Ellie Goulding's Divergent Track and the YA Film Trend

So yesterday I retweeted V. Roth's EW post on the Divergent Soundtrack. Check out the article and the new Ellie Goulding song here. At the first listen, I loved it. At the second listen, I loved it even more. At the third listen all I'm thinking about is how I can get my hands on that soundtrack! As you can probably tell, I'm pretty stoked about this film as well as TFIOS (The Fault in Our Stars).

YA Lit is starting to become a large influence in the film industry. Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, need I say more? And as long as it gets people reading, I'm all for it. And I'm just hoping that the film industry takes the story to heart instead of doing rush jobs to reign in some cash. Remember the Eragon movie? That just about broke my heart.

This YA book-to-film trend, however, is finally placing emphasis on the Young Adult genre. YA used to be such a guilty pleasure for me, something I kept to myself, books I would read in the comfort of my own room. But now things are starting to change. More and more people are starting to read YA, even outside its designated age range. Even at my college a course on young adult fiction was placed on the same caliber as Eighteenth Century British Literature. Though I wasn't able to fit it into my schedule, I just think that's so awesome.

So what is it about YA that makes it such a phenomena? I think it boils down to the YA writers. They're taking creative risks whether it's through the narrative voice, structure, or whatever. Angels, vampires, wizards, dystopia, reincarnation, gritty realism...anything goes. They're taking risks and it's paying off as a collective genre.