What did young adults read before young adult fiction was invented?
....reading adult literature?
Ummm, think you answered your own q.
I read pretty much _anything_ I could get my hands on, from Dad's pulp westerns (J. T. Edson anebode?), kids stuff (Victorian to modern), "thrillers" by the likes of Hammond Innes, "classics" such as c dickens & j austen f'rinstance. Not forgetting lots and lots and _lots_ of sci-fi, eg Silverberg, Asimov, Heinlein, Budrys. ect ect ect.
I don't think I was unusual, and I suspect that modern young adults, adult? hah!
, bibliovores are probably doing much the same only now they've got a extra advertising thrown at them.
Anyway the reason I dropped by, "The Compleet Molesworth" (for the umpteenth time) cheers cheer cheers.
P.S.
Thomas Hardy? Dear God NO! You're just sitting there watching the light at the end of the tunnel turn into an oncoming train from page 1.