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On Expectations for Girls in YA Fiction, Misleading Reviews, and Sexuality

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A few weeks ago, I picked up and devoured Julie Halpern’s The F-It List. It’s a story about two girls who are best friends and how their relationship weathers everything. It starts with Becca sleeping with Alex’s boyfriend the day of Alex’s father’s funeral. The summer immediately following, the girls aren’t hanging out as much as they used to. Sure, Alex is angry and upset about what Becca did, but their reason for not hanging out has much more to do with Alex’s need to grieve losing her father than it does what Becca did or losing that boyfriend.

When the school year begins, Alex learns via another girl that something awful happened to Becca over the summer: she was diagnosed with cancer. Alex immediately runs to Becca’s side, and their friendship, while not perfectly patched up, is allowed to continue, and it’s through this agreement of continuing their relationship that Becca asks Alex for a favor. She needs to complete her f-word-rhymes-with-bucket list. Since Becca’s sick and worried a bit about what her future may hold, she wants Alex to do and experience a number of things that she’s always wanted to do but wonders if she’ll ever have the chance to do.

A number of items on the list have to do with sex. Becca wants Alex to masturbate, and she wants Alex to have sex with someone she can say I love you to and mean it. Other items on the list range from doing some silly prank-like stuff to more relationship-driven items. But it is those sexually-related items that Alex homes in on most and those are the items that come to signify not just a lot of what the relationship between the two girls is — blunt, honest, and unashamed — but also points where readers may either bristle or dig in for something deeper. In many ways, I thought the ways that both the sexually-related items and the friendship more broadly played out in the story were what made The F-It List knock out. It’s rare to see such positive portrayals of sex for girls. Both Becca and Alex enjoyed sex and both were very open and honest about liking it and sharing those positive experiences with one another.

But not everyone felt this to be the case. Here’s the review Halpern’s novel got in School Library Journal (you can click to make it larger):

I’ve read and reread this review many times, and every time, something new feels off in it. Keep in mind many trade reviewers review from advanced reader copies of books, meaning that not all of the kinks have been entirely worked out.

I note, too, that I also read The F-It List from an advanced reader copy.

Although I could dive into the notion that Alex performs the items on the f-it list out of guilt — an idea I disagree with entirely, as Alex begins to really embrace this as a commitment to her relationship with Becca — what I find fascinating is this line: “Both girls have casual, unprotected sex with all of their boyfriends without any thoughts of taking precautions.”

This line presumes a few things in it. The first is that it’s the responsibility of the girls to think about and carry out the actions necessary for protection during sex. While print space is limited and words have to be carefully selected in a trade review, the way this particular line is phrased, in conjunction with the line before it, casts a judgment upon the female characters in the story. They’re crass, with limited vocabulary, and they’re not taking responsibility for their own actions. These are the kinds of girls you don’t want to be role models for readers, since they’re not being “good girls.” They don’t arouse sympathy because what happens to them is all a matter of consequences and choices they make. They weren’t smart enough or thinking through things enough to protect themselves.

But what is worse in this line is that it’s factually incorrect.

Early in the book, Alex talks about the first time she’s had sex, as a means of thinking through Becca’s request that she have sex with someone she loves and cares about. The first person — and only person at that point — she’d slept with was a boy named Aleks, who was a foreign exchange student. Starting at page 76 in the advanced reader copy, Alex lays out the story as follows:

Becca was disappointed I hadn’t seen his penis yet and handed me a condom the next time I saw her. Two days later, armed with the Trojan, I followed Aleks back to his house again. […] Me in my underwear, him in blue boxers, we moved over to the bed. “Wait–” I told him, the first work spoken that afternoon. I found Becca’s condom in my backpack and brought it up to the bed. […] He slapped on the condom.


It’s pretty evident immediately that condoms play a role in not just Alex’s sex life, but in the discussions she and Becca have had as best friends about being sexually active. Alex got the condom from Becca, and Alex insisted that Aleks wear it when they slept together. Seems straightforward enough.

But there’s more.

Later on in the story, when Alex begins a relationship with Leo, the issue of the condom isn’t the only one that comes up before they take the plunge and have sex (they had a few intimate moments, but in each case, Leo stopped when Alex asked him to). She talks about why she wants to make sure there is protection. Starting on page 141 of the advanced reader copy:

His hands were gentler than I wanted, and I grabbed one and wrapped it around my breast. I let out a sigh, and Leo reciprocated with a sound of his own. “So you have a condom?” I asked. Life had been too cruel in the last year not to get me pregnant or diseased if I wasn’t careful. I couldn’t trust my body to do the right thing, and I didn’t want to have a conversation with Leo in the middle of this to talk past sexual partners. I didn’t want to know. I just needed it to happen. 


Immediately after, Leo puts on a condom.

In both instances, Alex takes precaution. In both instances, it is Alex — the girl — who insists on using a condom before engaging in intercourse and in the second section, Alex lays out why it is she finds taking this precaution important. With everything going on in her life right now, she recognizes that not being careful would only lead to further problems. She didn’t want to saddler herself with that, nor did she want to get into it with Leo, either. It’s clear and evident that Alex thought about precautions prior to intercourse, and she’s not shy in laying that out there for readers, just as she’s not shy in laying out there what and how she comes to enjoy her budding sexuality.

I’m struck by that review line again because it seems to me the reviewer missed these things (reading too quickly? Not paying close enough attention to the details yet still bringing them up in the review?). But I’m further struck in thinking about whether or not we as readers need to be hit over the head with how careful our protagonists — females especially — need to express how they’re protecting themselves when they choose to engage in sex.

Did the reviewer find fault in the fact that Alex doesn’t tell us about condom use in subsequent sexual situations, despite the fact she’s made it clear she wouldn’t be crazy enough to have sex without a condom? Is it necessary for every instance of sex, whether on the page or fade to black, be explicit in its depiction of protection use? And if that’s the case, where is there a line drawn between telling the story and being faithful to how the characters are and positing an over-the-head message about safe sex? Do readers believe that if Alex doesn’t explain in every sexual moment that she’s making sure there’s a condom in place that she’s chosen instead to not protect herself? Because as a reader, I assume when it’s laid out there for me as openly as it is, that there will be a condom. That I don’t need to be reminded again and again.

Because when real people have sex and are resolute in their wanting to be protected against pregnancy and disease, it becomes a routine, rather than a point of conscious decision making. You always have that box of condoms or you’re faithful in taking birth control (or both or neither). The story isn’t in the routine; it’s in the break from the routine. In Alex’s case, the routine is protecting herself, and I think any more insertion of the condom lines through the story would have turned this from a book where Alex (and Becca) really come to embrace their ability to be sexual beings to a story where they become pawns for the Message of “make sure you use protection.”

