
“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
thank you so much for reading!!! i appreciate this comment so much and that quote is wonderful!
Exactly. A lot of the Booktok-popular books are just a waste of hours and angry defensiveness by their authors and fans (thinking of that incident some years ago when some YA author, Sarah something? did a taylor swift on some college student for daring to assign her reading group a book on inequality while stating her reasons why she felt this Sarah's book wasn't college reading level) does not reflect well on them, but that doesn't mean every 'non-literary' popular book is fit for the bin.
You're right that the good stuff usually primes the reader to investigate something else, even books condemned as 'mediocre' like Harry Potter have led readers to check out the books and authors that JK Rowling cites as influences, in my case I ended up learning a lot about early 20th century history thanks to her thing for Jessica Mitford. Even Jilly Cooper - queen of UK adult schlock - is confident enough to litter her books with casual references to poetry or art, things that even a passive reader can pick up on. But not all fun tropey YA/romance books are created equal - Emily Henry and Sherry Thomas or Sarra Manning or Paddington Bear can happily coexist on my bookshelf with Ferrante, Rushdie or any of the magical realists, can't say the same about the kind of books that come with a blurb literally consisting of a list of tropes (like fanfiction?!) and it should not be controversial to point that out.
Also agreed on some young people just being discriminating readers who like to raid the 'literary' side of the bookshelf because it's new and interesting to them and they don't believe in being restricted to YA.
this was sarah dessen! she punched down so hard with that; is a college student not allowed to critique the curriculum of the university she pays to go to??? i don't get the entitlement considering that becoming a scholarly subject wasn't even her goal as an author.
"not all fun tropey YA/romance books are created equal"--totally agree, and i think a lot of cultural omnivores enjoy books that are the best of its kind! we're not prone to making Paddington and Emily Henry compete lol
It was absolutely ridiculous, it turned into the Sarah and a whole bunch of her YA author flying monkeys cyberbullying a 22 year old for ....... thinking college students i.e. people in her age group should maybe be reading/studying something a little more challenging than the average YA author output.
The disgraceful part was that the college(?!)........ apologised to ......the YA authors?! i.e. the grown middle-aged people bullying their student! Coward move and unbecoming of an educational institute.
I'm honestly as distrustful of the 'I only read YA, if you have any criticisms of any YA ever you are a mIsOGYnIST who hates young people!' type of people as I am of the kind who huff about how anyone over age 12 who reads Harry Potter is intellectually inferior and everyone should be reading [insert approved text here] instead. They're just two sides of the same unpleasant coin.
What a beautiful, thoughtful response.
“I read books that didn’t make me engage in insane discourses, I allowed myself to rediscover what reading for pleasure actually meant. It’s relaxing, it’s peaceful, I can shut my brain off and enjoy myself.”
i love this. reading for pleasure and self nurturing has been medicine to me these last couple of years because i do it to feel good. everything by marian keyes has this effect for me bc it is both deep and uplifting (and makes me feel seen). 🎀
thank you so much!!! i will definitely check some of those out!
yes!! while I’m tired of people reading for the vibes, I also can’t be mad about the fact that it’s bringing more support to authors….
also, I felt so bad about liking Fourth Wing (I’m a lit fic girl! what’s wrong with me!!!) until I was like, you know what? I enjoyed it and that’s all that matters.
so real (fourth wing is on my list to read)
A very timely read for me. I’ve been eating up Sarah J Maas’ Throne of Glass series because it’s fun and inviting and I get lost in it, just as I did when I was in middle school and eating up The Hunger Games and Divergent series (and dozens of vampire-themed stories, the Twilight series included ofc). And yet, despite my enjoyment, I’ve had to fight off feelings of inferiority or embarrassment? Because, as a 27-year-old, I'm not spending my time reading something more deep or profound or thought-provoking? Idk! Some people think she isn't a good writer (I don't care for the discourse and haven't dug deeper) but my only rebuttal is that *I* enjoy her writing and storytelling. So I think that's okay. I feel you can also apply the general message in this piece to music as well (something I've had to work on myself as a former "music snob" -- I embarrass myself, really). Great piece! Thanks for writing. :)
i love the comparison to music! i'm glad you enjoyed this and as a former hunger games-divergent-twilight FANATIC i have to say that reading any form of fantasy has been so comforting!
You must read “The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction.” It touches heavily on this topic!
i'll definitely be checking it out!! thank you for telling me about it!
loved this assay!! i’ve been reading classic novels for a while, not because i felt i was forced to to feel like a real reader, but because i found them interesting and had the idea that they would bring me more than general romance novels. however, in the last period of time i began to desire to read romances, which i was never really that drawn to, and get back at reading fantasy and science-fiction. this article really gave me that push i needed to really start doing that!!
aw that makes me so happy! i hope you enjoy whatever you are reading!!
say it louder for the people in the back
I really loved this!!! So much!!! Can I also say I loved the Emily Henry mention because I once had the same feelings about romance novels as you: turn my back on them 🤣 but! Emily Henry was so key in opening up a whole new world for me 🦋I feel like my reading experience has been more enriching than ever thanks to these kinds of realizations and I am sharing this far and wide with my friends 🥰
AW!!! thank you so much! emily henry is incredible and i love that her writing has allowed so many new people to realize their love of reading!!
From one recovering literary snob to another, I loved this!
thank you so much 🩵🫂 we can do it together!
yes to all of the above!! i read Redwall this summer & am putting the series on hold at my library, about little mice who live in an Abbey in the English countryside. also i would recommend Elif Batuman’s books for anyone who resonated w this post :)
i'm so glad you resonated with this! elif batuman is one of my favorite authors so i second that recommendation
i love this, books are meant to be enjoyed!! however that looks for you!!
aw evie thank you!! love you the most 🍓
love this sm <3
Felt this to my core. I am exactly like this, and now I am always reading one literary classic and one contemp romance
Love love love
Good one ☝️
QUEEEN! 🫶🏻