Why do I love YA?

Before we begin: YES: I MISSED THE DEADLINE FOR THIS POST. YES: I'M EXTREMELY PISSED OFF ABOUT IT. But you know what? I'm going to do the post anyway. I know there's no point in doing it after the deadline, but whatevs.

I love YA fiction because it's awesome. It's impossible not to like YA, and whoever says they don't like it just hasn't found the right book yet. I mean, I get that Twilight isn't for everyone, but how about not giving up straight after that? Why not pick up a copy of Harry Potter? Or The Hunger Games? I'm lucky, because the first YA books I read was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (when I was six, it took me like a month of intense reading to finish it).

The thing is, I love other genres too. I think Jeffrey Archer, John Grisham, Robert Ludlum and Sidney Sheldon are all incredible writers. But, let's face it, no one can relate to Jason Bourne. When you read about Simon in TMI, you're like "Yeah! That could be me!" (y'know, apart from the fact that he's a badass vampire now). You get my point.



Once I expanded from J.K. Rowling into people like Christopher Paolini, Michael Grant and Darren Shan I realized that the world of YA is much bigger than I could have possibly imagined. Now, what seems like a bajillion years (actually 11, 'cos I'm 17) and even more books later, I'm still going strong, devouring books as fast as I possibly can. And I intend to keep it that way.

For all you non-readers out there: Pick up a book, for god's sake. It's really a lot better than it looks. Maybe, instead of spending ten hours a day playing Call of Duty or kicking a ball about, you could actually read and learn something fore once in your lives. (I'm looking at YOU, jocks). If you don't know what to pick up, come check out my recommendation tab, or go and check out other blogs! There's a load of people out there who love to read, and you guys should really give it a try.

Now, for all you readers out there: I love you guys. Honestly. DFTBA.

I'm pretty much done here so, um, bye.

Keep reading,

-JRD.