Part of me wonders, too, whether the fact this is such a positive portrayal of girls embracing sex and doing so without apology and without holding back on being crude and, at times, obscene, is what will hold some readers back from seeing these smaller moments when Alex is very keen on keeping herself and Leo safe. Halpern hasn’t written an easy story here in any capacity. But I think it’s this complexity which makes The F-It List such a great, memorable read. Because it’s not about Becca’s diagnosis. It’s not about death or the fear of that. It’s about embracing life and relationships — friendly and romantic — to their fullest in whatever way you need to. It’s unfortunate, though, that a trade review in one of the largest, most well-respected library journals could be factually incorrect about the story. In doing so, this book might not end up in the hands of those readers — girls particularly — who would get so much out of it. Who would see themselves in Alex or in Becca. Who would see it’s perfectly okay to enjoy sex alone or with a partner.

And that yes, it’s important to take precautions for yourself and have solid reasons behind why.

I can’t help wonder, too, whether books that do similar things as Halpern’s but feature a male main character undergo the same scrutiny and character judgment.

Why Talking About Girl Reading Matters

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Last week, I tweeted about something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

I pulled those tweets together and posted them over on tumblr while it was fresh on my mind. The conversation itself came out of reading yet another series of reviews of various YA books where a critique of the story was that the main character/s — female — was/were “unlikable.” I won’t go into a discussion of likability because I’ve talked about that before and because a couple of posts I’ve got coming later this month will be tackling this head on. But what I will say is that likability is not only a complex topic — what does it mean, exactly, and how can you point to a character as being definitively likable or not? — but that it’s not a lens through which you can fairly critique a story. It’s a preference you have as a reader.

Just as you’d prefer reading a YA novel to, say, an adult western, whether you enjoy a story with a likable character or not is also a preference. A critique of the character’s likability is worthwhile when it can be laid against the plot, against the character’s arc, or against any of the other means of the story progressing from point A to point B. Likability matters through the context of the story’s success.

But to the bigger point.

After reading through the reblogs of my tumblr post, many of the reasons I initially tweeted about why valuable it’d be if we talked more about girls and girls reading were reconfirmed. Notes stated by suggesting we talk about girls and girl reading habits, I’m saying that there’s no need to talk about boys or boy reading. That it’s being entitled to suggest as much. That because boys are often behind in reading or find reading for fun an activity they choose to partake in less frequently than girls, we should be focused entirely on them because the girls will just do it anyway.

That’s actually the point, but it misses the point.

Laurel Snyder wrote an excellent post a couple of weeks ago: boys will be boys and girls will accommodate. She talks a lot about the problems of labeling books “boy books” and other books “girl books” and how from the age we begin teaching and encouraging reading, we pay special attention to make sure we get books that boys will like and in doing so, we expect girls to read them too. We don’t look for books that will have special interest for girls because the assumption is girls are readers and thus will just read anything (of course, there’s a bigger issue at play here, but take it at that level).

I’m an advocate of getting boys to read. I’m an advocate of making sure that books with special appeal to boys — those books with action, adventure, twists, turns, depths, non-fiction titles — get in the hands of boys. I’ve talked at length here before about how there is research showing boys read less frequently than girls and that boys do tend to lag behind in terms of their reading skills in school. I think what people like Michael Sullivan are doing in educating librarians and teachers about how to best reach boys is excellent and insightful and the kind of professional development that’s not only necessary, but it’s expansive. This is work that you build upon, rather than pay attention to during a professional development day and move on from.

But it’s also expansive because it’s the kind of work that should make you think about the other side of the equation.

What about the girls?

Girls are better readers. Girls are going to read whatever you give them. Girls have so much more catering to their interests than boys do, especially in YA. These are all statements rampant throughout the reading world, but they’re not substantiated in the same way the statements about boys and boy reading are. Just look at a lineup of panel sessions at major book- education- and library- related professional development opportunities: there are sessions for reaching boys, but there are rarely, if ever, sessions for reaching girls.

Part of why this is a passionate area for me is because I see reviews that call out likability as a factor for dinging a book. It’s always a girl who is unlikable, rarely if ever a boy — and if it is a boy, it’s generally qualified. He’s unlikable but he’s also mentally ill. He’s unlikable but he’s also got  a tough home life. He’s unlikable but he’s just a bad boy.

Girls, on the other hand, are unlikable. They have girl problems. They have girl drama (drama, always drama). They are girls in crisis, rather than girls living through the challenges they have to confront in order to be their best selves. In so many of the books that tackle these challenges, girl is a qualifier.

I wonder if we talked more about girls and how they’re represented in books, if we’d use the qualifier less.

I wonder if we talked more about girls and how they’re represented in books, if we’d allow girls to see that their problems are real, legitimate issues and that having them and working through them is not simply part of being a girl, but part of being a person.

Girls are as complex as boys, but so often, we let girls be placed into one of two categories, based entirely on our preferences: likable or unlikable. These aren’t critiques of story nor are they critiques of character. They are preferences. There’s nothing wrong with preferring a likable or unlikable character, but there is something wrong when that becomes the means through which we critique a story and thus the way that we then present those stories to readers — especially to girl readers who may identify as unlikable or as likable vis a vis those books.

When we critique books and discuss books through that un/likable dynamic, we deny complexity to not just the girls on the page, but we deny girls reading those books complexity, too. We make a judgment on the actions both in the fictional world and in the real world.

I want girls to read books and know that the decisions those characters make are dependent entirely upon the characters and the opportunities presented to them in the story. I want girls to know that the decisions they have to make are dependent entirely upon themselves and the opportunities presented to them in their lives and worlds. That being likable and being nice aren’t the reasons to be making choices, but rather, that being likable and being nice are choices that they get to make as they work through what it is they need to work through.

We don’t tell girls enough that their lives are theirs and the decisions they get to make are theirs to make. We expect them to accommodate in every situation — if they’re not accommodating boys, they’re doing worse by accommodating other girls. Or rather, they’re accommodating our preconceived notion of what a boy is and what a girl is. They’re accommodating ideals impossible to accommodate, ideals that deny everyone, regardless of gender and the idea of gender in and of itself, complexity.

We don’t tell girls that they can want things and they can not only want things, but they can go after them. That their lives are theirs to shape into the fashion they want to. That their pain and ache and being denied opportunities or chances matters and is something they should care about. That those are things they’re allowed to experience and have and do something with. We don’t encourage them enough to follow up, follow through, ask questions, to be hard or unrelenting.

