I can really only speak to Foursquare and mostly only to share your confusion over why it’s so great. I see why a certain segment of people might do it. If you’re a heavy user of your mobile device, your social experience is primarily (entirely) mediated through it. In the past, we might ask ourselves where a friend is (either to chat, to suggest hanging out, or out of curiosity (stalker)) and call that friend. Nowadays, we can just check Foursquare to get the answer and then decide whether further action is required. Businesses that buy into Foursquare often provide discounts to their “mayor”, the individual who has checked into the location more than any other (a title that can probably shift hourly at some Starbucks locations).

My personal reaction to Foursquare is summed up by this website:

http://pleaserobme.com/why

The site isn’t currently active, but it was when I first visited.

1. Until today I thought Foursquare was just a crappy gym game we played 25+ years ago.

2. I never got into the whole teen-book thing. I have a select few books from my past that I read once in a while. “Bunnicula” being the crown jewel in that collection (Harold is the greatest dog, ever). My wife is seriously into the whole “Twilight” thing. She has them all downloaded to her Nook. Personally I can’t stand it…I tried to read them…but she made me stop. Apparently she doesn’t like me pointing out plot-holes you can drive a truck through (Pedophile vampires hunting kids in schools).

3. Hipsters. Fucking Hipsters. Your definition was pretty much on the nose. Your comment about PBR and Converse made me laugh because I seriously just got done admonishing an old employee of mine for posting a pic on Facebook depicting this very thing…no joke. I hate them mostly because these are people that have a serious high school mentality. I’ll let Hipster Cat explain the rest for you. Good day, sir.

http://imgur.com/Zc0Of.jpg

Foursquare – man you got me. I guess theoretically so your friends know where you are and can go there too. In that instance I think the new Facebook version is actually the first useful variant on it I’ve seen. It’s a shame that everyone is so paranoid of FB now (with good reason) that no one wants to use it.

YA novels – Not sure if I can explain this one either. There have been a handful of books I’ve read in the last few years that were targetted at kids/teens, but it was stuff like Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book that I would have read if it was targetted to adults. I have a friend who works in a library, and she reads YA novels all the time. I can only assume that like me watching Avatar the Last Airbender or Total Drama Island that the books are either very good despite their intended audience or there’s some dumb kernel of fun in there that the readers enjoy.

Hipsters – hipster is essentially a meaningless term by now, that essentially means “those young people today”. Anyone who is between the ages of 18 and 29 that wears Chuck Taylors and listens to indie rock could theoretically be considered a hipster now. It’s about as meaningful as being called a slacker in 1997.

No insight, but mad respect for you, yuor thoughts & your ability to express them is such an awesome way. for reals.

My coffee has not yet kicked in, but I willadmit that I am fan of young adult fiction. For me, they are telling the usual coming of age story in entertaining ways. There seem to be too many series about vampires and mean girls. Some of my favorite “classic” books we read growing up : Treasure Island, Black Beauty, Narnia, etc deal with kids on an adventure. Seems like sci fi took over the settings, but the journey is the same. Gotta keep these tech savvy kids entertained, ya know. … I am off to score The Hunger Games at the Book Rack today.

Hope you are well & its all good in the new pad.
Kris

I should also note that “indie rock” is essentially a meaningless term now as well, like “Alternative” in 1997.

I guess “indie” anything is kind of out the window as far as a useful term goes, yeah?

@Kris:

Thanks!

It’s interesting — the coming of age story. I didn’t think of that angle. I wonder what cultural critics will say looking back in ten, twenty years, as to the prominence of that story. Is it an escapist thing? So we can avoid all the adult fears for a little while by visiting a book? Something to do with not wanting to grow up for an hour a day? A vacation from adult life? I dunno.

– c.

Hahaha.

@Paul –

My favorite is “It costs a lot of money to look this poor.”

That was kind of my understanding of hipsters in the present mode. A little bit hobo chic, a little bit post-post-modern brand irony.

– c.

Re: YA books. They’re much more accessible to the reader these days, as in, the way you can get into the story. It’s an actual story, not a series of metaphors tied together with impressive sentences that don’t really DO anything. (I’m looking at you, Jonathan Franzen.)

And don’t forget, To Kill A Mockingbird is YA fiction as is Huckleberry Finn. I love pilfering my kids reading material – there’s some good stuff out there as well as a lot of the classics (Madeline L’Engle immediately springs to mind.)

re: Hipsters. Yeah, that’s now an insult. (Go to lookatthisfuckinghipster on tumbler to get the gist.)

I cannot help with either the first or last question, but I can attempt to tackle the middle one.

I read, a lot and often. I am often in the middle of any number of books at any given time, all of various reading difficulty levels and genres. A Tom Clancy novel takes me a day, two tops. I have only ever been able to get through one Stephen King novel though.

I have read the Harry Potter series multiple times, and I have also read the Twilight series probably more times than is healthy for a grown woman. I enjoyed Tale of the Lightning Thief and multitudes of others.

For an analogy of why I enjoy YA… I still enjoy watching cartoons too.

