... And what the books your kids are reading say about their world
WHILE it seems a terribly modern way to read the minds of millennials through their latest Netflix binge, the old-fashioned written word is still as good an insight into the hopes and fears of a generation as it ever was – though now the paperback has to compete with the ebook – with millions of young people turning to the novel to make sense of the world around them.
Many of us have preconceptions about Young Adult fiction (YA) – either it’s schmaltz, in the shape of books like The Fault in Our Stars by John Green or the book- as- pitch- for- Hollywood- blockbuster like the dystopian fantasy of The Hunger Games series. More often, the genre deals with much weightier issues – race, transgender life, cyberbullying, refugees and rape. Once again, like TV, the books young people are reading give us a glimpse into their complex world and concerns.
Here we’ve taken a look at some of the very best hard-hitting novels to come out of YA fiction in recent years.
1. THE HATE U GIVE (T.H.U.G)
Angie Thomas, 2017 Starr Carter is growing up in a deprived African-American community. By the time she turns 16, two of her best friends have been shot – one by a gang member and the other by the police. Now the young woman has to testify against the police officer who killed her friend, risking her reputation and safety in the process.
Thomas’s debut novel has spent the last 11 weeks at the top of the New York Times Best Sellers list. Thomas wrote this book, in part, because of the on-going problem of police brutality against black Americans – particularly young adults (many of the high-profile victims of police shootings in America have been men under the age of 18) – and this book is seen as YA fiction’s first response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
T.H.U.G is already being hailed as a contemporary classic that deals in issues of racism and violence and how they impact on the standard YA tropes of high-school love and a teen’s hopes, dreams and ambitions.
2. THE ART OF BEING NORMAL
Lisa Williamson, 2015 The Art of Being Normal opens with a group of school children giving that presentation we’re all familiar with: “When I grow up I want to be a …” Some in the class want to be firemen, nurses, astronauts, lion tamers. David wants to be a girl.
This funny, touching, empathetic book follows two boys, David and Leo, from the point where their lives intersect. It focuses on David’s awakening gender identity and his friendship with Leo, his only confidant (but Leo has his own problems). David’s family think he might be gay – he thinks they’re just confused (“I’m not gay. I’m just a straight girl stuck in a boy’s body,” he puts it bluntly at one point).
It’s a classic YA coming-of-age story, but one that gives voice to a different sort of teenager than normally portrayed. As author Philip Pullman put it: “A life-changing and life-saving book”.
3 JEKYLL’S MIRROR
William Hussey, 2015 A cautionary tale about the dangers of trolling and social media abuse told through a horror-tinged story of a group of four teenagers invited to take part in an online social experiment, Project Hyde. In a scenario redolent of the infamous Milgram “electric shock” experiments of the 1960s – that showed how much damage people will do to strangers when instructed by an authority figure – the children are encouraged to vent their personal frustrations online, with the promise that no real children would be harmed in the process.
4 THE GOOD BRAIDER
Terry Farish, 2012 In striking free-verse this is the story of Viola, a South Sudanese girl with braided hair, as she flees with her family from her homeland, first to revolutionary Egypt, then to the US. How can a teenager from Sudan make a home for herself so far away from what she knows? This is as much about the clash of cultures as about war and displacement. The Good Braider reminds readers that, although culture is to be celebrated, we should look for the ways in which we are fundamentally the same. Increasingly timely with the global refugee crisis.
5 SAINTS AND MISFITS
SK Ali, 2017 Set for release in midJune, this is a kaleidoscopic view of what it means to be a young, modern Muslim teen. Janna Yusuf wears a hijab and goes to mosque. She also pens graphic novels, is obsessed with Flannery O’Connor’s writing, wants to become a photographer and has developed a crush on a boy named Jeremy.
Janna soon begins fighting battles on multiple fronts – trying to assert herself in American culture while defending herself from more reactionary members of her family and community.
And when she alone finds out a terrible secret involving a well-respected member of her religious community, Janna is forced to contemplate saints, misfits and monsters – and who really should belong in each category.
6 ASKING FOR IT
Louise O’Neill, 2016 It’s easy to condemn rape for the terrible crime that it is. But when details of the situation and the victim come to light the way people talk about it quite often begins to change.
It’s this behaviour, as the title suggests, that O’Neill seeks to challenge in this book.
A story exploring the aftermath of an 18-year-old Irish girl’s rape – and the pernicious role of social media in the crime – it was re-released recently (unchanged) for an adult readership and was one of the hardest-hitting YA novels of last year.