I wonder if we talked more about girls and how they’re represented in books, if we’d see more memory in regards to the women who helped shape literature itself. More specifically, would we see more of the contributions of women in the YA world? Would more ladies who laid the tracks down to make YA what it is today be see as foundational? As important? As creators of a category of fiction that’s become not just popular, but really damn good?

It was a woman who is credited for creating YA as a category. It’s women who continue to shape YA and continue to present stories of complex, challenging girls — those who fall all along the range of likable and unlikable — and it’s women who continue to challenge what YA is all together. Who continue to write to and for girls who have never seen themselves in the pages but who would not only benefit from it, but who would better see that they are allowed to be who it is they are. That they are so much greater than likable or unlikable. That making mistakes, falling down, and getting hurt are part of the process of becoming.

By wanting more for girls, by hoping that we can talk about girls and the representation of girls more, that’s not a call to take away from boys. It’s not a statement that boys don’t matter. It’s certainly not entitlement.

Rather, it’s a call to continue a conversation and take it deeper. To look at what’s out there and how we can make the reading world — and thus the greater world — a place where “girl” isn’t an adjective or an adverb, but a noun full-stop.

The Male Voice in Contemporary YA Fiction: Guest Post by Steve Brezenoff (Brooklyn Burning, Guy in Real Life)

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We’re going to wrap up our third annual contemporary week series talking about boys. As you may have noticed or noted, so far all of the guest posts were written by women, the bulk of whom have written primarily female voices in their novels. Although anyone who has checked out the “paging back” posts would know, we’ve had many awesome male writers and male voices featured here, too.

But I wanted to offer a challenge to today’s guest poster. My prompt to him was huge — and vague. I asked him to write about the male voice in contemporary YA fiction. And let me just say: Steve Brezenoff delivered. What is the male voice in contemporary YA? Where can you find it? How is this in conversation with everything else that’s popped up during the series? 

In other words: what about the “boy books?” 



Steve Brezenoff is the author of the young adult novels The Absolute Value of -1, starring two boy characters and one girl character, and Brooklyn, Burning, starring two ungendered characters, as well as dozens of chapter books for younger readers, with loads and loads of boy and girl characters. His third novel, Guy in Real Life, will be out out in May of 2014 and has one boy protagonist and one girl protagonist who will vie for your empathy. You can visit him at www.stevebrezenoff.com.






The Male Voice in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction: What Does That Even Mean?



Okay, yeah. I kind of know what it means. It means central male characters portrayed accurately in novels for teens. It means doing one’s best in fiction to move away from boy tropes. It means creating young adult novels that have appeal for boy/guy/dude/bro readers. I guess.
But none of those truisms have any real meaning themselves, because while we often hear that stories for or about boys need certain things that are presumably missing from stories that aren’t for or about boys—things like humor and action and sports—that’s of course hogwash, for a number of reasons.
There’s no such as a book “for” boys.
Not all boys look for the same things in a book. Maybe most boys want blow-by-blow sports stories, or novelized video games, or nonstop violence, or unyielding lowbrow humor. But maybe they don’t.

These things aren’t missing from books written “for” girls.
Believe me, it pains me already to have implied there are books written for girls or for boys, but for the moment just bear with me. That said, many of the books that people might see as written for girls contain loads of humor, action, or sports—sometimes all three.
A book needn’t be about a boy or about a girl.
It’s been said many times, but it ought to be said many more until conversations like this one can go unconversated: If we as writers and readers of fiction continue to imply that boys/guys/dudes/bros shouldn’t or can’t or won’t or mustn’t read books with a girl protagonist, then this false dichotomy will continue.
At this point it probably seems like I’ve really gone off track, but I haven’t. I’m circling the theme here, like a shark: male characters in young adult realistic fiction. What makes a good one? Do we need to see more of them? Are the current crop of male characters inadequate of worthy of scorn?
What makes a good one?
He doesn’t need to crack immature jokes, though he might. He doesn’t need to comment on every set of breasts he sees, though he might. He doesn’t need to love sports or comics or hard rock, though he might. A good male character in contemporary fiction needs the same qualities that every character in contemporary fiction needs: an authentic voice, clear and compelling motivation, something to lose and something to gain. Without those, any character will feel at times flat, unbelievable, Mary Sue-ish, or some other typical criticism we hear about characters that don’t ring quite true.
Do we need to see more of them?
We need to see more characters that we find compelling, be they boys or girls, not because there’s a shortage, but because that’s what realistic fiction is, and we love realistic fiction. So yes, we want more. Implicit here (and throughout this column) is the idea that our boys/guys/dudes/bros should (yes, should; I don’t much like to use that word, but I am in this case) read realistic fiction that features girl protagonists. Would it be easier probably for many boys to pick up a novel if the main character were a boy? I suppose. And I suppose that I wish that weren’t the case.
Is the current crop of male characters inadequate or worthy of scorn?
No.
What I mean here specifically are the boys in some works of realistic fiction that don’t feel quite realistic: boys with beautiful abs and arms and eyes and hair. Boys who, despite being firmly in their adolescence, can charm and disarm a girl with the greatest of ease. Do these boys exist? I suppose they do in some small number. I’ve never met them. If I have, then I’ve blocked that memory because it made me feel super inadequate probably. But I digress.
The point is, we are often dismissive of such characters, as if there’s only one way to write a secondary character, especially within realistic fiction, but I don’t agree. The spiel I’ve put forth above is merely what I’d like to see, forever and always, in contemporary fiction. This doesn’t mean that writers of novels for teens need to stop creating characters that do little more than handsomely and charmingly fill a space in their story—act as a vehicle for a protagonist’s development. Sometimes that’s just what the reader wants, and there’s not a thing wrong with that.
I’m a thirty-nine-year-old man. I’m different from your average teen boy reader in a lot of ways. I have a child. I have loads of life experience. I have twenty-plus years on the boy/guy/dude/bro readers and characters we’re talking about here. Still. I’ve written and read and found compelling and had empathy for boy characters and girl characters and neither characters. I’ve just finished reading several Anne of Green Gables books. I love reading Sara Zarr and Nova Ren Suma as much as I love reading Jon Skovron and Geoff Herbach. I’ve read compelling male voices from people like Carrie Mesrobian and Mindi Scott, and I’ve read compelling female voices from people like Pete Hautman and Blake Nelson and John Green.
So while I don’t think we’re at end of this conversation, let’s try to move through it with a little hope for the young men of today—that they’re capable and willing to read and feel empathy for girl characters, as we know girls are to read and feel empathy for boy characters. Let’s not pretend that there’s something inherently anti-girl about being a boy, and that there’s something inherently emasculating about empathizing with girl characters, or with empathy itself. Our boys are complex creatures, just like our girls, and they can (and should!) read stories about all people and all things, and we must stop pretending that they mustn’t.

