...I don't think I like Adam Silvera

...I feel very bad about this. As a person to whom queer rep in YA is very personally important, and as someone who thinks all types of diversity in YA is just plain important, I feel rather guilty for not really liking an author who does both of these things in all of his books. However, I can genuinely say I have not thought any of Adam Silvera's books were amazing, or at least as great as the rest of the YA community thinks they are.

I feel really bad about not liking Adam Silvera. I just find his writing and characterization very mediocre, and his stories tend to rely on the emotionalness of whatever plots he comes up with. This isn't exactly uncommon in YA, but I think a good book is more than just a good concept that you can describe in one or two sentences that the whole of the book relies on.

Let me give you a run down of my general impressions of his books so far:


More Happy Than Not--Interesting concept, meh characters, meh writing, could've ended 100 pages and two tragedies earlier


History is all You Left Me--Better writing but still nothing brilliant compared to other YA that's out there. Awkward pacing, somewhat annoying main character.


They Both Die At the End--As I'm writing this, I still haven't finished it, but I don't think my opinion will change by the end. Predictable (I think I already know how they're going to die), only one somewhat interesting character, mediocre writing, and a boring plot based entirely on the book's major gimmick.

Am I being to harsh? Maybe. Maybe I've just become much more discerning about my YA over the years because I've been reading it since YA started becoming a real thing. I feel like I've read and seen so many books like TBDATE, and I just need more out of the writing and characters for me to really love a book. In terms of diversity, Adam Silvera is way ahead of the game. In terms of everything else though, I feel like he's just average.

He gets touted around a lot because of the diversity in his books, which is great, but do I think they're great books? Honestly, not really. Still, this doesn't mean I'm not going to recommend them to my teens in my current library position or in future ones, because for them, Silvera's kind of books will be new and exciting. There are a lot of books I don't personally like myself, but that I would recommend to teens because they would get teens to read. I know I'm not the audience for YA; I just read it because I love it. But, that means I have to be careful to put my own opinions aside sometimes if I want to encourage teens to read more, and that's okay.