It’s for the kid in me. I may be getting older, but I refuse to grow up. Cartoons or YA fiction, the adult in me can go on vacation for awhile and I can simply enjoy it for what it is. Light-hearted, little-brain-power, entertainment.

It’s ice cream. Not the fancy grown-up type of ice cream. Just plain chocolate or vanilla, with lots and lots of chocolate syrup and colorful wax sprinkles that sparkle in the sunlight.

I admit to enjoying Twilight (as a YA supernatural thriller – I cannot bring myself to called them vampires and not laugh my ass off). It was silly, it was fluff, it made me laugh, it made me cry, it allowed me to check my intelligence into a hotel room (I think your readers had been there, there was traces of feces on the walls and a dead hooker in the bathroom – or maybe it was just my brother and his friends). It was eating birthday cake for breakfast, making chocolate chip cookies just for the dough, it was throwing flour around the kitchen just because you can now because you have your own kitchen and you mom isn’t around to make you clean it up, it was building forts out of chairs and blankets. Twilight and the rest of YA fiction is like that for me.

Then adult reality settles in, which takes itself far too seriously at times. Where you are expected to do the responsible thing and disapprove of such nonsense, and clean your messes up properly, and eat right, and read the right things, and watch news, and read the newspaper…

Go have ice cream for breakfast and read a YA book. Just like ice cream for breakfast though, I can’t do a lot of it all the time, but once in awhile, it reminds me of my youth and the basic principles where there are no taxes, no mortgages, no jobs – just fun and imagination and cotton candy.

Can’t help you with Foursquare. That definitely falls into the “tweeting about your lunch” category. I don’t see any need to notify my friends of my daily errands, nor do I particularly care about theirs. If you’re checking into awesome places, like the Playboy Mansion or House on the Rock, that’s cool. But, no matter how much I may love you, I just don’t give a crap that you stopped by Starbucks.

I read a really interesting article a while back about the YA fiction phenomenon. According to the author, a big chunk of the blame falls on the recent tendency of publishers to be very conservative with new adult fiction. They aren’t publishing a lot of new, edgy, innovative stuff. But, apparently, they are much more willing to roll the dice on YA stuff. So, you get to see a lot more in the way of genre mash-ups, unusual protagonists, and really surprising story twists over there. I’m not entire sure I buy that analysis, but it’s thought-provoking.

(I can’t find the original article. I’m guessing it was linked from BoingBoing about the time Cory was hawking Little Brother. I did find a few other possibly helpful articles, though. http://mikeduran.com/?p=5828 says they are easier to read without losing the complexity of story (kind of like how cooking makes food easier to digest). http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4063/is_200710/ai_n21137331/ says that it’s because it breaks down genre barriers and is finding lots of new territory there. Scalzi says at http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/05/02/why-ya/ that it’s popular simply because it’s good.)

I have no idea what a hipster is. Based on the usage, it has always seemed like the unholy child of a beatnik and a yuppie, combining the worst traits of both. But, i’ve always heard it used as an insult.

oh, one more thing about YA books. Kids are a lot more advanced in their understanding of so many things at a much earlier age. Example: my kids know all about basic psychological definitions, they’re much more aware of the differences in people, much more in tune with racial equality, sexual orientation, etc., and mine are only 13 and 14. Flash back to when we were kids, or a generation before.

The books are a lot smarter than you might think, which, combined with the ease in story-telling makes for a satisfying reading experience with a busy adult in their 20s, where their teens don’t seem so far off. (Or older folks like me that can still remember those feelings/experiences and can see how they apply to this time in their life.)

@Stoney:

No, I’m sorry, maybe I communicated the question poorly — I’m not questioning the value of YA fiction in general. Some of it, I imagine, is quite good. And all adult fiction isn’t Jonathan Franzen, to be sure: so why is YA popular with adults specifically? I mean, not just popular, but goddamn huuuuuge? Is all the good writing being done in the YA space? Or is it just the ability for parents to have common reading material with their kids?

I wonder if there exist situations where the Mom is reading Twilight, and the kid is reading like, Don DeLillo: “Mom, you’re kind of an ass. I don’t read that garbage.” *nose in the air*

– c.

@Dawn:

Hey, I like cartoons and ice cream too — but there’s not a huge marketing push and trend toward those things for adults, either. That’s the part that confuses me: I don’t doubt that adults would like YA fiction or could like it. I’m just trying to figure out why it is — culturally, financially, etc — why it seems to be so keenly adult-focused despite its tag.

But I do like what you’re saying about ice cream for breakfast and a look back at different times like @Stoney notes — it’s interesting. Not a bad thing, but a curious thing. Strange that most grown-ups just aren’t reading much grown-up fiction — or, at least, that’s how it feels.

– c.

@Lugh:

Definitely an interesting thing that most of the experimentation and risk is happening in the YA realm. I thought with Harry Potter what would happen is that those readers would grow up and then, y’know, move on. I don’t know that such a thing is happening, though: I don’t know that readers are graduating. It’s interesting, though a little troubling for a writer like me who isn’t sure he could write YA fiction (if I did, I’d probably need to write under a pseudonym). I’d love to try, though, simply because the greatest risk and reward is happening in that space.