A Closer Look at The New York Times YA Bestsellers List, Part 2

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* This is part two of a two-part series. 


If you haven’t spent time with yesterday’s data, you should do that before diving into today’s post. This is quite a bit shorter, though it’s got far fewer images. Today I wanted to look at the publishers who are represented on the NYT YA List, as well as talk about what the list looks like now that Veronica Roth has jumped to series. I’ve also got a few concluding thoughts and observations I thought were worth sharing at the end.




Publishers Represented on the NYT YA List 

I’m always curious whether there’s one publisher which has more books landing on the bestseller list than others. Part of this stems from the idea that perhaps a bigger marketing push is why those books get on the list in the first place and then continued push on titles which maintain their spots over a lengthy period of time. I think, too, it’s interesting to keep this in mind with the rise of very cheap and short-term ebook sales and what impact those may have on books which then appear or stick around on the list. Because it’s not price that gets books on the list; it’s sales numbers.

Because I am human and because counting up the appearance of publishers on a list, I know I made a little bit of a counting misstep. I looked at 47 lists total, which included the extended books — leaving out the list where Veronica Roth has moved over to series — and there should be a total of 705 books to tally. But in my final numbers, I missed a few and ended up with a count of only 701 books. So, I’ve taken the liberty and rounded the biggest numbers by publisher up to the nearest 0 or 5, for simplicity’s sake. It did not impact the results.

I’ve flattened the publishers, folding all of the imprints within their bigger houses. In other words, Tor books and St. Martin’s books are counted under Macmillan. Because Penguin and Random House are still appearing as separate houses, I kept them as separate in my tally.

On the 47 weeks worth of lists, a total of 12 publishers are represented. They break down as follows:

  • Penguin: 295 books
  • Harper Collins: 140 books
  • Simon & Schuster: 70 books
  • Random House: 60 books
  • Hachette/Little, Brown: 45 books
  • Macmillan: 45 books
  • Quirk: 45 books
  • Scholastic: 7 books
  • Disney: 6 books
  • Bloomsbury: 2 books
  • Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 1 book
  • Nicole Reed Books: 1 book
As I noted in yesterday’s post, I have no idea why a self-published “new adult” title got onto the NYT List. Human error is the most likely reason, which I’ll talk about in the next section. 
It’s interesting to see that, without doubt, Penguin dominates with titles on the bestsellers list. Worth noting: Penguin publishes John Green, Rick Yancey, and Sarah Dessen, all of whom spent some time on the list. Harper publishes Roth’s series, Random House publishes The Book Thief, and Simon & Schuster publishes Perks of Being a Wallflower. Quirk publishes Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. 
If you’re curious about those smaller numbers: HMH published Dark Triumph which was on the list for one week, and Bloomsbury published Falling Kingdoms and S. J. Maas’s Crown of Midnight. 

**Edited to note: In the course of counting, tabulating, etc — my own human error noted that Falling Kingdoms was a Bloomsbury title. It is not. It’s Penguin. I haven’t adjusted the numbers or text, but it shifts another title to the Penguin column and one fewer to the Bloomsbury.

E-Book Originals, The Definition of “Series,” and Defining “YA”



I talked a bit yesterday about e-books and the impact of e-book sales on the appearance of titles on the list. What I didn’t talk about was that a number of e-originals have themselves made the list. These are books which are not in print but only exist in a digital format. This tells us a number of things about the buyers of these books, as well as about what those appearances may say in terms of who or what influences the books that do appear on the list. Or maybe more, who or what influences the titles which last on the list more than a week or two.

The e-book originals — short stories, it should be noted — that have appeared on the list include two of the Cassie Clare co-written titles in the “Bane Chronicles” series: “What Really Happened in Peru” and “The Runaway Queen.”

Kiera Cass’s “The Prince,” which was also an e-original short story, appeared on the list as well.

The reason I wanted to point these out is because, as noted yesterday, books jump to the series list after there are three titles published within that series. So the publication of Allegiant meant that Roth moved from the YA list onto the series list. But interestingly, this hasn’t always been the case with YA books, and it’s been inconsistent.

Taherhi Mafi’s “Shatter Me” series made the series list this year, despite the fact the third book within that series has yet to be published. Rather than have potentially two spots on the YA list, the books were instead grouped onto the series list. And the reason? The publication of an e-original titled “Destroy Me.”

By that theory, Cass’s books should have jumped to the series list with the publication of The Elite, which came after The Selection and “The Prince.” But it didn’t.

There is clearly some inconsistency and human error going on with the definition of series and it does play a role in what is and is not ending up on the YA list. Had Mafi’s books ended up on the YA List, rather than the series list, perhaps there would have been a week or two where women had more spots than men did. But we’ll never know because when the final book in her series does publish, it’ll definitely be on the series list.

Another thing that interests me on the YA List is how the creators define “YA.” As noted previously, two “new adult” authors have made the list: Nicole Reed and Abbi Glines. Both of their books are published for the 17 and older audience, which is spelled out right in the listing about the book on the list. This is an interesting — and frustrating — tactic used to get those books on the list meant for books published for the 12-18 market. Would those books stand a chance on the much more crowded adult list, were they listed as being for those 18 and older instead of those 17 and older? How blurry do we allow the lines between YA and not-YA to get, especially when it comes to something as influential as the bestsellers list? And, if we are going to have something called “new adult” fiction, then can we fairly give them a space on the YA list if it’s something completely all its own?

There is a lot to dig into here when it comes to readership and buyership. Those e-originals aren’t getting their sales through traditional means. I want to know who is buying them. My bet is on teenagers who are devoted fans to the series — which then would tie into my previous comments about teen influence on the list being why those titles appear once or twice and then disappear. I suspect, too, the e-original format severely limits long-term readership and audience reach.


The Post-Roth List

Part of my curiosity about gender and the NYT List came because I knew that Veronica Roth’s “Divergent” series moving over to the series list would open up two spots. Would they allow more women in? Or would more men have the chance to land on the list? What would her two spots — which have been there since week one — do to the average length of stay for male-written vs. female-written change dramatically now that her two books with 47-week histories are gone?

