I love YA books! In fact, I think some of them are better than their adult counterparts. I think this might be due to the fact that adults seem to be going for the same old, same old, while the YAs have come of age and not just found a niche in the market, but have broken it wide open. I discovered YA when Twilight made the rounds of my family and I have quickly gone through that series and onto such books as Wicked Lovely and Tantalize. So as long as YA authors continue to crank out such quality, interesting stories, I will be reading them. And yes, I am foraying into writing some myself.
Margay

I totally love YA! It is hard fitting everything into my reading schedule anymore, my TBR pile is overwhelming, but there are a couple YA series, like PC and Kristen Cast and Richelle Mead that go straight to the top of the pile!

I don't write YA books but my daughter, who has just started writing, just finished writing a YA book with her friend and writing partner.

I'm also a Harry Potter fan and I read a variety of genres so I enjoy YA books as well.

If you haven't discovered it yet, I'd like to recommend a remarkable book called "The Book Thief." It's a perfect example of a book classified as YA but would appeal to adults as well. It is written by a young Australian writer named Markus Zusak. It's a story set in WWII about a young girl, written from the POV of Death. It sounds depressing but it's actually humorous and uplifting.

I loved this book so much that I recommended it to my book club. It was one of the best books we'd ever read. Now it's a book club selection in our local library and it's on the recommended reading list at the local high school. Word of mouth is spreading about this book.

I also liked a book called "Prep" by Curtis Sittenfeld which I believe is considered YA.

Marilyn Baron

As a YA author, I'm amazed at the number of adults who enjoy my book. I actually didn't write my book geared specifically to the YA market. I wrote a fun story that I hoped all readers would enjoy. The personalities of my book's characters allow for expression of diverse life lessons in a fun and sometimes serious manner. My book has won three awards since its publication in Oct. 2008. It's title is: "Be Careful What You Wish For ... The Story of: Gwendolyn the Great, Savior of Idlebury, Protector of the Universe." I hope readers have as much fun readint it as I had writing it.

I absolutely read YA books. They are some of my favorites. I just finished the Faire Folk trilogy by Gillian Summers. I loved it. When I taught middle grades, I loved Rules of the Road,Speak, and too many others to mention.

I also like reading YA books. I got hooked with the early Harry Potter books. I still have to finish the last one. Then James Patterson hooked me back with Maximum Ride,Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series and the Cast's House of Night Series. There's a lot more there to explore. So little time to read everything I want.

I've read a few YA books this last year. I'd recommend any of the Gallagher Girls books by Ally Carter. I'm looking forward to reading her latest one.

My name is Famin and I'm a YA-bookaholic. In the past 12 months, I have easily read more YA/JF books than those classified for a 37-year-old, highly educated, urban-living woman. I am not ashamed!

It started when I was a bookseller and worked with children's books. Anyone who has read <i>The Stinky Cheese Man</i> can tell you that the book should not be limited to a fifth-grade audience. So, of course I've read <i>Harry Potter</i> and <i>Twilight</i>, but the best books I've read this year are Neil Gaiman's <i>Stardust</i>, Marcus Zusak's <i>The Book Thief</i>, and Suzanne Collins' <i>The Hunger Games</i>. If there are books this good on the "grown-up" side of the library, I haven't found them yet!

Besides, YA/JF books are generally better edited.

Hoot and Flush by Carl Hiaasen. Fantastic.

For a while, I thought I lost my love of reading. Following the recommendation of a book blog, I read Laurie Halse Anderson's <i>Speak</i> and I fell in love with YA.

YA has changed greatly from when I was a YA. I love how YA books are filled with such promise and possibility. The characters in these books are at a moment in their lives where things can go any way. The characters aren't usually jaded, not even the ones who deal with extraordinarily horrible circumstances. Best of all, the writing lacks the pretension of a lot of literary fiction.

I spent many years reading the books I thought were important, books that I struggled to understand and relate to. YA is my escape to a time when things weren't so hard, and stories moved so quickly I stayed up all night waiting to find out what happens next.

Any adult who doesn't give the latest YA novels a chance is missing some of the most honest and captivating writing of our time.

Very provocative topic Barb! Thanks for broaching it with us! I do try to "cross-over" (not with John Edwards) with all types of mystery fiction (adult & YA).

I blog for Shelftalker, the PW Daily Children's bookseller blog. I just tackled this same topic in April. (here's the link:
//tinyurldotcom/m79dep pardon the dotcom I can't do html in the comments) I, too, find adults are more and more venturing into the YA section. A woman just bought the last two Twilight books for herself and was pretty excited about her day of reading. The Harry Potter and Twilight series have done much to get adults to cross into the YA section. I find that once they're there, they spend more time looking around and discover Libba Bray, Markus Zusak, and Catherine Murdock. It's been a great trend.

