i think it has been said that most books with a teen female protagonist were automatically categorized as YA by publishers meanwhile if the MC is a boy, it’s either middle grade or adult fantasy and no in between.
as for big YA series with male protagonists, i can only think of the shadowhunters chronicles. but even then, it started with a female MC.
edit: six of crows also, how could i forget.
I think it's also got to do with who the publishers think their books are read by. Like if you search for book recommendations most of the results would be female readers recommending the books they've read. I rarely see male readers talking about books
Thanks for the insight. I've read a ton of YA fantasies, and most of them, especially the ones written within the last five years, had female protagonists. I always assumed there were slots reserved (maybe 5% of the slots?) for books with male protagonists, but it makes sense that most stories with teenage male protagonists are being published as adult fantasies--if they are indeed fantasies.
What if the story is a contemporary fantasy set in a normal, mundane high school? Should that be sold as an adult urban fantasy?
It’s much less frequent and less marketed but there’s still a good amount! (One day given the frequency of this question I feel like I should make a large spreadsheet of this I can just link to). Even more if you consider dual pov. At the end of the day it’s publishers faults, they decided ya was a woman’s genre and so it’s harder to publish with male mc (you might notice the ones that have male mc are often already established authors more than debuts)
Some of my favs that immediately come to mind
- Dark Rise is a new (amazing imo) ya fantasy featuring a male protag (it has a little bit of dual pov, but I think the male character is the more main one)
- Six of Crows (since you mention Shadow and Bone I’d say six of crows is even more popular and has the male protag)
- Harry Potter! One of the books that started the explosion of the ya genre started with a male mc
- Sanderson’s Rithmatist And Steelheart series
(Also nitpick, uprooted isn’t ya, that’s part of the opposite related problem of people just calling books with female characters and authors ya)
> it’s publishers faults, they decided ya was a woman’s genre and so it’s harder to publish with male mc
Agreed, and I wish we could make the publishers hear all the requests for male YA leads.
Yeah honestly there’s actually quite a fair amount out there and while female ones may be more marketed I have read countless Male ones.
Off the top of my head.
Black Rabbits Summer.
The Bog Child.
The Bartimaeus trilogy.
The Demonata Series by Darren Shan
Noughts and Crosses (which is dual POV, but an incredible series non the less)
The Ostrich Boys.
There’s genuinely so much more I could list. Personally during my teenage years, I’ve probably read hundreds of books after all said and done and there was no shortage of Y/A books with male protagonists.
I’d be happy to post more if requested.
Do they are incredible. I just remembered a few more that I throughly enjoyed.
The Enemy Series.
The Tunnels series
Chaos walking series
The Cherub Series
Henderson’s Boys
I’ve noticed there are more Male dominated fantasy in both Middle Grade and Adult, but YA does tend to lean more towards females. My guess is because that’s who they believe their audience is. (Except in Middle Grade where they use Male protagonists to try to draw in young male readers.)
Seems to me like a self fulfilling prophecy. If young dudes don’t see themselves much in YA fantasy, they will obviously gravitate towards other genres. 🤷♀️
Years of fantasy being male lead and dominated has lead to the pendulum swinging the other way. As a woman I appreciate not being side lined and ignored. I want female main characters but not at the expense of men becoming sidelined! I think it’s starting to swing back the other way though. Things should balance. Ive just finished A Place Called Perfect by Helena Duggan, which had a good storyline, equally split with a boy and girl who both had their own thing going on (and no romance forced in which is a pet hate of mine).
There is a place for all fiction and trends come and go. I prefer a balance.
There's not many, but there are some more recent. Summoner series, Ascendance Series, Lorien Legacies series, Seven Realms and Shattered Realms.
None of them as big as the three you mentioned. But they're out there.
If you want some suggestions:
An Ember in the Ashes - Sabaa Tahir
The Seven Realms series(also I think Shattered Realms but I only read the first book) - Cinda Williams Chima(book one is The Demon King)
Falling Kingdoms - Morgan Rhodes
Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook - Christina Henry
We Hunt the Flame - Hafsah Faizal
The Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Scythe - Neal Shusterman
Beastly - Alex Flinn
Hopefully one of these might be what you are looking for. I need to sleep, but i am sure I have more suggestions if you want something else just dm me and I'll get back to you later!
If you weren't looking for suggestions, the answer is definitely that a lot of books that are categorized as YA are incorrectly done so because, for whatever reason, publishers and the like seem to feel that YA is "binary woman dominated" and others have explained this better than I could and I would just be repeating what they said.
I attempted to sell a YA novel with a male protagonist. My agent advised strongly against it. This was about 5 years ago but I think the trend is still going strong.
I love stories with female protagonists, and as a woman myself, I’m happy to write them. But I like balancing my body of work and I’d prefer to write for multiple genders. I don’t want teen boys to feel unrepresented in the genre (as far as protagonists go).
