New Adult (NA) fiction is a literary category and genre that commonly refers to narratives that explore the transition from late adolescence to adulthood. It is a relatively new concept, and its definition has been developing and changing since its inception.
Back to topOrigins: A category for "emerging adults"
McAllister (2021) has divided the development of New Adult fiction chronologically into three main categories, each with their own interpretation of the term: 2009, 2011-2013 and 2020 onwards.
The origins of New Adult are credited to St Martin's Press, which first coined the term in 2009 when it ran a competition seeking "fiction that looks like YA and can be published and marketed as adult - a kind of 'older YA' or 'new adult'" (Jae-Jones, 2009). NA was thus initially constructed as a category similar to YA literature or children’s literature and defined by its intended audience of emerging adults, aged 18-25 (Pattee, 2017; McAlister 2018).
Back to top2011-2013: A romantic sub-genre
While St Martin’s Press did not end up publishing any NA books in the competition, the term New Adult was taken up and appropriated by readers on the online literary platform Goodreads and later by self-publishing authors, spreading the term and popularising it to such an extent that in 2013 it was formally recognised as an official Book Industry Standards And Communications (BISAC) (Naughton, 2014), a method used by bookstores to classify books (BISG, 2023).
However, the popularised New Adult term had shifted its meaning from being a category defined by intended audience to instead being a sub-genre of the romantic novel with distinct textual features. This new genre was characterised by a central love story set in the present day, told by a first-person female narrator in the category "emerging adult" and with an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending where the protagonist forms a serious romantic relationship (McAlister, 2018, 10).
Back to top2020 and onwards: A category in flux
Today, both the understanding of New Adult as defined by its targeted audience and the understanding of New Adult as a romantic genre characterised by specific textual features can be traced when looking at published texts that carry the label New Adult. However, fewer books are labelled NA, and looking at them, it is clear that the boundaries of the genre are fluid and in flux.
Romance is still at the centre, but there is a movement towards using New Adult in its original form as a more general term for a melting pot of books aimed at emerging adults. For example, there is an increase in books in the genres of fantasy, science fiction and paranormal books that are categorised as New Adult.
In the future, New Adult will continue to evolve as readers and publishers continue to mobilise the concept in different ways, and it is not certain that romance will keep its central position (McAlister, 2021).
Back to topReferences
BISG (2023). BISAC Subject Headings List. https://www.bisg.org/fiction.
Jae-Jones, S. (2009). St Martin’s New Adult Contest. Uncreated Conscience, 9 November 2009, http://sjaejones.com/blog/2009/st-martins-new-adult-contest/. Archived in the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/.
McAlister, J. (2018). Defining and redefining popular genres: The evolution of ‘New adult’ fiction. Australian Literary Studies vol 33, no. 4, DOI: 10.20314/als.0fd566d109.
McAlister, J. (2021). New adult fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Naughton, J. (2014, July 14). New Adult: A Book Category For Twentysomethings by Twentysomethings. Publishers Weekly. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/63285-new-adult-matures.html.
Pattee, A. (2017). Between youth and adulthood: Young adult and new adult literature. Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 42 (2), pp. 218-230. DOI: 10.1353/chq.2017.0018.
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