People I know are on about New Adult now as if it is an actual genre (remember 2009 when everyone thought it was ridiculous?). Look, it has a Wikipedia page. I am not sure anyone who is a non-writer/non-publishing person is aware of New Adult's so-called existence but maybe in five years time this will not be the case. Also I am in the target market for this Brand New Unique Concept Genre (totally not already in existence under the umbrella of Fiction or Romance), so I have thoughts on the topic.
Here are the things that do not make sense to me about New Adult as a genre:
A: University-aged kids do not have copious amounts of time on their hands in which to read, irrespective of whether they're studying or just in full-time work for the first time.
B: 'New Adults' also don't have copious amounts of money to spend on books. Parents buy their teenagers books. I am not sure they buy their adult children books as much.
C: I mean, let's be honest with ourselves, middle-aged women are just going to hijack it anyway, Twilight-style. Is it just paranormal romance minus the paranormal? You can tell me the truth.
D: Isn't it just fiction, people?
E: I don't really get the need to subdivide every novel into a variety of smaller and smaller pigeon-holes until you end up with speculative dystopic urban fantasy romantic suspense chick-lit novellas. But then again I am not very marketing-minded so maybe this is necessary.
F: Seriously. This genre already exists. Fiction. That is what it is called.
G: People are describing it as 'sexed-up' YA ('sexed-up' is such an unpleasant phrase, I mean, really) which makes me wonder if it's actually just romance. It seems to be very tailored towards female readers.
H: Every New Adult book I have read about seems to be very reminiscent of Fifty Shades of Grey. And you know how I feel about that.
