Are Young Adult Novels Too Dark?

     I have always been someone who has seen books as a way to relate to something or as a way to learn about those different than myself. It is intriguing to me to read about hardships and challenges that tend to appear in YA novels today and I can learn from those situations in the books to overcome and deal with my own challenges. 

    Meghan Cox Gurdon expresses in a 2011 journal her thoughts on the darkness of YA literature and why she feels that there is too much darkness in novels written for 12-18-year-olds. Essentially, Cox Gurdon expresses her concern that there is too much violence, gore, and darkness in these books and talks about how YA literature is so much different than it used to be. Meanwhile, awarded novelist Sherman Alexie rebutted Cox Gurdon's argument by saying "There's nothing in my book that even compares to what kids can find on the Internet."Along with that, in his own rebuttal article, Alexie writes to the point that the darkness and such in YA novels has nothing on the reality of some of their readers. Along with that, he mentions that reading about monsters in books taught him how to overcome real-life monsters which I thought was moving and an excellent point.

    If it isn't already obvious, I tend to agree with the argument of Sherman Alexie. I just think that there is more than what meets the eye to young adults. Along with that, they tend to experience things that are deeper and scarier than what is probably fair to them. As I stated above, I read as a way to overcome my battles and to learn from stories that have different situations than my own. I think that darkness in YA novels is a way to open the eyes of teens to potential dangers and/or to help them through situations similar to characters in the books. If young adult novels were all sunshine and rainbows, I feel that teens would seek out some sort of book more relative to them and the situations they're going through in the intricate world of the modern teen.