– c.

I don’t get foursquare, and I’m not even the tiniest bit hip, so I’m no help there. But YA, I can talk about!

YA fiction is kind of like any other genre, in that some of it is excellent, and some of it is all sparklepires and angst. (You can add “adult Twilight fans” to the list of Things I Don’t Get, but that’s a whole other rant.)

YA books have grown up a bit in recent history. When I was a bookstore monkey, you didn’t really get anything racier than a kiss in the Christopher Pike books. I had an angry mother come rushing in to return one of the Nancy Drew Goes To College books because some frat boy slipped cocaine in Nancy’s purse to frame her. These days, I’m pretty sure some of the Gossip Girls are snorting it in the bathroom.

For the most part, YA books are marketed to young adult readers. They’re still listed in the publishers’ children’s catalogs, and I’d say 90% of them won’t actually catch adult readers’ attention in bookstores. It’s the ones that get lots of buzz that seem to break through — like you said, Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games. Some of it’s marketing, some of it’s luck.

Most of the time, I’d say it’s because that particular YA title or series can sit at the grown-ups’ table and have intelligent conversation. (Again, I can’t explain what the sparklepires are doing there.) I’d add books like Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart trilogy, and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials to the list of YA fiction that holds its own. They’re just plain good stories, and that’s what’s getting adults’ attention.

I’m going to posit that there have always been YA books that could do that, but they’ve just done it more quietly: Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising. Brian Jacques’ Redwall. Lloyd Alexander’s books, and Madeleine L’Engle’s.

The midnight parties and fans lining up for hours thing is recent, starting probably with the last few Potter titles. Booksellers saw a lot of success with those, and I’d bet that part of the reason they’ve continued throwing them (for the indies, at least) is a community thing: “Hey, the local bookstore is having a Mockingjay party! Screw Amazon, I can have the book as soon as it’s on sale and eat cake, too!”

As for The Hunger Games, I’ve been describing it as Battle Royale meets “The Running Man.” I haven’t read the second book yet, so I wasn’t part of the Mockingjay frenzy, but I’d definitely say the first one is worth a read.

Foursquare? Eh.

YA fiction? Since my work with Citizen and, perhaps, Have Magic Will Travel will be marketed as such, let me see if I can toss in a couple meaningful pennies. I think you are reading the shift correctly. A novel with a young adult protagonist (say, between sixteen and twenty years of age) is going to appeal to that demographic for obvious reasons, but can be written at a level that anybody in that age range and above can appreciate it. We like to see protagonists come of age, overcome obstacles, grow up. There’s a reason why Scott Pilgrim works as well as it does, and not just for younger folks, just to cite one example. Adults are nostalgic. They like looking back on themselves and laughing a little at how they were. YA fiction lets them do that, I think.

Hipsters? Sorry, if you spend more cash on fashion than you do on meals just to look “hip” you’re not “hip.” You’re a douchebag.

Everything said things smarter than me, so instead, I’ll just nod sagely.

Alright, here’s my cynical answer:

It’s so popular with adults because the average adult does not get past that reading level. Newspapers write at the 6th average so that the average adult can comprehend it. Either you can grok with Heinlein, or your never graduate past the point of finding all the depth and understanding of life that you find with sparkling vegetarian vampires.

And my daughter, after reading the Twilight series, then Jean Auel’s Children of Earth series, enjoyed both for very different reasons. Her quote on the Twilight books: They are okay, but I don’t see what the hype is all about, it’s not like they are great. With the Clan of the Cavebear series, we had nightly discussions on points from the books that she had a hard time grasping after she’d come to me with some hard questions. If you’ve read it, the hardest one I had to answer was: Why didn’t anyone stop him?

No earth-shattering-thought-provoking questions or revelations from the Twilight books.

Look at this fucking hipster dot com.

http://www.latfh.com/

All you need to know.

@Lauren:

Definitely insightful — it’s funny, some of the books you mention (Redwall, His Dark Materials) are books I’ve read, but never thought of as YA. I picked them up in the normal ol’ sci-fi/fantasy section of the store. Interesting.

– c.

There’s not as big of a difference between YA and adult as a lot of adult readers seem to think there is. Sure, the characters tend to be younger and there is a certain coming of age feel to most of the plots. But it’s a market more than a genre unto itself. YA runs the full gamut of other genres and, I would daresay, has a bit of an easier time producing cross and multi genre work that sells.

Why is it so popular with adults (and, as a writer of YA, I’m probably a bad barometer of this)? I don’t know. It could be the fast paced stories that eschew lofty messages and metaphors. It could be that the YA market right now is reflecting the overall booming trend of paranormal (that shit is everywhere). It might be a nice escape from the worries of adult life – let’s face it, some adult literature gets to be pretty depressing.

Or it might be simple nostalgia. We were all teenagers once. The experience of being that age, for as much as the world changes, has pretty much stayed the same.

