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What 14 year old is going to look at this and go, "oh, thanks for helping me avoid the gritty explicit stuff and feeling me fluffy pap". I can't think of a strategy more calculated to turn off the actual market.

Wow. Not sure why they're bothering, though, because those busybodies are problem really close to just deciding that no one should read anything, period. They are the general enemy of literacy and reading and no one should cater to them.

Wow, I give HC feedback on books though their Readers Room surveys, but after seeing this, methinks that's going to end, and if (hopefully) they ask why, I'll point to this BS.

Sounds like it’s meant to appeal to the wholesome types who teach their children to hate immigrants and who believe Jesus taught that “you can do it to them but they can’t do it to you.” Fuckers, in other words. They’re cornering the fuckers market.

I find this book censorship and neutering weird when most YA readers can access the internet which has infinitely more material that might not be appropriate.

If I were reading YA, and I do, I'm not sure I'd want to read a work that had been scrubbed by Rupert Murdoch's friends of anything resembling life. Something tells me they have no problem with violence in their books, though. That always gets a pass with these types.

What in the Purity Ring shit is this?

🤮🤮🤮I’m a librarian. Anyone can ask for gentle reads, as we call them. Anyone. We’re kinda cool like that.

As a teen, I would have been intrigued by the Industry Trend types of books. Wholesome would not have appealed.

Ok, but can we at least consider that there are some peril-sensitive young adults who want or need wholesome and uplifting books, or they just won't read anything?

Maybe the targeted buyers are churches, parents, and grandparents?

The Hunger Games vs The Famous Five One of these is more representative of many lives today, and it ain’t the one with the dog.

I get it, though. The publisher cares more about the parent buying the book than the kid actually reading the book. I'm sure there are authors like that too. Cynical, yes, extremely so. But I think there is a market here, as long as one only cares about selling, not whether anyone reads it.

🚫 The Catcher in the Rye 🚫

I long ago gave up on YA fiction. I want to see books about adults and, preferably, about old folks doing things. That's what drew me to Old Man's War. I've put many a book back on the shelf at the bookstore with "Oh, another one with a teenage protagonist. How tedious." This wrinkle is even worse.

My daughter stopped publishing YA through Harper Collins two years ago because their editing process SUCKED and that was before this noxious imprint. Also I guess this imprint would pass on The Outsiders, A Separate Peace etc—basically the best of YA.

Thoughts immediately went to The Catcher in The Rye.

are they calling it "Compliance In Advance"?

It sounds like the Amish romance novel version of books for kids.

I could have broken all of those rules before I hit the end of the 1st paragraph. Whatever happened to common sense? Don't read anything that might challenge your religious views, they say while polishing their AR15s...

I threw up a little in my mouth reading that graphic. Reminded me of a conversation I had about “scary” stories being inappropriate for children. (Which is complete BS Because most children love a good scary story that is tailored for children.)

This is very scary. Spoon feeding children and young adults literature that stifles thinking lessons meaningful communication between individuals. Where is freedom of the press?

The only people who will buy those books is the alt right and their captive charter schools. It’s a recipe for zero sales.

Between this nonsense and paying good money to JD Vance for his grifting books (I assume there is other tomfuckery as well) I'm not sure I want to read anything HarperCollins and I read and buy books A LOT

Apart from everything else, any imprint should be ashamed to release this bad of a DTP job. It's so bad the rightmost column of the table is trying to escape.

Have...have they met any young adults???

We used to call those people "editors".

Really setting themselves up for when this crumbles in record time and we start calling it “Blink And You’ll Miss It”.

I forsee lots of disappointed pre- and teens when they open Grandma's Christmas gifts.

This is some straight up Gilead shit

It turns out there is something worse than burning books, and somehow Harper Collins have found it. Threw up in my mouth a little bit.

"The Giver" becomes "The Taker," an anti-immigrant screed brought to you by [White Republican] Moms for [White] Liberty [to Discriminate]

I think the shock for me is looking at what is expected and distributed in the way of YA novels now, and what I remember when I was a "young adult" (that seems so far away now." I remember books that were edgy, realistic, and sometimes scary as hell. Now we have to sugar-coat everything.

As always, when it comes to the people promoting the stuff the world would be better without (organized religion, fascism, puritanism, conservatism, misogyny), gotta get 'em young.

No True Young Adult would be attracted by gritty, shocking content! www.logical-fallacy.com/articles/no-...

They'll be gone in the ”Blink” of an eye.

Always a successful move to market to the parents, and not the youth, when you're trying to sell a product for youths...

This

They are trying to sell books to people who like to burn them. They may as well pivot to selling logs and be done with it.

What the hell? When I moved from TX to IA last year, I donated 150 YA LGBT books to local libraries since TX had but bans into place. Now the publishers are doing that for them? What?

The biggest selling point for books when I was a "young adult" was "my mom would throw a fit if she knew what I was reading".

I /have/ written a lot of YA that happened to be completely chaste and optimistic, and I wouldn't go with these people. They'd probably have a problem with the LGBTQ hand-holding.

So, boring with no emotional impact on readers?

Well it’s good to know this is out there so I can avoid it.

I bet one could have success with AI generated slop for this target market.....

“True Young Adults” sounds like the kind of group that gives out armbands.

"true" young adults is heck of a way to say "conservative evangelical Christian" but, yanno, I'm just here to point out the obvious

Strong stench of 80s christian rock music...

you are writing YA! my 11 yo daughter and i devoured Starter Villain!!!

Sooo...All adventures of teenage white suburban children who rebel against their parents by finding Jesus, going to church, and tragically dying saving a busload of orphaned kittens? Or would dying, or being seriously injured, be too shocking? Maybe they suffer moderate inconvenience or a rash?

I don’t understand a publisher who wants to target an audience that doesn’t read the books their authors write. The only demand for this comes from parents who want to throttle the organic demand for titles that realistically address YA concerns. Good luck with that.

JFC, whole point of "YA" books is to introduce kids to concepts they need in order to survive as - drumroll please, young adults. Best of the genre have all of those things, because kids have to deal with them IRL. Only reason to dump them: infantilize teens & make them dumb, malleable adults.

I’m kind of morbidly curious to see some of what they publish…

It also seems counter productive. Your average person can't tell you who publishes their favorite works, let alone what imprint it was under.

My mom had a pretty complete run of what you might call “girls’ serials” published in the 1930s. Not just Nancy Drew but “Cherry Ames Girl Nurse” And the Wizard of Oz titles, and Dad’s Hardy Boys titles. They would meet the bland criteria illustrated. But I was tired of them by 5th grade.

That's kind of yucky from a publisher, but I do feel a desire for less "dystopian/gritty" stuff. I'm living through that (although it could always get worse). I want uplifting things, like fascists getting their clocks absolutely cleaned by decent people

I imagine this will be funded by religious groups, because nothing published under these policies will appeal to YA readers. Young adults want intelligent work that challenges them.

I am not against an imprint that tells me up front not to support them. It’s like whatever channel Candace Cameron went to because Hallmark Christmas movies were too “woke” or any company with “Patriot” in their name.

As sure as my name is John "Fig-Leaf" Bowdler-Expurgate III, I'm all for this imprint.

“I see you used the word ‘clutched’ here. A man should never clutch for it is adjacent to a woman’s purse & men only carry wallets. Please remove this indoctrination word to receive a proper Blink rating.”

What the hell about *being* a young adult is *clean*? Terrifying, confusing, exhilarating - sure. Neat, tidy, bland & inoffensive? Nah.

These books are made to appeal to the same kids whose parents say Stryper is the only "metal" they can listen to.