A new breed of teenage lit has some grown women hot and bothered

This article is from the February issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here

TEENBAUCHERY Young adult lit gone wild(Illustration: Britney Sabo)

As a general rule, readers on the subway carry their most impressive book: American Pastoral, Finnegans Wake, Kundera in the original Czech. It was with some embarrassment, therefore, that I cracked the spine of Lust—my latest foray into the trashy and admittedly ignoble genre that had recently stolen my heart—on the L train last November.

The books piled up. The receipts did, too. And sometime during the eighth Gossip Girl—when Nate and Serena totally do it in a dressing room at Bergdorf's—I had to ask myself: Am I just a pervert?
The scene kicked off hot and heavy. Kaia, Haven High's newest vixen, wouldn't take no for an answer, and Adam's virtue was in jeopardy: "She stood before him and, with a sultry smile, pulled off her halter top, revealing the black lace bra that lay beneath. Then off went the shimmering skirt. Off went the lace. ... 'Kaia,' he said softly, allowing her to pull his T-shirt over his head, to kiss her way across his bare chest as his hands, as if of their own accord, massaged the soft contours of her body."

As Adam's boxers slipped off, I sensed another set of eyes on the page. The woman next to me, Economist in hand, was undeniably reading over my shoulder. Though I felt a bit seedy, I couldn't help but think I'd made a new convert: the latest well-read adult won over by the randy allure of teen fiction.

Certainly, I can't be the only grown-up fan. Since 1999, sales of books in the 12-and-over age group have shot up 23 percent while adult sales have slipped 1 percent, according to the Book Industry Study Group. Those numbers have prompted the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to announce a "golden age of young adult literature." Forget Philip Roth; the true face of contemporary literature is coated in lip gloss.

My secret affair with the genre—known in the biz as YA—began with an innocent trip to my local Barnes & Noble. There, in a rarely traveled corner, next to the cookbooks and travel guides, I discovered novels like Summer Boys, Pretty Little Liars, and The Au Pairs. Soon I was spending nights devouring more titles, more questionable works like It Girl, The Clique, and Boy Shopping. I immersed myself in teenage superficiality and sexuality with an abandon that, I must admit, was not entirely scholarly.

SHAMED OF HER SHELF A peek at the author's book collection(Photo: Michael Malandra)

I called up Farrin Jacobs, a teen fiction editor at HarperCollins, who assured me that even if I were a perv, I wouldn't be alone. "A lot of grown women I know are really into young adult series," she said. "People are recognizing that these books aren't just for teens." Jacobs, who moved on from editing chick lit as that genre started to "plateau," says the demand for YA is greater than ever.

Even "serious" adult writers are getting into the game. Vaunted scribes Sherman Alexie, Michael Chabon, and Nick Hornby have all taken stabs at teen lit in the last year. "In a way, I think all books should be teen books," says Hornby, whose new release, Slam, tells the tale of a young skateboarding chav who impregnates his teenage girlfriend. "I can read them quickly without getting bogged down, and feel I've read something that was meant in the way literature's supposed to be. They're very digestible, designed not to bore people."

Certainly, 41-year-old former club kid James St. James's most recent book won't bore. Best known for Disco Bloodbath, a true crime memoir about his drugged-out days with Michael Alig, St. James has become the latest YA convert. His new novel, Freak Show, tells the tale of Billy Bloom, a cross-dressing dynamo who runs for homecoming queen and lands a make-out session with his school's closeted star quarterback. "I thought, well, I've been around the block a few times, so maybe I do have something to say to young gays," he tells me, adding, "If I broke down the sales, though, I'd say they're about three-quarters adult and one-quarter teen. So it's not all pedophiles reading these books."

This article is from the February issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here