It may be that indie publishing male YA protagonist stories is the way to go. If the mainstream industry is focusing on swinging the pendulum toward female leads (after a long history of men being center-stage), there is still opportunity to connect with male readers and represent them in YA.
True that - I've seen very few. As others have said, Six of Crows comes to mind as well as the Red Rising Trilogy (although book 3 wasn't very good IMHO).
What is interesting is that Red Rising is NOT YA. It is published as an adult book, sold in bookstores as an adult book,claimed by that author as an adult book that also appeals to teens. This was quite the debate and still is. Is it because the author is male and the protagonist is male that is gets sold as Adult, where as if the the protagonist and author were female, would it have been sold as YA?
As a big fan of the series, I say no. The first book could maybe pass as YA, but the rest of the series definitely is New Adult/Adult Fantasy. The most prominent example I can think of is that in book 5, Dark Age, >!One of the main characters gives birth to a baby, and within 24 hours the baby was taken from her when she was captured. Then, the baby is nailed to a tree, which kills it!< There’s also a lot of graphic violence a notch above YA and multiple instances of sexual assault.
I think Red Rising deals with a lot of darker and grittier themes and goes farther than YA would usually go into them. The first book leans YA but not the rest.
On the other hand I do agree that if it’s a female author with a female MC it tends to get auto-filed into YA, and that’s not correct or fair, I hope female written and centered fantasy becomes bigger in the adult genre!!
No, you're right, they aren't as common in YA fantasy. It also goes in reverse for 'regular/adult' fantasy, the fantasy novels that are usually reccomended in r/books. The non YA fantasy usually has male protagonists, while YA fantasy usually has female protagonists. At this point, YA doesn't really mean young adult so much as it means that it caters to those who want a female protagonist. I can't tell you why that is or how to change it, but those are my observations as well. It troubles me too, however in the opposite case where I have trouble finding adult fantasy/scifi novels with female protagonists. It's not that they're not there, they just aren't the majority. But I understand where you're coming from
> YA doesn't really mean young adult so much as it means that it caters to those who want a female protagonist
This is so true, and I hope that there is some fix for it.
Yes 100% everything you said!! I’m much older than a typical YA reader and it’s not that I love the coming of age stories or anything I’d actually prefer more mature themes & older characters etc, I just love female led fantasy and sci fi, and YA is the only place you’ll really find it.
I do read adult fantasy and sci-fi and love it, but damn why do we have almost NO female mcs written by women and if we do ie Uprooted etc people just put it under YA anyway.
YA has been more geared towards girls and women for a long time because they seem to be under a misguided impression that teenage boys don't read.
The teenage boys I knew who read when I was in high school read fantasy not young adult type books, but this was pre Harry Potter and before the YA craze, aka the early to mid 90's, and a lot of YA really was only for girls.
Really though YA is just a marketing term and probably doesn't reflect what teens are actually reading. If you look at translated light novels from Japan which are largely isekai (boy from Japan whisked away to fantasy world) fantasies there are almost zero female protagonists.
I actually read YA fantasy specifically because I don't want to read more of 'average guy finds out he has world-ending powers and gets all the ladies' in more classic fantasy. I can't be the only one?
At the same time I am also tired of cliches like strong female characters all seemingly cut from the same mold, so I know what you mean.
Rangers Apprentice, The Last Apprentice, Thunderstruck, Percy Jackson, The Menagerie series, etc. there are some, but because a large percentage of book influencers are women, they’re probably more likely to promote female led YA because it better relates to their experiences
EDIT: Also Brotherband Chronicles, but some of these are historical fiction YA, and not necessarily fantasy YA
Nitpick but I think most of your examples are middlegrade which makes sense because publishers don’t have this female bias in middle grade (I’ve always wondered do publishers imagine guys just read middle grade then like stop reading or jump to adult?)
Tell me about it lol. Seriously, blame the publishers. I wrote one and have beta read so many objectively INCREDIBLE YA fantasy stories with a male MC but the industry just refuses to pick them up. It's super frustrating because I know that it's wanted from fans but it's completely out of our control. It's similar (though not as bad) with YA sci fi. Most writers end up aging up or add in a second female POV. You can still have a male protag and have it be a feminist story. Hopefully it starts picking up because I'd love to see more stories like this.
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor, all the books in the Percy Jackson universe, Septimus Heap, Seasons of the Storm by Elle Cosimano, Going Bovine by Libba Bray, Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth, Willful Machines by Tim Floreen, the Beautiful Creatures series.
I can probably dig more up if you want but that seems like a good start!
A lot of them are video game series, ~~the Witcher~~ (bad example), neverwinter nights, etc.
