Are You Ever 'Too Old' for Teenage Fiction?

Last year after a recommendation from For Bookssake I started reading my copy of Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson. I harboured this book for years having got it as part of a VHS bumper pack of the TV show ten years ago! I loved the show, but I never quite got around to reading the series back in the day. I had tackled Tracey Beaker and the Suitcase Kid, but was starting to believe that I was growing out of these kinds of books. What can I say? Reading books about 14-year-olds just wasn't cool when I was 15.

Last month I decided to tackle the second in the series: Girls Under Pressure. This is an incredibly relevant novel about the pressures that young girls go through in terms of the way they look and dress. In the book each girl tries to drastically change themselves in order to try and confirm to the idea of what they think everyone is telling them is acceptable for them to look like. Magda is sexually assaulted, blames herself and reacts badly by cutting off her hair and shunning her usually glamorous clothing. Nadine turns her back on her gothic look in order to try and fit in at a magazine photo shoot in the pursuit of a career in modelling. However, the series' protagonist Ellie has a particularly harrowing time as the belief that she is fat drives her to anorexia and bulimia. I was thrilled when at the end of the book all three of the girls found that they were just perfect as they were and it was an uplifting message to end on as pressure sadly doesn't disappear once you enter your twenties.

This got me thinking about how this book might appeal to adults and if teenage fiction still has relevance and value for adult readers. I think in the case of the girls series the answer must be a resounding yes. The problem is that we have a tendency to think about literature for younger readers as 'less' than literature for adults. Just look at the often dismissive and condescending way in which YA fiction is dealt with. I have to defend teenage and young adult fiction here because I believe that those labels can in fact be harmful. Let's be honest, 'adulthood' is no fixed thing and legally you become an 'adult' whilst still a 'teenager'. With this in mind it is easier to understand that books too aren't going to fit into neat categories nor are they going to stop being relatable just because you have another birthday.

The Girls series would have been really helpful when I was still a teenager, but it still does something for me now. So, are you ever 'too old' for teenager fiction? No because there is no such thing as 'teenage' fiction. Books are for everyone, everywhere and shouldn't be limited by how they were marketed. In addition to this, how can you be 'too old' when ages are just made up numbers? Age is arbitrary and we are all different which means that we will all want, need and be different things at different times. If I have learnt anything through writing this blog it's that with books, as with life, we should never limit ourselves and I think Ellie Allard would agree.