Plus, YA is booming on it’s own right now simply because the stories are so high concept. They’re easy to grasp, like a blockbuster movie. Girl fights in a deadly tournament because her dystopian government demands it. WWI becomes diesel punk with fabricated animals and giant war machines. Teen queen works for a secret agency that keeps supernatural critters in line. The list goes on.

And of course I read YA. I would be horribly remiss if I didn’t. I wouldn’t necessarily say that I like it all, but there are some real gems in there that would go toe to toe with some of my adult favorites.

(Aside: Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Bunnicula are all technically Middle Grade, not YA. That’s a whole ‘nother beast.)

@Jenni —

That link is COMEDY GOLD.

– c.

@Kate:

Girl fights in a deadly tournament because her dystopian government demands it. WWI becomes diesel punk with fabricated animals and giant war machines. Teen queen works for a secret agency that keeps supernatural critters in line.

Okay, I know the first is Hunger Games — but WTF, the others sound awesome. What the hell are those? Man, I need to start reading some YA if this is the kind of awesomeness that goes on there.

(Aside: Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Bunnicula are all technically Middle Grade, not YA. That’s a whole ‘nother beast.)

I knew Bunnicula was skewed younger, yeah (one of my favorite early books), but y’know, shows what a dipshit I am: I thought Harry Potter was considered “YA.” Doh.

– c.

Young adult fiction is popular because everyone thinks of themselves as a young adult.

@Daniel:

Wink aside, I think you have something there.

I continue to have this theory that adults in this country just don’t want to grow up — which is sometimes good, sometimes reaaaally not good — and I keep thinking that the YA phenomenon is maybe related to that somehow.

– c.

WWI becomes diesel punk with fabricated animals and giant war machines.

That’s Leviathan (and upcoming sequels) by Scott Westerfeld. He’s probably the biggest YA scifi writer right now. The world building is awesome, characters are pretty solid. I was a little disappointed that the first book was mostly set up to get me to buy the others. But I will because the world itself is that engaging.

Teen queen works for a secret agency that keeps supernatural critters in line.

And that’s Paranormalcy by Kierstan White. It comes out next Tuesday. Early reviews kind of waffle back and forth. From what I gather, though, it’s more romance than kick ass girl. (I hate how certain books that sound bad ass pull the wool over my eyes like that) So I’ll probably be waiting for paper back.

—

And don’t feel like you can’t write YA. The big thing (other than high concept) in YA right now is voice. it’s all about getting an engaging voice. Which you have in spades. You’ll just have to channel 16-17 year old Chuck.

“WWI becomes diesel punk with fabricated animals and giant war machines.” I think that might be Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan, which I haven’t read, but my husband said was awesome. The sequel’s due out soon.

And yeah, we shelved Redwall and the Philip Pullman books in our sf/f section, too, but they were originally written for younger readers. If I remember correctly, we had the mass market sized Pullman books in sf/f, and the trade paperbacks in YA for a while.

@Kate:

I kind of *want* to write YA. I have two ideas for YA novels that I think would be a lot of fun to write. It’s not so much about a lack of confidence, it’s more the fear that you get caught in a niche with publishing a lot of times, and I’m not sure I want that niche. (Then again, maybe I do — who doesn’t like money?)

– c.

Well, if authors like James Patterson can do it, you can to. Though if it’s not the niche you want, pursuing adult first and making the change later would probably prove easier. Or pseudonyms. Pseudonyms can be fun.

What you need to know about Foursquare is that Gowalla is 1000x better! OK, I’m also in the “don’t get Foursquare” camp, but Gowalla works for me. Here’s why: geocaching. That geeky pursuit where you hike around the woods looking for buried treasure. Gowalla is like virtual geocaching.

You go someplace, whip up your Gowalla app, check in and see if there’s any cool “stuff” stashed there. If so, you can swap one of your “things” for one of those stashed at the place. Collect ‘em all!

Also, if your favorite place isn’t in the game? Create a new spot! Wait for other people to show up! See what they leave for you!

Gowalla also has “trips,” collections of spots to check in at and receive a virtual “pin” you can put on your virtual collar. Create your own!

Lastly, the fine Gowalla folks are working with various people to run contests. I’ve won an Eye-Fi card (SD card for camera with wi-fi connectivity) and a pair of TOMS shoes, just for checking in at various places. Cool right?

Holy responses.

I don’t get the Foursquare thing either. Honestly, I’ve grown tired of FB too. It’s warped into something I don’t care for. But, being the internet ho I am, I still post occasionally.

I think YA books are easy reads and some are really good stories. I haven’t read The Hunger Games, but like you I think it sounds awesome. I’ve read a couple YA books recently just to see what the hype was all about and they were just ok. One was terrible. I just couldn’t really relate with the protags so I never got sucked in. I can see how an easy, quick read with a decent story is appealing to some adults, though.

My biggest beef? YA books get some of the most awesome covers. Wtf publishers? Give the adult books awesome covers too!

I didn’t see it posted before, so – http://unhappyhipsters.com/

As for YA? I’ve read and would recommend the Tiffany Aching series and Clive Barker’s The Thief of Always. (Or are these “Middle Grade?”) As for why it’s popular, the reading level might have something to do with it. Easy. Short sentences. No offensive material for the uptight Baptists, no terse descriptions of midnight trysts because we know a sentence like “They met in the church at night.” could permanently scar a teenage psyche in its formative stages.

