Should There Be Spice in YA Novels?

I bought a book.

Groundbreaking, I know. An avid reader who writes book reviews going to her local Big W, finding a book with an intriguing blurb, buying it and bringing it home. What next? Maybe we'll find out the true identity of Banksy or the local amateur theatre company will do something daring like putting on a performance of The Importance of Being Ernest or ...

Yeah, okay. I'm in a silly mood. Anyway, I bought a book. It was a fantasy romance, or romantasy as the genre is better known, it was titled Her Hidden Fire and it was authored by Cliodhna O'Sullivan. It had a pretty, gold foil cover. It was in the Young Adult section, but I'm perfectly comfortable with being an adult who occasionally reads books that are intended for children and young adults. And the blurb suggests that this one could be fun. It promises magic, a hint of romance and a female lead who has magical powers that she well, isn't supposed to have. 

Then, when I arrived home, I noticed something surprising tucked away in small letters on the inside cover. This:

A note informing readers that the book contains references to coercive behaviours and sexual and physical assault. 

I have yet to read the book, so I have no idea how explicit these specific scenes are. I don't know which character this happens to or why. What I do feel strongly about is that a note like that belongs on the back cover, where teen readers can decide whether it is something that they are okay with reading and where parents can see it.

There is nothing new about young adult novels exploring themes of sexual coercion and sexual assault. This is an important topic. Adelaide author Allayne Webster wrote Our Little Secret a novel in which the main character is sexually abused by a family friend and how a teacher helps her to recognise what is going on and the wrongs of the situation. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson tells the story of a teenager who is raped and then ostracised by her peers shortly before she starts high school and who eventually uses her love of art to find her voice. The difference is these books address a dark topic in a way that is age appropriate and can help victims of sexual assault to feel understood and to speak out. 

My concern is that any sexual coercion in this book has been done purely for the plot twist and to keep readers turning pages, rather than it being something that carries a deeper meaning.

I am also concerned that the heavily sexual aspect of adult romance-fantasy novels, better known as romantasy, has the potential to spill over into young adult. 

Okay, some of this is nothing new. The Throne of Glass series by Sarah J Maas is not short on sexually explicit content. However, the length of the novels and the fact that they do not take place in a boarding school make it clear from the word go that these books belong at the higher end of the YA market. More recent editions of the series market it to adults rather than teens. YA, a genre often popular with readers outside the target audience had managed to influence and blur the lines between and adult novel and one aimed at teens. 

There are also other problems within publishing at the moment that have the potential to infiltrate the YA market. The first is that adult romance novels across a range of genres have become increasingly explicit. We saw this first in 2012 following on from when Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James, originally a fan fiction of Twilight but with the names of the characters, their ages and locations altered. For the next couple of years we saw an array of sexually explicit books, many of which were originally self published or, like Fifty Shades of Grey. This trend saw its strangest moment when a Harry Styles fanfiction on wattpad was published as After a book which then spawned three sequels and a prequel, two film adaptions and a series of graphic novels. Around the same time, a social worker who self published a YA novel about a nineteen year old student who fell in love with her same age school teacher was also picked up and became hugely popular. The author, Colleen Hoover, would go on to be a huge part of a genre dubbed New Adult, filled with romance novels that featured young characters exploring their first sexual relationships amidst the backdrop of various dramas. By 2016 however, New Adult and spicy novels were old hat. Hoover went on to publish her first novel intended for a wholly adult audience, It Ends With Us. The novel sold well, but a little over a year later, the author would be with a much smaller publisher and in the midst of self publishing some of her other novels. The romance boom was over.

Four years later Covid happened, and along with it, a trend of readers, isolated in their homes, sharing their favourite books on TikTok, soon dubbed BookTok. One influential reader shared their enjoyment of It Ends With Us. What followed was something of a phenomenon, with the book going viral, finding itself on bestseller lists years after it was first published. From there, readers began to share more and more books that they loved. In the early days of BookTok, a range of books and genres were shared, with readers showing a preference for books that left them feeling emotional. Romance was a popular genre, but there were also a range of books that were not. As well as Colleen Hoover, the novels being discussed were as wide ranging as A Little Life by Hanya Yangihara, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid and Normal People by Sally Rooney. As time went on, BookTok became increasingly associated with romance, and with collecting special editions of various best sellers. 

Then Fourth Wing came along.

A best seller filled with dragons and sexually explicit content, it may not have started, but it certainly influenced a trend among readers to discuss what was dubbed the spice content of books. Thanks to the rise of BookTok, readers were confident in discussing things like tropes, spice ratings and were confident in sharing their reviews. They were better able to discuss their likes and dislikes.

And publishers have been catching on. There have been more special editions, and it is now not unusual to see readers being gifted elaborate boxes filled with goodies and a copy of a new release book from publishers. What started as one person discussing a book that was four years old and almost out of print has become a huge commercial industry.

And if it does shift over to YA, as I fear, we are going to have problem on our hands. 

First of all, I don't want YA novels to have a spice rating. I don't want YA novels that were originally published as sexually explicit fan fictions of someone else's work. I don't want YA novels that glorify sexual coercion as romantic, as some adult novels do. 

The best part of YA is when it speaks of the adolescent experience, and speaks directly to the target audience. Surprisingly, the ability of its authors to do so is what often makes it equally popular with readers from outside the target audience, as many can remember and identify with what it means to be a teenager. Also, in Australia we have a wonderful range of YA books and authors, ones where the reader can see themselves, or their friends, represented. 

But YA should not have to mimic what is being published in adult fiction. Teen readers are usually savvy enough to pick out which adult books they want to read and will go at their own pace. And yes, sometimes teens do pick out books that are inappropriate out of curiosity, or experience peer group pressure to read them. But that does not mean it has to be subtly encouraged by YA novels becoming more adult.