“Can you imagine that being on TV when we were younger?” is what I keep hearing, the gratitude ever so slightly tinged with grief for what we did not have. If it helps even a handful of kids not to hate themselves for who they are, then it is a marvel.īut there is a kind of sadness that we didn’t have that experience as teenagers. To see something so honest about teenagers figuring out who they fancy, and what that means for them, is such a relief. One is that older LGBTQ+ viewers are so glad that it exists at all, for the generations that have come after them. The reactions have broadly appeared along two lines. (I loved His Dark Materials so much that I named my dog after one of its characters, so I hold my own hand up to that one.) For years, adults have tentatively admitted to reading YA or even children’s fiction – one study, from 2012, found that 55% of YA fiction readers were over 18 – and there have always been adult editions of His Dark Materials and Harry Potter, for example, with more muted jackets. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been such a shock. Netflix is famously coy about who watches what so this is purely anecdotal, but over the last couple of weeks I have been surprised at how many of my fully grown adult friends have mentioned Heartstopper.