Why I Love YA

When I was growing up, there weren't very many young adult books. Especially compared to now. In late elementary school, I read every Sweet Valley High book I could get my hands on. But that was about it. I didn't read much in middle and high school, but when I did read, it was adult fantasy. To be honest, I hated reading for a while. The books we had to read for school never kept my attention, and I felt like reading was dull and pointless.

I rediscovered my love of reading in my college years. I owe it all to Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series. I went on to discover Kim Harrison, Laurell K Hamilton, PC Cast, and MaryJanice Davidson. For a few years I read somewhere between one and five books per year. I got burnt out on Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake series and MaryJanice Davidson's vampire romance, and my reading slowed a bit. But then I started reading YA.

Around the time I started reading Kelley Armstrong, I started reading Harry Potter. And I enjoyed that. Some of my other early YA reads were Witch Child by Celia Rees, the Sweep series by Cate Tiernan, and then the Tithe series by Holly Black. But I only read those a few years ago, when I was becoming burnt out on so many paranormal adult series being so similar. In fact, I've dropped all of those series (except Kelley Armstrong and Kim Harrison).

I continued reading YA books, going to PC Cast's House of Night series and Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely. I loved Wicked Lovely so much that I went online to find her fan site (which is now her official site, and I'm global mod there) and met so many awesome people close to my age who were reading almost nothing but young adult. It was there that I got book recommendations and discussion on these fabulous books.

Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr continue to be two of my favorite authors. I'm going to be 30 next month, and I love YA books so much. I have trouble connecting with middle grade books sometimes, and often I find adult books bogged down with too much detail. YA books are often fun, fast reads. And they deal with real issues. I don't think I'd be quite the reader without my YA books. And this blog would probably exist as it did when I first started it (randomness).

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