Reasons Why the Young Adult Genre is Great by Ryan Mark
Young adult books have great stories without being too confusing – this is particularly important when trying to gauge the attention of teenage boys who can be notoriously hard to get into reading, and so, in my opinion, the YA genre, particularly the YA Dystopian genre, is the best starting point when trying to capture their imaginations.
However, the stories must appeal to them, and at the moment, the YA genre is flooded with so many books that have female protagonists, with many of the recent bestselling stories having a teenage girl as the lead (the Hunger Games and Divergent, to name a few), which naturally, is more relatable to a female reader.
Taking the above into consideration, and after gaining feedback from a group of teenage boys, I have discovered that two main aspects of a book that can seize their attention are: books with action and books that have a teenage hero, which the reader can relate to, in this case, a boy as the lead character.One of the teenagers I chatted to said, ‘There’s no books I like. Reading isn’t really cool. But if it had a cool character and lots of action I’d read it.’ Another boy said, ‘The cover would have to be ace, one that isn’t all sparkly and purple. Most books in the shops are all about love and stuff. I don’t really like that.’ These are important points to take into consideration when tackling this topic, and when I first approached it, were what I expected to hear from this audience.
So what I’ve concluded, when trying to inspire a teenage boy to read is that a book needs:
Action
A cool, male lead character
An ace cover that isn’t ‘sparkly and purple’
I believe that the YA Dystopian genre is one that can easily provide all of the above, and books that contain these aspects need to be displayed in an appropriate manner so they are easily accessible and can be introduced to teenage boys. If you can find a book containing these aspects, pick it up, read a chapter out loud, preferably one ending in a cliff-hanger, to a teenage boy (whether you’re a parent, or a teacher in a classroom), to try and gauge their attention. You never know, what they hear may lead them to pick up that book.
My debut novel, Tremor, is a YA Dystopian story, with a male lead, and when writing it, one of my aims was to make it attractive to a male teenage audience, with the hope of getting more boys into reading. I believe this is so important, and one thing that’s clear from the research I did when writing this article is that the way in which the market place advertises these books needs to be addressed, with the male teenage audience being taken into consideration.
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Ryan Mark lives and writes in the rural county of Cumbria, on the outskirts of the Lake District. Tremor is Ryan’s debut novel and is the first book in The Tremor Cycle, a Dystopian series that takes place in a world devastated by war. Ryan currently teaches in a pre-school, caring for children before they take their first big leap into primary school. He is passionate about: writing, equality and helping children learn to read. He has always loved to write and create different worlds, drawing his inspirations from his family and the place where he lives.
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