When I was a teenager, I was an avid reader even though I found most plots predicatably boring and frequently found the characters in them to be one-dimensional stereotypes who were no reflection of the world I lived in. I wanted an escape or just the ability to relate to a character, so I felt like I wasn't alone. A children's librarian directed me to The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones. This book featured a hero who was flawed, frequently made mistakes, and inhabited a world in which everyone was this way. There were no purely good or purely bad characters. Everyone she had written had depth to them, and I was able to immerse myself in this world in a way I never had before. After I made my way through other Diana Wynne Jones books, I discovered authors Daniel Pinkwater, Francesca Lia Block, and Patricia C. Wrede. All of these authors were writing young adult fantasy novels that moved away from tradition and allowed for characters that could speak to teenagers in many different situations, such as alternative family situations, or by portraying strong females who got to be heroes and make choices, without needing to act as a romantic interest for a male character. These books opened up my imagination through characters and made me a permanent reader. Once I got to college, I was told that I would learn to adore James Joyce or T.S. Eliot because the books I enjoyed weren't "literature." I was confused; why were the books that sparked the love of reading in me, with their complex characters and plots, considered worthy of study? Given the opportunity to write a thesis on what I loved, I started to find scholars who began analyzing why young adult literature was just as important and worthwhile as adult literature.