So far, there has only been one list to look at to think about these questions. But the list that came out when her books went to the series list looks . . . remarkably like every other list so far. No surprises. No one new. Nothing out of left field.

On this week 48 list, the stats broke down as such:

  • 9 men total were on the list 
  • 12 books written by men were on the list
  • Within the top ten, 6 males were on the list
  • Within the top ten, 8 books written by men were on the list. 
The average length of stay for these 12 male-written book on the NYT List for week 48 — the first one after Roth’s series shifted — was 32 weeks.
More stats about this list:
  • 3 women total were on the list
  • 3 books written by women were on the list
  • Within the top ten, 2 females were on the list
  • Within the top ten, 2 books written by females were on the list. 
The average length of stay for these 3 female-written books on the NYT List for week 48? Five Weeks. 

Because doing an average of overall length of stay across genders would be silly with only this one week post-Roth to compare, this is a number to still think about. The average length of stay for books on the week 48 list for men is 32. Women, 5. This is going to make a difference the further out we go from here, as I predicted yesterday. It will matter. 


The two women who were in the top ten were Marie Lu and Lauren Kate. As you likely know, Marie Lu’s series wraps up in November and she, too, will shift over to the series list. This will leave one — maybe two — spots open for new faces on the list. More than that, it’ll lower the average length of stay for a female-written book on the NYT List even further down. 
We’ll see if Lauren Kate’s book will remain on the list. It debuted at #6, so even if Roth’s books remained on the standard list, it’s likely Kate’s title would have made it on the list. But this list reflects the sales the week Kate’s book came out, so it’s worth keeping an eye on whether this one has staying power or if it reflects many of the other books which debut on the list one week and slide off the week or two next. Again, and this is all hypothesis, but perhaps those books represent high sales by the actual teen contingent, as they’re books teens are eager and excited about as soon as they are published (which isn’t to say those books don’t remain popular, but rather, they don’t sustain the same level of sales in the weeks after initial launch).

If you’re curious about publisher representation on the post-Roth list, I’ve got that for you, too:

  • Penguin: 5 books 
  • Random House: 4 books
  • Hachette/Little, Brown: 3 books
  • Simon & Schuster: 1 book
  • Macmillan: 1 book
  • Quirk: 1 book
There was not a single book from Harper Collins on the list after Roth’s series moved over. 

Other Observations


I thought I’d wrap up all of this data, commentary, and totally speculation with some of the interesting trends and ties that didn’t fit neatly into another category but were still worth thinking about. So this will potentially be a little messy and again, no graphics.

First: what were the total representations by gender on the list? This does include the numbers for the Post-Roth list and does include the extended list.

  • Males: 17
  • Females: 33
Of those:
  • Four male authors had multiple books on the NYT List. These were John Green, James Patterson, Brandon Sanderson, and David Levithan.
  • Twelve female authors had multiple books on the NYT List. These were Veronica Roth, Maggie Stiefvater, Sarah Dessen, Ruta Sepetys, Marie Lu, Ellen Hopkins, Cassie Clare, Marissa Meyer, Maureen Johnson, Kiera Cass, Rainbow Rowell, and Gayle Forman. 

Finally, I’d noted that there’s a trend for books to end up on the list one week then fall off, particularly for female authors. I took some notes on trends I saw in terms of books that didn’t last more than 2 weeks on the top ten list (or extended list) and thought they were worth sharing. This is very raw and it’s quite likely I’ve overlooked something here, but the trends are worth paying attention to.

Female-authored books which lasted only one week on the top ten before either falling off the list completely or falling onto the extended list.

  • Endless Knight by Kressley Cole: Debuted at #6, fell off entirely the following week.
  • Battle Magic by Tamora Piece: Debuted at #8, fell off entirely the following week.
  • If I Stay by Gayle Forman: Debuted on list at #6, fell off but returned later on in the 47 weeks I looked at.
  • Just One Year by Gayle Forman: Landed on the extended for one week, then disappeared.
  • Seige and Storm by Leigh Bardugo: Landed on extended for one week, then disappeared.
  • Of Triton by Anna Banks: Landed on extended for one week, the disappeared.
  • “The Runaway Queen” by Cassie Clare and Maureen Johnson: Debuted at #8, then disappeared. 
  • Never Fade by Alexandra Bracken: Debuted at #10 the week before Roth’s book moved over, but on the list following Roth’s shift, it fell off. 
  • Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken: Debuted on extended the week before Roth’s book moved over, nut on the week following Roth’s shift, it fell off. 
  • “What Really Happened in Peru” by Cassie Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan: Debuted at #4, then disappeared. 
  • Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers: Debuted at #9, then disappeared. 
  • Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys: Debuted on the extended, then disappeared.
  • Ruining You by Nicole Reed: Debuted at #9, then disappeared. 
  • “The Prince” by Kiera Cass: Debuted #6, then disappeared. 
  • The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson: Debuted #6, then disappeared. 
  • Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger: Debuted #9, then disappeared. 
  • Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes: Debuted on extended, then disappeared. 
  • Seraphina by Rachel Hartman: Debuted on extended, then disappeared.
Compare that number of titles to the number of titles written by men which appeared on the list once before disappearing:
  • Unnatural Creatures by Neil Gaiman: Debuted on extended, then disappeared.
  • I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga: Debuted #2, then disappeared. 
  • Shipbreaker by Paulo Bacigalupi: Debuted on extended, then disappeared. 

My counts show that as 17 women have lasted on week before disappearing (I did not count Forman’s If I Stay since it did come back) and only 3 men who have lasted just one week before disappearing.

I should note there was a comment on yesterday’s post that shed some insight into this phenomenon — Maggie Stiefvater pointed out the pre-order factor playing into books landing for a week and then falling off. So there’s that consideration, and that plays into a whole additional series of questions that I’m not even touching on here but would love to see explored.

Where to Go From Here

There are a million avenues of exploration. And I welcome other people to spend the time to look into them. I’d love to know how the series list looks when broken down. I’d love to see how the NYT List stacks up against other measures of “success” — the BookScan numbers, the USA Today list, end-of-year “Best of” lists, and so on and so forth.

I caution anyone considering looking at these things to understand this isn’t easy to parse out or dive into. This is time-consuming stuff, and there are a lot of implications and considerations to have. You can’t “simply” count up the number of men and women who have had a book published within a year to discuss the notion of “dominance” within the field. That’s just counting. There are far bigger things that impact what dominance and acclaim and prestige are.

