CONCLUSION & DISCUSSION:

The experiences and identities featured in the ten New York Times bestselling young adult novels from October 15-20, 2018 represent a more diverse population of main characters compared to those present in the 1960s when the genre first began. Through a critical discourse analysis, I was able to code for personality traits and roles/relationships of main characters. Listening to the novels on audio-book, I used textual evidence to support my coding, as previously discussed (Stokes, 2012). Through this. I was able to conclude that a majority of the characters, in one way or another, strayed from the traditional gender normative characteristics, or experienced realities outside of the typical story line. Books like The Hate You Give which follows a African American girl who finds strength in activism after her friend is gunned down by a police officer, or Turtles All The Way Down, which centers around a high school girl suffering from severe anxiety depict relatable, likable characters whose story broadens the realm of experiences included within young adult novels. Two of the male characters in Swing and Muse of Nightmares embody characteristics ill typical of the stereotypical male protagonist. Noah is a writer of poetry and music, a heartfelt romantic, and not athletically talented in the book Swing. Lazlo Strange exists in his world of Strange the Dreamer as a soft-spoken scribe, a quiet, contemplative hero to fights for good but with his intellect rather than brute strength. Poppy from Hocus Pocus and the All-New Sequel is rational and has a crush on the most popular girl in school, while Felicity from Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy is an aspiring medical student, calm, collected and smart. 

In Someday, the character A is never assigned a gender, as they wake up every morning in a different body. A creates relationships, falls in love with a girl named Rhiannon, and has to struggle with their own identity all while changing their physical body every day. In narrative content alone, this character teaches acceptance of loving someone for who they are, not how they identify. In regards to my coding, this books served as an outlier since I had to code both male and female for every characteristic they exhibited. Additionally, I also coded a presence for certain roles or traits present in the bodies A inhabits since technically speaking, for that day, they were an artist, or took on the anxiety felt by their host body. These are only a few example of the books I read which featured characters which strayed from the traditional “hero” in their own unique way. By extent, this diversity allows a broader population of readers to relate to narrative heroes who live lives just like them, lives that extend past the mainstream narrative. The realities of today’s adolescents are complicated, confusing, scary and blur the lines of black and white. The books written to cater toward this population, within the contexts of this study, are at the very least making an attempt to record these realities in fictional storytelling.

Young adult became a separate category in the 1960’s, and was in full swing by the 1970’s. Popular young adult books in the 1970 portrayed more traditional character types. In the popular novel, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Published in 1970, author Judy Blume discusses a classic “growing up” story of a sixth grade girl named Margaret. She goes through puberty, buys a bra for the first time, develops feelings for boys, and contemplates religion. While this book does reflect the realities of a population of readers, the portrayal of Margaret is fairly traditional. She is a white girl with a middle class family. Her concerns include boys, sexual discoveries, growing up, getting her period and her struggle with religion. Judy Blume was a prominent author at the time, writing other popular books edging more on the younger side, like Fudge-a-Mainia and Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great. Beverly Cleary was another notable author of the time, and published, less contested, coming of age story about a girl named Barbara in Sister of the Bride, published in 1963. In the novel, she dreams of finding the perfect romantic interest, having a beautiful wedding, just like her older sister Rosemary, and going to her dream college. While novels at the time were adjusting to the new, independent genre and breaking down the content boundaries between child and adult, tackling difficult subjects like class in The Outsiders by S.E.Hinton or race in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the depth and diversity portrayed in young adult novels at the time are more expensive today than at the start of the category. 

In studying the young adult genre, its history and its transformations, I can conclude that the authors of today recognize the literature’s ability to reflect realities of a younger population of readers caught in between childhood and adulthood. The character depictions are relatable and throughout their journeys, they uncover situations and issues that arise in the real world. Allowing the young adults reading them to form and develop their own identities, with narrative heroes to connect to and learn from, (Bean & Moni, 2003). What once began as a group of books, written for adults, that younger readers enjoyed, has developed into a genre that approaches adult concepts while relating them to adolescents. By recognizing this, authors have expanded their books to include vast identities to enhance the purpose of reflecting realities within fictional realms. In regards to their presence on The New York Times Bestsellers List, these stories are being read. Not only does this serve to help readers realize their own identities, but it expands the empathy for people of all experiences and identities to those different than their own (Stetka, 2014).