/lit/ - Literature

When exactly did hating classic/old literature being trendy?

My wife pretty much exclusively buys young adult literature and she's pushing 30. I think this is because we both went to a college where the english program was aging white women trying to virtue signal and appeal to young students by making a point to avoid white male authors and the typical classic works that are assigned in high school and college.

I really don't mind them stepping outside of the box, but it's very cringey to operate under the delusion that making a point to patronize non-white and LGBTQ authors wont' come off as a blatantly obvious attempt to position oneself as "one of the good ones." My wife and I were in a lot of classes there together - and this was years ago - and we got into a few fights here and there because I would audibly sigh when our assigned reading lists were always names like "obchungwa kalabunga" and "Xi Qing Xiaolong."

Again, nothing against non-white or gay authors. Honestly I probably barely read more white authors than non-white, and that's likely just because white authors are a lot more common and easier to come by in America.

I'm bringing all of this up because last night, I started reading The Chrysalids, and my wife snickered at me when I showed her what I was reading on my kindle. I asked her what was funny, and she asked, "Isn't that book like, really old?" So I just said "You wouldn't like it because it isn't for babies" and that started another fight. By the way, she was reading her 1000th book about a very unique and special teen girl who's queer and too cool for her friends at school but also very weird and awkward in an endearing way because of her trauma.

Pic unrelated it's the only image I have saved on this OS for some reason