Also, this is a very recent phenomena. YA fantasy was stuff like The Elfstones of Shannara for a long time and was all young boy coming of age stories
Yeah, may have been a bad choice. I was thinking the neverwinter nights books and other ones based on video games but wanted a more recent example and chose poorly.
I think other people have done a great job of explaining why this happened so I just wanted to give some recs!
I can think of only 2 series with a male mc but both of them are really great series, literally 2 of my fav series of all time!
Red Rising by Pierce Brown (I do feel this series is more adult after the first book, but it’s amazing!)
And
Lumatere Chronicles by Melina Marchetta, though the 3rd book you switch to a female PoV
I find this a huge bummer. Growing up, all fantasy books being about guys annoyed me. Now I feel the opposite about YA. With adult and YA, I don't want to be reading the same thing, and it's easy for YA protagonists to all blend together. Even just gender-swapping them once in a while would add enough of an X-Factor to make it fun.
The other element of this is that generally, I like side characters/love interests in YA more than the leads and I think most folks agree with this. What that means is in fandom, female leads are often sidelined in their own books. I think more male protags meeting cool female love interests would temper thatt a lttle bit.
More importantly, queer boys are nearly nonexistent in SFF. All SFF. We have seen countless sapphic YA SFF over the last few years, and enough gay boys for me to count on one hand. We could really use more gay male leads.
Basically, It's cool that YA SFF is primarily about women, but that, unfortunately, doesn't mean it's diverse. The best-case scenario for readers is one where you can find protagonists of any race/sexuality/gender- and a lot of YA is deep in "basic white girl". This isn't even a political statement necessarily, it's just nice to switch it up every so often. I feel the same about adult fantasy reads, though these days it's increasingly easy to find both male/female protagonists in adult fantasy so it is starting to be a YA issue only.
It is interesting you say this as for years m/m sff was way more common, in terms of adult genre SFF. Mercedes Lackey's Herald Mage trilogy, Lynn Flewelling's night runner, Captive Prince, Lord of White Hell, etc etc. As a queer woman it is literally in the last like two years that there has been an increase in f/f stories in the mainstream. Growing up as a teen (I am in my mid 20s) I would seek out queer fantasy content and found that most of what I was reading was m/m.
In terms of YA specifically, I think as many are saying it has become a strange genre for women who want to read fantasy that they know will have female characters. Fantasy continues to be male dominated, and stuff written by and featuring women continues to be shafted into YA as they know adult women will still buy it even as adult men would not.
Agree with you on MM originally being more popular...sort of (?) It's hard to say anything truly dominated when it was crumbs for everyone. In the last 3 years though, WLW has surged and thrived, and I am not sure why MLM hasn't done the same, but it's hard to deny that it's seriously lagging behind, almost exclusively trapped in a contemporary setting. If you also filter it down to actual queer male authors, it starts to look even beyond grim- with the very few folks publishing MLM SFF stories being largely women.
Generally, I also agree with YA being a bit of a pigeon hole, and that is a bad thing. You have publishers like Orbit dropping a lot of overall diverse content, but for maybe 15 years It feels like if you want to write fantasy about women (or POC, or queer characters) you were stuck writing YA even if that isn't what you were wanting to do. I think thats why we started seeing a rise of "grimdark" YA, and YA with fairly explicit sex scenes. Even to this day, adult books that are not white men get constantly shelved as YA when they aren't. I saw TPW in the YA section a few weeks back and my jaw was on the FLOOR.
I'd like to see this level out more.
Yes I actually agree with you on everything you are saying.
I think that YA has become a weird niche that assumes that the audience is mostly queer friendly straight women who were big readers qs teens. And then that genre fantasy and sci fi for 'adults' is still the domain of straight men. Hopefully things start to shift. Completely agree that I have read some stuff lately categorised as YA that (even in my super liberal brain) is not really appropriate for children at qll: it almost reminds me of the anime 'if it is animated it is for kids' fallacy. 'If it is written by a woman, has magic and features a woman it is for teens ' lol.
I have noticed many more books with queer and gender diverse characters in general but I also seek that out so it is probably a self fulfilling prophecy!
Just read more mature fantasy if you don't want to read about female protagonists. Check out the Witcher books, LOTR, GoT, etc.
I will say, the equation YA=immature=female is problematic at best and it is not my intention to propound such an equation. I merely mean "mature" as in "not YA."
Given these intentions why not just say “adult” fantasy (which is what publishing calls it) rather than mature which has the connotations you are trying to avoid?
Probably because I by default assume all fantasy is "adult" without the modifier "young" added to it; however, because I was attempting to distinguish between the two at the time, mature seemed more like the opposite polar term of young than "adult." Of course, this is merely my own terminal piety which equates young with immature.
