houston, we have a problem

It looks like there might be a new genre in town. From Jmeadows: 

"Basically, it seems to be a genre between Young Adult and Adult with the age range around 20-26. More mature writing and ideas, but not full on adult stories."

As someone who's been reading 'adult' books since I was 8 years old, I find the notion that my age bracket suddenly requires a more watered down version of story both patronizing and repulsive.

On postadolescent fiction:

"But what about “postadolescent” fiction? That’s a bit harder to articulate. We, the “new adults”, have some perspective on our lives, but scope? We’re not old enough, we’re not experienced enough, we’re simply not grown-up enough. Our lives have immediacy, just as a teenager’s does, but we also possess the wisdom to understand that this immediacy cannot last for long."

I am not a 'postadolescent.' I am an adult. I live on my own, I vote on my own, I pay my own taxes, and occasionally I even wash my own dishes. It's true that not everyone is at the same stage in life at the same age. But considering how 'adult' I know some teenagers to be, I object to the idea that I'm automatically not _____ enough.

Further, as a writer, the line between adult SFF and YA is often blurry. The article makes it out to be clear-cut, but it's not. If reprinted, where would Mindy L. Klasky's Glasswrights' Guild series go--in the adult section, or in this 'new adult' section? It has a somewhat YA voice and a YA character, and there really aren't any of the hotbutton topics in it that would regulate it to the adult section, but it's still shelved there. Putting it into another genre completely would take away from the 'adult' audience that has been reading it for years.

I think fictiontheory put it well when she said:

"But the idea of "new adult" is pure ageism. It smacks of the idea that my "generation"* is so perpetually childish that we can't handle "regular adult" books until we're nearly in our thirties. It also implies that stories about older protagonists are somehow so repulsive to anyone who's younger than 30 that they won't get read. I think it's feeding into our youth obsession as a culture here in the United States to do something like that."

I can appreciate books that take on a 20 year old's perspective. What I don't appreciate is the patronizing pigeonholing that seems to be the route the St. Martin is taking.