It could have something to do with a feeling of disillusionment with “adulthood.” Now that we are all grown up with jobs and families we realize that no one really knows what’s going on. George Carlin said it too, we get the newspaper and the briefcase and we look great, but we really don’t have a clue! We might as well be children on our first day in a boarding school. We’re confused and overwhelmed and we just want our lives to be reducible to a choice between Right and Wrong. And there’s a heavy silence on the other end of the phone while you think, “is this the end? Have I ruined my chance at a book deal with this ridiculous pitch?” but then the editor whose approval you crave so desperately says, “Confused boarding school kids? Good idea. Run with that…” While you gush gratitude he breaks back in with, “When I was a kid, there was this book, with like, wizards on boats or something. You throw some magic in and I’ll pass your name on down to marketing. Now how’s ‘at spelled?”

“Wizards on boats, got it. R O W L ….”

Of course it’s not quite how it happened, just like Jon Stewart isn’t on the Daily Show to pay off a Karmic Debt accrued by the character he played in Death to Smoochy, but from a sort of Jungian perspective, both are at least conceptually possible.

Sorry to use your comment thread as a soapbox, Chuck. But I’m seeing a lot of really flustering misconceptions about YA here.

For one, they are not always easy reads. Because they are marketed to the 13-18 crowd doesn’t automatically lower the reading the level. Twi-trash aside, there is currently a lot of good, solid, beautiful writing going on in YA. Whether you like the content or not, the same craft rules apply: No purple, strong verbs, everything serves to enhance character/plot/theme. Redwall is not easy reading. Ender’s Game is not easy reading.

For second, YA is far from squeaky clean. I’ve read more violence, sex and profanity in YA novels than in adult novels in recent years. Hell, Hunger Games is Battle Royale with just as much blood but cleaner, more efficient storytelling. The Enemy is about a zombie infested post-apocalyptic world that features kids killing each other for territory. Need I invoke Judy Blume who caused a stir with her frank and honest portrayal of sex in Forever? Looking at my bookshelf I can count war, anorexia, death, gaining religion, losing religion, murder, disease … Hell there’s a character that smothered his own mother.

This is why I really dislike Twilight with a burning a passion. While it helped the current YA boom, it’s also created the misconceptions that YA needs to be romantic/clean/chase/vampires/sparkle/etc.

@Kate:

No no no — soapbox away! Get on up there. Straighten us foolheaded folk out. I know I’m home to a number of misconceptions about this and, well, uhh, everything. So the straighter I fly, the happier I am.

Plus, if anything, this thread tells me I need to start looking into some YA books like, stat. Because they sound really fun.

– c.

Hi, Chuck. This is my first comment here.

1. foursquare: I think a few things are going on. A) It is a fad…people use this stuff because they all of a sudden can. B) People like to connect with people and be part of things bigger than them, even by using apps like foursquare which, in my opinion, are meaningless, vacuous ways to attempt to connect with people. Actually putting down your smart phone and saying Hi to the girl at the next table in the bagel shop with your human mouth would be more of a connection. C) Status. Even though you and I both feel that being the mayor of Sidewalk Square 1124B is completely meaningless, it actually gives people an ego boost to feel in control of at least one thing whereas in the rest of their lives they feel like they are in control of nothing.

2. YA Fiction. I think it is popular with adults because adults like safe, fantastic escapes and they know that basically YA fiction will give them just that, no more, no less. Certainly Naked Lunch or The Grapes of Wrath would be much more unsettling and jarring and harder to deal with. Would require thinking and introspection. Also, this is also a fad…everyone reading the same books from age 12 to 112…and then all seeing the movie version of them and then all signing on to the Facebook fan page for it.

3. Hipster. The fact is it can mean anything. It just depends on the context. I recently found out that people now say “sick” when they mean “good.” Like remember when people sad “bad” for “good”? Now it’s “sick.” So who knows. I also don’t know what a “thought leader” is. And there are words like “meh” and “teh” and “pwn” in Wikipedia. If you worked at the Oxford English Dictionary, wouldn’t you just want to kill yourself? The old criteria for what a word even is are totally gone.

Anyway. Follow me on Twitter at @chriskubica if you want. I can help with questions like these.

1) Chris: Who said I had a human mouth? Every time I try to speak to the girl at the next table, she screams at my clicking chelicerae. Then my wife hits me with a shoe.

2) I think you’re maybe right in that this is what some adults are hoping for — but, if I read the descriptions of some YA novels right, what they’re getting (outside Twilight) is far from safe, sane storytelling. I mean, HUNGER GAMES sounds totally batshit. Like, in a good way.

3) I just saw the SOUTH PARK last night where Cartman often exclaims “Tits!” at anything good. I’m for this.

– c.

Hey, there. That was a fast reply. Don’t you have writing to do?

