COMING SOON IN THE I RELATE SERIES: Cocktails, Clues & Tophats: An Exploration of Crime Fiction Aliens, Spaceships & Interdimensional Travel: An Exploration of Sci-Fi Love, Money & Handcuffs: An Exploration of Erotic Fiction
2
SECRETS, DEATHS & OTPs
AN EXPLORATION OF YA FICTION
LORI GOLDSTEIN, SHARON JOHNSTON & SARAH NICOLAS
3 
Published in the UK in 2020 by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39-41 North Road, London, N7 9DP email: info@iconbooks.com www.iconbooks.com ISBN: 000-000000-000-0 Text copyright Š 2020 by Lori Goldstein, Sharon Johnston and Sarah Nicolas The authors have asserted their moral rights No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher
4
This book is for all of the dedicated YA fans that exist in this world. Let fiction consume your soul and don’t ever apologise for your excitement.
5 
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Lori Goldstein, Sharon Johnston and Sarah Nicolas are all contributors for the popular Young Adult fiction blog, YAtopia. Lori Goldstein is the author of the Becoming Jinn series (Square Fish, 2016). She has a degree in journalism from Lehigh University and more than ten years of experience as a freelance copyeditor and manuscript consultant for all genres. Lori likes to obsess over The Vampire Diaries and you can follow her on Twitter @loriagoldstein. Sharon Johnston is the author of ‘Growth’ from The Basics of Life anthology (The Australian Literature Review, 2011). She is a public relations specialist and former journalist. Sharon loves sciencefiction, speculative and paranormal fiction and you can follow her on Twitter @S_M_Johnston. Sarah Nicolas is the author of Dragons are People, Too (Entangled, 2015), as well as writing romance fiction under the pen name Aria Kane. Her favourite genres are fantasy and science-fiction, she gets easily distracted by Tumblr, and you can follow her on Twitter @sarah_nicolas.
6
CONTENTS Introduction 9 Character Identity
11
Family
33
Sexuality, Love & Relationships
55
Sex
77
Prejudice
99
Power Plays
111
Good vs. Evil
133
Utopias & Dystopias
155
Crime
177
Patriotism & War
199
Capitalism
211
Death & Loss
233
Religion & Faith
255
Immortality & Afterlives
277
7 
8
Nature
299
Technology
211
Space & Time
233
Popular Culture
255
Conclusion
277
Acknowledgements
299
Notes
311
Bibliography
333
Index
355
INTRODUCTION
T
he last couple of decades have blessed the community of Young Adult fiction fans. It kicked off with the publication of J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1997 and, since then, we’ve had Cassandra Clare’s The Shadowhunter Chronicles (2007-present), Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (2008-2010), James Dashner’s The Maze Runner (2009-2016), Veronica Roth’s Divergent (2011-2014) and Cecelia Ahern’s Flawed (2016-2017). But it isn’t only book series and their adaptations that have made their mark on popular culture in recent years. Stand-alone titles, such as Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (Becky Albertalli, 2015), and television series, such as Riverdale (2017-present) and Teen Wolf (20112017), have also been instrumental in the YA fan community. The YA world was particularly fruitful in the late 2000s and early 2010s and, if you’re anything like us, this period of time has left you wondering what’s next. We’ve got Netflix and Amazon Prime, and we’ve still got some adaptations to look forward to, but we’re running pretty low on series that can keep YA in the spotlight that it has found itself inhabiting in recent years. In this book, our aim is to figure out what makes YA popular, how it has changed over time, and how we can cultivate more of this genre that we all love so deeply. YA used to be for the younger generation, hence its name, but that has changed. Many of us in our 20s and 30s retain YA fiction in our lives because we’re the ones who grew up with the genre when it was at its most popular and, in this evermore-complicated world, YA is perfect for learning more about ourselves and the world around us. Economist and author Noreena Hertz theorised ‘Generation K’, an alternative term for Generation Z or the Smartphone Generation that follows the Millennials, having been born between 1995 and 2004. According to Hertz, ‘Like Katniss, they feel the world they inhabit is one of perpetual struggle – dystopian, unequal and harsh.’ Perhaps this is something we should bear in mind as we begin our quest of discovery into the world of YA and why it means so much to so many of us. On the following page, you will find a list of questions which we
9
will be considering during the course of the book. Before you continue onto Chapter 1, you might find it beneficial to take a moment to think about the books you read and the films and shows you watch and how they’ve affected your answers to the following questions. What is so special about magic? How important is the truth? What makes a successful leader? Why do we use sarcasm as a source of bravery? Can we decide our own families? Does love really conquer all? What are we willing to sacrifice? How is YA tackling prejudices? Is the world really black and white? Does patriotism still hold a place? What is mental illness really like? Where is the human race going wrong? How dangerous is technology? Throughout this book, we refer to Young Adult fiction books, films and television shows as a whole as consumerable YA fiction.
