Every bookish blog I visit has their own form of discussion feature while I’m sitting here alone, thinking, hmm, what can I do to make my blog more exciting and unique? So I decided, why not start my own feature where I can talk about random bookish topics? And so, Let’s Speculate was created.
The topic I chose for this week is Why Are There So Few Young Adult Books Told From A Male Point-of-View? Out of all the Young Adult books I’ve read last year, a measly five of them were probably told from a male point-of-view. Why is that?
1. Most Young Adult book authors are women.
For some reason, most Young Adult book authors are women. We girls don’t know exactly how guys think, especially teenage guys, so it makes sense that women Young Adult authors would avoid writing from a male point-of-view to prevent fatal book flaws.
2. Young Adult books told from male point-of-view doesn’t sell as much as Young Adult books told from female point-of-view.
I don’t know why, but it’s true. For some reason, readers don’t like it, probably because most book lovers are girls, which brings me to my next point.
3. Boys rarely read Young Adult books, so it makes sense to write Young Adult books from a female point-of-view instead of male point-of-view since boys don’t read much Young Adult books.
This is pretty much self-explanatory. I myself have not seen any guy read a Middle Grade book or a Young Adult book.
So these are all the reasons why I think there are such few Young Adult books out there told from the male point-of-view. What do you think?
Interesting. In film school, we studied why most movies were geared at men. But books, yeah, they seem to be geared to women.
Those reasons make sense, but I personally love male POV and wish I saw more of it. In my experience, books from male POV tend to be funnier and for obvious reasons there is never much risk of insta-love (unless you count Cas and Anna in Anna Dressed in Blood), angst, damsels-in-distress, insecurity, and many other things that tend to come with female POV. Also, I haven’t yet come across a male POV done poorly. One of my favorites that I’ve read is Cassel Sharpe in Holly Black’s Curse Worker series but again, it’s not like a have a large pool of books to choose from.
Great post!
I’m a school psychologist and as such, I often work with teachers, parents, students, etc. on ideas to improve reading. This is one of the excuses I use for reading so much YA and even MG books myself. I love finding good books and series told from a male perspective that I can then share with my students, teachers, and parents. My husband is also a big bookworm and has done some writing, and at times considered writing MG/YA. He reads a lot of YA and MG and even Urban Fantasy. He got me hooked on Percy Jackson. Just a few examples of series I’ve gotten him hooked on: Anita Blake (the early books), Kim Harrison’s Hollows series, the Fever series, and he has even read the House of Night books.