Teen Reading Habits: Interview

I was assigned the task of interviewing two teens about their reading and media choices.  I had a family party this weekend and recruited two of my teen cousins to sit down with me to discuss their reading/media consumption habits, and pick their brains about their thoughts on teen literature.  Their answers were very well thought out (considering the impromptu interview; they were not given the questions beforehand), and I was surprised by some of the things that they said.

Here are some things I learned from them that you may find interesting, like me:

• Neither teen was very interested in fanfiction--reading it or writing it.  One attributed this to the fact that the (original) authors know their characters best, and therefore she had little interest in others' interpretations of them.
• Both teens preferred reading physical, paper-printed books rather than reading e-books on their iPads.  Who can resist the smell, feel, and convenience of flipping through a hard copy?  These two couldn't.
• Both admitted to judging books by their covers, and would likely not pick up a book that had a weird, outdated, or otherwise ugly cover.
• One of the teens wishes that there were more mythology-based fiction available...  This was surprising to me because I used to see tons of (children's) books based on Greek mythology coming out, around the time that the original Percy Jackson books were still being published.  I thought there were a lot, but I suppose that isn't really true--at least not anymore!
• Both teens are becoming pretty tired of love triangles popping up in teen fiction.  One teen cited these as a distraction from more important events in the overall plot, while the other has just seen too many that are just poorly executed.  I had to agree with some of their thoughts on love triangles--I like a little bit of romance in my fiction, but sometimes it just feels like authors feel obligated to include a love story when really, it isn't necessary.  The market is over-saturated, if you will.

I had a great time interviewing these two!  What helped was that both of them were really excited to talk to me about what they like to read and why.  One said she felt really important for helping me with this--I was sure to tell her that for librarians like me, who want to put forward their best effort for their teens, her voice was incredibly important and she should feel valued.

Any thoughts on your end?
Thanks for reading!