David*Macinnis*Gill.com

We inter­rupt the cel­e­bra­tion of the hol­i­day sea­son with a mes­sage from a book-reviewing Scrooge. This mor­ing, I was read­ing a review of Kelly Easton’s After­shock in the online ver­sion of a North Car­olina news­pa­per, the Star-News. While the review of the novel was pos­i­tive, I could help but notice the elbow-sharp digs the reviewer, Ben Steel­man, kept mak­ing about that “pecu­liar genre known as ‘young adult’ fiction:”

“My only regret is that most adult read­ers prob­a­bly won’t dis­cover After­shock at all. Thanks to J.K. Rowl­ing and Lemony Snicket, there’s a trend now of grown-ups dip­ping into kids’ books, but the ado­les­cent mar­ket is largely over­looked. Maybe it’s those whiny, self-pitying, dys­func­tional nar­ra­tors. Don’t let the label stereo­type this novel…”

Here’s my response:

“I just fin­ished read­ing your review of Kelly Easton’s lat­est. Cheers to you for fea­tur­ing the work. Groans to you for per­pet­u­at­ing the myth that a novel is some­how only valu­able if an adult audi­ence finds it.

There is more great YA lit in the world than your phi­los­o­phy allows, Hor­a­tio. How about I mail a few excel­lent exam­ples your way, none of them with angst-filled nar­ra­tors? I think you’ve been miss­ing out.”