How I Lost You is $1.99 today at most retailers. This is a YA novel about two best friends, one of whom is the risk taker and the other is… not so much. It involves drug use, risky behavior, and PAINT BALL. The school paint ball team, as a matter of fact. Did my school have a paint ball team when I was in high school? Heck, no. I'm jealous, for sure.
Reviewers like Jen loved the focus on the deep friendship between two girls, and the problems they deal with together.
There are a few things Grace Anderson knows for sure. One is that nothing will ever come between her and her best friend, Kya Kessler. They have a pact. Buds Before Studs. Sisters Before Misters.
But in the summer before senior year, life throws out challenges they never expected. And suddenly the person who's always been there starts to need the favor returned. Grace and Kya are forced to question how much a best friend can forgive.
And the answer is not what they expected.
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Rush Me by Allison Parr is a contemporary romance, and is labeled by some as New Adult. It's .99c at Amazon, and $2.99 elsewhere (which I think is the regular price). I read this and I'm still having a hard time articulating my reaction. I really disliked the heroine at times, and felt like she had a huge entitlement problem, but the hero and his friends, all of whom are NFL players in a mythical New York team, are fascinating characters. And the scenes where the heroine ends up hosting shabbat dinner for one of the team rookies are really adorable. If you like sports romances, you may like this very much.
When post-grad Rachael Hamilton accidentally gatecrashes a pro-athlete party, she ends up face-to-face with Ryan Carter, the NFL’s most beloved quarterback.
While most girls would be thrilled to meet the attractive young millionaire, Rachael would rather spend time with books than at sporting events, and she has more important things to worry about than romance. Like her parents pressuring her to leave her unpaid publishing internship for law school. Or her brother, who’s obliviously dating Rachael’s high school bully. Or that same high school’s upcoming reunion.
Still, when Ryan’s rookie teammate attaches himself to Rachael, she ends up cohosting Friday night dinners for half a dozen football players.
Over pancake brunches, charity galas, and Alexander the Great Rachael realizes all the judgments she’d made about Ryan are wrong. But how can a Midwestern Irish-Catholic jock with commitment problems and an artsy, gun-shy Jewish New Englander ever forge a partnership? Rachael must let down her barriers if she wants real love–even if that opens her up to pain that could send her back into her emotional shell forever.
A Kiss in Winter by Susan Crandall is $2.99. This is a contemporary wounded-hero/wounded-heroine romance with a heavy suspense element.
Six years ago tragedy struck and Caroline Rogers had to make tough decisions to sell the family farm and put her life on hold to raise her younger siblings. Now that they're entering adulthood and her long-delayed photography career is taking off, she can almost taste the freedom.
Shaken by self-doubt, Dr. Mick Larsen turns his back on his big-city psychiatric practice and settles for the small-town quiet of Redbud Mill, where he can hide his past successes and failures. To Caroline, he shows only a man who wants to put down roots and start a family–good reasons for her to stay away. Then someone starts vandalizing local landmarks she has photographed. Now Caroline must convince a man with little faith in his own abilities that he can help her find the disturbed mind in their midst. But even as she teaches him to trust himself, she must fight the temptation to trust him with her future and her heart.
Or does Adult Adult = Geriatric fiction. ? The constantly changing definitions of YA fiction are starting to drive me nuts !
The New Adult category is cool with me if that’s what authors and readers want. I like that it evolved that way. Though I do get annoyed with writers who then complain their “New Adult” novel no longer qualifies as YA for contests or various other things requiring categories. Either you are writing YA or you are writing fiction with adult characters for an adult audience. Maybe it’s not “NA” but it’s not YA if the character is 22—my two cents at least. 🙂
I completely agree. I purchased an annoying NA bundle on Amazon, and every couple but the first was comprised of actual, old enough to drink in the US, adults. What that effing eff? The whole thing came off as grasping and disingenuous (excuse the pun).
