How come trendy books are considered crap by critics like yourselves? The majority likes them

From an ideas/discourse perspective: Trendy books become trendy by repeating ideas and sentiments that already exist widely in a simple, approachable way. This means, if you are reading a lot, that the work says only things you've already heard: Not a response to earlier works, but a regurgitation.
From a more technical/prose perspective: Trendy books focus on execution over design, doing a simple thing very well, taking no new risks. Imagine going to a concert, and hearing a very excellent performance of "Happy Birthday", "Chopsticks" "Mary Had a Little Lamb". It's safe, it's workmanlike, and combined with the lack of novel ideas it's very BORING. It's the difference between Evil Kinevil jumping the Grand Canyon, and Evil Kinevil jumping over a ditch.

>The majority likes them
that's not even true

what needs to be in a book to make it good? if someone can connect to a book and its characters emotionally and is engrossed by the story, doesn't that make it good if many can do that?
most YA is bought by adults

Of course they do, they've been trained to.

>most YA is bought by adults
Source?

publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/53937-new-study-55-of-ya-books-bought-by-adults.html

"Good" is too nebulous a concept. I'd rather stick with more or less literary merit. They don't present innovations in prose, literary techniques, or develop novel ideas in philosophy or literary theory. These are simply time burners, designed to make you have a good time for a little while (if you're the kind of person who enjoys them) and nothing else.

>most YA is bought by adults
Ya, for their children.
Saying this is like saying "most christmas presents are bought by adults".

So I'm not saying these books are "good" or "bad", there certainly are some books better than others in the same YA classification; but that they don't play in the same field as other books, because they strive for different things. For example, which kind of book do you think suffers more from spoilers? YA books rely heavily on plot, whilst books of highest literary merit tend to favor prose quality (there'll always be exceptions).

neat

If you read 8 out of 10 adults admit to buying YA novels so they can read them, not their kids.

And what the majority likes is usually crap.

I read the hunger games as a teen and i found them awful even then

waste of time

also they all suck. you've read one and you've read all of them.

so you read one?

What he wrote implies reading all of them and comparing, reading some and extrapolating (fallacy), or reading none and making assumptions (fallacy).

Reality television is the most patrician avant garde experimental filmmaking on the planet. Blows Goddard, Tarkovsky, anything else away.

It would be if it wasn't scripted.

BBecause for most people, books (and all other forms of media) are just a shallow form of entertainment. Do they care about the literary quality and originality in ideas ? Or do they care about being engaged by a 'page turner' plot with easy characters to relate to and chock full of familiar tropes?

But they can't. They think they can, because they've never tried better, but they can't.

Basically 100%. People read the same way they watch Netflix: to turn their brains off. They're tired, it's early and they're on the way to work or it's late and they just got home, and they just want something to pass the time until they need to...do anything else.
Unless you read legit literature and liked it you were probably a pretty pseud teen tbqhwyf.