I always assumed The Mistborn Trilogy was adult fantasy, but I’m about 10% through the first book and the writing style, characters, and overall theme seem YA to me. What do you guys think? Should I continue reading (as someone who isn’t currently interested in reading YA)?
Alternatively, are there any high fantasy recs anyone has? For reference, I enjoyed The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, The Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu, The Risen Kingdoms by Curtis Craddock, and The First Law by Joe Abercrombie.
Thanks in advance!
ETA: The main reason I’m getting YA vibes is because there seems to be a theme of “power of friendship, good overcoming evil, learning to trust your friends when you’ve only known about betrayal” + the main female protagonist being 16 years old and a “chosen one” of some sort (she’s a Mistborn, not a chosen one, but you get what I mean). Overall, just feels like the plot might head in a very generic direction…or am I completely wrong?
ETA2: Categorization doesn’t really matter, I’m only asking because there seems to be a lot of YA tropes which I’m currently not interested in reading and I’d like to know whether that continues on for the rest of the books :)
ETA3: I just wanted to clarify that I am a huge supporter of adults reading YA! I am not dismissing YA as a genre, I’m just a massive mood reader and currently am not in the mood for YA. Please don’t misunderstand my post! Also, thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts and recommendations, many books have been added to my TBR today :)
Last Edit (hopefully):
Lots of interesting discussion in the comments! I honestly had no idea this was such a controversial topic haha.
I wanted to share some last thoughts on what I personally think differentiates YA vs Adult Fantasy. I generally don’t care for romance when I read fantasy, so the lack of NSFW scenes isn’t a defining factor for me. Instead, I differentiate them in terms of writing style (could a 13 year old read it easily?), character depth/development (is the “chosen one” trope the main driving factor behind the growth of the main character, how well developed are the characters, etc.), the complexity of the plot (is the overall theme just “good guys vs bad guys”?), and the world building (does the world exist outside of the plot? Or was the world simply built to push the plot?) I think YA can absolutely address darker topics like war, slavery, r*pe, etc. but it’s really the writing style and character/plot development that sets it apart. That being said, both genres are great and suitable for adults to read :) What do you guys think?