New Adult fiction has become increasingly popular lately and a lot of new authors are also self-publishing books in this genre. New Adult typically features characters over the age of 18, usually in college and going through a different type of “coming of age” experience than what is normally seen in Young Adult fiction. A lot of people who read YA also read New Adult books, so NA tends to have a larger group of readers because people who are in their twenties and thirties tend to read NA along with the large YA audience.

I personally have very mixed views on this emerging genre–some NA books that I have read are fantastic but others are awful. Since the age range is much larger for NA books, authors can get away with more racy scenes and curse words, but some NA books just go over the top with this. For example–I started to read Wanted by Kelly Elliot a few weeks ago and I literally only got 25 pages in before I had to put it down. Aside from a multitude of grammatical mistakes and a very strange style of writing, it seemed like every other word was a curse word. I don’t have a problem most of the time with cursing in books, but in this book it was completely random and awkward and the frequency of it did not make sense at all.

Another NA book I read recently is The Edge of Never by J.A. Redmerski. This had much better writing than Wanted but seemed borderline Fifty Shades of Grey. This brings up another interesting point with NA fiction–there is much more sex in NA obviously, because of the age of the characters, but how much is too much? I suppose this is also a personal opinion–some people may not mind it but others may have a problem with it. It just seems that authors are using NA as an excuse to write sexier scenes, and I really don’t think this should be the sole purpose of the genre.

I have read some excellent NA books, however. Easy by Tammara Webber was a really great book with a reasonable amount of steaminess and a beautiful story. It was wonderfully written and dealt with a lot of issues in a really great way. Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire is another NA book that I really loved. This book has many mixed reviews because it does touch on some controversial issues such as possessiveness and a borderline abusive relationship, but I personally liked the way McGuire deals with these issues and does not sugarcoat the story at all.

I think New Adult is definitely a genre that I am going to keep my eye on because it seems like it does have a lot of potential. Have you read any NA books recently? What are your opinions on this emerging genre?