YA is a category of literature that stands for “young adult.” These books target the ages 12-18, but recently these books have started to take the “young” out of the equation. 

Many of these novels have started to add more controversial topics, which presses the question—are these books fit for younger generations anymore?

Many contemporary YA books include explicit content that would be better fit for the adult section. 

I don’t see anything wrong with enjoying books with mature content, and I believe people should have the freedom to read whatever they want. The issue is the fact that many young adult readers are not expecting to encounter mature content in a young adult labeled book. 

The problem

Junior Levi White said he picked up a book from the library because it looked like an interesting-looking sci-fi book, but not even one chapter into the book, it started to get strangely explicit. He recounted the novel featuring sexual topics with no warning. 

White said, “It took me off-guard and the content appalled me so much that I had to put down the book.” The topics White encountered are not school-appropriate, so I can’t even reference them in this article, yet they can be placed in the YA category?

Conversely, there are books like “The Glass Castle” that political leaders are trying to ban in schools for purported “sexual content.” As someone who has read this book, at no point did I think this book was explicitly sexual. These high-profile attempts at book banning are political in nature and have nothing to do with the well-being of young children.

A young adult should be reading what is best fit for their level of maturity, or what they believe is best fit for them to experience as a reader. Even if it is a simple content warning as to what these books contain, or a reconsideration as to what category these books should be placed in—there are many simple solutions to this without erasing the literature altogether. 

The solution

There are several ways to accomplish putting labels on books with mature content. Think about things like movie ratings. When you go into a PG-13 movie, you know to expect more mature content, but not as much as a Rated-R movie. Movies also give you content warnings for things like drug use, violence, sexual content and more. So why can’t we do the same thing with books? A simple warning label can do so much to help with non-suitable exposure.

Sophomore Mallory Frazier, an avid reader of YA, has also been shocked by explicit content that she was not expecting. She proposed, “splitting up YA books into two different sections: one section being for the younger side (12-14/15) and one section being for the older side (15-18). This would shorten the age gap and have less mature content for the younger YA readers and mature content for the older YA readers.” 

Due to the YA age range being so broad, representing so many different levels of maturity, breaking up the category into two sections would help with ensuring the content readers are taking in is suitable for their age. 

Everyone should have the freedom to read whatever they want, but young adults should not be blindsided and exposed to content that they are unprepared to read, which is why these solutions can help substantially. Fostering a child’s growth of ideas through literature is very important, but exposing them to books with content not suited for their age can have a negative effect. So, this is why we need to think about what is best fit for the YA section and what we can do to fix this problem. 

I do not think these books should be taken off the shelves completely. We live in a day and age where we have to worry about things like book bans. No book, including books with mature content, should be banned. Instead, we should consider if the category they have been placed in is actually what is best suited for that novel. 

YA authors can make their books properly labeled for the YA section, and young adults have the ability to make decisions about what they want to read. So, the next time you are reading a YA novel and the content makes you uncomfortable, it’s okay to put down the book. However, it is not okay to forbid someone from reading a book altogether.