Twisted Love

First coined in 2009 by St. Martin’s Press, new adult fiction is a developing genre that falls between young adult and adult. The genre targets readers age 18 to 25 and highlights coming-of-age stories that focus on themes of character development that occur after the teen years. While new adult fiction contains elements common to the young adult genre—fast-paced, emotionally turbulent writing styles—the new adult genre often contains more explicit content and more complex thematic elements and features adult-oriented settings such as college campuses, beginner workplaces, or new hometowns. New adult fiction also primarily focuses on milestones: a character’s first great love, first home, or first true taste of adulthood. These elements make the stories and their characters highly relatable to the 18- to 25-year-old age group. The genre strives to be edgy, daring, and exciting while showcasing the serious pressures of adulthood.

Because traditional publishing houses considered the genre to be too high a risk to invest in seriously, the new adult genre owes its existence to self-publishing. Prior to 2009, traditional publishers were hesitant to pursue new adult novels and categorize them as such because the long-term success of the genre seemed uncertain at best. Common fears were that the addition of the category would negatively impact young adult sales, which were phenomenally high thanks to huge franchises like Stephanie Meyer's Twilight and Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games. However, self-published new adult romances such as Jamie McGuire’s Beautiful Disaster and Molly McAdams’s Taking Chances soon became bestsellers. With the emergence of a segment of TikTok called BookTok that is designed to highlight indie authors, the genre gained major traction. Since the surge of interest and sales in new adult novels, traditional publishers have acquired many of the most successful titles and are continuously working to broaden their catalogs in the genre.