The Joy of Contemporary YA

and five books that you definitely need to read.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

I love reading contemporary young adult fiction. Even well into adulthood, it’s my happy place. It’s what I love to read and, more importantly, it’s what I love to write.

There are some people — mostly non-readers — who have voiced the opinion that now that I’m an adult, I should be reading adult books. Which, of course, is bullshit. That’s the joy of reading: you can read (and re-read) whatever the hell you want.

I don’t enjoy adult fiction all that much, truth be told. I have a few must-reads (Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley books, for example), but there’s still a part of my brain that generalizes “adult fiction” as boring.

In my head, “adult” books are all Ulysses, the collected works and knock-offs of Jodi Picoult, and the worst, most pretentious fever-dreams of that guy, the most pretentious asshole in your MFA program — stuffy, 1000 page novels, full of SAT words, about a bored college professor who cheats on his wife, seduces an undergrad, and buys a Corvette.

No, thank you. I’ll stick with my coming-of-age stories. There’s something special about those years, the hell and the ecstasy of going through high school, of thinking you know everything and (hopefully) learning that you don’t. The joys and the…