The recent passing away of Sue Townsend, author of Adrian Mole, brought young adult fiction back into the public eye. Twitter was full of memories of teenage years spent reading the angsty diary of a spotty thirteen year old, and many declared their intentions to revisit the words of the character who once upon a time seemed to be just like them.

A classic like Adrian Mole raises questions about the relationships adults have with young adult fiction. We have fond memories of the books we used to love but usually don’t choose to read a young adult book once we’ve grown up. Lots of adults are wary of young adult fiction. Why is this? Should adults stay away from young adult fiction?

Personally I’m happy to have entered decade three of my life and still be reading young adult books. I treat young adult fiction as a kind of comfort reading. I reread William Nicholson’s beautiful Wind on Fire Trilogy this time last year when lots of my friends disappeared into the library for exam term. I felt confident that Nicholson’s depiction of ten year olds on a mission to save their city was preferable to the philosophy set texts I was supposed to be focusing on and I stand by that decision.

Our generation has been lucky enough to grow up with some incredible children’s and young adult fiction and we shouldn’t be ashamed to treasure the books we used to love. I could easily continue to talk about revisiting the books I used to read – I reach for the Harry Potter books at the slightest excuse – but I don’t think this is what people are thinking of when they say adults should stay away from young adult fiction.

Reading an old favourite is a kind of nostalgia, and I think would be seen as an acceptable time to break the general rule that adults should stay away from young adult fiction. But why should there be a rule in the first place?

It’s not clear what people are referring to when they argue that adults should stay away from young adult fiction. The term ‘young adult’ encompasses such a wide range of books that it’s hard to see how anybody could object to them all.

Young adult fiction is not bound by genre; it is about the experience of growing up. Within young adult fiction are the range of genres present in fiction generally. It’s hard to see how anyone can know they won’t enjoy them all.

If you don’t want to read about a teenage love triangle that’s fine, stay away from Twilight, but this isn’t not wanting to read young adult fiction at all. Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief is about as far from Twilight as stories about young people go but it’s still in the same section at Waterstones.

Not all young adult books fit into the same mould. When we recognise that ‘young adult’ is an age recommendation rather then a genre it becomes much harder to insist that adults should stay away.

One thing people might object to in young adult fiction is the dominance of the teenaged protagonist. The main characters in books written for teenagers are usually teenagers themselves. Personally I find it hard to see why the age of the protagonist should be a reason not to read something. We are almost always hugely different from the characters in the books we read. We read books about people of different races, religions and nationalities to ourselves and about characters who live in entirely different worlds to the one we inhabit.

Why should it be difficult to read a book about somebody younger than ourselves? Yes, Katniss Everdeen is four years younger than me. She’s also able to hunt (I can’t), kill (almost certain I couldn’t I couldn’t) and lead a rebellion (I definitely wouldn’t manage). If we made it a requirement of the books we read that the protagonist is like ourselves we would rule out almost every book on offer.

The illegitimacy of this idea that we can’t read young adult books once we’re no longer teenagers has been put nicely by author Nick Hornby. He wrote: “I see now that dismissing young adult books because you’re not a young adult is a little like refusing to watch thrillers on the grounds that you’re not a policeman or a dangerous criminal, and as a consequence, I’ve discovered a previously ignored room at the back of the bookstore that’s filled with masterpieces I’ve never heard of.”

It’s right that young adult fiction is distinguished from fiction but it’s important that we understand this distinction for what it is. The distinction is there to help teenagers find books with protagonists of their own age that they are likely to enjoy reading.

It does not mean that young adult books will not be enjoyed by adults, or that they are the only books young adults will enjoy or manage reading. It should be understood as a practical distinction that is there to make it easier for young adults to find books, not as a conclusive distinction that separates the books young adults read from books for adults.

Lots of teenagers are happy to explore books outside the young adult classification. The same should apply for adults reading teenage fiction. These divides in how books are distributed shouldn’t be seen as prescribing what we should read. Many adults will be able to find young adult books they enjoy and it just doesn’t make sense to avoid them purely because teenagers like them too.