I really like the New Adult category. I enjoy YA, but sometimes I get a bit bummed out when all the heroines are 15-17 years old. But in standard romances, especially historicals, the heroine is in her early to mid-twenties, because of y’know…her impending spinsterhood.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure (Don’t quote me on this), the NA genre is supposed to “coming of age” stories when women are experiencing that transition into/through college. In my opinion, that period has been largely underrepresented until now.
I personally think all of the Young Adult vs. New Adult categories ridiculously stupid.
I don’t understand any of it.
That being said why is it ridiculous that New Adults are 22? I would expect New adults to be 22 or 23. 22 is the age when most people graduate from college. After leaving college, is when I think you start to think of yourself as an adult. You’re no longer a kid or even a college kid and you’re living on your own for the first time. After all it’s hard to sell an adult book with people living in a dorm? I think 22 is too old to start a young adult book, but I could see finishing a series or even a book with a 22 since that is graduation age.
In general I am frustrated in romance that so many young people particularly women seem to want to throw away their youth rather than experience life. I find it very hard to relate a woman who is 23 complaining and moaning “I’ll never find someone. I can’t wait to settle down.” Young women want to experience life and not just give up and start having babies right away. It annoys when the heroines are really young and are to ready to go domestic. (especially those with no religious background) Plus then the heroes are all 30 and completely ready to settle down having sown their wild oats and built a career. Probably we’re seeing new adults with characters in their twenties, because it’s the only way to get a young man as a romance hero.
For me, I don’t see the NA genre as much of an age bracket as I do an experience bracket if that makes sense. Yes, most of the heroines are in their twenties. But a lot of the the NA books I’ve seen center around women starting college or in some sort of college-esque atmosphere. It’s an important time in terms of self-discovery and it may often be the first taste of serious relationship for some.
With YA, I do agree with you when it comes to the settling down aspect. I know that at sixteen, I was in no shape for any sort of serious, committed relationship. With NA, I’m a bit more forgiving. Around that age, some women may feel a bit of societal pressure when it comes to settling down, getting married, and having kids. I know that’s how I feel about it. I want to experience life and have a gaggle of hellions, just running amok. I don’t really mind it when NA heroines have that sort of existential life crisis, because I’m going through it too.
I really enjoyed Rush Me, which I would definitely categorize as NA, as it is focused on a 23 year-old recent grad living in New York trying to work temp jobs to pay rent while interning in publishing. But the book will work for some and not for others. The heroine is judgmental and grows a lot during the book. I love me a flawed heroine, particularly a judgmental one. But I find it especially forgivable, as she is so young, which is why I’m liking NA so much. They allow for flawed protags that are experiencing adulthood and being forced to grow and learn things about themselves.
I also liked how the money difference between the hero and heroine is handled in the book. She is struggling to make rent and is determined to feel independent and self-sufficient while the hero just wants to spend money on their dates without it being an issue. I’ve seen this in real life and I enjoyed reading about those dynamics between the two characters.
It seems to me that the YA and NA labeling works best for contemporary (and currently written) novels, e.g., YA = high school age, NA = college age. It doesn’t work as well for historical and sci fi/fantasy novels, where age, life experience, and education means something different. I’m not saying it can never work for different genres, but I think the labeling is applied too generously to books (self published especially) these days in order for authors and publishers to jump on the NA bandwagon.
Do all books need to be categorized as YA, NA, or “AA” (adult adult)? And how does this apply to books written before the newest terminology was created (e.g., To Kill a Mockingbird, Little Women, heck, even The Dragonriders of Pern)? Do they now get recategorized as YA or NA? (Marketing opportunity!) Or to look at it a different way, for example, can a book have protagonists in their teens or early 20s and not be a YA or NA book?
Are the YA, NA, and adult labels meant to apply to the anticipated audience of the book, or to the ages of the main characters in the book? Or is it a conflation of the two? And if NA was created to bridge the YA and adult categories, will we subsequently see a breakup of YA to distinguish between books/audiences for, let’s say, younger YAs and older YAs? And then I guess we need something to distinguish between juvenile and YA as well. Maybe it’s already there and I just don’t know about it.
And I do have a thing for sports romances, thank you very much!