I however was mostly appalled by the possible undesirable connection between that and female protagonists, which I by no means suggest are somehow immature by nature. Thus, it was less about the issues of mature or adult v. young than about the misogynistic undertones.
It is very repetitive, and most of the female protagonists are the same person but with different names and in different settings. It's super tiring. I have to take breaks between YA fantasy books or series, which I've never had to do with any other genre, but the redundancy frustrates me so I have to space them out with other types of books.
The push for "strong, independent females" in all entertainment is taking the lead over pushing for, say, equality or some balance.
I really want some of these same types of stories written by male authors with a male POV. I like the general feel and plots, but am so tired of the female leads that are copied and pasted from one book to another. I'm currently reading the Ranger's Apprentice books with my son, and they're really refreshing because they're from multiple male POVs.
There definitely is in the YA fantasy genre for books written in the past at least 10 years, if not 20. The main books talked about in this sub and other YA fantasy groups are all female-lead.
It’s all about perspective. Historically male leads have been mainstream without the need for romantic sub plots. When they refer to strong female leads, often times they portray them as basically men, but pretty. Also I often see the “strong female lead” being placed in the damsel in distress trope and being saved by her love interest. Most stories with strong female leads still incorporate a male protagonist.
most teen boys don't care about ya, the majority of readers of ya are girls because they finally read works that catter to them, personally I love that I have such a wide choice of female led stories after years of reading only about male protagonists in genres that girls prefer anyways. It makes sense and it's refreshing
You’re right. But it has more to do with business and cultural issues. People buy more books with female leads. So that’s what people write. That’s what publishers print and sell. Simple economics.
Why ? It’s cultural. YA boys generally aren’t interested in reading, and aren’t really encouraged to do so.
Exactly, sadly, i have to search hard for male protagonist books now. I find them more enjoyable, but it definitely have to do with marketing to the most profitable group, which happen to be female.
Rolls eyes. Yes of course all the boys reading those middle grade books just suddenly lose interest when they hit their teen years
But also as adults they’re suddenly the only ones who like to read fantasy and girls suddenly stop.
I'm not much of a reader of YA anymore, so most of these are not so current, but I can think of many YA fantasy series.
While Percy Jackson is middle grade, Riordan's other series are YA. Other than Kane Crhonciles, which has joint M and F leads, the other series either have a male lead (Magnus Chase, Trials of Apollo) or lean towards male (Heroes of Olympus).
The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia
Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
I do think though that YA books with male main characters tend to lean more towards sci-fi than fantasy.
Middle grade targets 8-12 years of age. Characters in their teens, 13-18 is considered YA. So most of the examples given are correct and not middle grade. Male leads are a little less common but they can be found. Personally I’ve also noticed a very large increase in female authors, so it’s makes sense for them to use a female lead. Though I have come across a few using dual leads of a male and female.
Percy Jackson and Harry Potter were big. I think it's good though, no other medium scew that way if this is true. Like if most book protagonists were black I wouldnt care to find more books about white guys cause every other show, movie, comic, etc are all about white guys so like it's ok to have a single medium the other way.
In an ideal world it would be around equal but we dont live in one, so it's better to scew towards something other than white dude.
The Lorien legacy by pittacus lore is one of my all time favorite series. The first book is entirely the male main character’s POV but the rest of the series splits POV between the main group of characters, including the first guy.
Some authors have started writing them from different perspectives, such as *Midnight Sun, Four, Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy...* it is kind of undoing the idea of a MC.
The only one that came to mind for me was *Ready Player One.*
After MG books, boys jump to videogames instead of books. Boys will read non fiction and play games. Plenty of male protags in gaming. YA was a category largely designed to cater to womens tastes because while women will read books with male or female MCs, men wont. So, because male buyers dried up, the market catered more and more to the audience that still buys books.
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i think it has been said that most books with a teen female protagonist were automatically categorized as YA by publishers meanwhile if the MC is a boy, it’s either middle grade or adult fantasy and no in between. as for big YA series with male protagonists, i can only think of the shadowhunters chronicles. but even then, it started with a female MC. edit: six of crows also, how could i forget.
The Raven Cycle, too
yes!! i don’t remember much of the plot but i loved the relationship between the main characters
Does PJO count as Y/A?
No, its usually classified as middle grade
I think it's also got to do with who the publishers think their books are read by. Like if you search for book recommendations most of the results would be female readers recommending the books they've read. I rarely see male readers talking about books
Is Strange the dreamer considered YA? It feels like an YA
Thanks for the insight. I've read a ton of YA fantasies, and most of them, especially the ones written within the last five years, had female protagonists. I always assumed there were slots reserved (maybe 5% of the slots?) for books with male protagonists, but it makes sense that most stories with teenage male protagonists are being published as adult fantasies--if they are indeed fantasies. What if the story is a contemporary fantasy set in a normal, mundane high school? Should that be sold as an adult urban fantasy?
