Who ARE Those Readers?

I went searching for a book today for a 12-year-old boy. Barnes and Noble has an entire section dedicated to "teen readers," but  think it was mis-named. Of the fifteen books displayed as being "what teens are reading now," all but one of them was designed to be read by teenage girls...seriously. Mike Lupicka was the only author in the bunch that had written something designed for male readers.
Thinking this was just an anomaly, I went back to the real teen section, and found a similar dispersal of literature. One would get the impression that only teenage girls read...and the majority of them want to read about how awful their lives are though not as awful as the protagonists of curent fiction.
School problems, relationship problems, and inner demon problems dominated the whole section. Sure, I get that this time of life is a tough one for every kid, but there's no way a young boy is going to pick up what passes for literature these days...at least a Barnes and Noble.
Being 12, this young man is somewhat in-between: he's finished with chapter books, likes sports books, and reads series about mythology/heroes and is beginning to find the fantastic to be his reality. Fortunately, the Percy Jackson series was around...he's read them all. Rick Riordan has become a go-to author. He's read all the Carl Hiaasen juvenile literature, and is always reading one or two books at a time.
Fortunately, Ridley Pearson has an adventure series he had known heard about. Pearson has written some excellent adult fiction, so I know this will be a good series for Antonio to begin. While he finishes the five in this series, I'll have time to find others not aimed at "teen readers."