Armchair BEA || Young Adult/Middle Grade

I wasn't planning on making a post for Armchair BEA today, but as a last minute decision I've changed my mind. First off, today is the last day of the Armchair BEA event. I want to start off by thanking the hosts and everyone who made this event possible. It's been a super fun experience and has totally helped to distract me from feeling sad since I'm not at the real BEA. Today's Armchair BEA post topics are "Topic of Choice" and "Middle Grade/Young Adult." I will be sort of combining both topics for today. On the prompts provided on the Armchair BEA blog, the MG/YA topic focuses on recommending books in those genres. I'm someone who reads almost entirely YA as well as the occasional Middle Grade, New Adult or classics. However, I feel like doing more of a discussion In this post I'm going to specifically talk about the reputations of specific genres and why I think people had bad connotations with good genres!

I know this post isn't meant to be about New Adult, but recently I've noticed quite a few people discussing the reputation of that genre/reading level. In my opinion, NA is great! I think that many people think NA is YA+sex and that is SO not the case. The literal definition of YA and NA-- as well as really any reading level genre-- deals with the characters in said books. If you're reading a YA book it will mainly focus on characters who are in the young adult age range-- late middle school/high school. NA revolves around college aged characters. And, just like you may have guessed, Middle Grade is about kids younger than those in YA. But I want to point out that I feel like MG is just a little bit different in that regard. The way I think of MG is as adventure books who happen to feature younger characters by default. MG stories are those that focus more on the epic journey/problem solving and less on the romance you might find in other genres.

The thing I think people need to realize is that you can totally read and enjoy all of these genres! I feel like discriminating or taking away what makes a book a book is just so.. uncalled for in a community like this. When people just cast off NA because they think it's just sex with no plot, I get infuriated. Sure, NA contains sexual themes. Want to know why? Because it's about college kids! It's realistic! And, I'm not going to say that there aren't over-sexual NA novels because there definitely are. But, I would say the majority of the popular books you'll find are respectable novels just as well as any YA, MG or Adult book. You find sex in NA just as often as you find kissing and teen angst in YA. That's not because it's the "rated R version," it's because it's honest. And, that's what I wish more people would realize. I think the biggest reason that I enjoy reading all of these different types of stories is because I'm a 19 year old girl! If we want to get technical, I'm in the earlier stages of NA age-wise. I enjoy reading YA because I've just been through all of that. I enjoy reading NA because I'm just getting into all of that. And, I enjoy reading MG because it's nice to reminisce. It's plain and simple. Reading is reading. Books are books.

Thanks for listening to my opinions on this topic! What do you think? Do you agree with me? Let me know in a comment below!