I was delighted when my first YA novel, Colony VII, turned out to have a lot of appeal for adult readers as well. Writing for fresh, eager minds allows me to recreate the thrill I had as a youngster discovering the joy of reading.
jhlong@comcast.net

I adore YA books. Being only slightly over the age group they are geared for, I am now just checking out adult books as well. But nothing beats going to the YA section of a store and finding five new books that I just have to read because they look and sound so exciting and new. I also think that the stigma of reading "children's" books has dropped and the quality of the writing and stories as increased the more popular the books have become. I think I might end up being a 97-year-old woman who still reads YA (and writes it).

Absolutely! Have been for years. And I'm starting to regress even further into Kids. I can't tell you why, except that I just enjoy the storytelling. It's not universal (there are some not so great--from my perspective--YA and Kids books out there too), but for some reason this 50+ woman has found some really thought-provoking and entertaining reading on the YA and Kids shelves. When someone questions me about it, I just say I'm not as mature as my driver's license indicates!

Oh, and Famin, if you haven't read Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, try it. It is such a beautiful story (as is his Neverwhere (an adult book)).

I'm a picture book author/illustrator, but writing YA novels as well. I adore them, it's all I read.
Recently I was asked to be on the Board for the Georgia Center for the Book - I am the first and only voice for kids lit to be on this board and of course I'm hitting the stereotypes of what adults believe kids lit to be. I'd love a reading list of great crossover books - books that are technically YA but with such cross over appeal they could really turn adults on to kids lit in general.

I'm a HUGE fan of YA--absolutely love edgy literary writing like Sherman Alexie and Matt de la Pena. "Absolutely True Diary" and "Ball Don't Lie" / "Mexican White Boy" are some of my favorite books to recommend to other adult readers who don't mind a little hard-hitting grit and superb storytelling. I'm excited to get a hold of de la Pena's "We Were Here" as I heard fantastic things about it post-BEA (so bummed to have missed his signing!). I wish stores would cross-shelve these titles in Adult sections so that more Adults would be exposed to these kinds of books.

The YA genre is experiencing a truly golden age right now. There is an abundance of great writers and titles for teens and adults to read. As a writer and reader I'm happy to see this happen. I believe this growth will continue and see a splitting of YA into younger/older YA.

I want to add my yes vote to the legions. I love YA. I don't remember there even being a "YA" category when I was a YA. There were kids' books and adults' books. I remember the day the librarian escorted me over to the adult section—truly a coming of age journey. I loved HP. The Graveyard Book, Stardust, The Green Glass Sea, White Sands-Red Menace, Down Sand Mountain, rereading To Kill A Mockingbird. I don't know whether it qualifies as YA, but back in the day I loved any of Carson McCullers work: Member of the Wedding, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Also Lord of the Flies, but that was more adult in style. I'm currently writing a YA novel set in the 1960s. I hope kids today can relate! (I'm worried about that.)

I just finished Little Brother by Cory Doctorow a few days ago and loved it!
An *extra* bonus was finding the main character riffing on Jane Jacobs and cities.

I HATE the term YA books. What self-respecting teen wants to be called a Young Adult? When David Levithan approached me about hosting events for this spring's first NYC Teen Author Festival, he was at that time referring to it as the NYC Young Adult Author Festival. I raised my objections, which he agreed with, and -- to my delight -- told me that the librarians he was working with were leaning the same way. The upshot was that when it debuted, it was as the NYC Teen Author Festival.

Young Adult was a term coined back in the 60s when I wasn't even a young adult yet. Isn't it time we moved into the 21st century and started referring to teens as teens and teen books and teen books?

Okay-- rant over. And, for the record, I love reading teen books. As I'm fond of saying, the good ones are great for anyone and the bad ones are good for no one!

I have looked at more YA books, but haven't gotten any farther than Harry Potter. BUT our YA reviewers have gotten me intrigued with more titles. Just more to add to the list I guess.

I hate labels...if you like what you read then read it. Dont be ashemd if you like Harry Potter.

www.c-trainsentertainmentreviews.blogspot.com/

I've been reading YA almost exclusively for the past 2 years. 160+ books later, I don't see an end in sight to the fantastic writing, creative stories and amazing characters! YA is awesome and I don't know why more publishers aren't picking up on the huge adult audience they have and capitalizing on it more.

Love YA books. Just wish I had more time to read them. I do see the necessity of labeling them.

I'm 22 and most of what I read is YA. (I do still consider myself a young adult, though.) I live and breathe children's lit. Right now I'm earning a BA in fiction writing with a certificate in children's lit which is putting me through courses that are strengthening my writing skills as a future YA author.

I don't think the popularity of YA is going anywhere for a while. We're just getting started and there is so much that readers have been missing out on that they'll never run out of material. Eventually, I'm sure we'll hit a slump somewhere and we'll need another series to give reading a boost again. But I think YA will retain the respect it has now.

Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books by Francesca Lia Block changed my life when I was in my first year of high school and influence me to this day. Francesca writes modern fairy tales with genies and ghosts while teaching us about being human.

