The reasons I read more YA than adult is because there are more strong female characters and because I'm 56 y.o. and living the story through a young, kick ass woman makes me feel young again!

Daniel Greene: My Problem With YA Fantasy Elliot Brooks: THE BEST THINGS ABOUT YA FANTASY

The thing I like the most about YA is that it can be read by a wide age group. Parents can read it with their children and come together over a book.

I think YA fantasy explores emotions and relationships better than adult, from my experience. ALTHOUGH I wonder if this is more down to the author; most YA fantasy books are written by women and adult fantasy, by men. This would be an interesting (although arguably more controversial 😂) topic to explore.

Elliot i think my favorite things about YA books is the pacing. The fact that they don't waste no time getting to the point of the story and getting you emotionally wrapped early on. I love the emphasis on the romantic relationships and character bonding. With YA books you will know fairly early on if you are gonna like the book or not usually in the first few chapters. I think these books are more of my style. Hope you are feeling well and have a great happy reading day 💜📚☕

Totally agree with the "cozy" remark. Sometimes I can appreciate really dark and gritty worlds and characters, but other times I'm just not really in the mood to "go there," you know?

the best thing about ya fantasy is that it is emotional and you can lose yourself into it ;)

I definitely read more YA because of how light and fast-paced they are. I also appreciate your comment on diversity. That's how I see it as well 😊

I identify with the”Lord Ruler” from Mistborn

A thing that I adore about YA (and also Manga for that matter) is that I feel like they're more... Daring or creative in their settings sometimes. There's stories that I just feel like they wouldn't work in adult books. That isn't to say that adult books aren't creative or unique in their own way, but the main reason I read YA books is because the setting intigues me and makes me want to discover more of it. Adult worlds are better build a lot of times, but YA just.. explores more within it's boundaries I think.

Just wanted to give you a shout out for not swearing in your videos. I have no problem with it, but I know your videos are safe to watch in front of my kids, and I appreciate it. 😊♥️📚

Funny seeing you posting the best of YA while Daniel is posting what he hates about YA, lol. If you had to pick ONE series in YA for a non-YA reader, what would you choose?

*Amazing things about YA books:* The Magic System (either complex or soft) and history/lore. That's the main reason I'm planing to have more books to read to.

Yes I love the friendships 😭❤️

Ooh it would be cool if you did a list of ya and adult fantasy that capture the essence of the genres as a final episode in the series.

Hi Elliot, I love your videos! I was wondering what music is playing at the end of your videos? It's absolutely beautiful.

I love YA fantasy, it's perfect when you want something a bit quicker to read than a dense adult fantasy!! I also feel like romance is often better in YA than adult haha!! And the covers are always gorgeous!!

Ice drinks are awesome! Black raspberry and Cherry Limemade are the best. :)

I like your take on diverse. 👍

Believing that I can make a difference as one person was so big for me when I was a teenager. That's was part of the magic for me when it came to YA. It also inspired me to believe I could become a writer.

I agree YA tends to have some pretty interesting premises

I think many ya fantasy books show more character growth because they are coming of age and still trying to figure out who they are as a person. I think the reason I love Mistborn even more is because it has that feel of a young adult fantasy but it bridges into adult as Vin grows.

I'm 23 and I read pretty much an equal amount of ya and adult books and I can say that I relate much more to YA characters. The fast pacing and readability is also a plus for ya in my opinion.

I often relate to YA characters when it comes to what someone has gone through or grown from! Example: I related to Nannerl in The Kingdom of Back with her journey wanting to play music and having people considered better than her and get more hype than her. That’s so similar to how I felt with my classical piano journey growing up. But adult characters I can relate to the emotional journey at this stage in life better - usually, at least - such as Sancia from Foundryside or Mark Watney from the Martian. While I am not a thief who can hear things talk to me nor am astronaut stranded on Mars, the train of thought and problem-solving and emotional reaction to stimulus is much more similar to how I process things now, at 26-almost-27 than the vast majority of YA characters. (However, I felt so similarly to most YA characters in high school, so that’s an interesting point as well!)

