Worlds Unlike Our Own

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @ Eternity Books and hosted by Aria @ Book Nook Bits where we discuss certain topics, share our opinions, and spread the love by visiting each others’ posts. Today topic is: Do Genres Change Over Time?

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Is there a genre you think is done better or worse today than it was in the past? How is it better today or how is it it worse than it was before? What differences do you see that make them better or worse? Do you think that the quality of genres follow certain trends over time?

I think nearly every genre is better today in some way than it was say ten or fifteen years ago. They cover a wider range of topics and are much more diverse which has helped enhance the genres quite a bit.

Some genres have evolved very well, particularly fantasy and YA contemporary, and they are generally very relevant to happenings in present day and readers can connect to the characters. Historical fiction is interesting because in some ways, the same types of books I read ten years ago are still popular today, but I’ve also found an increase in the number of historical retellings, or novels surrounding a historical event from the perspective of an original character and these are equally entertaining. Retellings have been slowly gaining popularity in the past several years, as have mythology based/inspired books.

There was a huge spike in dystopian novels, at least in the YA sphere, back during the Hunger Games years and it was closely followed by other books like Divergent, but I feel there have been very few notable reads in the genre since. In a similar vein, vampire novels were a huge craze post Twilight and it seemed like every second book was about the topic – it became so overwhelming that I don’t pick up any books about vampires unless I’m a huge fan of the author and even then it’s with some reluctance. I guess it’s still kind of popular, but my main issue (apart from the fact that I really did not like Twilight) was that all of those books felt like reading the same story formula over and over again.

YA itself as a broader genre has really grown over time. Looking back, I didn’t even realize YA was a thing until I was maybe 12 or 13, and the distinction didn’t start becoming widespread until maybe just over ten years ago. This is definitely for the better though, the separation of middle-grade, YA, NA and Adult allows a reader to pick up a book with the expectation of age appropriate, or even mood-appropriate content.

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Do you think genres have changed over time? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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