It has the power to make intellectual conversations go sour, English teachers internally vomit and college admissions officers toss an application in question out the window. Others insist that it has the power to cause screaming pre-teens to run towards bookstores and panicking 17-year-olds to run away.

What is this phenomenon? Known as Young Adult or YA literature, this genre manages to stay prominent in the industry while still eliciting countless sighs of superiority and twisted expressions of disgust.

Ever since the surge of notoriety in Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series, the YA genre has often been associated with the horrors of vampire-werewolf love triangles, atrocious writing and submissive female characters who willingly die for romance.

These assumptions may stand true in some cases, but just as in adult literature, there exists the good, the bad and the terrible. So while the more popular YA books may speak otherwise, not all YA fiction is written for girls. Not all YA literature is about a frivolous romance. Not all YA literature is written horrendously.

Simply put, not all YA is bad.

With more accessible dialogue and descriptions, YA literature conveys the same themes and ideas as required English readings without the long, winding paragraphs. For teenagers especially, with a busy life on the go, a quicker-paced YA adventure about a fellow teen may be more suitable than a Steinbeck novel.

Palo Alto High School junior Siggi Bengston finds characters around her age to be more exciting and easily relatable.

“The characters [in YA literature] are usually around adolescence and I can relate to that better than I can relate to, you know, a 25-year-old male that’s going through an existential crisis,” Bengston says. “I appreciate both of them probably equally but it is more fun to relate to a character.”

The age of the protagonist is actually what distinguishes YA literature from adult literature. Looking at the big picture, both genres tell a story about characters with problems such as finding their place in the world, discovering and pursuing their desires and becoming or staying happy. Both genres convey themes and ideas, both contain amazing and awful works and both take the reader on a journey. So what if the main character happens to be 16?

Not to mention that YA literature has it all. From fluffy romantic comedies to spies to teenage leaders in a dystopian world, there is a sub-genre for everyone. Eager readers can flit between romantic contemporaries such as “Anna and the French Kiss” by Stephanie Perkins and more serious, historical fiction such as the World War II story “Code Name Verity” by Elizabeth Wein. Sprinkle in some dystopian works, such as Lauren Miller’s “Free to Fall” about technology monopolies and some sci-fi like “The 5th Wave” by Rick Yancey and whole new worlds open up.

Cressida Hanson, who purchases children and teen literature at Kepler’s Books, attests that there are different books for different times.

“You can’t read every book in every mood,” Hanson says. “There are certain times when you want to pick up a more dark book, or a more gritty book or a more light book … It really reflects who you are in that mood or that time of your life.”

Despite the variety that YA fiction allows, the idea that the genre is equivalent to the TV version of a terrible soap opera has taken root in society. In literature, there exists an intangible but generally agreed upon canon. This list of elite literature only allows in classics such as “The Great Gatsby” or “Anna Karenina.” However, despite the canon’s subjective nature, the idea of a novel such as the “The Hunger Games” gaining entrance into such a club would be ludicrous. Even with the popularity and fanbase that the genre has garnered, YA is considered trivial and of poorer quality than other genres. Essentially, it carries no intellectual weight in the real world.

Some may argue that best-selling books like Markus Zusak’s “The Book Thief” and John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars” have granted YA books redemption into this deep, mature side of literature, but along with the enthusiasts come the critics, who argue that these books are either too dreary and depressing or partake in a sense of levity unfit to the topic. The root of the problem regarding YA literature’s image is found in the double standards set in place, in which a novel is too serious or not serious enough, or when a protagonist, especially a female one, is deemed either blank-slated and submissive or hot-headed and unrealistic.

At the heart of this mindset lies society’s misconception about teens. Adults look down on YA literature in the same way that they look down on actual young adults: the average teen’s reputation for emotional, angsty histrionics fuels the idea that teenage problems are not as “real” as adult problems and that therefore YA literature is not as important as adult literature.

But we as teens should be allowed to read YA literature without shame, just as adults can read adult novels without worry of judgement. To be considered intellectual and deep, why should teens have to read about the problems of middle-aged adults when adults do not have to read about teen angst?

Junior Claire Dennis, co-president of the Paly Book Club, asserts that reading about teen issues is just as important as reading about adult issues.

“I think that a lot of people discount young adult literature, but I think … by discounting it they’re also discounting the things that young adults go through,” Dennis says. “Sure, there are some [YA books] that are less serious … [but] I think that comes with any type of literature.”

All in all, there is nothing wrong with reading YA literature. With its wide range of topics and relatable characters and problems, the much-maligned genre easily has the capacity to reestablish its reputation. It has the power to work towards a future where readers can proudly hold their YA novels above their heads while English teachers beam at the sight, where college admissions officers give their nods of approval and where teens and adults alike run screaming to grab the latest masterpiece off the bookshelf. That is, if only given the chance and reevaluation to do so.

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35 percent of surveyed Paly students do not read YA books.^*

* The student poll results collected for this issue are from a survey administered in Palo Alto High School English classes in September 2014. Eight English classes were randomly selected and 170 responses were collected. The surveys were completed online, and responses were anonymous. With 95% confidence, this result is accurate within a margin of error of 6.09%.