I don't think that its fair to say that most of adult fantasy is European inspired. Ignoring the fact that Europe is diverse and multicultural, there are literally hundreds of non-European inspired fantasy books. The problem is that people dont look beyond the most popular authors.

Romance in both YA and 'adult' fantasy books is a prickly pear. I don't read heaps of fantasy books, so my example might need expansion. How romance is shown in both demographics could be the difference between wish fulfillment and dramatic effect. YA stories trend toward the wish fulfillment with romances that either work or are complicated by love triangles. With the YA love triangle as a version of a complicated relationship. Adult fantasy romances are generally in a book with a whole lot of world building, and are just part of the setting (I mean, the population comes from somewhere, yeah?). The adult fantasy romance is then more complicated by the world or the story and will often have troubles because the story gets in the way of the romance. What kind of romance exists in stories really comes down to the drama of the story. Is the romance the story or is it just part of the story?

I'm just getting back into fantasy after I stopped reading fiction in about 2009 and the landscape is so different from what it used to be, Fey were still big in YA in like 2006 btw

YA tends to use a bigger font than adult books so even though some of them are chunky, I can read them really fast. I do have moments when reading YA books when I think to myself “I’m too old for this” and it’s usually something to do with cringey teen romance. I’m 30, happily married and I’m so glad that the dating drama part of my life is over! But I have read many good YA books and many terrible ones. Thankfully, my library has a really robust YA section so I can try a series before I commit to purchasing.

A little while back, I found the first 3 books in a YA Fantasy series in a Value Village/Goodwill type store (I like these stores, because most have large book selections, where I can get 3 or more books for price of a new one). The series is called *"Fablehaven,"* and the author is Brandon Mull. It's a very good story(stories) so far. I'm almost halfway through the third book already. Going to have to go on amazon or ebay soon to look for the rest of the books in the series. That thrift store doesn't have them, nor does our local used book store "Sunrise Books" ( which is surprising, because that place has almost everything...lol...they have floor to ceiling, front to back, thousands, if not tens of thousands, of books in that store) Anyway, I'm rambling... What I was wondering was if You had read any of Mull's other works? And maybe, possibly, hopefully, kinda suggest something from him I should specifically look for? (I say specifically, because I'm enjoying *"Fablehaven"* so much, that I'll probably grab anything with his name on it right now. lol)

I was wondering if you watched Daniel Greens recent video about his problems with YA. Would be interested about your opinion to that topic :)

I prefer both YA adult fantasy and adult fantasy. I hope ur dad doing better?? Keep safe 😊📖💙

5:00 From what I've read,, Adult fantasy has stayed mostly in Europe inspired words for awhile, but that is setting, not plot. YA does have more diverse setting inspirations, but the plots are really similar.

The good thing I observe with YA sci-fi novels is that they don't need to explain or assimilate the technology of the era by focusing on the characters' points-of-view. The humanity of the characters play out in the plot while every scene moves in the world that the author built without presenting intricate details of the environment, technology or system. 🤓

I said the same thing in one of the other videos on this series but I’ll say it again: I’ve never read a good romance in adult fantasy, yet I have read quite a few romances I love in YA. I don’t have any strong negative feelings towards adult romances though, I can easily look past it them and focus on the plot. Yet with YA the bad romances make me strongly dislike the book.

I think my tastes have been heavily influenced by growing up with journey to the west, watching anime, historical Chinese dramas, comedy skits, and reading manga. It’s a very different atmosphere if you get what I mean? That is why I tend to be frustrated with a lot of YA books which tend to have that distinctive “written by an English monolingual” flavour. I don’t mean to sound offensive, and it’s not really anything to do with race, it’s simply the way stories are written in different cultures. There are of course, many which I do enjoy, such as Scythe, Strange the Dreamer, The Queens Thief series etc.. but I’m finding myself gravitate more towards adult books or classics recently. It may also be because I tend to have a hard time understanding the main characters of YA books for whatever the reason may be, and plot driven characters tend to intrigue me more than character driven plots. I think YA is fairly simply to read and quite a fun “class of books”, but I think the conventions are starting to wear down on me and I need a break.

