New Adults and What They Read



The world of fiction has always been a little bit less than rigid when it comes to distinguishing categories of books for non-adults. 

Once there was only fiction for children and fiction for adults. And even this was a bit bewildering. Little Women, for example, was considered a work for children, but the length and some of the themes are more fit for adults. I would argue that one of my favorite children's books, Alice in Wonderland, is strictly for adults. What child could appreciate Lewis Carrol's trippy imagery or sharp humor? 

In more modern times we have had children's books, which included picture books and slightly longer books with chapters (Ramona the Pest) and young adult books (Jacob Have I Loved) with YA being a genre targeted toward teens. Then YA absolutely exploded,, and plenty of adults started reading these too. I know many fully adult readers, including myself, who find young adult fiction as mesmerizing as work created for adults. The YA label used to refer to the length and the promise that the plot is fairly "clean." That's not necessarily the case anymore. Today's YA fiction regularly pushes the envelope with themes about sex being front and center. 

I have a distinct memory of adults around me experiencing brain implosion over Forever by the magnificent Judy Blume. It was a book for teens about teens having sex for the first time and that was considered highly inappropriate by many. It was removed from our school library. 

Then along came middle-grade books. They are slightly shorter than YA books and the characters tend to be 12-15 rather than 16-20 (as it is well-known that kids want to read about kids who are slightly older than they are). Wonder is an example. 

Of course, there will always be books that break all the rules. Harry Potter comes to mind - a series that starts middle-grade and ends with 900-page masterpieces with themes of darkness and death that are definitely high school appropriate. 

So now we have New Adult. 

What? 

I've had a hard time wrapping my head around this one. Holly West describes the difference between YA and NA as being undeniably teen in nature and NA being more college. YA is first time experiences, and NA is second time, a little wiser and more mature but still coming of age in a way. 

In general, the length looks like this: 

  • chapter books for kids around 7-10 are roughly 10k to 12k long
  • middle grade books (age 10-12) are about 20k to 25k
  • young adult books (ages 13-16) are around 35k to 45k, up to  50k-70k for the older range
  • new adult books (ages 17+) are the same length as adult books, roughly 70k to 100k
Again, there are always rule-benders and breakers, and writers as artists are always going to push or destroy boundaries. However, there are some agents and publishers who follow very strict guidelines when it comes to length for various genres, so it's worth at least knowing what is generally acceptable. 



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