YA Grows up: More older teen protagonists are stepping into adulthood

"[YA is] a relatively recent phenomenon in terms of being a dedicated genre that has its own style or distinct voice," says Lalitha Nataraj, social sciences librarian at California State University San Marcos. "A lot of [these books] serve as primers for self-development, self-actualization, learning to do the right thing, making certain choices in our lives, leaving childhood behind, and stepping into adulthood." Books like this may also be classified as New Adult, a term that sometimes indicates the presence of sexual content, hewing closer to traditional romance titles, though it's not a common section in bookstores or libraries. Wednesday Books, an imprint of St. Martin's Press, specializes in exactly this type of older teen fare. Because the imprint was created within an adult house rather than a children's publisher, it is primed to reach an adult market, and the books cross age lines.