1. I thought you were joking and then realized that there could be anything behind that beard.
2. Hmm. Well I do think it is still mostly safe stuff. Safe because it is mostly set in a fantasy atmosphere. Even batshitty fantasy is better than batshitty reality to most people. And even then, the batshitty stuff isn’t mostly about homosexual prostitutes or Nazi death camps or getting your period. It is unreal stuff.
3. I think “meh” should be a new vote in Congress. You vote “yea”, “nay”, or “meh”. Every time the “meh”s have it (or if you aren’t there to vote a “meh” is automatically voted on your behalf), the vote is put to The People and we can get some shit done.

A few other random points. If you want good YA book recs, I got em. For example: The Giver. Up there with Brave New World and 1984.

Last, the Twilight movies piss me off for a lot of reasons but mostly because they make it impossible to find anything on Google about a favorite short story “Twilight” by Don A Stewart.

Okay, I’ll bite… not hard, though.

I can see how FourSquare could be useful in the right crowd. If I had a group of friends who might want to join me in whatever I was thinking of doing, then I could “check in” on an app like FourSquare and people could join me if they wanted. Or, I could just text people and accomplish the same thing. FourSquare just adds the gaming element to it. A lady came into my store with her kids the other day and asked me a bunch of questions like, “Is this a specialty retailer? Electronics/Technology? What is your address?” She madly typed all this into her phone. I asked her what she was doing and her reply was an enthusiastic, “Checking in on FourSquare!” I expressed that I had tried it for a few weeks (and discovered one of my new favorite restaurants through it by seeing where others near me were checking in), but ultimately gave it up as pointless. This woman happily chirped out the merits of using it and told me that all her friends use it and they are able to keep up with the hot places to go in town that way. Okay. For me, it just doesn’t seem as useful.

As for YA fiction, I think it’s a marketing creation to sell more PG-13 books (as you say). It’s the hot new label that gets people to buy your book. I don’t read them. Never read Harry Potter, the Twilight crap, Eragon, or any of that stuff. I’ll stick to books marketed for adults.

On hipsters, I think the term is, as you say, just used to mean “douchebag” or “anybody I don’t like.” I think it’s generally applied to people who spend lots of money on clothes that look like they were purchased at thrift stores (Hollister, A&F, etc.) and act cynical about everything. There is a town near here whose motto is “Arrogantly Shabby.” I’m serious. The residents spend a fortune making their houses look like unpainted, dilapidated shacks, drive 1980′s luxury cars (Mercedes, BMW, etc.) and dress like they shop at Goodwill (but their clothes really cost hundreds of dollars). They have their “Arrogantly Shabby” license plates, t-shirts, etc. It’s like a hipster zoo down there (Pawleys Island). http://www.wral.com/lifestyles/travel/story/3585988/

So, you could use FourSquare to let all your Hipster friends know to meet you at Barnes & Noble to complain about the prices at the Starbucks there and trash the latest YA books that you all just bought to read and make fun of (but secretly love).

1. No idea. Haven’t touched it, though I imagine the competitive aspect appeals to some folks.

2. Others have said fantastic reasons why YA has become popular with adults as well. I particularly like the point that there have been YA books throughout the history of the novel that appeal to adults, just people don’t tend to think of them as YA. I think you’ve got the right idea with the PG-13 analogy (though of course many YA books would be well into the R range); saying that teens will like a book doesn’t mean adults won’t as well. For me, well, by the time I was 14 I had decided that I was beyond all those “kid books” and would now only read “real literature.” Then I came home from school to find my brother’s copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on the kitchen table. Wanting something to read on the can, I picked it up. And then I couldn’t put it down. After that day I decided that I would read whatever the hell I liked. Sure people give me weird looks if I mention that I read kids books or sci-fi/fantasy. But awesome books are awesome books, regardless of classification. The thing to remember with YA is that they’re just like any other book in that they don’t appeal to everyone. I didn’t like Twilight or The Golden Compass (for very different reasons, of course), I absolutely love Harry Potter and the Hunger Games. I also found myself shocked at how much I enjoyed Will Grayson, Will Grayson and The DUFF because normally I don’t gravitate towards books without the supernatural or a crime attached to them, but hey, I like what I like.

Ack, forgot about 3! I think the answer to all your questions can be found in viewing the Hipster Olympics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAO4EVMlpwM

I’m with Kate. (In fact, I have just become a huge Kate fan!) There’s nothing “safe” or escapist about a lot of YA fiction I’ve read–I just read through Mockingjay in one sitting, starting at 5:30 this morning, and it was about as safe as any recent episode of “True Blood”!

And I have to take issue with Dawn’s “cynical answer.” I’m pretty certain I managed to progress past a sixth-grade reading level at some point (and I hope my students would agree!), but I still love good YA stuff! Mostly, though, I think the problem is that she’s holding up the Twilight books as a representative sample of YA fiction. If we can just agree to dismiss those “books” as ideal hamster-cage liners rather than good reading material for anyone of ANY age, I think we can find common ground. When my daughter and I read Little Brother, it sparked some amazing discussions… in fact, based on our discussions, I ended up assigning the novel in a college class last year! My daughter and I even took a Little Brother-themed trip to San Francisco together.

