Unless, you have been living under a rock for the past year, you've probably heard of the new category, New Adult. This in turn means that you've probably read and/or heard others speak of it. In my experience, I've read some NA books and I've heard others opinions on it. In this post, I've decided to discuss my opinion on it and what I think of the catagory.
Positive:
"Great to read about characters who are in University/College."
I 100% agree. Soon I'll be going off to university and with that I have a growing curiosity about university life. Therefore, I was ecstatic when I heard about this new category of books. I think it's really great to have different category for different age groups as it makes it easier for people of said age group or people who enjoy a certain age group to find books that appeal to them.
When I was just starting to go to high school, the young adult category was my saving grace. Well, not really, but it did offer me a lot of advice and insight into life as a high schooler. As a result, it really helped me out and now as I'm going into my senior year of high school I'm really thankful for young adult books. Hopefully, new adult can offer me the same reprieve for the next stage of my life.
Negative: "It's YA with sex... a lot of sex."
I'm not going to straight off agree with this one but it wouldn't be right to say that there isn't sex.. and a lot of it. To date, I've read some of the most popular NA titles and I've noticed the sex. In some I don't mind but the others, I do.But it's not the sex I mind really, it's how it is incorporated into the story. What I've noticed like many who stand by this statement is that, many NA titles have become a sort of YA erotica. They all feature protagonists who come from some sort of abuse or experience abuse during the book and how they cope, with the help of sex.
This really throws me off because although I love my romance, I value story, characters and a plot much more. As a result of the never ending supply of similarly plotted books, these aspect are dying out in NA or at least they are becoming harder to find.
An example would be:
The Boy Who Sneaks in My Bedroom Window by Kristy Moseley.
This book could have been great. A girl with a dark past and her brothers best friend. But it turned into a book with no plot and therefore no direction, just a lot of sex and uncomfortable situations. The grammar was so bad that I don't understand how it was published. Yet, it has a 4.09 rating on Goodreads. In fact, when I read it in the fall the rating was a 4.30.
However, I still have read some of my favourite books which are NA and some others used to be classified as YA but are now called NA such as:- Love Story by Jennifer Echols
- Where She Went by Gayle Forman
One legitimate NA title that I adored and will recommend is Easy by Tammara Webber.
This was the first NA book I read and I loved it. I felt there was a plot, the characters were developed, it was realistic and the romance wasn't overly excessive.
In Conclusion:
Despite the possible greatness of this category, I've decided to stay away from it for the time being. This is because, I don't trust the current authors to write books that I will enjoy. When I do find the authors that I do/will respect and genuinely enjoy their books, then I will venture farther into it. For now, I think I'm going to wait until it develops to something more.
Hopefully one day, it can rise and become what it was meant to be, the next YA!
P.S. This is written as solely my opinion and what I have found while read NA. If you feel otherwise, feel free to let me know why you love this category, what makes it great for you and leave any recommendations. One never knows when they will find their next addiction!
Great post on NA lit. By the way, if you're looking for some less typical NA reads, our very own Kristan wrote a web series that's now available as an ebook, about 3 best friends trying to navigate their new lives after college. It's called TWENTY-SOMEWHERE. And her fiance wrote a book about his experience as a freshman RA, called NEW HOUSE 5. Both are very much about characters and relationships, not gratuitous sex. (In fact, there is no explicit sex in either book.)
ReplyDeleteAlso, the old TV series Felicity is a great New Adult show, which you can watch on Netflix!
Hey, thanks for the recommendations! I'll defiantly have to check all of those out. I'm glad you liked the post, it's a bit more open than I'm used to :)
Delete-Mari
I completely agree with your take. I love the idea of characters who are post-high school, but a lot of NA seems to fall into the "two broken people who should probably get their lives together before entering a relationship." I'm still open to trying NA and hope that it grows as a genre to address a wider spectrum of issues that people face in their early twenties...
ReplyDeleteExactly, going into NA I was so excited about finding the next category of books that I would love, but I've found that it's not a big enough category to satisfy me. Still, my fingers are crossed for more :)
DeleteThanks for visiting and commenting I appreciate it!
-Mari
Most of what I've seen in NA revolves around sex-it's obvious from the summaries and reviews I've seen and I need a lot more in a book to convince me to pick it up. I'm sure there are awesome NA titles out there but they're not getting the buzz like the sexy provocative ones.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree and that's what is putting me off NA. Hopefully someday soon the books with more content will get showcased for readers to read and learn from.
Delete-Mari