listen, I'm doing a languages degree along with my law degree, and if my literature classes involved reading the fucking hunger games instead of maxine beneba clarke or chimamanda ngozi adichie, I would start to wonder what the fuck I was paying for https://jezebel.com/bestselling-authors-band-together-to-dunk-on-a-college-1839832467/amp?__twitter_impression=true

hot take: jodi picoult, bestselling author of books you can buy at airport newsagents as gifts for relatives you don't particularly like, doesn't belong in university literature classes not because her books are about young women, but because they're not very good

I actually love YA, particularly YA fantasy - it's the genre I read for pleasure the most and easily the one I spend the most money on - but while diana wynne jones, for example, is one of my favourite authors of all-time, I wouldn't teach the merlin conspiracy to uni students!

and that's not because I don't think it's a great book - I think that's such a great book that I own multiple copies! - or because there's nothing worthy or literary about it (jones was easily one of the greatest users and deconstructors of myth in storytelling of her generation)

but imagine paying $1300 (the cost of one government-subsidised college subject here) for a literature class, expecting to be challenged by texts that force you out of your comfort zone, and getting something written to be comprehensible to fourteen-year-olds?

there is nothing wrong with admitting that while people of all ages can enjoy and be enriched by YA, the target audience (and therefore themes, vocabulary, etc) are teenagers! unless you're teaching a college class *about YA literature*, why would you use YA in college classes?

I can read (and analyse, critique and enjoy) YA in my free time, but when I'm in class, I expect to be exposed to a syllabus designed to challenge me, expand my worldview and ultimately contribute to my education, which again, is *what I am paying for*

anyway, I looked up @sarahdessen because I'd literally never heard of her before, and this is a brief synopsis of her most recent book, per wikipedia:

which university classes does she envision this being taught in, exactly? introduction to bland midwesternism?

by contrast, here's a book by a female author that was set reading in one of my classes last semester: the hate race, by @slamup (maxine beneba clarke):

both by women, both focusing on women's experiences, both centring female narrators

you tell me: which one do you think university students ought to be paying to read?