Committing to things is difficult. I didn’t plan on starting off this year with a renewed commitment. But in the last few weeks, for some reason, I kept seeing new lists being posted online. They were about some awesome new middle grade and young adult books. I thought to myself, “Cool. I love to read and write that stuff. Let’s see what’s new.”
But what I found was an abundance of covers and descriptions about heroines, taking on the hierarchy in some shape and form, and inevitably having a will they/won’t they love interest.
Let me be clear, I have no problem with those books. Those books need to be out there for readers who want them. A lot of YA readers of those books are middle-aged women, and even so, I still think that’s okay.
I wasn’t a big reader growing up. I couldn’t find anything I wanted to read until I came across comic books. The reason I don’t have a problem with the books I just described is because what finally got me really reading and writing was Twilight. For all of the problems people seem to have with it, I was hooked with Twilight. I read the series. And when Stephanie Meyers recommended in an interview the Hunger Games, that series exploded. And I was right there for it.
But those two series and authors opened up my world to books that I finally found and loved. Books like The Chronicles of Vladimir Todd. Books like The Maze Runner. I finally found awesome books that I think appealed to guys. And then, I don’t know what time it was. Maybe around 2015 or 2016. Right around the time A Court of Thorns and Roses blew up in popularity things really started changing.
Suddenly that kind of YA, if you can call it that, was what all the publishers wanted. And they tried to market it as NA, New Adult. That didn’t take. Everyone still looked at it as YA and it had sex scenes in it. And as the old sayings go, sex sells.
I have no problems taking small shots at that book, partly because it’s a massive success. So my little old words won’t do anything to it. But mostly because of the gratuitous nature of the scenes in it.
Look, I write young adult. I was a young adult. Teens have sex. To ignore that fact and pretend they don’t is just being voluntarily ignorant. I have mentions of sex in my first YA series, The High School Sidekick series. But that’s all it is. Mentions.
But again, I digress.
My point in writing this post, which I feel I’m kind of getting away from, is that I can’t find those YA and even MG books that are for boys to read. There are people out there that say, “Oh, that’s nonsense. Boys read. My classroom of boys loves books.”
Sure, there may be some out there, but that stats don’t lie. Back in November in 2024 the National Literacy Trust, out in the UK, reported the stats for boys reading for fun continue to drop.
I wish it was different. So I want to do my part to trying to make it different. For a little while I was thinking about going with a kind of subtitle for my career right now, which was “Awesome stories for reluctant readers.”
And that’s true. But it’s not what I was thinking privately. Privately, I was thinking, “Man I want boys to read these books. I want boys who think they don’t like to read to pick up my books and like them. And want to read more. I want to write books that I would’ve wanted to read when I was younger, and would’ve made me want to read more.”
So I’m committing to the bit, as they say. Sammy Davis is quoted as saying, “You have two choices: your commitment versus your fear.”
My fear in embracing a thought of “writing for boys” is that I’ll alienate other readers. I don’t want to do that. I want to make sure these books appeal to girls too, but I really want to make sure parents, teachers, grandparents, librarians, and everyone else who gets books for middle grade and young adult readers know these books are specifically written for that audience in mind.
My book are full of fun and action and heart.
My books are written for boys who don’t like to read (girls welcomed).
