Would you feel odd buying a YA book for yourself?

When I read this sentence in a recent Wall Street Journal article, I wasn’t at all surprised: Let's be honest: Why do so many adults read Suzanne Collins's young-adult novel "The Hunger Games" instead of contemporary literary fiction? Because "The Hunger Games" doesn't bore them.

The second volume in the Hunger Games series is one of the top books on my “Must Read for Fall” list and it’s a long time since I’ve been in high school. But when it came out today, I felt a kind of strange reluctance to actually going out and buying a YA book for myself. If it was by an “adult” author, I feel like I would have definitely gone out and bought it, just like I go out and buy the latest Michael Connelly. But for some reason, I feel wasteful/embarrassed to buy a YA book on my own.

Part of the reason is that I know I will read it in a few hours. But do I buy books that I know I’ll read pretty quickly (see Michael Connelly, above) and I read the Hunger Games several times, so I am guessing the rereadablity factor on the second volume will be high as well.

I guess it’s just for me there is some odd shame factor that prevents me from buying a YA book that isn’t also a cultural event like Twilight or Harry Potter. People who get ARCs for free probably never worry about this feeling (or people who can justify reading the books b/c they have children or because it’s for work) but for me, buying a YA book for myself feels like being the oldest kid at camp.

So I guess I’ll just wait until my reserved copy comes in from the library.