I've been avoiding ya because I'm not, meaning the writing will be less mature. Moralistic, no people with adult character defects, drug alcohol or sex problems. This vid convinced me to try some . Of course I read maybe 10 books a year so we will see.

I think YA protagonists are easier to relate to because everyone can remember that feeling of wanting to be a special teen/kid. Even as an adult people can look back and remember daydreaming about being the chosen one, or feeling bored or boring and wanting to get caught up in some supernatural fantastical thing. And there is more diversity in YA so there's a wider net thrown, where as a lot of Adult protagonists can feel more repetitive sometimes.

YA fiction contains a ready-made story arc ie "growing up". So if the writer wants to add more then it can easily done, if necessary. I'm not mad keen on romantic subplots; rather I tend towards people starting out as strangers and learning to be friends. Finding a suitable plot arc for an older character can be difficult because the older they get, the harder it is for them to learn or grow, but occasionally their ingrown prejudices can be tipped upside down. (btw I've finished "A Time of Courage". The editor has missed some glaring logical and continuity errors.)

I'm not sure what young adult is. My first two novels have main characters that are 19 and late 20s so does that make my books young adult?

IMO the best thing about YA is the relative absence of "purple" prose, but some authors take this to the extreme and turn the book into a basic/simplistic read. I agree that YA books often have a fast pace, especially when it comes to action. But once again, when that is taken to extremes, the constant action can become rather repetitive and boring ( for me, at least ). Another positive for YA is that sometimes it's just nice to feel young again and put yourself in the protagonists shoes !

I relate more to adult protagonist. That said, I don't read a lot of epic fantasy.

I typically don't like YA but I will give credit where it's due. It seems like whenever I find a fantasy in a cool and creative setting with cool cover art, it ends up being YA. I wish more adult fantasy writers would start getting away from the pseudo-European culture. (not that I don't love my pseudo-European fantasy too) The only YA books I've enjoyed are indie ones. I've found the more popular it is on goodreads the more cliche and cringy the insta-love romance is that everybody apparently can't get enough of lol

“Diverse” also doesn’t just mean diverse in terms of ethnicity, it can mean more representation for LGBT people, disabled people and generally all the sorts of people who are left out of mainstream fantasy.

Second!!!!!!!!!?!!?!?

Your comment about adult fantasy being a bit stagnant and stuck in this whole swords and sorcerers, quasi-medieval/European setting is one of the top reasons I'm more drawn to YA than to adult fantasy. I see so many Tolkien-inspired worlds in adult fantasy, one after another, and I think...isn't anyone tired of seeing the same thing over and over again? It's called 'fantasy.' That means it can literally be anything. Look like anything. The only limitation is the writer's imagination. It just feels like there's a bit more room in YA for stuff that's more off the wall since the YA umbrella covers a multitude of genres within itself. So if your fantasy bleeds a bit sci-fi or steampunk or political thriller or horror....that's fine! It's all good. It's all YA. I think that freedom of being able to blend genres might make it a bit easier for YA fantasy specifically to feel less stagnant. There are definitely trends, as you said, but those trends are always changing, so it feels like the landscape of the genre as a whole is also constantly changing. It's fresh and exciting. But seriously, if you present me with a world I've never seen before, one that doesn't look like anything else I've read, you've got me hook, line, and sinker. It's a never-ending quest, but I always get super stoked when I find one.

I have to be honest, I just don't even bother with YA anymore. I read a fair few YA dystopian series back in the day and I got a bit sick of it after a while, mostly because of the emotional immaturity of the protagonists and the incessant focus on romantic love and... yes, freaking love triangles. 😅 And honestly, like even at the time the fact my age was similar to the main characters' ages didn't help me relate to them? I would relate if the personalities were similar, but that's it. Besides, you can have younger main characters in adult fantasy, especially with works that feature multiple POVs, whereas I don't feel you can say the same (or at least not to the same extent) with YA fiction, which focuses on young characters almost exclusively. In that specific sense, it's actually less age-and thus experience-diverse. (Not that I think there's anything wrong with an adult being a fan of YA by the way! All preferences are valid. 😊)

Wait .... better family dynamics? The parents are always dead or dysfunctional or the protagonist would be in bed by nine!