I read a ton of YA books, and I have since I was a YA. We were lucky to have a pretty progressive library where I grew up that had two small shelving units of books for teens. :)

Like everyone else, I've read Harry Potter, but it's hard to find someone who hasn't. I didn't think of it so much as YA as fantasy, even though it's obviously for children. I become more interested in YA when I read something geared to older teens - like Graffiti Girl by Kelly Parra. I find the explosion of the YA market fascinating and look forward to books by authors like Sherrilyn Kenyon who will have CHRONICLES OF NICK out in Feb 2010. Sherrilyn said something in an interview I hear repeated by adult readers all the time - "I have boys and there is so little for them to read..."
That's why Sherrilyn said she wanted to create a series boys would be excited to read. Of course, the girls tend to read the same things boys like quite often so we may see more cross-genre stories soon.

It's exciting to see how that genre is growing.

Yes I do read them. I do have my favorites among them. Like Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy and P.C. Cast's and Kirsten Cast House of Night Series. I think of these two series as the best teen vamps out there besides the popular Twilight Series. I just like them because they are well written. I think the most important thing is the story. If the story is well written it will appeal to a broader audience

I love YA books and I'm 59. The Book Thief, Coraline, The Graveyard Book, K.M. Grant's series, Judy Blunt's What I Saw and What I Did, of course Harry Potter, Celia Rhys's Sovay and Pirates, and my very favorite series, L. A. Meyer's Bloody Jack books.

Yes, I read plenty of "adult" fiction too, mostly mysteries like those of Connelly, Crais, Lippman, Denise Hamilton, etc., (right now I'm halfway through Conn Iggulden's Genghis: Bones of the Hills) but my most anticipated book of the year is September's Rapture of the Deep, the new Bloody Jack book.
And I recommend these books to both younger and older readers all the time (I work for a chain).

I LOVED The Book Thief -- I found it just with general fiction, bought it, read it in one day, and only when I was done did I realize I had been lost in a book for young folk, and I'm in my fifties. I felt the same way about Wangerin's the Book of the Dun Cow, years ago. YA contains the vivid storytelling, the lost-in-a-book magic, that much so-called "adult" fiction has lost. Too much is either predictable genre or pretentious literary. On the other side of YA, I can remember being a middle-schooler and reading books like Advise and Consent and Gone with the Wind -- bestselling fiction that was still a great read but not really genre.

For me, living in the high school environment for 25 plus years of teaching makes YA books feel like "my world" too, but all of us have lived those years, so maybe that's part of the appeal. I think most adults still look back on middle and high school as the years that shaped who we are today, so we empathize with those characters and get caught up in their trials (which were our trials too). And when the themes are universal, the age distinctions aren't important. As for recommendations, my high schoolers' "favorites" can be found in the Pageturner section of the website we built at www.notrequiredreading.com. All reviews are by high schoolers, but adults can find good info there too.

Interestingly, The Book Thief was in the Top Ten of the 2008 Favorite Discussible Books from Reading Group Choices' members representing 70,000 reading group members! I loved Little Brother, as well.

My first novel, "Oliver's Surprise: A Boy, A Schooner, and the Great Hurricane of 1938" was published last year as a YA novel. It has been very well-received by all ages. There is a freshness to YA that adult fiction lacks at the moment; perhaps that's what draws us to all the great YA books on the shelves.

I don't read many YA titles, but here is a warning to all of you. If you read one of James Patterson's Maximum Ride titles (kids who fly) you will be hooked and will have to read them all.

Some of the best books I've read in recent years have been labeled YA.
Meg Cabot & Justina Chen Headley are two of the best authors out there. I will continue to get their books in multiple formats (ebooks, audio, and good old paper)

I'm 43 and I love y/a books. Some favorite y/a writers are Beth Kephart, Cecil Castellucci, Laurie Halse Anderson, Mitali Perkins, and Laura Resau.

At our library, we recently changed the collection label from YA to Teen to reflect what the other libraries in our consortium have done. An adult patron complained that he is a reader of YA books but would feel self-conscious borrowing books labeled "Teen." I guess you can't please everyone.

When I was growing up there wa sno such thing as YA. I read anything and everything. I was reading VERY "grown-up" books by the time I was 12. And I am of the firm opinion that a good story is a good story - so yes, I read today's YA, and some of it is FANTASTIC. As a WRITER of YA books, I am also grateful and astonished at how many adults write to me to tell me that they enjoyed the "Worldweavers" books... and I don't, having said that, take the 13-year-olds who do the same for granted, either. I believe that a good book can be enjoyed by readers from 10 to 90... no matter where it's shelved in the bookstore.

I love YA books. I read them and then I pass them along to my daughter. :)

I love YA books! I would recommend Ally Carter's Gallagher Girl series and her new series that comes out in February. I also love the House of Night series by PC Cast & Kristen Cast. I know there are many more I love, but those are my two favorite series so far.

Saw a PBS production of Flambards and went to get the book--found it in the kids section. Super book. BTW, I understand British books are written on a higher reading level than American ones.