[DiapDealer]

Yet the people who like and read YA(or NA)'s ages are often as varied as the people's ages who don't like it and won't read it. These labels seem to be less of an "aimed at age group 'X'" affair, and more of a "aimed at readers who enjoyed the last cult hit with the label 'X'" kind of thing to me. In other words, the wording of the label itself is basically meaningless--except in a branding sort of way. And if it's all about the ages of the characters.... well.... who was Dickens targeting with Oliver Twist? Or Joyce with Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man? Huck Finn? Crane and that young man sporting a "red badge of courage"?

My problem with these labels is that they bring absolutely nothing to the descriptive table—regardless of the potential buyer/reader's age; "What kind of book is it... what's it about?" "Oh, it's New Adult." It's meaningless unless you already know the secret hand-shake of that particular cultural circle.