Fantasy books written by women are often assumed to be young adult, even when those books are written for adults, marketed to adults, and published by adult SFF imprints. And this happens even more frequently to women of color.
This topicās an ongoing conversation on book Twitter, and I thought it might be worth sharing with Tumblr. And byĀ āongoing,ā I mean that people have been talking about this for years. Last year, there was a big blow up when the author R.F. Kuang said publicly that her book The Poppy War isnāt young adult and that she wished people would stop calling it such. If youāve read The Poppy War, then youāll know itās grimdark fantasy along lines of Game of Thronesā¦ and yet people constantly refer to The Poppy War as young adult ā which is one of its popular shelves on Goodreads. To be fair, more people have shelved it asĀ āadult,ā but why is anyone shelving it asĀ āyoung adultā in the first place? Game of Thrones is not at all treated this wayā¦
Rebecca Roanhorseās book Trail ofĀ Lightning, an urban fantasy with a DinĆ©tah (Navajo) protagonist hasĀ āyoung adultā as its fifth most popular Goodreads shelf. The novel is adult and published by Saga, an adult SFF imprint.Ā
S.A. Chakrabortyās adult fantasy novel City of Brass hasĀ āyoung adultā as its fourth most popular Goodreads shelf.Ā
Tasha Suriās Empire of Sand, an adult fantasy in a world based on Mughal India, has about equal numbers of people shelving it asĀ āadultā orĀ āyoung adult.āĀ
Book Riot wrote an article on this, although they didnāt address how the problem intersects with race. I also did a Twitter thread a while back where I cited these examples and some more as well.Ā
The topic of diversity in adult SFF is important to me, partly because we need to stop mislabeling the women of color who write it, and also because thereās a lot there that isnāt acknowledged! Besides, sometimes itās good to see that your stories donāt just end the moment you leave high school and that adults can still have vibrant and interesting futures worth reading about. I feel like this is especially important with queer rep, for a number of reasons.Ā
Other books and authors in the tweets I screenshot include:
A Ruin of Shadows by L.D. Lewis
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
The Day Before by Liana Brooks
A Phoenix First Must Burn edited by Patrice Caldwell
Shri, a book blogger at Sun and Chai
Vanessa, a writer and blogger at The Wolf and Books
TLDR: Women who write adult fantasy, especially women of color, are presumed to be writing young adult, which is problematic in that it internalizes diversity, dismisses the need and presence of diversity in adult fantasy, and plays into sexist assumptions of women writers.Ā
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