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Are You Genre-Phobic?

Young Adult Books Genre PhobicAre you genre-phobic, by T.D. Shields.

Are you a genre-phobe? Do you love to read fantasy but avoid romance like the plague?

Sci-fi flips your switch but horror makes you flip out?

I’m right there with you. Through the years I’ve had many genre phobias, but I notice that mine tend to shift over time.

When I was a teenager, I couldn’t get enough of romance novels. I loved to read about people older than me living exciting lives where I could picture myself as part of the adventure. Now that I am the older person, I love to read Young Adult fiction for stories about people younger than me living exciting lives while I imagine being part of the adventure.

I tend to avoid horror and zombie books because of the gore… yet a serial killer thriller is a must-read in spite of the gore. Inconsistent, I know.  But I branch out occasionally and recently I even read a few zombie stories that I really enjoyed. (Married With Zombies; Eat, Slay, Love; and The Zombie Whisperer by Jesse Peterson – with titles like that, you can see why I had to give them a try.)

I never used to want to read anything non-fiction because I was in it for the exciting escapism. Now I enjoy biographies, memoirs, and the occasional non-fiction explainer. Bill Bryson is fantastic for that sort of thing.

So I’ve learned to be a little less genre-phobic these days and try a lot of new authors and styles. Sometimes it’s a bust, but often I find a great new book.

How about you? What are your genre phobias? What books have you found that break through your genre lines?

Come over to Facebook and tell me all about it! (You know you want to be my friend! https://www.facebook.com/tdshields.author/)

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YA Books to Movie/TV a Thing of the Past?

Written by
Melissa Craven

No way, right? Well, about a year ago, I read an article answering this very question. The author claimed the big boom in Young Adult genres was finally dwindling down and likely not to see such massive interest again.

I respectfully disagreed. But as a YA author myself, a little piece of me trembled in fear at the very idea and I felt a sense of urgency to get my nearly finished work in progress published asap! The article ended with one last glimmer of hope—stating that although nothing significant was rising up to follow in Divergent’s footsteps, maybe the next big thing in YA was being written at that very moment. To which I immediately responded with a cocky, “you bet your sweet…er…” well anyway, I went right back to perfecting my masterpiece and told myself the article was totes wrong.

And it was. Lots of great things are on the horizon for YA in 2016 and I can’t wait to see my beloved genre on the big screen. With The 5th Wave, by Rick Yancey hitting theaters soon, we’ll be off to a great start in 2016.

I personally cannot wait for J.K. Rowling’s, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, arriving in theaters later in the year.

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With another Narnia movie in development, and Allegiant: Part 1 due out this spring, as well as Fallen, by Lauren Kate and Significance by Shelly Crane, YA will be out in full force in 2016. And countless other titles (one metric-bazillion to be more exact) are in the works, rumored or scheduled for 2017.

But what about the small screen? Young Adult series are starting to crop up increasingly on television. The 100, by Kass Morgan will be back for a third season in January. Pretty Little Liars, by Sara Shepard is in it’s fifth season and The Vampire Diaries, by L. J Smith is still going strong.  

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2016 will see The Mortal Instrument series by Cassandra Clare become The Shadowhunters on abc Family this January (seriously cannot wait for this!). Considering the failure of the movie, I am extremely excited to see how the show compares. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi is also rumored to hit the 2016 Fall lineup.

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The YA book to movie trend is clearly here to stay, which makes the fangirl/author in me extremely excited for 2016.

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