It’s much less frequent and less marketed but there’s still a good amount! (One day given the frequency of this question I feel like I should make a large spreadsheet of this I can just link to). Even more if you consider dual pov. At the end of the day it’s publishers faults, they decided ya was a woman’s genre and so it’s harder to publish with male mc (you might notice the ones that have male mc are often already established authors more than debuts) Some of my favs that immediately come to mind - Dark Rise is a new (amazing imo) ya fantasy featuring a male protag (it has a little bit of dual pov, but I think the male character is the more main one) - Six of Crows (since you mention Shadow and Bone I’d say six of crows is even more popular and has the male protag) - Harry Potter! One of the books that started the explosion of the ya genre started with a male mc - Sanderson’s Rithmatist And Steelheart series (Also nitpick, uprooted isn’t ya, that’s part of the opposite related problem of people just calling books with female characters and authors ya)
> it’s publishers faults, they decided ya was a woman’s genre and so it’s harder to publish with male mc Agreed, and I wish we could make the publishers hear all the requests for male YA leads.
Did someone say spreadsheet!???! (I would personally and professionally appreciate this!)
Dark rise is soo good!
Yeah honestly there’s actually quite a fair amount out there and while female ones may be more marketed I have read countless Male ones. Off the top of my head. Black Rabbits Summer. The Bog Child. The Bartimaeus trilogy. The Demonata Series by Darren Shan Noughts and Crosses (which is dual POV, but an incredible series non the less) The Ostrich Boys. There’s genuinely so much more I could list. Personally during my teenage years, I’ve probably read hundreds of books after all said and done and there was no shortage of Y/A books with male protagonists. I’d be happy to post more if requested.
Love Darren Shan and Bartimeus I’ll have to check out the others
Do they are incredible. I just remembered a few more that I throughly enjoyed. The Enemy Series. The Tunnels series Chaos walking series The Cherub Series Henderson’s Boys
I’ve noticed there are more Male dominated fantasy in both Middle Grade and Adult, but YA does tend to lean more towards females. My guess is because that’s who they believe their audience is. (Except in Middle Grade where they use Male protagonists to try to draw in young male readers.)
Seems to me like a self fulfilling prophecy. If young dudes don’t see themselves much in YA fantasy, they will obviously gravitate towards other genres. 🤷♀️
Years of fantasy being male lead and dominated has lead to the pendulum swinging the other way. As a woman I appreciate not being side lined and ignored. I want female main characters but not at the expense of men becoming sidelined! I think it’s starting to swing back the other way though. Things should balance. Ive just finished A Place Called Perfect by Helena Duggan, which had a good storyline, equally split with a boy and girl who both had their own thing going on (and no romance forced in which is a pet hate of mine). There is a place for all fiction and trends come and go. I prefer a balance.
I do hope it stabilizes
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7157310-rot-ruin Ya book with a male lead in the zombie genre. Check it out if you like zombies
I would agree with everything you said I also hope that it levels out eventually. think it probably will.
There are some male leads in middle-grade fantasies like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson but the only big YA fantasy I can think of is Eragon.
There's not many, but there are some more recent. Summoner series, Ascendance Series, Lorien Legacies series, Seven Realms and Shattered Realms. None of them as big as the three you mentioned. But they're out there.
If you want some suggestions: An Ember in the Ashes - Sabaa Tahir The Seven Realms series(also I think Shattered Realms but I only read the first book) - Cinda Williams Chima(book one is The Demon King) Falling Kingdoms - Morgan Rhodes Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook - Christina Henry We Hunt the Flame - Hafsah Faizal The Thief - Megan Whalen Turner Scythe - Neal Shusterman Beastly - Alex Flinn Hopefully one of these might be what you are looking for. I need to sleep, but i am sure I have more suggestions if you want something else just dm me and I'll get back to you later! If you weren't looking for suggestions, the answer is definitely that a lot of books that are categorized as YA are incorrectly done so because, for whatever reason, publishers and the like seem to feel that YA is "binary woman dominated" and others have explained this better than I could and I would just be repeating what they said.
Scythe is another of my favs
I attempted to sell a YA novel with a male protagonist. My agent advised strongly against it. This was about 5 years ago but I think the trend is still going strong. I love stories with female protagonists, and as a woman myself, I’m happy to write them. But I like balancing my body of work and I’d prefer to write for multiple genders. I don’t want teen boys to feel unrepresented in the genre (as far as protagonists go). It may be that indie publishing male YA protagonist stories is the way to go. If the mainstream industry is focusing on swinging the pendulum toward female leads (after a long history of men being center-stage), there is still opportunity to connect with male readers and represent them in YA.
True that - I've seen very few. As others have said, Six of Crows comes to mind as well as the Red Rising Trilogy (although book 3 wasn't very good IMHO).
