Where are all the books about my twenties? This has been a question that’s been circulating in the minds of college-age readers, including myself. The Young Adult (YA) book category has been a massive part of lifting the reading rates, but once readers have grown past the age group, the amount of people that read for pleasure drops significantly. Part of that is due to the lack of books that write around a person’s twenties the same way Young Adult writes around the teens. What if I were to tell you that there is a budding term attempting to fix this issue, but it needs our help? It’s called New Adult Fiction.  

You may be wondering why this is an issue, so I’ll back up for you. Beloved books such as Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Divergent all had a swell of popularity in the early 2010s, the years when roughly half of Generation Z’s age group was in school (1997-2005) and the other half (2006-2012) would be introduced to these books by their predecessors. Young Adult Fiction is perceived as an introduction into mature reading, but it also has a specific goal in mind. Written for ages thirteen to eighteen, YA generally focuses on the navigation of firsts during the acute tensions they face. First loves, first friendships, first struggles, and what all these firsts revolve around: first identity crises. Thirteen is the average age that puberty begins, a time of tumultuous emotional and physical growth that impacts every decision as they redefine their independent identities. Young Adult Fiction provides teenagers with support and additional perspectives in a time that can feel isolating and confusing. The abundance of YA created voracious readers that expected to find more books like this as they grew past that time in their lives. The fact is, they do exist, but it’s much harder to find them; in response, dedicated readers attempted to create a streamlined and engaging guide for the general public.  

Around 2020, BookTok amassed popularity, a community on TikTok showcasing book reviews and recommendations on what to read. The community quickly found interest in the reprint and publication of Sarah J. Mass’ series, A Court of Thorns and Roses. The series caught attention as it was advertised and labeled as Young Adult, however, it followed a nineteen-year-old girl and had numerous extended, graphic sex scenes. Readers were excited to have another grand genre series to read, but many were left outraged by the vulgar content being advertised to young adults. After this, BookTok fixated on explicit adult romance. Discussions I have had with my cohorts as well as discourse online have criticized the lack of adult reading material beyond the romance genre that attempts to explore adult complexities and conflicts, and any attempts made are mislabeled as young adult, consequently disrupting the category.  

It’s important to clarify that Young Adult Fiction can, in fact, involve sex and other adult themes. The age category is labeled from thirteen to eighteen, and the firsts that an eighteen-year-old experiences are much different than a thirteen-year-old’s. Mindy McGinnis’s Female of the Species explores deep and complicated issues with sexism and sexual violence, yet it qualifies as YA because, not only is the main cast under eighteen, it’s tackling the first time the characters are acknowledging these issues. The problems that are being pointed out regarding the A Court of Thorns and Roses series is that it is not trying to navigate the confusing reality of having sex for the first time; instead, it comes across as purely for the reader’s gratification. 

All of this to say: readers in their twenties don’t know where to look. The integration of a book category for twenty-year-olds will help, and the New Adult category could be just that. Labeled as books for approximately eighteen to twenty-nine-year-olds, writers and agents were intrigued by the idea of making the clear distinction of New Adult and Young Adult as optional genres to explore. Both age groups are going through vastly different things and should have their own space to explore them. However, New Adult has now become synonymous with Adult Fiction, and commonly expected to involve erotic or graphic sexual content due to the combination of BookTok and previous attempts to write for the category.   

I have a solution. Authors need to write. I know, it’s revolutionary. My point is: critics and analysts can’t define New Adult without more to read. A Court of Thorns and Roses is one of the few to re-label itself as New Adult, therefore its content has more impact on first impressions of the category. If New Adult wants to become what Young Adult is, it has to be applicable across genres, and have a cohesive influence even if the themes in each book are different. Writers, readers, twenty-year-olds that hate to read but ended up here anyway, ask yourself, what are you discovering in your twenties? How is it different than when you were going through puberty? Maybe New Adult tackles the biggest experiences like your worst or greatest love, maybe it’s actually all about independence, or about discovery of the rest of the world rather than your own identity. The best way to find out, is to write it.