There is not one single thing that can be pointed to as the problem nor one single thing that can be pointed to as a solution. And to devalue the meaning of The New York Times Bestseller List as simply something “faulty” or “broken” is to make a grandiose statement about the impact it has in sales, marketing, publicity and not to mention word-of-mouth, the general public, and those who write the books. A system may be broken but it doesn’t mean it holds less merit in the eyes of those who give it merit.

I want to see more discussion of this. I want to see more hard numbers — but it takes time. I want to look at (and plan to with some time and energy) other distinctions within the book world, including things such as the distribution of starred reviews against gender. Do we tend to see male-written books as more literary than those written by females? I’d love to see someone tackle questions that popped up, too, about the differences in marketing budgets for male vs. female written titles. And of course, there’s the question of gender of the main character of these novels, too — though I think that is a much tricker, assumptive measure, particularly when you look at it against the NYT List. You’re suggesting something about readership, rather than you are about prestige. There’s nothing wrong about that, and indeed, there’s something really fascinating to dig out there. But it is not in any way the same thing.

Maybe someplace worth starting would be rounding up posts that tackle the issue of gender and YA and doing a meta-analysis. Go look at Lady Business’s posts about gender in the awards lists. Look at the post that came after NPR’s “Best YA Ever” list. Casey Wilson looked at the breakdown of gender on the NYT List prior to it being split into different categories and that’s more than worth a look. Go look at other posts that have explored gender and any sort of recognition (I’ve written a few myself). Might as well also check out Calling Caldecott’s post about gender disparity with the Caldecott at The Horn Book, too.

This stuff exists and has been talked about for a while now. Perhaps a deep exploration of what’s already out there will show where there are holes. It may also allow a bigger appreciation of how much discussion of this topic has happened.

This is not new.

Final Thoughts


Of course, nothing is conclusive here, except that there is in no way a female domination in YA, at least when it comes to what’s perceived as being “the best” in this category. The numbers show again and again men hold more places on the list and have the entire time there has been a separate YA list.

It would be interesting to look at the series list and see if this trend remains or changes. It’d also be interesting to look at other best-of lists and see where gender lines up (I’ve done that on the yearly “best” roundups, and I do plan on doing it again this year when all of those lists appear).

Keeping an eye on the list now that Roth is off is something I want to do because I’ll be curious what happens over the next six months. Will more women appear on the list? Will they last there very long? Or will the list remain essentially the same as it is now, primarily men who have been holding those spots for a very long time. It’d be interesting — though challenging — to look, too, at who has relationships with who on those very lists and what influence that might have on books that appear again and again and those which don’t.  A book that gets, say, a John Green blurb or review in a well-respected newspaper have a better chance of getting on the list and lasting there? Will more publishers reduce books in e-format for a very short period to get an author on the list in time for whatever their next release may be?

The List gives such a minuscule view of the YA world at large, and it is revered one of the most, if not THE most, prestigious places to be because of that. But it’s too bad that even that prestige comes with the now-disproven suggestion that women dominate the YA world. They don’t. Men do — at least when it comes to what many see as what “matters” because it’s “best.”

Responses to Yesterday’s Discussion


This section wasn’t in my initial post, but I feel compelled to add it.

I was blown away by the response to yesterday’s post, and I’m grateful for everyone who read it and took the time to think about it and discuss it.

But I want to point you all specifically to a very interesting — and very touchy — conversation that took place on Twitter about gender and the List. This happened between E. Lockhart, Maureen Johnson, Maggie Stiefvater, and John Green. Go read. Then come back.

Let’s pick this apart just a little bit. I don’t want to lead into too much of what it means or suggests because I think it’s fairly evident. But what stands out to me are the following points:

1. Green’s comment that we need to accept this is happening and “begin a conversation about why.”

There is no “beginning” this conversation. It has been on going for a long, long time. But it’s interesting that the moment a male steps in to the gender conversation, it’s a beginning. Just because someone decides to enter a conversation, doesn’t mean it’s the beginning of a conversation.

2. Lockhart’s suggestion that hetero lady librarians buy books because of good looking men.

I have to say it flat out: this actually offended me on a personal level, as a librarian myself. And seeing it from an author who benefits from the skills and work librarians do made it even rough to see. It so devalues the hard work and knowledge and dedication to doing our jobs well. It undermines how much we put into serving our communities and connecting our communities to the books they want to have.

Further, seeing that from an author who has written such amazingly feminist novels is utterly disheartening.

While it was most likely a mis-typed sentiment, I saw it, and I know many, many other librarians saw it. And many were not happy about it. It only further plays into some hugely problematic gender schematics — and as they relate to one’s professional affairs.

3. Green’s suggestion that by not being a top ten selling author in the country he’s not privileged.

Green’s been on the NYT Bestsellers list for 47 weeks, with multiple books. Green is in a very elite, VERY RARE, set of the 1% of YA authors out there. He has never not received some acknowledgment of his work.

This isn’t to say he isn’t talented — CLEARLY he is. Absolutely no one would ever argue that, nor should they. He’s earned it!

But being unable to assess one’s own privilege and reducing it to a comparison of another “bestselling” measure is derailing the bigger point.

4. Green’s offense on behalf of another author who has benefitted from his voice and platform.

Were his platform, fandom, and voice not seen as valuable and profitable and worth pursuing in the YA world, then people wouldn’t clamor for a review from him nor a blurb from him. Green blurbs and reviews very few books — fewer still in a lengthy column in The New York Times — and it would be silly not to see that as beneficial to any author who receives it, ESPECIALLY when that blurb is used again and again in future promotions for the author who received it.

This is a place of privilege. There is nothing wrong with that. But there is something to be said about understanding that privilege and value of voice.

This was never, EVER about a single book he wrote a review for. It’s about the value of his voice as it helped propel a woman’s work into a wider audience. As I noted in the comments on yesterday’s post, his blurb on E Lockhart’s forthcoming book is big and bright. There’s no question that is a selling point to the book — so much so that Random House tweeted about it.

And so I revert to the question I keep wondering about: how much does a revered male’s voice help a female’s career? When a man who is seen as someone with power and authority within a field — be it the YA world, the librarianship world, the teaching world, the publishing world, the corporate world, and so on and so on — why is it his word is what can make (or break) a woman’s chances in that same field? What is it that allows him continued authority and respect? And hell, he doesn’t necessarily even need to be revered. It’s likely having a male voice is enough to help a lady out in many, many places.

This isn’t just about John Green. It’s about gender on a much huger scale.

It is clear there is an issue to discuss here, and I am so glad it’s bring discussed.

But it should also be clear that in discussing this issue, there are even messier, sometimes more problematic, knots to untangle.

