Readings, Rated
The Kids Are All…Writing (or Reading) YA Now
Profiled in the Forest Park Review recently was one Stephanie Kuehnert, a young (29) Chicago writer whose first novel, a YA title called I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, is due out in July from MTV Books. The book follows the path of young band-member Emily, as well as that of Emily’s mom, a punk-rocker of a prior generation, who abandoned Emily when she was four months old.
Kuehnert’s agent notes in the profile that “the young adult book market is getting a lot more sophisticated as a genre,” which is pretty much true. And good news, natch. (Also, genre walls are crumbling just a little: More and more YA titles seem to be doing well as crossover titles, and that’s clearly what MTV Books is hoping for with this one; Kuehnert’s book will be available in the general fiction section of stores too, she says.)
But then the agent confuses me: “Now, these books have so many nuances. They deal with classic teenage problems of body image, sexuality, social order, but explore issues that were usually reserved for coming of age novels.” Um, young adult books haven’t always included coming of age novels? Come again, ma’am?
Anyway, hats–or studded belts–off to Kuehnert, who’s apparently working on a revision of a second novel.
On a related note, did you know there’s, like, a whole burgeoning community of teen YA-lit reviewers out there–acing their AP classes, holding down jobs at the smoothie joints, and reading and reviewing hundreds of YA titles a year on their blogs? Well, yes. This generation scares me (in a nice way).