Today, for my first discussion post, I thought I'd look at whether it is right for YA novels to have sensitive issues as themes, such as mental illness or cancer.
Firstly, I think it's fair to say that some people would absolutely hate reading a novel which centres around painful themes. If someone picks up a book for some escapism and reads about exactly the thing they want to escape from, it can obviously be upsetting. I mean, if you had a mental illness or knew someone who did and read a book with a theme about that mental illness you might well feel it is right for you to be upset.
Furthermore, while adding these themes adds some drama, it doesn't make for pleasant and enjoyable reading and some might even argue that an author who needs to use sensitive issues to make a novel good is not a good author at all.
On the other hand, I think that these themes are present in adult novels. They're a fact of life, one that young people are becoming more and more exposed to every day. I honestly think that anyone who believes that YA readers aren't mature enough to read books with sensitive themes are entirely wrong. If anything, young people are more exposed to sensitive issues than their adult counterparts.
I believe that there is not much that an adult can be exposed to in literature that a young person cannot, and that there are not many themes that both genres can't cover. Therefore, I believe that it's good, healthy even, for YA novels to deal with sensitive issues
1 comment :
I also agree that it's good/healthy for YA novels to deal with sensitive issues. Not doing so sort of, in a way, acts like they don't exist. Obviously they do. Some people may even feel comfort with a character in a novel dealing with something similar to the reader. Heck, I wouldn't mind reading YA novels with characters having issues similar to mine. It keeps things interesting and relatable.
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