A Closer Look at The New York Times YA Bestsellers List, Part 1

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*This is part one of a two-part post. Part two will publish tomorrow.

How often do we hear that YA is full of women? That this is a land where there aren’t boys or men? That readers and writers are girls and the implications of what that might mean?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. And I decided it was time to finally sit down and look at one of the most well-known and highly-revered tools that the book world looks to when it comes to status and acclaim: The New York Times Bestsellers List.

Before diving into the data and making some connections among the things I saw, I thought I’d break down the NYT list a little bit. You may or may not remember that last December, the Times decided they were going to change up how they handled their Children’s lists. It used to be that all Children’s books were on one list, thereby having 10 spots for books published among all categories for children. The change that was made ended up splitting middle grade and YA from the general Children’s list, giving them their own lists. This offered more spots for books within those categories, and with the extension of the list, there are 15 books labeled “Bestsellers” each week.

In addition to those lists, there are series lists. When (theoretically) there are three books published within a given series of books, the books within that series are tied together and placed on the series list, rather than offered individual spots within the overall list.

The NYT list tracks sales within a given week and highest sales correlate to placement on the list. For YA (and MG), e-book sales are included in the totals, whereas children’s sales are not. Keep this in mind with the data below because I think that those e-sales play a role in what emerges. Sales numbers are reported from big retailers, online and off, and rather than rehash all of the details of how it works out, it’s worth reading the Wikipedia article to know what does and doesn’t count, as well as the controversies surrounding the counting — there are enough citations here to fill you with all kinds of glee, don’t worry.

I’ve focused all of my number-crunching on only the YA list. There is nothing in here about the MG list and nothing in here about the series list, except where I’ve chosen to make it a relevant point.  There is a big one, too. In total, I looked at 47 bestseller lists from the NYT, which is everything from the beginning of their separate list through the week of 11/5/13.

What you should know if you don’t already is that the lists are printed two weeks in advance of the sales. In other words, the list for November 5 covers the sales for the week of October 13 through 20. Knowing this will contextualize much of what you see later on in the data, as books which are published on a certain date that would no doubt make the NYT List don’t do so immediately — there is a two-week lag in the reporting.

The reason that I pulled November 5 as my final counting date for the data is simple: the list for November 12 is one that changes the game, as it’s the week when sales for Veronica Roth’s Allegiant come through, and thus it’s the week when the two spots she’s held on the list for YA are opened up. Her series, now three books, leaps over to the series list instead. More on that in a bit.

Other notes I made in my data collecting I should share: when there were author teams, each of the authors counted. So when Maureen Johnson and Cassie Clare’s book made the NYT list, each of them were tallied for women. The single exception to this came through a personal judgment call you may or may not agree with, but which changes the data and results very little. That exception came for books written by James Patterson and a co-author. I chose not to count the co-author because, as anyone who works with readers will tell you, it’s Patterson who is the author. Readers do not ask for the Maxine Paetro book. They ask for the newest Patterson. Without his name leading the book, there is little doubt in my mind that that book would not make the list. I did also make an exception for the Gabrielle Douglas book, which is authored by her but was written “with” someone else. I did not count the person it was written “with,” since “with” indicates something different than “by.”

As in the past on data posts, there is a LOT to sift through here. I like numbers and correlations among them. I like to take guesses and talk about what I’m seeing and what I think it means. I invite you to do the same thing. As should be noted, I’ve rounded all of my numbers to the nearest whole to make the data easier to read.

You can see my raw data, with some miscellaneous notes-to-self, here.

Individual Gender Representation on the NYT YA List


The first thing I wanted to know was how well men and women were represented on the lists. I’ve always suspected that men outnumbered women on the list, and when I’ve made that claim before, I’ve been told that’s not true.

But actually, it’s startlingly true.

Starting on the very basic level, I counted up the number of different men and the number of different women who occupied a space within the NYT YA List. Because I wanted to cast the widest net possible from the beginning, I looked at not just the top ten list, but the extended list of 15.

On average, there were 7 men on the list and 4 women. Again, these are the number of individuals, so authors who appeared more than once were only counted one time.

Let’s look at this more granularly.

This is a week-by-week comparison of the number of men represented individually on the NYT List in blue against the number of women represented individually on the NYT list in red. Note that except for a few scant weeks in the middle of the chart — that would be around May and June — men appear more frequently on the list.

So how does the top ten fare when it comes to individual gender representation? If we remove the extended list, will women show up more frequently?

Not so much. In fact, the top ten list is even more disappointing to look at if you’re looking for the proof of women dominating YA.

On average, men appeared 5 times on the top ten for YA, while women represented a scant 2. Again, these are the number of individuals, so authors who appeared more than once were only counted on time. 
So more granularly:
As should be absolutely clear, there has never been a time women have outnumbered men on the NYT List in the top ten. Never. There have been six weeks where there have been a grand total of four women in the top ten — January 6, February 24, March 31, May 5, May 19, and June 9. For the weeks of May 5 and June 9, we had female coauthors on the top ten (each counted as an individual) and for the weeks of Mach 31 and June 9, Abbi Glines and Nicole Reed — both “new adult” authors whose books were listed for readers 17 and older — also occupied spots on the top ten. 
It gets more interesting if you look at how few spots individual women have had on the top ten list. There have been nine weeks when only one woman has had a spot on the top ten. That woman is, of course, Veronica Roth. 
The fewest number of men to occupy space on the top ten list is 3, and that has only happened a grand total of five times. 

Books and Gender Representation on the NYT YA Bestseller List


The charts above looked at the individuals represented on the lists. So despite an author having more than one book on the list, she or he only counted once.

In addition to looking at the unique frequencies of gender on the list, I decided to do a more thorough count of the books and their authors by gender to get a truer sense of how men and women occupied the list. This time, every book was looked at individually, rather than every author. Multiple books by the same author were counted each time in their respective author’s gender column.

It got even less pretty for women who “dominate” YA.

First, looking at the books with the use of the extended list, here’s what our averages are when it comes to spots that men have on the list and spots that women have on it:

On average, 9 of the books on the list are written by men and 6 are written by women.

Let’s see what this looks like on a week-by-week basis, too.

So about the fact that women dominate YA, take a hard look at this data.

Every single week — except for two — men have outnumbered women on the NYT List. Those were the weeks of March 31 and May 19, 2013. But before you get excited thinking that women had finally “taken over” in their representation on the list, I’ll report to you that they didn’t take over in numbers. Those weeks showed five individual women on the list, which is a number still smaller than the average number of men who appeared on a weekly basis. Women “dominated” as individuals none of the time.

