No longer a difference between YA books and sleazy T.V shows?

A big issue in the literary world has been the recent flood of Young Adult books that seem to have content that is surely aimed at the wrong age group. Although Young Adult books are meant to be aimed at all teens, there’s no doubt that books like the Gossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar are read by preteens as young as 12 years old. Books like the "A-List" and "Clique" series look nice with colorful covers and catchy titles; they even come in nice boxed sets for parents to give their kids as gifts.

What has been causing the news about these kind of novels, are the “mature content” within the pages. Naomi Wolfe expressed her extreme dislike for these books in an article in The New York Times, calling the books "corruption with a cute overlay,”. NBC news also calls these books “dangerous” and says that lately YA books are more “Sex and the City” than “Nancy Drew.” However, not all adults and parents seem to agree that these books aren’t appropriate reads. Pam Spencer Holley of the American Library Association (ALA) supports these books, supposedly she’s "happy to see teen girls reading." Her feeble argument is that "Unless you read stuff that's perhaps not the most literary, you'll never understand what good works are." It seems to me that she is saying teens should read books with no good or decent content just for the sake of reading and realizing that there’s a difference between trash and good literature.

The narration and plot in books like “A-List”, and “Clique” seem to support judging young girls only on a physical and materialistic basis, as the protagonists in the these novels enjoy the seventh grade with their Prada bags. While the majority of complaints seem to be warning the parents of the content, I think it’s the authors who are at fault and the readers. And of course these authors will write more such stories, as a thirteen year-old said “It’s fun to read about people doing that stuff and having sex,” It’s a shame to see literature in such states, and even sadder to see teens yearning a new novel filled with sleazy content.