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Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Mainly because it's "just marketing" that gives a potential reader next to no information about just how "adult" a book actually is. I've personally seen it applied (by the publisher) to works that contain material anywhere from middle-grade fluff to topics dealing with sex/rape and fairly graphic violence. That to me, is not a very useful label. Especially when I've seen some here suggest that YA's target audience can include 10 year-olds.
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YA (and some middle grade) deals with dark topics because kids and teenagers are dealing with darkness in their lives, and reading is an excellent way to start to process those things. None of those topics necessarily disqualify a book from being appropriate for young readers. Further reading:
https://www.unlv.edu/news/article/qu...-adult-readers
https://themuse.jezebel.com/three-ya...ion-1701059484
https://www.wired.com/2011/06/ya-too-dark-i-think-not/
https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/bo...s_yasaves.html
One of the key points that can differentiate YA books about these topics from (some) adult books is that the YA books, pretty much always, contain and/or end on notes of resistance and hope. Another is that it's not usually used in a gratuitous or fridging way in YA: things like sexual violence are typically treated as the central, important, traumatic subjects they are.