There’s an odd taboo against adults reading Young Adult fiction. But like animated films made these days, there’s something for everyone in YA—its characters typically somewhere between 13- and 18-years old.  These books are written by adults, people who made it through their teenage years and went on to live grownup lives YA characters can only dream about.

YA books are often action-packed, especially in speculative fiction genres like Fantasy and Science Fiction. They’re written to maintain the focus of teens who might have short attention spans and limited time to read. There’s a good reason so many of them have made it to movie screens, including The Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Divergent, Harry Potter and Twilight, to name a few. These books address serious issues and involve battles and fights for survival.

The action tends to start earlier in YA stories, because boring readers means losing them even earlier than in adult novels. Grownups who think they don’t have time to waste can sink their teeth right into a  YA novel and hold on as the action takes off. Reading something that jumps in with both feet and keeps on running, with us following close behind, is a great way to get in some quality reading time.

And it’s not just action. The best YA novels have compelling story lines that touch on current events and zeitgeists of the time. Adults tend to forget that teens are paying attention to the things adults around them are talking about and are inundated with media, just as adults are. The news draws a picture of the adult world they’re entering into soon enough, a frightening and exciting place that holds both horrors and promises. Consider the politics inherent in The Hunger Games, the commentary on those holding power over others and abusing that power. Like teenagers, grownups are often at the mercy of those holding power over us, whether we’re talking about something as individual as our bosses at work or as large scale as world leaders wielding control over aspects of our lives we can’t do much about. John B. Lane’s The Future Lies, a YA novel set in a post-apocalyptic Denver, explores the impact of artificial intelligence on our world, with humans at the mercy of their overlords who don’t allow them to read, thus keeping them ignorant, complacent and dependent upon the network. Adults  may frequently feel trapped in a society that has been formed against their own wishes, leaving them at the mercy of those who hold the puppet strings. The act of bucking against the powers that be is a theme that resonates with teenagers and grownups alike.

YA books often address imbalances in society, such as racism, sexism and anti-LGBTQIA2+ movements. Byron Graves’ award-winning Rez Ball weaves racism and hostility into the normal world of a boy who just wants to play basketball and honor his brother’s memory. Crystal J. Bell’s The Lamplighter illustrates sexism in a 19th-century whaling community when the main character must take over a vital role following her father’s suicide, but faces obstacles her father never did in the same position. These books reflect societal struggles, but they’re couched in language that’s familiar and engaging, drawing the reader in, no matter their age, with genuine connections to the characters. Reading about characters who find a way to overcome societal ills and inequities—despite their youth or perhaps even because of it—is encouraging and inspirational.

YA novels indulge in unflinching emotion. Grief, rage, love, you name it. Teens experience their emotions with such depth and abandon in ways that adults often forget, accustomed as they are to burying emotions or trying to rationalize them. It’s easy to forget how world-ending a breakup felt or how impactful a bit of good news could be at age sixteen. First losses teach us we’re not immortal and the world can come for us and our loved ones at any time. In Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves by Colorado transplant Meg Long, the main character has lost both her mothers in a terrible accident and is left alone  with nowhere to run and no one to go to for help as she’s hunted down. Grownups know the pain of these losses but keep going, just as the characters in novels like Cold the Night do. If someone so young, filled with raw emotion, can make it, so can we.

Along with the high stakes dangers and challenges often found in YA novels—the better to keep people reading—there’s an element of empowerment. This is where speculative fiction shines, with young people given magical gifts that teach them how they can change the world around them. Denver’s David R. Slayton has multiple series that do just this. His three series—the Adam Binder novels, the Gods of Night and Day series and, most recently, the Liberty House series premiering with Rogue Community College—involve young people discovering their powers and fighting life or death battles. The main characters find their power and do great things with it, conjuring an element of hope and empowerment that is just as powerful for grownups who get  few opportunities to feel how important they are in any sort of impactful way. No matter how old we are, magic never fully dies.

One of the most well-known books for and about teens for those of us staring down aging is S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. Like the books mentioned above, it draws on the intense teen years, where everything feels like it’s life or death and the thought of escape seems like a slim hope, out of reach. The Outsiders has become a time capsule for an era long left behind, but one that still touches young readers today. Those of us who read it decades ago still connect to the emotional entanglements of Johnny and Pony Boy, who just want to live their lives and get through their day-to-day struggles. The Young Adult books of today play on those same fears and struggles in a modern light, updated to reflect current struggles and imagine futuristic ones. The best of them are well crafted, often with the understanding that adults will likely be reading them, too. They’re paced for a busy life, with characters we can identify with even though we’re much older than they are; they’re us when we were younger, and they bring us back to times that were both simpler and more complex in their vast nuance.

We never leave our youth behind entirely, nor do we outgrow our loves and fears or our yearning for magic. We simply learn to think around them until something—a movie, a poem, a song, a book—brings it all back.