If it’s really bothering you that much, there’s really only one reason why you wouldn’t want to read the books…
…and you’ve already figured out what it is. If there’s literally no other reason (and since you’re not averse to YA books and you, presumably, like dystopian stories, there isn’t any other reason), the only option left is hipster.
Now, do you own a trucker hat and some skinny jeans?
Whereas I immediately thought to myself “Oh. I expected this to be a rant against genre fiction. It clearly is not.” Antigen, you’re clearly not snobbish enough. A real snob does not read genre literature.
I read tons of classic sci-fi in junior high through college, but the only Heinlein that I got to was Starship Troopers. I wasn’t impressed and have only recently discovered Stranger in a Strange Land, which is an example of how great genre fiction can be and why it is too often excluded from the canon of great literature. Far too often, it seems that a book is moved out of genre literature when it is good enough to be in the literary canon. I don’t think most people think of Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland, or 1984 as sci-fi or fantasy.
To address the OP, I think YA fiction has always had some more mature books/authors within the genre. Some books are certainly mature enough to be reread and appreciated by adults. I’ve always thought of Ender’s Game in that category. It’s a story about a kid going to school to fight aliens. There’s no more YA theme than that without a love story. If the violence to too off-putting for YA, we have to remove Hunger Games from the YA canon as well. Perhaps the line is becoming less clear-cut, but that’s not an inherently bad thing. Some series have spanned the gap, such as McCaffrey’s Dragonriders series or the Ender/Shadow books. I’ve even seen Dune lumped into the YA genre because of the coming-of-age theme of Paul.
I have no problem with people reading some light reading. I found the prose in HG rough at times, but as a sci-fi fan I can take it. The story was entertaining and pulls the reader along. It’s not the kind of book that will change your life (none is), but there’s no harm in enjoying it. Sometimes readers need a break from the density of Dune or the Mark Twain autobiography. I sometimes like some cookies after a hearty dinner.
As mentioned upthread, some of the classical canon started out as fluff. Dickens is the classic example. I’d guess that much of his literature might be firmly in the YA canon if it were written today.
Yes, IMHO there has been “a shift in the complexity of YA books”, at least in some cases. I consider the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness to have been one of the best series I’ve read in the past several years - and AFAIK, it’s considered YA.
FWIW - John Irving doesn’t do a thing for me, and the Henrietta Lacks bio/medical & ethical issues examination was interesting, but the writing was missing something, IMHO. Oh yeah - didn’t Asimov write juvies, too? 
However, I’ll join you in the snob section when it comes to fluffy stuff like romances, potboilers and Fifty Shades of Grey (more in terms of the relationship than the pr0n). That said, reading anything is preferable to reading nothing - Potter and Twilight can be gateway drugs…
I seem to have an eclectic taset in fiction. Recently I read Cordwainer Smith and now I’m altenating Dvid Baldacci and John le Carre. Last summer I read everything I could find by Philip K. Dick, Jack Vance, Sinclair Lewis, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
This struck me as fairly funny considering that I have read The Hunger Games, I’m on Goodreads and update it with what I’m reading (i.e. I told people I was reading The Hunger Games), and I’ve read 64 books so far in 2012. I mean, I think I like to read.
The best YA is as good as anything. The worst YA is as bad as anything. I don’t think YA as a genre tells you much, other than that it probably won’t be a completely pretentious wreck (though it still could be, conceivably).
I read from all genres, but there are definitely specific books that I’ll be a little judgy about. Twilight is one because it creeps me out, but there are others. In the long run, though, I just encourage people to read anything that interests them, no matter how dense or how fluffy.
Le Carre is great. I’ve only read one book by Baldacci - The Camel Club - and it was so comprehensively awful that I find it hard to believe it was written by an experienced author. It was like listening to a teenager describe his great new idea for a movie (I kept expecting it to be punctuated with phrases like “dude! and then he totally…”). I’m sure it’s unfair to judge an author based on one book, but in this case I have.
(This thread needed more snobbery)
I really appreciate all the input from everyone. I was hoping for this to be more discussion than pile-on, and I think I’m learning a little. I’m re-evaluating my position on YA, for one thing.
I’ll try harder to judge books individually instead of by their genre.
Only if it bothers you, and I understand your OP to say that it does. I mean, we judge things all the time even if we’re just saying, “Oh, I don’t wanna read that.”
One of the things I tend to like about YA as a genre is that it tends to be less tawdry and cynical. Tends is the important word. So when I want something that makes me feel a little less hopeless about the world, sometimes YA fits the bill. But just because that works for me, doesn’t mean it’s something that would have any significance for you.
I don’t consider myself a book snob, though I am a readaholic. Many people are shocked to discover that I have never had a TV in my adult life and that I don’t miss it. They *immediately *think I am a book snob. I set them right quickly by telling them, “You watch trashy TV shows, I read trashy books. Were even.”
In truth, I don’t read a lot of what one might consider trashy books, generally because they usually bore me to tears. I dislike overly-predictive and simplistic plots almost as much as I hate extremely overworked plots that try to make you feel you are on an endless rollercoaster or are trying to force you to buy a so-called sequel to find the end of the story.
There are good writers in all genres. I have all the Mary Stewart novels. I have all of Marian Keyes’ books - chick lit or not, they tell some good tales. I adore Ursula Le Guin (who doesn’t?), Walter Jon Williams, and Terry Pratchett.
