this is why I stay away from the home page

[jennickels]

I logged in yesterday from the home page where they just list all the "interesting" articles from ONTD. Well one caught my eye:
Against YA: Adult's should be embarrassed to read children's books

As someone that reads YA almost exclusively and loves them and plans to write YA, I clicked on it. Stupid mistake. As if the article (which is from Slate) wasn't bad enough, the comments were even worse--mostly supporting the author who at one point says:

Fellow grown-ups, at the risk of sounding snobbish and joyless and old, we are better than this.

That's exactly what she sounded like, a snob. I wrote a blog about it at Just Another Blog. Although I'm not sure I put into words how this piece made me feel because it made me feel like crap.

My emotions are all over the place with my med dosage not working and no way to fix it. So when I read that idiotic article my mood went from "having a pretty darn good day" to severely depressed in seconds. The whole rest of the night I just stared into space feeling horrible and no idea why really.

Comments

[xfirefly9x.livejournal.com]

Wow. Yeah. Book snob.

The whole paragraph you took that quote from is a complete contradiction.
"Live and let read."
straight through to telling people they're wasting their time on YA.

Ugh. Why does it matter to the poster what everyone else reads anyway?

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Because she's a twat?

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the writing Twitterverse exploded at that genre-shaming wankfest. Even the big pro authors weighed in over how contradictory & irrational it was. I'm wondering why the fuck Slate published it in the 1st place.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Ha, that makes me feel better. I did kine of randomly glance over my twitter after I read it because I follow *a lot* of YA authors (because they are usually really nice and interact with their followers, some even friended me on FB). I guess I missed the blow up.

[angelus2hot]

Oh wow. This person has issues. There's nothing wrong with reading YA novels. Some of my favorite books are YA(Harry Potter, The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices to name just a few)

I believe you should read what you enjoy.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

I know, right.

I dislike Harlequin Romance novels, but I'm not going to go around telling people how awful they are and that they should read them. That's stupid and rude, and I believe people should read whatever they find interesting (my mom loved those romance novels, but was embarrassed to let anyone know).

She upset me right from the start by dissing Divergent and lumping it with Twilight. :( The series is one of my favorites and I thought the movie was awesome. It's also what really got me into YA. I had read The Hunger Games books after I got them for Meagan. I was looking for other books she might like and saw Divergent, picked it up, then decided to read it myself. I fell in love with the genre that day.

[nynaeve-sedai.livejournal.com]

It's from Slate.com. Here's what you need to know about Slate. Sometimes they run awesome article. Other times they publish crap so their stuff will be flung to the four corners of the interwebz. This is one such article. Don't let it get to you. For effing sake, I love Harry Potter. That's definitely YA and she can go shove it.

If you ever have the $$, you should look into DBT. I think it would help you with this stuff. Emotion regulation - check the facts and all that. I found it helpful for ditching those emotions. Who cares what a clickbait article thinks about you? She's probably one of those people who drives servers crazy because she's never happy :P

[bluewillowtree.livejournal.com]

I think your blog post is awesome, and you're exactly right; the restrictive attitude that keeps her from giving YA lit a chance is her loss.

YA fantasy is one of my favorite genres. I had dinner last night with a close friend with whom I bonded over our love of Harry Potter, and knowing her and her family has enriched my life. The Percy Jackson books brought my childhood love of Greek mythology to life and got my husband and me through some very long car trips. Cinda Williams Chima's Seven Realms series is one of my all-time favorites. I'm not at all ashamed of reading YA, and nothing some close-minded, judgmental snob says will make me be. Some people feel the need to look down on others to make themselves feel superior, but that's her issue and has nothing to do with our maturity, intelligence or taste.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with happy endings. WTF!