Q & A: What’s your favorite genre to read?

I tend to like YA fiction - that is, fiction aimed at young adults, or teens - though I certainly read children’s books, fiction for adults, and plenty of non-fiction, too.

I like YA for its accessibility.

In YA fiction, the focus is often smaller and the storylines are often simpler than fiction for adults, so I can usually get into a YA novel faster than a book for adults that may build slowly. The more intimate and often stream-of-consciousness-like prose in YA lends itself to faster reading. I’m usually incredibly busy and a book I can breeze through quickly and enjoy is a book that I can finish. Books that take longer for me to get into or books that are complex may be great works of fiction, but I probably won’t be able to get through them on my schedule until someday in the future when I have less demands on my time.

I also appreciate that YA fiction is both able and willing to deal with heavy issues (children’s literature to some degree must be careful with how it portrays the darker aspects of reality), and yet does so on a plane that is accessible for me.

I tend to have trouble finishing adult fiction for one or more of the following reasons:

It’s slow.

I know that adult fiction often involves lots of threaded storylines and lots of points of view. Lots of complex situations that require introducing loads of characters and setting up their lives meticulously. I can appreciate that. But, no matter how well-written that book is, if I don’t begin to care about the characters until we’re halfway through the book, odds are I’ve already given up.

It’s complicated.

Some adult fiction is not slow at all. It’s action-packed and bursting with adventure. This kind of fiction, however, often seems to require so much background knowledge I feel like I need a degree in global affairs (action/thriller) or ancient history (adventure) just to know what’s going on.

The intimacy is often TMI.

I can appreciate intimacy. I think in some cases it’s incredibly important and necessary for the characters and the plot. (After all, that was my intention here.) But that doesn’t mean I need to read every single detail about each character’s anatomy and where it goes. I know some people don’t mind things like this, but sometimes I feel like a perfectly fine book is spoiled by the presence of excessive details in this area.

I feel like YA fiction is usually pretty good at tackling hard issues, discussing them with authenticity, and dealing with the pain of life, while at the same time omitting details that either bog the story down or make it inaccessible for me. I’ve often found that YA fiction usually refrains from going into the explicit details when characters become intimate. Occasionally it doesn’t, and this has always been something that gives me pause when I want to recommend a book to someone.

(On the other hand, one of my own YA books has quite a lot of violence in it, which many people find excessive. So maybe I shouldn’t be talking about gratuitous elements in books.)

YA fiction also includes a range of genres.

I love that YA fiction has its own sprawl of genres to enjoy. Contemporary first-person narratives tend to read the quickest, I’ve found, but I’ve read fantasy, dystopian, literary, thriller, mystery, and romance. I’m not sure if I’ve read any science fiction aimed at teens, actually, but I have read science fiction for children and adults. I tend not to be loyal to one genre. I go through cycles and phases of interest and they often overlap with other areas of interest. In general I like most genres when I’m in the mood. The only genres I can immediately think of that I consistently dislike are horror and erotica.

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