There is something that hurts my soul when reading about teenagers doing grown up things, so I just don’t. I’m grown now, this isn’t a high school English class, so you can’t make me.
Before the hordes of YA fans pick up their pitchforks, I’m not saying YA is bad. Once upon a time I too felt like a certain supernatural love triangle was a matter of life and death (and I’m still Team Jacob). But I grew up, got married, had kids, and reading stories about teenie boppers having trouble balancing their secret relationships with each other and Calculus class just lost it’s shine.
The second reason this podcast won’t feature YA books is because I like romance novels, and that means that while a clean romance might tickle my fancy once in a while 90% of the books I read contain sex scenes; and let’s be honest here, the average seventeen year old doesn’t know diddly about good sex. These walking balls of hormones probably won’t figure out their own kinks, likes and dislikes for years to come and I like positive sex scenes where everyone gets something out of the sex.
To make matters even more creepy for a while YA Romance had adult level smut, and that had me looking out my window for a black van filled with the FBI’s Crimes Against Children Division agents just for possessing that book. It’s like authors didn’t understand YA is marketed to teenagers?! Anyway, paranoid crazy lady is not a good look on me so I nixed spicy YA romance.
My third problem with YA is that when your main characters are children many romance troupes that I love are just not appropriate. Can you realistically see a high school couple in an arranged marriage and not ask yourself where is Child Protective Services? So reading the books half of the time I find myself thinking “where are your parents?” and the rest of the time “That is totally unreaslistic. Everyone knows that kid should be failing Honors math because she never does homework!”
So basically yeah, reading YA turns me into a cranky old man sitting on a lawn chair yelling “get off my lawn” at the neighborhood kids and I don’t like it. So if adult romance is your thing then you’ve come to the right place! The Romance & Carrying On Podcast is starting in February!