10
CHAPTER 1 CHARACTER IDENTITY
I
dentity is how we distinguish one character from another. It is how they look; it is their body language and facial expressions; it is their personality traits, their strengths and weaknesses; it is their beliefs. In Young Adult fiction, we tend to focus on one main protagonist, or a small number of them. Whether written in first or third person, or filmed in equivalent ways, we are usually inside those characters’ heads. We know what they are seeing and what they are thinking and feeling. It is a character’s identity, more so than their actions, that we judge as readers and viewers. In fact, their identity is how we understand why they act the way that they act in certain situations. We ask ourselves questions about characters, such as “Do I trust them?” and “Would I want to be friends with them?” Individuality is key when writing about characters, and when reading about them or watching them on screen too. If we can’t tell the characters apart, they don’t seem real to us and the whole story falls apart. This is an interesting topic in YA because young people often don’t have a strong sense of self. As adolescents, we’re still learning who we are, who we want to be, who we think we’re going to be, what our strengths and weaknesses are, and what is important to us. Not all young people have the self-awareness to figure this out. But the characters in the books we read, and films and shows we watch, learn more about their selves as they progress through the narrative because they are facing big problems and having to react in the moment. They then reflect on these actions and decide whether or not they think it was a good decision to make, so that they can make decisions that are more true to their selves next time they are faced with a problem. The process of changes to a character’s identity throughout a story is known as a character arc, or character development.
11
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT Character arcs do not exist simply to make a story more interesting, although this is definitely one thing they are very good for. This development serves to make a connection to the reader. It shows them that they are not the only ones suffering with a lack of sense of self, and it shows them that they can do something about it. By simply continuing to exist, a person will be faced with challenges and decisions to make which will create experiences, and these experiences start to show them who they really are. It is for this reason that we think Young Adult fiction is not only popular with adolescents but also with new adults and upwards. Nothing ever stays the same. Life is always changing and we are often forced to change with it. Seeing characters go through difficulties and come out stronger the other side is exactly what we want to make ourselves feel stronger in our own lives. Character arcs can be small or they can be huge. There has been a rise in the use of the term anti-hero in recent years, referring to a character that is a protagonist in a story but lacks conventional heroic qualities, such as idealism, courage and morality. We are aware that they are not a ‘good’ person, but we are made to root for them anyway. An example of an anti-hero is Betty in Riverdale. She has a dark side, and she’s not afraid to bring it out. She plays with people’s emotions, punishing them for past acts. She acts as some sort of go-between between her boyfriend Jughead and her best friend Veronica, who are usually on completely different sides of every important debate but who sit together at lunch every day regardless of this. And then there’s the little dilemma of having helped her mother hide a dead body in the woods, clean the entire house top-to-bottom to destroy any evidence, and drag her boyfriend in to help her push the dead guy’s car into a lake. When we put it like that, she sounds like a total head-case (and she is, a little bit), but we also kind of understand why she acts the way she does, out of anger, spite, fear and her determination to be liked by everyone. Betty’s journey from normal, sweet teenage girl to, quite frankly, law-breaking problem child has been slow but progressive. Her arc has not been too dramatic. A bigger character arc in Riverdale is that of Archie, on whom the original comics were based. Problem child does not quite cover what Archie has become from the first season to the second. He started off like Betty, sweet, innocent and trustworthy with a good heart. Then, he started dating Veronica and blindly trying to impress her criminal parents and dug himself a hole so deep that I think we are all in doubt about whether he will ever find his way out now. In doing his bidding
12
