Book club shows, you can’t judge a book by its reader
There’s a new young adult book club in town. The only thing is, it’s not for young adults.
On the first Thursday of every month, Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse hosts “Adults Who Read YA,” a book club for people who enjoy works similar to Suzanne Collin’s “Hunger Games” or John Green’s “A Fault in Our Stars” — two teen-centric novels whose adaptations struck box office gold.
The group is open to anyone, but with a meeting time of 11 a.m., unquestionably during school hours, it’s clear membership precludes actual young adults.
Rather, it’s for adults who read and appreciate a genre they describe as fresher, more exciting and more hopeful than books written for their ilk, adults who are quickly comprising the majority of consumers of young adult fiction.
Still in its infancy, the group met for the second time earlier this month, convening just three members.
La Cañada author Catherine Linka, who manages and buys children’s and young adult titles for Flintridge Bookstore, organized the monthly meeting as a place for adult readers of YA fiction to discuss their shared passion.
“I was very conscious of how much we were selling to adults, however, we did not have a book club that served adults who read YA,” said Linka, the mother of college-aged children.
The trio, all of them authors in the young adult genre, say YA fiction just resonates more strongly with their own world views and is more poignant than the characters and themes portrayed in adult fiction.
“When I started writing, my stories were all about teenagers. It’s like my brain was stuck there,” said member and author Mary Malhotra, 49. “It’s such an exciting time, because that’s when you’re figuring out who you are and who you want to be.”
Malhotra, it seems, is not alone.
At least 55% of people who consume young adult books are 18 or older, with the largest segment aged 30 to 44, according to a 2012 market research study by Bowker, an agency that provides bibliographic information to the book and publishing industry.
“The extent and age breakout of adult consumers of these works was surprising,” Kelly Gallagher, vice president of Bowker Market research, said in a statement provided by the company when the study came out. “And while the trend is influenced to some extent by the popularity of ‘The Hunger Games,’ our data shows it’s a much larger phenomenon than readership of a single series.”
The over-18 success of child-focused books and movies, from J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” franchise to Veronica Roth’s 2011 post-apocalyptic novel “Divergent,” has prompted discussion from those high up the literary food chain.
A June 5 Slate.com review on the movie “A Fault in Our Stars” by journalist Ruth Graham railed against adults settling for too-simple teen conclusions at the expense of the greater adult works they could, and should, be reading. Her article provoked editorial responses from The Washington Post, The Atlantic and The New Republic on both sides of the argument.
Gary Rudman, president and founder of Bay Area company GTR Consulting, which conducts market research on youth and young adults for corporate clients, admits today’s young people are good predictors of trends, and companies are paying attention to that.
As native technology users, young people, compared to adult adopters, are the first to be exposed to new tools, ideas and brands. From there, knowledge trickles up to adults.
“That’s where the cool is,” Rudman explained. “When something gets invented, it immediately goes to that population. It all kind of gets exhausted by teens, then makes its way up the ladder.”
For members of “Adults Who Read YA,” young adult fiction is just one more genre to appreciate, something that offers exciting possibilities for both readers and writers.
Ozma Bryant, 30, a mother and author from Altadena, said when it comes to reading, she just goes on instinct.
“I’ve always just gone wherever my heart has led me, and right now one of the places is definitely YA,” she said.
