One unspecial person lives a dreadfully unspecial life, until they encounter a person who’s a flash of color in a dull, dull existence. Suddenly, the unspecial person is thrust into a series of adventures, forever changing their lives and making them realize that they weren’t so unremarkable after all… Or so goes every young adult novel ever, according to most sources. It’s the same basic plot, with characters that all run together to form a homogenous mess of hidden greatness. With some good marketing and a star-studded cast in a movie with a huge budget, these novels become best sellers with waitlists a mile long at local libraries. It all gives a bad name to authors who write things that aren’t YA… Or does it?

There’s no doubt that young adult fiction is one of the most popular genres out there right now. A lot of people, especially adults who are sick and tired of teenagers, attribute the success to blockbuster movies and simple writing style that panders to the lowest common denominator. These assumptions, as well as the discrediting of the genre as a whole, are not only inaccurate, but they're also incredibly harmful.

Teenagers and millennials are constantly criticized. We’re referred to as selfish and entitled, and are constantly called stupid, spoiled brats. Our social media habits, the causes we stand for, and even the foods that we eat, the clothes that we wear, and the music that we listen to, are made fun of, discredited, or are somehow “wrong.” We are the generation on eggshells, the generation that’s wrong. We’re criticized for being on our phones all the time, but the books that are marketed to us are considered bad and stupid. Simply put, this is bullshit.

Young adults are going through a time in our lives where everything is different. We’re coming to terms with ourselves, if we even know who we are, and how the world affects us. This could be how we come to terms with our mental illnesses, like in Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock

and OCD Love Story; the losses in our lives, like in We Were Liars and Looking for Alaska; or even how we deal with our own race, like in Bird in a Box and We Were Here. These stories mean something to us, and mean the world to the people who wrote them.

Young adult literature isn't everyone's taste, and I'll admit that. Some people just don't like it, but that doesn't mean YA lit is bad. Young adult literature promotes reading among young adults, and helps them deal with and understand the world in which we live.