for Veronica’s father, Archie has turned against everyone who ever loved him, including his own dad. He even lies to Veronica, choosing her father over her most of the time. Often, character development works the opposite way around. We start with an anti-hero, someone who lies and cheats and does bad things, but they steadily learn to become a decent, trustworthy human being with ‘good’ morals. TRUST The trustworthiness of a single character can change an entire story. There are many variables to consider: Do they know the truth? Where are they getting their information from? Are the characters around them trustworthy? Do we know if these characters are trustworthy? Is the protagonist lying to us on purpose? Are they purposely holding back information from us? Do we know that they are lying to us? Are they telling us the truth but lying to other characters within the story? The reveal of information is a critical part of a story. It can make for a clear read or watch, or a disorientating, and often frustrating, read or watch. In some books, films and television shows, we know that we are not being told the truth or being shown the whole picture. This can either be because the main character is shown to be untrustworthy or because they are being fed information that is untrue that they are then passing onto us. In Liar by Justine Larbalestier, the character of Micah Wilkins tells the reader about her family, her abilities, her school and her condition, and then she tells you that she lied. You keep on reading, lapping up everything that she is telling you, just to be told yet again that she lied. The truth is that everyone lies, or has lied at some point in their life. As a child, we lie as a way to see how far we can push the boundaries. We learn that lying can protect us from punishment. We learn how big a lie we can tell before we get caught. We also start to learn how we can avoid punishment even if we are caught, usually by crying, fluttering our eyelashes, or acting dumb. If we get good at it, it becomes a habit. If you stop lying, you become bad at it. In some cases, an untrustworthy character can be appealing. It probably depends as much on the reader or viewer as it does on the portrayal of the character itself. We may see ourselves in the character and their lies, wishing to pretend that we too are billionaires with mansions and holiday homes and promised our own fortunes as soon as we hit the age of eighteen. At least, we all know someone who lies or
13
over-exaggerates the truth as a way of gaining popularity and attention. Whether or not we agree with bending the truth, we can most probably relate to the emotions behind the lies. They are jealous. They are scared, of failure, of rejection, of consequences. They just want to be loved. We may even agree that lying is the only way for a character to stay alive, to stay sane, or to defeat the villain of the story. In some stories, an untrustworthy narrator is used to purposely fool the reader or viewer, so that the final reveal of events is ever more dramatic and impressive. BRAVERY You’ve probably heard the expression that characters should drive the plot, and not the other way around. Characters may be faced with difficult situations, but it is up to them what they choose to do. Their choices define who they are. The best stories tend to be about protagonists who are brave, because they surprise us and make bold moves. They are not afraid to fight for what they believe in, and this creates change in the world they live in and inspires the people around them. In Harry Potter, we focus on Harry, Hermione and Ron. As they are in Griffindor house, they are the epitomy of bravery and courage. Ron is terrified of spiders and, although he does not necessarily overcome his fear, he does face it in The Chamber of Secrets because he knows he has to. In Cecelia Ahern’s Flawed, the main character Celestine North chooses to stand up for someone on the bus even though she knows she’ll get in trouble for it. Regardless of being part of a respected family and in a relationship with the son of the Head Judge of the Guild, the governing body of the futuristic dystopian world, she fights for what she believes to be right. She is punished for it, branded in five places of her body with the flawed ‘F’ brand. However, she continues to be brave and becomes the face of the revolution against the Guild. In the Netflix original 13 Reasons Why, Hannah Baker commits suicide, leaving behind a group of teenagers who have driven her to make that choice through their actions. Many of them are cowardly, trying to avoid the truth about what they have done at all costs, convincing the others who Hannah has blamed that what she said in the tapes she left behind was a lie. Our main protagonist Clay Jensen, on the other hand, cared about Hannah and is determined to find out the truth, no matter the cost to his own life and mental wellbeing. Clay takes a long time to get through all thirteen of the tapes that
14
15 
Superpowers... Love triangles... Mythical beings... Ever wondered why YA fans are so captivated by parentless protagonists, sarcastic sidekicks and that gay relationship they keep at the sidelines? Secrets, Deaths & OTPs explains why we keep coming back for these themes, exploring the most popular YA creations of the last few decades.
“It’s important to know why we like the things that we like so that we can get more of it, and that’s what this book tells us.” Matthew Daddario, Shadowhunters star
NON-FICTION YOUNG ADULT POPULAR CULTURE
VISIT ICONBOOKS.COM
UK £12.99