Those five individual women on the list represented a grand total of 8 books on the 15-book extended list on those two weeks.

Eight books.

Five women.

Fifteen spots.

For two weeks out of forty-seven total.

Just sit with that for a few minutes.

There are, of course, some variables that made these two weeks of “lady domination” happen. For the week of March 31, we see the debut of Eleanor and Park, nearly a month after its release. But the sales for the book that week most certainly reflect the John Green review in The New York Times — the review was published March 10, which is the week that the March 31 NYT List covers here. Without devaluing the book and its merits, it’s fascinating to see that the book ended up on the List nearly a month after publishing but immediately following the glowing review it received in the same publication by a male who himself regularly occupies 3 or 4 spots on the list. It would be hard to argue that without the Green review that book would have landed on the list that week.

That week also includes Nicole Reed’s “new adult” book (which I argue should not have been on this list at all because of its 17+ age recommendation and the fact it’s self-published — there is a whole other list for that). There were also two spots on the extended list held by Cassie Clare; the sales for this week were one week prior to the paperback release of Clockwork Prince, and I have some theories which I’ll get to in a bit.

For the week of May 19, I note that Abbi Glines was on the list (who, again, I argue should not have been since her book was for a 17+ audience). There are also dual appearances by Kiera Cass, Marie Lu, Veronica Roth, and an appearance by Sarah Dessen for What Happened to Goodbye.

Because I looked at the data of individuals limited to the top ten list, I decided to do the same thing with the books. So the following charts look at gender representation in the top ten by books. Same deal: multiple books by the same author were gender coded multiple times.

On average, there were 7 books written by men in the top ten of the NYT List and 3 by women.

More granularly, so you can see what it looks like on a week-by-week basis:

Books written by women have never once — never once — had at least half of the spaces on the top ten list. They’ve had a few weeks occupying four spaces but never have they had five books in the top ten slots in the 47 weeks that the YA List has existed.

A couple of other factoids to include at this juncture: there have only been five weeks where a woman held the number one spot on the New York Times List for YA. Five. They were held by Veronica Roth (for four weeks — three of which were in mid-July, on the 14th, 21st and 28th, which would reflect a bump in sales immediately following the release of the first stills of the movie and the fourth week, September 15, likely reflects sales following the release of the film’s trailer) and Kiera Cass for The Elite, which stayed for one week only. Cass’s novel debuted at #1 on the May 12 list, which reflects the sales for the week her book was available for purchase.

Again, in 47 weeks, there have only been two women to see the top spot. They only held it for a combined five weeks.

Average Length of Stay on the NYT List


This data is much trickier, it’s limited to the top ten list, and it doesn’t really say anything. But I wanted to look at it for comparison with the next data set after this one.

Because the list is only 47 weeks long, we only have 47 weeks to compare average length of stay against. And it moves backwards, of course: so the books which were on the list during week one had an average stay of one week. Those which were on the list during week 23 which had been there since week 1 now averaged 23 weeks. And so on.

I wanted to look at gender against the average stay of books on the list. But it wasn’t really too telling of anything. Part of that is because the top ten list had a higher number of male authors on the list, though only a handful were around the entire 47 weeks (many jumped from the top ten list to the extended list then back again). And really, comparing 8 books by men’s average stay on the list against 2 books by Veronica Roth which have been on the list the entire time didn’t show a whole lot.

But it will tell us something soon.

For men, the average length of stay on the NYT YA List was 18 weeks.
For women, it was 17 weeks.

Keep those numbers in your head in conjunction with everything above.



Trends Within the NYT YA List

Tomorrow’s post will look at some more data, including data from the first NYT List that will publish after Veronica Roth’s series is off the YA list and onto the series list. It’ll also look at publishers represented on the list and other interesting variables. But before ending this post, I thought it would be worth talking a little bit about some of the interesting trends I noticed.

I noted above more than once that lists reflect the sales two weeks prior to their publication date. That’s something to keep in mind when you notice things like drastic e-book sales for certain titles or authors. Because the YA list does reflect e-book sales, I have been curious to know what impact that makes on who is on the list and who is getting those books on the list.

Ever notice huge slashes in e-book prices? I haven’t kept track of them this year, and can’t make any certain connections, but it seems to me there’s something to be said about the appearance of some books on the list which might reflect those drastic cost reductions. Publishers can set the price of a Kindle or Nook Book at $1.99, drum up huge sales, get the book on the list, and then it’s a bestseller. Doing that prior to a paperback release or a release of the next book within a series would help that title appear on the list. A lot of times those books appear for that week and then they fall off again when the price returns to something higher.

It is not price that gets books on the list; it’s the number of sales.

Keep that in the back of your mind when the list for November 20 comes out, as last week a number of well-known YA names had their e-book prices dropped to $1.99 or even $1.40. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Rainbow Rowell appear on the list twice, for example, since both of her books were dropped to a mere $1.40 for Kindle. I’d even not be surprised to see one or both of them in the top ten lists (I should note here that on the first post-Veronica Roth list, which I’ll talk about tomorrow, Eleanor and Park is on the extended).

Many books will appear for a week or two on the list — usually on the list reflecting the sales of the week their new book published — and then they will slide off. This happens in more drastic numbers for female authors than male authors, which seems like it’s reflected in the data above. And when you look at the titles that do this, it’s hard not to think about why that might be. Is there a reason Kiera Cass’s The Elite debuted at #1, lasted a second week at #6, moved to the extended, and then disappeared? It seems to me perhaps this sort of quick on and off reflects the true audience purchasing the book, and the true audience for this one? Teenagers. They get very excited about the release of the next book in a series, buy it during release week or immediately after, and then the sales fall off for any number of reasons. Books that are perennially on the NYT List definitely reflect teen sales, too, but I suspect part of why they maintain their positions is continued purchasing and recommendation from adult readers as “good YA.” Even if it’s only 55% of adults purchasing YA (which has been spun to sound like it’s adults being huge purchasers of YA books when it’s only slightly more than half of purchases are made by adults), it’s likely that those adults recommended books to other adults are doing what adults who recommend books tend to do: repeat and recommend the books they read from the bestsellers list because that bestsellers list suggests a “good book.” A bestseller is a bestseller for a reason, as the logic goes.

They’re safe.

Books written by women are much more likely to see one week or two weeks on the list and then fall off than those by men. It’s depressing to think about what that might say about the value of women in YA fiction, the reflection of their work as having significant merit, and so on and so forth. But one thing is for certain: the assertion that “women dominate” is completely false, at least when it comes to Bestsellerdom.

Men do.