Are Young Adult Novels for Primarily Girls?

Jay Lake's The Green Trilogy was YA Fantasy and it had little to no romance. Just his female character, Green, running around kicking ass and waging war on the gods sometimes. If she fawned over someone, they were other women; she wasn't into guys.

So no, not all of them are aimed at girls.

 

I know many YA males who enjoyed The Hunger Games. Whether or not they got into the romance bit I don't know (I suspect not) but they were able to look at the whole story and find enough to interest them.

That being said, I agree that a lot of YA fiction is aimed at females. Even more YA fiction contains romance. I don't think having a budding/tentative relationship form between two characters makes your book female-targeted, I just think it's teenager stuff. Teenagers are into relationships. That's kind of their thing. They do other activities and pursue other interests, but spend much time around groups of teenagers and the talk almost always comes back to who is hot and who is dating whom and I've watched a number of teenage boys succumb to private tears when they think no one is watching about some girl who broke their hearts.

Young adults are no different. Our species is programed to procreate, just like every living species, and that leads us to seek potential mates in these strange rituals of ours. It makes sense to me that whatever adventure we're on, it might happen that an interesting potential mate catches our eye and distracts us for a time. In that regard, I don't think romance is a flaw in a story.

There are stories without much romance that work fine. And I believe there are ways to approach the subject of romance in a way that wont deter male readers, and may even attract them since no doubt they have, at some point, experienced some degree of desire for a peer.

 

Or put it in because it's what occupies a large part of teens' lives. And you want the characters to care about other characters. That leaves friends, relatives and love interests.

In the books Katniss is more worried about survival than romance. Gale and Peeta don't feel like add-ons just stuck in there to sell the story.

If you think it was peripheral just to sell books, it makes me wonder if you read the books or just saw the movie.

 

I don't think you understand the teen audience like you think you do. You don't have to lack a boyfriend to fantasize about magical soul-mate love.

 

I got through the first book, and gave up on the 2nd book when the president/dictator was in Kat's bedroom whispering girlie stories. It was simply too stupid.

The "romance" was awkward, and clearly stuck in. Her writing stumbled like a drunk over the little romance there was. It was no Twilight. It's clear in the writing that Collins is a more accomplished author who doesn't go for romance, but either felt or was told to cater for it. I wouldn't mind betting that she would have loved to tell the Twilight legion of fanatics not to be so ditzy.

 

Maybe her editors suggested she should give Katness a love interest to make the conflict stronger. And it is weird for her to have two. That girl is a player!

 

Green would like a word with you. She plowed half the women in the books just about. Even a cat-lady at one point.

 

I've read a number of YA titles and even the ones that seem to be geared toward young females didn't always have a big leaning toward romance. One that comes to mind is the Tomorrow Series. Another: Uglies.