I have pretty eclectic reading tastes… the bookshelves in my office are filled with everything from Henry V to Mrs. Dalloway to Infinite Jest to World War Z… but much in the same way that I don’t feel like eating the same meal every night, even if it’s filet mignon, I don’t care to read the same type of book all the time. Sometimes I want to savor the five-course, four-hour dining extravaganza, and sometimes I just want a damn good bowl of home-made chili and a pan of fresh cornbread. I can love both, right?

If I want to think–if I want to read something challenging, something that sets all the neurons in my brain a-firing in a rainbow of intellectual exhilaration, then I’ll probably dip into the “literary fiction” stacks. But sometimes I just want something plot-driven–something that thrills me and triggers my “sense of wonder” in the same way that the SF and fantasy books of my own youth did–and for that, I’ll often go to YA. It’s a different type of exhilaration for me, reading Little Brother or Mockingjay… it comes from somewhere less cerebral than the place that thrills at the prose of David Foster Wallace… but I still value it greatly.

@Amy:

“But awesome books are awesome books, regardless of classification.”

Totally love that. It puts a finer, cleaner point on a post I rambled through a while back: “Good Is Good.”

– c.

There’s a simple reason why many adults like Young Adult fiction – people like good fiction, and don’t care which shelf they find it on. YA has a lot to offer, especially if you read genre fiction, and the only real distinction between a YA fantasy and an adult fantasy is that the protagonist is under 20 and dealing with coming-of-age issues… which is sort of what most of us who grew up reading fantasy before YA was its own big category are used to.

I used to be of a mind that YA books were below me. I hit that point as a teenager when I thought that I would only read “adult lit” and the like. Of course, this never was much of a problem for me since I’ve never been a terribly voracious fiction reader.

However, my favorite book of the last year is The Enemy by Charlie Higson. Holy shit, I love that book! I’m excited to start reading Leviathan soon, too. Hell, two of my favorite books of all times (Ender’s Game and Starship Troopers) are pretty much YA and I didn’t even realize it.

In short, don’t sell a book short because of where it’s shelved and how it’s being marketed. Awesome writers are in every genre and market, damn it!

It’s useful to consider that YA is just another bullshit marketing creation. A way to sell books. A lot of what gets published as “YA” would’ve just been published under it’s particular genre heading a decade ago. Hell, books which pre-date the “YA” category have been re-branded to fit it now.

After reading some more of these posts, I think I just have to agree with Gareth.

On the YA: I hate to sound like a naysayer here, but I think marketing DOES have an impact with these, partially because of its “new hawtness” factor. All the YA books I’ve read that weren’t marketed that way I’ve generally enjoyed. The ones that were? Not so much. (Anecdotal evidence, take it with all necessary salts.)

With that in mind, I have not liked a large amount of YA -because- they were so much grittier and nastier than the genre stuff I’d been reading up to that point. I don’t mind that my fey swear and shank each other at the slightest provocation. Maybe it’s my overactive mothering gene or something, but I do find myself minding more and more when the teenage protagonist does something stupid purely to make the story move. I’m sure it is just as prevalent in so-called “adult” fiction, but I wasn’t running into as many unlikeable protagonists as I was in YA.

Ah well. Lousy kids, get outta my yard with your hair and your music and your gritty runaway to join the circus fairies fiction.

There’s a joke some friends and I tell about hipsters:
“How do you know if you’re a hipster? You spend time talking about how you hate hipsters.”

Seriously, I see a lot of people who I would identify as hipsters spend time talking about how they hate some other “hipster.” And I do the same thing, so I might be a hipster, too. It’s a weird slippery slope. Anyway, I don’t see bieng a hipster as about wearing Converse or drinking PBR. It’s about being a self-righteous fuck with ones irony. Which means yes, it’s a synonym for “douchebag” — or, at least one form of it.

People have different criteria on what makes one a hipster, usually based on what they distain. But why do people become hipsters? Well, same reason people do many things that are all about outward appearances: to get laid. And if it didn’t work, it wouldn’t be a fad.

I sometimes wonder, almost entirely jokingly, what the hipster deal would be if Alanis Morrisette hadn’t recorded “Ironic.”

As to Foursquare, the auto-tweet is a byproduct. The point of it, as others have said, is meatspace social networking. If you’re in a population-dense area, you could go to a coffee shop, log that you’re there, and see if any friends are nearby or whatever. The “I’m going to notify everyone on Twitter because why the fuck not” is an option, and one that annoys me. Granted, I don’t use Foursquare — if I want people to know I’m somewhere and am feeling randomly social, I will just tweet that. But for people who want to do a lot of random social meatspace stuffs, Foursquare is interesting.

- Ryan

Others have said most of what I’d say about YA, which I write and read a lot, along with adult goodness. So I’ll say why I, as an adult English major type, enjoy YA.

Story. I love story, and lots of adult books are about the fancy schmany writing-style or dwell on boring angst-ridden character bullshit and not about the story. Most YA is much faster-paced and plot-oriented than adult fiction, so I get more story-bang for my buck. The best YA also has great characters, themes, symbolism, metaphor, blah blah blah, along with story. I’m making generalizations here, obviously. And plenty of adult fiction has great story. But I find YA makes it a priority much more consistently.

