Guest Post: Melanie's Musings - Young Adult vs. Adult Books

I want to thank Melanie a.k.a Melanie's Musings for stopping by to discuss Young Adult vs. Adult Books.

Please welcome Melanie everyone!

It has only been in the last two years that I've spent much time reading YA. After moving beyond older children's books in the fifth grade, I basically jumped into adult literature. The majority of my middle school years were spent reading a bunch of the classics as well as newer adult books. Then, when I was in the eight grade, the school librarian introduced me to a very popular YA series, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I was hooked. Since then, I've been basically splitting my time between YA and adult books, and I've come to a couple conclusions.

YA is amazing. One of the reasons I completely fell in love with The Sisterhood was that they were teens just like me. Granted, their lives were a lot more interesting (I want to go to Greece!), but I could still relate to them. That was one of the reasons I asked the school librarian for recommendations. Although I was enjoying the books I was reading, I couldn't quite connect to the characters. I can't imagine what it would be like to get married and divorced, but I can imagine to what it would feel like to get your heart broken. I haven't come to the point where I've felt the stress of wanting to get a promotion at work, but I have worried about how I did at my first job interview.

On the other hand, Adult books can be great too. Although I may not be able to relate to exactly what a character is going through, all human emotions are the same. Love is love, hate is hate, so on and so forth. And sometimes, it can be fun to imagine what it would be like to find yourself in a predicament like Nanny in The Nanny Diaries, or take a more serious turn to what it must have been like for those in Under this Unbroken Sky.

I think the most important thing to remember is that both genres are full of great reads. So whether the majority of your reading time is spent reading YA or Adult, make sure you've got a bit of both.