Joel Stein

By Ayo

[note: the following essay was written moments before reading Joel Stein’s anti-Y.A. Article in The New York Times. Stein says: “The only time I’m O.K. with an adult holding a children’s book is if he’s moving his mouth as he reads.”

I have decided to name this essay (and any future comments of mine) after him because I’m a jerk.]

YA Fiction Boom Among Adults

Lookit, I’m no dummy. I’ve read big pants books but the YA fiction tidal wave has swept me up. And I drag my feet, meekly promising that I’ll one day get back into serious, big people reading but then I falter. So it finally dawned on me why I can never close the deal with all of my intended readings: I don’t really have the time!

I flew through the Hunger Games, reading more than half of the book in a single sitting. Other books, I’ve rampaged through in brief clips of one chapter per day, on my subway commute to work. It is no coincidence that my life is mostly harried and stressed and the books that I’ve fallen back into have been the less dense teenager-novels which are all the rage nowadays. It does not feel like work.

When I get home from my job, I pass out in my clothes. Despite my best efforts. I cannot read in my house because I can either sit on a painful wooden stool or my bed, the latter which leads to sleep. Every. Single. Time.

Yes, I take medicine because I’m at the age where things begin to go wrong. I cannot stay out late and I cannot lie down without falling asleep. I cannot read denser books, I suppose?! Perhaps I could read those on my daily train rides but come on, give me a break, let me just relax and read about action or something.

I admit my faults, and turn my back on your learned men: make mine YA.