Dear world, I have a confession to make...

 

I'm in my early twenties and I still read Young Adult Fiction!

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm besotted by Jane Austen and engulfed by Earnest Hemmingway. I'm a book hoarder! I've read an enormous amount of bestsellers and have attended numerous writers' workshops myself, but every now and then I just love a good, happy, innocent read that doesn't involve women in their thirties going through a divorce, children in an abusive home or cancer patients struggling through life. I know they usually have a happy ending, but I don't want to be depressed, I just want to disappear into another world - a better world - for a couple of hours.

 

As I've already mentioned, I've attended writers' workshops, because one day I hope to get published. One of the reasons I read YA books is a form of research. I love to know how different authors change their writing techniques to suit their audience, how they use descriptive language and how they generate a plot. For me it's a lot more than just reading!

 

Everyone will have a different opinion on this, which is why I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I think YA books are so diverse and immaginative. Even though they are targeted towards younger readers, they are still written by adults and are therefore written using good grammar and include a wide range of vocabulary - certainly wider than television programs!

 

If you take a look at the list below, I very much doubt that anyone would be embarrassed to admit to reading any one of them...

....yet they are all in the YA category and have all been made into blockbuster movies!

 

Should adults really be embarrassed to read YA books? And if so, why? Just because they have pink covers with a swirly white title, does that make the reader shallow or dumb?