From my perspective, I don't really like the genre (and young adult books in genre) because too many of the books don't connect to me. A lot of people have already hit it on the nail, but I'll site some very important parts:
This is something I see a lot in these narratives. The protagonist is anti-social, if not shy, and everyone is against them "without reason". Their parents ignore them, if not outright hate them, and every student at school wants to bully them (with the teachers being oblivious). There's no other personality to them, yet they're important and need to save the day. They're also often a young white, middle-class girl with either blonde hair or brunette hair that plays the guitar or draws all day in her book off to the side and somehow gets the attention of the "hottest, most popular guy in school".
Growing up, I was not sociable myself; hell, I've been bullied sometimes. I can understand what it feels like to have some people against you. But I still had a few friends I trusted, I still loved to draw, and I still loved puns. I just didn't like to social and I didn't see it as a necessary thing to my life. There was more to me than just being "not sociable enough".
I can't say these books don't portray real-life people because that would be false. I've met a couple of them actually, and I can see how they could relate to these books.
But these young adult novels in this genre make it seem like all teenagers are angst and the ones who are not are the "fortunate ones" who either A) don't have any problems or B) are too oblivious to desire change and are part of the problem. They make it seem like the only ones who go through problems are a certain type of protagonist, which only relates to a handful of people and leaves out so many social groups.
Those books will never be read by me. And because there's so many of them, that's a lot of "no book reading". Because if it's the same type of plot with the same type of protagonist, my thinking would become "why would I read your work if it's no different?"
Teenagers have different experiences and different struggles like anyone else, and it differs so much based on who they are and what they identity as. So I'd want a book that gets rid of that "anti-social but important protagonist (white or not)" and gives me something like "the popular jock who puts up a facade to stay in the status quo" or "the kid in school who worries about disappointing their parents even though everyone else thinks they're amazing".
Give me more colors than just black and white.
A lot of creators have been doing better in doing that, including more diversity with races, sexuality, class, and etc. But too many of them ride the bandwagon of Twilight protagonists.
