"Read whatever you want. But you should feel embarrassed when what you’re reading was written for children."I enjoy reading YA, and my bias-sensors were on red-alert when she wrote:
"Let’s set aside the transparently trashy stuff like Divergent and Twilight, which no one defends as serious literature. I’m talking about the genre the publishing industry calls "realistic fiction."So only realistic work is serious? But she goes on to talk about what sound like key moments that she calls "maudlin." I'm not sure that she's wrong. We should be able to appreciate complex characters and events.
Here are various readers and authors in response:
Gwenda Bond's "Ten Reasons To Read YA (No Matter What Age You Are)"
"ADULTS CAN READ WHATEVER THE HELL THEY WANT" by Sara Benincasa
"So Slate Has Something To Say About YA" by Mandy Curtis
--just a gif file from Sesame Street illustrating her ire
"In Praise of Reading Whatever the Hell You Want" By Hillary Kelly
"Don't let Slate make you feel ashamed for reading books that you love."I wonder if Kelly misread Graham (the provocative subtitle probably didn't help). Kelly mentions Austen as an example of serious YA, but Graham brought up Shakespeare's use of adolescents but thought it was serious because of his treatment.
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