A genre that’s known as New Adult is aimed at adult readers, and it’s somewhere between true literature and the simple storytelling of Young Adult books. It sells lots of books.
But, as the Martin Center’s Graham Hillard says in this article, it has become “unreadable garbage.” Why? He pins the blame on the malign influence of college.
Instead of having students read real literature, colleges overwhelmingly settle for dreck. Forget Shakespeare and Melville: Students are expected to ingest Ibram X. Kendi and Ta-Nehisi Coates. New Adult books are poorly written and obsessed with the petty problems of 20-somethings, but that’s a perfect match for today’s “college educated” readers.
As Hillard sums things up, “Having been taught nothing better, today’s readers have no sense of what they’re missing and are instead satisfied with pap. Meanwhile, whole libraries of near-miraculous literature sit untouched, gathering dust. If we wish, we can reach out and grasp them once again.”