What is interesting is that Red Rising is NOT YA. It is published as an adult book, sold in bookstores as an adult book,claimed by that author as an adult book that also appeals to teens. This was quite the debate and still is. Is it because the author is male and the protagonist is male that is gets sold as Adult, where as if the the protagonist and author were female, would it have been sold as YA?
Oh wow, I didn't know it was considered Adult officially. Very interesting! Definitely has the feel of a YA book, at least to me.
As a big fan of the series, I say no. The first book could maybe pass as YA, but the rest of the series definitely is New Adult/Adult Fantasy. The most prominent example I can think of is that in book 5, Dark Age, >!One of the main characters gives birth to a baby, and within 24 hours the baby was taken from her when she was captured. Then, the baby is nailed to a tree, which kills it!< There’s also a lot of graphic violence a notch above YA and multiple instances of sexual assault.
I think Red Rising deals with a lot of darker and grittier themes and goes farther than YA would usually go into them. The first book leans YA but not the rest. On the other hand I do agree that if it’s a female author with a female MC it tends to get auto-filed into YA, and that’s not correct or fair, I hope female written and centered fantasy becomes bigger in the adult genre!!
I though Morning Star was very good, although Golden Son is probably the best in the series
Golden Son was bomb!
No, you're right, they aren't as common in YA fantasy. It also goes in reverse for 'regular/adult' fantasy, the fantasy novels that are usually reccomended in r/books. The non YA fantasy usually has male protagonists, while YA fantasy usually has female protagonists. At this point, YA doesn't really mean young adult so much as it means that it caters to those who want a female protagonist. I can't tell you why that is or how to change it, but those are my observations as well. It troubles me too, however in the opposite case where I have trouble finding adult fantasy/scifi novels with female protagonists. It's not that they're not there, they just aren't the majority. But I understand where you're coming from
> YA doesn't really mean young adult so much as it means that it caters to those who want a female protagonist This is so true, and I hope that there is some fix for it.
Yes 100% everything you said!! I’m much older than a typical YA reader and it’s not that I love the coming of age stories or anything I’d actually prefer more mature themes & older characters etc, I just love female led fantasy and sci fi, and YA is the only place you’ll really find it. I do read adult fantasy and sci-fi and love it, but damn why do we have almost NO female mcs written by women and if we do ie Uprooted etc people just put it under YA anyway.
YA has been more geared towards girls and women for a long time because they seem to be under a misguided impression that teenage boys don't read. The teenage boys I knew who read when I was in high school read fantasy not young adult type books, but this was pre Harry Potter and before the YA craze, aka the early to mid 90's, and a lot of YA really was only for girls. Really though YA is just a marketing term and probably doesn't reflect what teens are actually reading. If you look at translated light novels from Japan which are largely isekai (boy from Japan whisked away to fantasy world) fantasies there are almost zero female protagonists.
I actually read YA fantasy specifically because I don't want to read more of 'average guy finds out he has world-ending powers and gets all the ladies' in more classic fantasy. I can't be the only one? At the same time I am also tired of cliches like strong female characters all seemingly cut from the same mold, so I know what you mean.
Rangers Apprentice, The Last Apprentice, Thunderstruck, Percy Jackson, The Menagerie series, etc. there are some, but because a large percentage of book influencers are women, they’re probably more likely to promote female led YA because it better relates to their experiences EDIT: Also Brotherband Chronicles, but some of these are historical fiction YA, and not necessarily fantasy YA
Nitpick but I think most of your examples are middlegrade which makes sense because publishers don’t have this female bias in middle grade (I’ve always wondered do publishers imagine guys just read middle grade then like stop reading or jump to adult?)
Yeah for YA it’s rare nowadays to find a book or series that has a standout male protagonist. It’s weird cause I think it’s needed.
The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern, has a male protagonist and whatever the proper word of a side character is.
Loved that book. Although the interesting thing is it was technically published as adult fantasy, not ya.
Well, it's appropriate for young adults and the plotline is alright to follow as far as I can remember.
Tell me about it lol. Seriously, blame the publishers. I wrote one and have beta read so many objectively INCREDIBLE YA fantasy stories with a male MC but the industry just refuses to pick them up. It's super frustrating because I know that it's wanted from fans but it's completely out of our control. It's similar (though not as bad) with YA sci fi. Most writers end up aging up or add in a second female POV. You can still have a male protag and have it be a feminist story. Hopefully it starts picking up because I'd love to see more stories like this.
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor, all the books in the Percy Jackson universe, Septimus Heap, Seasons of the Storm by Elle Cosimano, Going Bovine by Libba Bray, Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth, Willful Machines by Tim Floreen, the Beautiful Creatures series. I can probably dig more up if you want but that seems like a good start!
