Everyone of any age can read YA, and should! But when you hit a certain age, you start to wonder about what you might be missing out on. You can't really quite connect to the 16 year olds like you used to be able to, and you want a bit more from the story! Not to say YA is insubstantial, it really isn't! YA has been used to address and discuss things faster and better than any other genre.
But sometimes, you really just want to put yourselves into the boots of a 20+ year old like yourself who has dealt with major issues as an adult would. Sometimes, you want something a bit spicier and intense than YA can and should be.
But then you log onto social media sites, and everyone is telling you that all Adult SFF is written by boring white men who treat women horribly. And truthfully, that is a big chunk, but I promise you, the only reason they think that is because they themselves don't want to do any searching beyond looking up a Top 100 Fantasy Books To Read In Your Lifetime article that was written five years ago by you guessed it, a white dude.
I've personally been making that journey into finding adult sff that fits my personal tastes, and it's one of my favorite things in the world to walk someone back to our SFF section in the store and show them a whole new world!
So here's my personal favorites, recommended via what you might have already read and loved of YA!
If you read and liked....
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas...
You should read...
The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson
Now hold on a second, don't click out, I know, this series is by a white guy, but I promise you, you'll want to stick around. Personally the first adult fantasy series I read as a little middle schooler desperate for more intense books was the Legend of Drizzt series, but that's super intense.
Now the first adult fantasy series I read as a high schooler actively trying to find more in depth series was the first Mistborn trilogy. This series is set in a mist ridden world where the premise is this: the dark overlord won and has ruled for a long time.
Enter Vin, a young girl who turns out to have the ability to use every level of the metal magic that this world has access to. Something entirely rare that makes her a mistborn, and puts her into the control of a man named Kelsier who is also mistborn, and hellbent on destroying the Lord Ruler.
This trilogy gave me my first taste of a young girl who was not one sided, who held many facets that I saw in myself. She's a rough and tumble orphan who can kill to survive, but she also enjoys pretty dresses and looking nice. And come closer, yes, a bit closer.... this series has one of my favorite, most angsty relationships in it ever.
If you read and liked...
The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo
You should read...
The Poppy War Trilogy by R.F. Kuang
Now, I have severe beef with Leigh Bardugo since she gave into the pressures of Hollywood and betrayed Nina Zenik and the fat girls who already have too few fictional characters to look up to, but, I would be remiss to leave this recommendation out.
Assuming you've read the Grisha Trilogy, I'm gonna discuss a few spoilers. Alright, here we go, spoilers ahead! Alina, an orphan whose only friend is a fellow orphan, drafted into the military in the middle of a long standing, strange situation for their homeland. After a terrible event occurs, she discovers that she has a power no one else can hold, and draws the interest of a powerful man who is the same, yet opposite. Lots of things follow.
The Poppy War follows Rin, an orphan in a world not unlike our own China, and in fact, this whole thing is based off of very, very real wars that occurred and were absolutely horrific. She studies her way into the military academy, and after an incredibly written period of time where she grows up and discovers herself, war returns to their country and something is discovered about her that makes her very unique.
This series, man, this series will rip you apart and toss you into the dirt, but it is so very worth it. It doesn't take such a hardline approach as Bardugo does with her characters on "This person is evil and this person is good." This series is very much grey morality and anyone can commit war crimes no matter their original intention.
I highly recommend looking up the list of trigger warnings for this series because you might go into this book for the first half going "Oh this isn't so bad!" But then the second half will hit you like a poisoned, serrated knife to the gut and leave you wanting to vomit. It's intense, please tread carefully. But if you can handle it, please do pick up this series.
If you read and liked....
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
You should read...
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
Now, stick with me again, this is one of the most brilliant pieces of political fantasy I have ever read. In The Cruel Prince, you have a clever, girl who's been stolen away from her home in a violent act that changes her forever. Once she's in this other world with people so very different from what she knew before, she becomes determined to become so much worse than they are to gain the power she knows she needs to survive and thrive.
In The Traitor Baru Cormorant, you have young Baru, looking at the sea from her island home, with her mother and two fathers at her back, and wondering when The Masquerade is going to come and ruin it all, colonizing them and tearing her life to shreds.
They come, and she meets a merchant from the Masquerade who charms her, a young child, and slowly pulls her from her parents. When one of her father's is murdered on a forced expedition, Baru agrees to attend the colonizing school, swearing she wants nothing to do with her culture.
In her head however, she knows one thing, she's going to integrate herself into the empire, she's going to be better than her merchant sponsor ever hoped she could be. Then she's going to tear the empire apart from within and restore her home to what it used to be.
Also, this series is so queer, so achingly beautiful and intelligent. It never once makes you feel like a fool, even when you don't know what's going on. You're not always meant to know what's going on. It's basically a political mystery thriller set in a fantasy world and my god, is it phenomenal.
You'll devour this series like it's a bag of pistachios and come back begging for more, I promise!
I hope you all enjoy these recommendations! I have plenty more where that came from, so I'd highly suggest sticking around! And check me out at @abookstorecat on instagram, I always post what I've read and rate it in my stories!