I tried to read The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, currently tearing up the adult fiction world. And the first 30 pages were some of the dullest crap about financing I’d ever read. Turns out all that had nothing to do with the main plot! Then the protagonist proceeded to do nothing but read and get laid for the next 150 pages or so. He’s supposed to be finding out what happened to a girl who went missing, but mostly he reads magazine articles and stumbles into bed with a couple of chicks who inexplicably find him hot. I stopped reading halfway through because the story still had not gotten started. The set up had happened – girl is missing. Man is called to find out what happened. But after 200 pages, that was IT! Uh, fuck you and the word processor you rode in on.

Life is short and I won’t waste time with writers who don’t want to tell me a story. Generally, YA gets me into the story fast and keeps me there. I hated Twilight, and one of the many reasons was that the story sucked. Hardly anything happens beyond the sparkles and the “oh he’s so godlike and I’m so nothing” angst. So that phenomenon is its own little thing I could rant about for hours. Other YA doesn’t waste my time like that. Hunger Games and The Knife of Never Letting Go spit you right into a fascinating world and keep you turning the pages.

Oh, and like lots of people I’m still dealing with issues that started in my teen years. It’s a crazy, traumatic time, so I think the good YA fiction helps adult readers deal with the echoes of those issues that continue to affect them.

I have to disagree with you, Gareth. YA has been around for a good long time. In bookstores, the sections have been around since at least the ’70s and ’80s. It’s not a recent marketing ploy dreamed up by publishers or booksellers.

If you want to look at the technical attributes to YA fiction, you’re pretty much looking at the ages of the characters and the length of the book.

Middle-grade novels clock in around 60,000 words at their lengthiest (as always, there will be exceptions — Harry Potter’s middle grade, and much longer. Cornelia Funke’s next book, Reckless, is middle grade, but the characters are in their 20s.)

YA ranges from 60,000 up to around 80,000 words, but again, sometimes they’ll be longer, especially with YA fantasy titles. But, adult fantasy gets a bit of a pass on max length, too, so that’s not a huge surprise.

But marketing YA to adults? Not so much, at least not on the publishers’ side. While adults reading YA novels is a bonus, they are sold to bookstores as books for teens. Authors who primarily write for adults will have a built-in crossover audience: see Neil Gaiman, Carl HIaasen, and yes, James Patterson. And sometimes I’ll get calls from my booksellers letting me know that there are moms coming in buying two copies of a book — one for their kids, one for themselves. But there’s no active plot to market YA novels to adults that I’ve witnessed.

Book buzz is much more prevalent overall these days, not just for YA. Hooray for the internet and these shiny book trailer things. People tweet and blog about books, and share links all over the place. In the mid-90s, Oprah plugged a book and people rushed in to buy it. Today, a book trailer goes viral and people sit up and take notice.

Shorter version: if a lot of people are talking about a book, more people will go looking for it. Right now it’s Mockingjay. Eight years ago it was The Lovely Bones. My first summer in the bookstore (holy shit, that was 1992!) it was The Bridges of Madison County. Word of mouth and handselling are a bookseller’s best friend, but they’re not anything new.

@The YA argument.

My kids are young. 5 and 3. That being said…if they start reading YA, I will happily buy them all they want. Reading has to start somewhere. Judy Blume is so dated that it wouldn’t make sense to them. I think that this is the Internet Generations distraction. How can authors hook kids without being more insane than the internet?

I still plan to leave copies of “The Boxcar Kids” by their bedsides. Reading is reading.

Never heard of foursquare (except as something on American sit-coms), or Hipsters (except as a type / cut of trousers) and as my wife reads YA fiction I assume it means badly / hastily written books (the genre dependent on the current bandwagon) with some steamy sex scenes shoehorned into them?

I’m really not a big fan of age specified books beyond the obvious need to keep porn away from kids (I rad a lot of horror from a youngage and it didn’t do me any … OK well moving on …).

There should be just two definitiosn of fiction – suitable for youngsters and not suitable for youngsters. After all, theres a lot more intelectual benefit in reading ‘where the wild things are’ than there will ever be in reading Dan Brown.

Well written books are for all readers. The characterizations, plot, and themes (if not the style) are brilliant in the Harry Potter series. Many YA books have a strong plot line and a good pace. This is so lacking in pretentious literature that many serious readers turn in part to good YA.

@David:

“This is so lacking in pretentious literature that many serious readers turn in part to good YA.”

Maybe I’m wrong, but it feels like a false dichotomy to say “YA is separate from literary fiction.” Further, one posits that YA probably has its occasional share of literary work.

Further, while some of it may seem pretentious, that feels needlessly critical — and awfully general.

– c.

@ Miss HAGARD, You sound TIRED. Do you really need to call Twilight “trash” just because you don’t like it? I would not “presume” to call ANYONE’S work “trash”. A simple “I don’t like it” will do.
I hope you have a “Sparkly Day”!