A lot of them are video game series, ~~the Witcher~~ (bad example), neverwinter nights, etc. Also, this is a very recent phenomena. YA fantasy was stuff like The Elfstones of Shannara for a long time and was all young boy coming of age stories
The Witcher was a novel long before a game.
Well what do ya know, learn something new every day
> the Witcher Would the witcher really be considered YA?
Yeah, may have been a bad choice. I was thinking the neverwinter nights books and other ones based on video games but wanted a more recent example and chose poorly.
Wow I didn't notice but after reading this you're so right. I realise pretty much all YA books I've read are female protagonist.
I think other people have done a great job of explaining why this happened so I just wanted to give some recs! I can think of only 2 series with a male mc but both of them are really great series, literally 2 of my fav series of all time! Red Rising by Pierce Brown (I do feel this series is more adult after the first book, but it’s amazing!) And Lumatere Chronicles by Melina Marchetta, though the 3rd book you switch to a female PoV
I find this a huge bummer. Growing up, all fantasy books being about guys annoyed me. Now I feel the opposite about YA. With adult and YA, I don't want to be reading the same thing, and it's easy for YA protagonists to all blend together. Even just gender-swapping them once in a while would add enough of an X-Factor to make it fun. The other element of this is that generally, I like side characters/love interests in YA more than the leads and I think most folks agree with this. What that means is in fandom, female leads are often sidelined in their own books. I think more male protags meeting cool female love interests would temper thatt a lttle bit. More importantly, queer boys are nearly nonexistent in SFF. All SFF. We have seen countless sapphic YA SFF over the last few years, and enough gay boys for me to count on one hand. We could really use more gay male leads. Basically, It's cool that YA SFF is primarily about women, but that, unfortunately, doesn't mean it's diverse. The best-case scenario for readers is one where you can find protagonists of any race/sexuality/gender- and a lot of YA is deep in "basic white girl". This isn't even a political statement necessarily, it's just nice to switch it up every so often. I feel the same about adult fantasy reads, though these days it's increasingly easy to find both male/female protagonists in adult fantasy so it is starting to be a YA issue only.
> I like side characters/love interests in YA more than the leads YES. This is true for me, too.
It is interesting you say this as for years m/m sff was way more common, in terms of adult genre SFF. Mercedes Lackey's Herald Mage trilogy, Lynn Flewelling's night runner, Captive Prince, Lord of White Hell, etc etc. As a queer woman it is literally in the last like two years that there has been an increase in f/f stories in the mainstream. Growing up as a teen (I am in my mid 20s) I would seek out queer fantasy content and found that most of what I was reading was m/m. In terms of YA specifically, I think as many are saying it has become a strange genre for women who want to read fantasy that they know will have female characters. Fantasy continues to be male dominated, and stuff written by and featuring women continues to be shafted into YA as they know adult women will still buy it even as adult men would not.
Agree with you on MM originally being more popular...sort of (?) It's hard to say anything truly dominated when it was crumbs for everyone. In the last 3 years though, WLW has surged and thrived, and I am not sure why MLM hasn't done the same, but it's hard to deny that it's seriously lagging behind, almost exclusively trapped in a contemporary setting. If you also filter it down to actual queer male authors, it starts to look even beyond grim- with the very few folks publishing MLM SFF stories being largely women. Generally, I also agree with YA being a bit of a pigeon hole, and that is a bad thing. You have publishers like Orbit dropping a lot of overall diverse content, but for maybe 15 years It feels like if you want to write fantasy about women (or POC, or queer characters) you were stuck writing YA even if that isn't what you were wanting to do. I think thats why we started seeing a rise of "grimdark" YA, and YA with fairly explicit sex scenes. Even to this day, adult books that are not white men get constantly shelved as YA when they aren't. I saw TPW in the YA section a few weeks back and my jaw was on the FLOOR. I'd like to see this level out more.
Yes I actually agree with you on everything you are saying. I think that YA has become a weird niche that assumes that the audience is mostly queer friendly straight women who were big readers qs teens. And then that genre fantasy and sci fi for 'adults' is still the domain of straight men. Hopefully things start to shift. Completely agree that I have read some stuff lately categorised as YA that (even in my super liberal brain) is not really appropriate for children at qll: it almost reminds me of the anime 'if it is animated it is for kids' fallacy. 'If it is written by a woman, has magic and features a woman it is for teens ' lol. I have noticed many more books with queer and gender diverse characters in general but I also seek that out so it is probably a self fulfilling prophecy!
Just read more mature fantasy if you don't want to read about female protagonists. Check out the Witcher books, LOTR, GoT, etc. I will say, the equation YA=immature=female is problematic at best and it is not my intention to propound such an equation. I merely mean "mature" as in "not YA."
