: Re: Why is young adult romance now being written primarily in the first person? My recollection is that when I started reading romance novels in the 1980s, the majority (perhaps 60%) were written

@Sue2132873

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There are a number of reasons. Some are universal, some are recent.

YA novels are smaller in scale

First person works best when you have only a single viewpoint character. YA tends towards smaller casts and simpler structures, which means that YA novels are more likely to have single viewpoints, and means that a higher percentage of novels have an opportunity for first person narratives.

YA likes to follow the leader, and the current leaders are The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson, and Twilight

(My finger isn't too closely on the pulse of YA since I outgrew the genre, but I haven't really heard of anything taking their place yet)

The glut of YA dystopian novels tends to attract disparaging remarks about "aping better novels", but there are reasons that trends get followed, particularly in YA. Young readers are still learning what they like, and will frequently turn to the book most similar to the one they just fell in love with. They aren't looking for "new and different" yet, because to them everything is new and different. So when a YA novel skyrockets up the charts then similar books get published hoping to pick up on the rebound.

At the moment, the most popular books have strong first person narrators. So other authors are looking to produce similar voices that the kids who loved the popular voices will hopefully love theirs as well.

Paranormal Romance draws from Urban Fantasy, which in turn draws from Noir.

Paranormal Romance is not entirely YA, of course, but with Twilight as the centerpiece there is a strong connection between them. And Paranormal Romance is largely an offshoot (or at least closely tied to) Urban Fantasy, which in turn draws a lot of its tropes from Noir. One of those tropes is a hard-bitten, snarky first-person perspective. Even when the viewpoint character isn't a detective (Once again I'm looking at you, Twilight), the tendencies of the genre are going to influence the decisions that authors make, consciously or unconsciously.

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