Look Homeward, Reader

When I was 13, my most literary friend, Amy, recommended that I read Colette’s novel “Chéri,” about an aging courtesan’s relationship with her young lover. I tried, but couldn’t make it all the way through. “It’s so boring!” I told Amy.

“There’s so much complaining about getting older. What’s the big deal, everyone gets older,” I added uncharitably.

I have a vague, shameful memory of tossing Colette aside and instead picking up my go-to book, a well-worn copy of that 1970s teenage classic, “Go Ask Alice.” I generally wanted a protagonist who was around my age. And if she got messed up on LSD, or accidentally found herself pregnant, well, count me in.

It may still be true that most teenagers don’t want to read about the problems of the middle-aged (though we could probably terrify them with a dystopian book called “The AARP Games”). But as we’ve seen in recent years, plenty of adults of all ages do want to read about teenagers.

The phenomenon of fully grown people reading young-adult (Y.A.) books has gotten a lot of attention, not all of it favorable, and some of it leading to a small Y.A. war of words. In June, the critic Ruth Graham published a provocative piece in Slate called “Against YA,” with the subheading: “Read whatever you want. But you should feel embarrassed when what you’re reading was written for children.” The response was loud. Ms. Graham focused on what she said the publishing industry calls realistic fiction, and argued that adult readers who hew to Y.A. miss out on too much. She cited big Y.A. titles (among them “The Fault in Our Stars” and “Eleanor & Park”) and found them wanting when compared with more challenging adult offerings. “These books consistently indulge in the kind of endings that teenagers want to see, but which adult readers ought to reject as far too simple,” she wrote. “Y.A. endings are uniformly satisfying, whether that satisfaction comes through weeping or cheering.”

I wouldn’t try to change Ms. Graham’s mind about particular books; individual taste is beautifully mysterious. While, like her, I mostly read so-called adult fiction (a term that uneasily sounds as if I’m talking about porn), I happen to have admired and been moved by the Y.A. titles she mentioned, finding their depictions of adolescent struggles tender, respectful and authentic.