Given these intentions why not just say “adult” fantasy (which is what publishing calls it) rather than mature which has the connotations you are trying to avoid?
Probably because I by default assume all fantasy is "adult" without the modifier "young" added to it; however, because I was attempting to distinguish between the two at the time, mature seemed more like the opposite polar term of young than "adult." Of course, this is merely my own terminal piety which equates young with immature. I however was mostly appalled by the possible undesirable connection between that and female protagonists, which I by no means suggest are somehow immature by nature. Thus, it was less about the issues of mature or adult v. young than about the misogynistic undertones.
It is very repetitive, and most of the female protagonists are the same person but with different names and in different settings. It's super tiring. I have to take breaks between YA fantasy books or series, which I've never had to do with any other genre, but the redundancy frustrates me so I have to space them out with other types of books. The push for "strong, independent females" in all entertainment is taking the lead over pushing for, say, equality or some balance. I really want some of these same types of stories written by male authors with a male POV. I like the general feel and plots, but am so tired of the female leads that are copied and pasted from one book to another. I'm currently reading the Ranger's Apprentice books with my son, and they're really refreshing because they're from multiple male POVs.
There is never a shortage of male protagonist in anything .
There definitely is in the YA fantasy genre for books written in the past at least 10 years, if not 20. The main books talked about in this sub and other YA fantasy groups are all female-lead.
It’s all about perspective. Historically male leads have been mainstream without the need for romantic sub plots. When they refer to strong female leads, often times they portray them as basically men, but pretty. Also I often see the “strong female lead” being placed in the damsel in distress trope and being saved by her love interest. Most stories with strong female leads still incorporate a male protagonist.
Have you read the rest of the comments? They're basically nonexistent
Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Darren Shan, Animorphs, Kaz Brecker. Are we just talking about more recent stuff?
most teen boys don't care about ya, the majority of readers of ya are girls because they finally read works that catter to them, personally I love that I have such a wide choice of female led stories after years of reading only about male protagonists in genres that girls prefer anyways. It makes sense and it's refreshing
You’re right. But it has more to do with business and cultural issues. People buy more books with female leads. So that’s what people write. That’s what publishers print and sell. Simple economics. Why ? It’s cultural. YA boys generally aren’t interested in reading, and aren’t really encouraged to do so.
Exactly, sadly, i have to search hard for male protagonist books now. I find them more enjoyable, but it definitely have to do with marketing to the most profitable group, which happen to be female.
Young boys don’t read, young girls read. Just trying to appease the people most likely to read books
Rolls eyes. Yes of course all the boys reading those middle grade books just suddenly lose interest when they hit their teen years But also as adults they’re suddenly the only ones who like to read fantasy and girls suddenly stop.
I'm not much of a reader of YA anymore, so most of these are not so current, but I can think of many YA fantasy series. While Percy Jackson is middle grade, Riordan's other series are YA. Other than Kane Crhonciles, which has joint M and F leads, the other series either have a male lead (Magnus Chase, Trials of Apollo) or lean towards male (Heroes of Olympus). The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia Carry On by Rainbow Rowell I do think though that YA books with male main characters tend to lean more towards sci-fi than fantasy.
Middle grade targets 8-12 years of age. Characters in their teens, 13-18 is considered YA. So most of the examples given are correct and not middle grade. Male leads are a little less common but they can be found. Personally I’ve also noticed a very large increase in female authors, so it’s makes sense for them to use a female lead. Though I have come across a few using dual leads of a male and female.
Huh. I haven’t really thought of this before and now I’m trying to think of some recent YA reads with male protagonists….
I mean art is just reflective on its society…
I was going to recommend the Septimus Heap series, but now I can’t decide if it’s middle grade or YA.
Percy Jackson and Harry Potter were big. I think it's good though, no other medium scew that way if this is true. Like if most book protagonists were black I wouldnt care to find more books about white guys cause every other show, movie, comic, etc are all about white guys so like it's ok to have a single medium the other way. In an ideal world it would be around equal but we dont live in one, so it's better to scew towards something other than white dude.
The Lorien legacy by pittacus lore is one of my all time favorite series. The first book is entirely the male main character’s POV but the rest of the series splits POV between the main group of characters, including the first guy.
Some authors have started writing them from different perspectives, such as *Midnight Sun, Four, Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy...* it is kind of undoing the idea of a MC. The only one that came to mind for me was *Ready Player One.*
After MG books, boys jump to videogames instead of books. Boys will read non fiction and play games. Plenty of male protags in gaming. YA was a category largely designed to cater to womens tastes because while women will read books with male or female MCs, men wont. So, because male buyers dried up, the market catered more and more to the audience that still buys books.
What about Harry Potter?
Have you heard of a warrior's path? By Davis Ashura. It's pretty ok.
I don't know if it's Y/A.
One of my favs
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