I read a Barbara Cartland and a Harlequin Romance on a rainy day when there was nothing else available and I’d do so again under the same circumstances, but not otherwise. I read milk cartons and cereal boxes too. I enjoyed DaVinci Code, but knew I would not want to read another Dan Brown book; IMO it was more of a movie script anyway. Stephen King’s novels don’t work for me but I find his short stories supremely scary and delicious. Who knows why? It’s just my taste anyway, I’m not reading to impress anyone.
Go ahead and be a book snob. I’m sure we love some of the same books and disagree violently on others, and we’ve both read books the other wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot-pole.
Isn’t it nice the world is full of people with different tastes?
Mainly, I read to please myself and not anyone else which is why I’m
Oh no. Silenced by the book police!
I don’t understand non-readers either.
I tend to have sleeping problems if I don’t read in bed before I go to sleep. I don’t know how non-readers do it.
I like to read at other times of day too.
I completely get that…I can be dead tired at 2AM, and I have to read for 5 or 10 minutes before going to sleep.
tsk If only we lived in a free
LOL. It’s fine if you want to be a book snob. I suppose I am, in my own way. I do think “*That *author, why does anyone read his/her garbage?” But at least I can admit that I read stuff the other person would consider garbage.
That’s what I would say. Sure, maybe that person is reading what I consider junk. But I read plenty of stuff that other people probably call junk. So who am I to judge?
I’m a booksnob when it’s just popular novels you read. If the only books you read are 50 Shades and whatever was on Oprah’s Book Club list, I raise my eyebrow.
But if you enjoy all sorts of fiction and that includes trashy stuff? That’s awesome. You’re reading and enjoying it. If I was forced to only read ‘worthy’ literature, I wouldn’t read at all. It’s Archie comics that spurred me on as a child, not The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Out of the huge morass of fantasy out there, I chose LGBT-friendly for somewhere to start. People aren’t going to shove Wraeththu in with Mists of Avalon any time soon, but who gives a shit? Yeah, I can read whatever ‘worthy’ fiction out there you can throw at me, I just don’t want to.
More power to the people who read whatever the fuck they want!
And that’s the thing…you never know what book might be a gateway for someone. When I was a kid, I mostly read The Babysitter’s Club. Those books were the real gateway for me, I think, to becoming a lifelong reader—one who in high school began to pick up books like Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations, and Gone With the Wind, and went on to major in English Lit.
I know this thread is going in the direction of “what kind of books you should read,” but the OP began with a reference to non-readers, and that’s what interests me. I’m a book snob, though obviously I keep it on the hush-hush because I want to have friends, and many of my friends and family proudly read nothing but the Good Book.
My reasons for booksnobbery are simple and–I think–valid.
1.) Most of the non-readers I know refuse to even *try *reading a book, even books that align with their interest. I’ve tried to give books about billiards to billiards players, books about biblical history to zealots, etc. to no avail. It’s not about the effort, either. It’s like there’s a badge for being read-free. The people I know who don’t read proudly proclaim it, or refer to reading disdainfully, as though it’s a tasteless or uncool thing to do. I regard these people as childish and ignorant, in much the same way that I regard people who refuse to try any food that isn’t meat, bread, cheese or potato or some combination thereof. I still have good relationships with them (heck, I know I’m ignorant about something and they put up with it).
2.) Despite having attended college, I wasn’t able to think critically until I began reading in earnest, shortly after finishing college. I work at a big corporation, and critical thinking skills are so rare that those who are able to do it are promoted quickly; they stand out like a lighthouse in the darkest night. This despite the prevalence of MBA’s, some from distinguished schools. Maybe I’m a strange case, but I believe critical thinking skills are tied to reading.
3.) In general, books are cheap, ubiquitous, lacking in commercials, and–when compared with TV or movies–are of far better quality. They are readily portable, virtually silent, and they improve the reader’s mind unconciously, giving him or her a better vocabulary and knowledge, even if all one reads is YA books. For every good movie that has been made, there are thousands of equally good books. To not take advantage of this, if you are physically capable, is astoundingly stupid.
In short, non-readers are willfully ignorant, constantly whine about how they can’t get a break at work, and deprive me of decent conversation, which I resent because I think I’m better than them.
Not liking the popular doesn’t have to be a hipster thing (when did we start using “hipster” again? And are we still using “thing”?). Popular works of anything are usually fun, often ground-breaking, but seldom the best. Kind of like the common metaphor, “band wagon”.
But something else may be going on, about ‘popular’; you might be afraid of being disappointed. I waited ages to read “The DaVinci Code” and I was heart-broken when I did. The puzzles were okay, but it was so damned badly written, and, for a novel about the importance of the feminine in culture and mythos, had virtually no female characters.
I still feel cheated. Even the movie, which I did enjoy, doesn’t make up for it. At least no-one would accuse it of having lyrical prose.
My point about popular is, some people want to know what all the fuss is about, some are sheeple, some decide to wait to see how it ages, and some turn their noses up at the popular. (And some aren’t interested and would rather do something else.)
Is it possible you’ve been assuming people are sheeple, when they’re just curious about all the fuss?
(And if you were ugly, you’d be pitting people who read the books, not trying to work through this, wouldn’t you?)
When something gets really popular, I nearly always check it out because I’m nosy.