Young Adult Fiction Reminded Me How to Live

By Olivia Liu

On my bookshelf sits a pale blue book. I have not yet read it in public without swapping out its dust jacket for another, more serious-looking one, preferably titled something very literary, like “To Kill a Search of Lost Pride and Prejudice in 1984.” This is what’s on the real cover: a princess, delicately beautiful, a tiara woven into her red hair. Flip through the pages and you’ll find the story is illustrated too: more princesses, more gowns, a map labeled in pink, girlish cursive. What is the book about? It’s part of a series, actually—“The Selection” by Keira Cass—and I own six of the books (I have yet to get my hands on the companion coloring book). 

The story follows a seventeen-year-old girl named America Singer (who is—wait for it—a singer and—get this—from America, though it’s been renamed Illéa here) through her journey as one of thirty-five ordinary girls chosen to compete for the heart of Prince Maxon. I call it “The Bachelor: Royal Edition,” except, in usual YA fare, it’s also somehow dystopian and there are rebels, so maybe “The Hunger Games Meets the Bachelor: Royal Edition” is a more apt description.

But I’m not knocking the young adult genre, I swear. I bleed and breathe YA. I own so many YA books that if they were to collectively fall on me, I’d be effectively stoned to death. I sob whenever I meet my favorite YA authors, who are forced to stare on in slight bewilderment and worry. And that Bachelor/Hunger Games series I described is one of my favorite series. I don’t care that the world-building is flimsy and involves some nonsensical World War III in which China invades America and renames it the American State of China, which is then invaded by Russia. I just want to read more descriptions of ball gowns. It’s like Pinterest in word form and it makes me happy in a way I can’t explain.

My hardcore love of YA might surprise some people, since I spend my time taking classes about James Joyce and writing essays on ancient medieval texts. How did a serious student of English literature end up harboring such a passion? I think the answer lies in my childhood—or rather, my lack of one, since I had it stolen from me. An obnoxious statement to make, given that I actually had a lovely childhood, filled with American Girl dolls and ballet lessons. And the “childhood-stealing” thing that happened to me is another mark of privilege: I attended one of the best high schools in New York City, an extremely intense and competitive college-preparatory school.

Here was a school where it was not unusual to walk into the bathroom at any given time of the day and find someone having a nervous breakdown. Here, the lines for the library stretched so long that we needed a bouncer, who—nightclub-style—had a clicker and checked IDs, to wrangle the traffic. Here, students routinely skipped their lunch period to slot in an extra AP course, filling their schedules with ten consecutive classes. Here, getting anything less than a 2300 out of 2400 on the SAT meant that you must have the IQ of a rock. Here, even the Ivy League status of colleges like Cornell did not insulate them from being called “safety schools.”

I did not spend “the best years of my life” kissing boys, going to parties, and drinking from red Solo cups. I showed up to school even on senior ditch day. Words like “boyfriend” and “girls’ night out” and “homecoming” were irrelevant to my life. In high school, I didn’t learn how to smoke a joint without coughing; in fact, for the longest time, I did not realize that smoking a joint involved inhaling. Instead, I learned how to type an essay on my laptop while standing on the subway (it involved my track duffel bag and extremely good balance). Of course, I was still curious about who liked whom, but I cared a lot more about who had the answers to our latest geometry exam.

Maybe this is why I turned so fervently towards young adult literature—maybe it was a way to recapture my “lost youth” (another obnoxious statement; I know I’m still young), a way to live vicariously through teens who were “doing it right.” I devoured books about girls whose parents never seemed to ask about their report cards, but let them stay out until early morning on boardwalks and lake docks. I read about girls who were fierce enough to become rebels and knights and spaceship captains. I was so attached to YA that when I turned twenty, I cried. This was supposed to be a happy day, but I was crying, and no one understood why but me: I had finally aged out of my teens.

Here’s the truth, though: there is no one way to live your youth. There is no one way to live any part of your life. But it’s easy to think that way when the narratives you consume only lead down one path. For the longest time, YA was an extremely homogeneous genre, full of white girls with the same type of sunshine-and-rainbows life. For all my privilege, I am still a woman of color and a child of immigrants. The specter of war and suffering looms large in my history. My high school was only so intense, I believe, because almost 80 percent of the student body was just like me: people of color and children of immigrants. We pushed ourselves so hard to succeed because we wanted to make our parents’ sacrifices worthwhile. They gave up everything to give us a bright future.

This is not an experience I ever saw reflected in books, but YA is getting more diverse. It finally has more kinds of stories. The book that has topped the New York Times “Young Adult Best Sellers” list for almost three years is “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, a Black Lives Matter story written by a black author. Other books on that list, like “The Astonishing Color of After,” “Girls of Paper and Fire,” and “A Very Large Expanse of Sea” discuss sexual assault, the immigrant experience, mental health, Islamophobia, queer identity, and so much more with honesty and openness. I get to read about characters who look like me. There is no one narrative anymore.

And yet there is nothing wrong with still wanting to read about teens with less cataclysmic problems, like trying to find a date for prom. This is the true gift of YA: it captures the feeling of firsts, whether it is your first kiss or your first time wielding a wand. It captures a feeling of hope and possibility that is unmatched in any other genre. When you are a teenager, you think you are the first to feel this way. That’s the gift of youth: the newness of everything, how your whole world is untested waters. 

Except you never really get the hang of things just because you’re getting older. We will still be thrown by curves in the road. That is why YA novels, set during times when literally everything is changing for its young characters, still ring true at any age. I’m an adult, and I still cried on the plane to my study abroad program, suddenly faced with the reality of living in a new country. What helped me was remembering what a fictional teenage assassin who had lost everything—her parents, her freedom, and her friends—would repeat to herself for strength: “My name is Celaena Sardothien, and I will not be afraid.” I went to the bathroom and, feeling kind of stupid, said those words into the mirror. But if that character could survive unspeakable horrors, I could handle this tiny thing.

YA is often looked down upon as a “lesser” genre—most things that young people like are treated this way, as if we’re not old enough to form “proper” opinions. But no genre has better reminded me how to live than YA, especially during a time when I was forgetting to live at all between all the tests and essays. No genre has better taught me how to be brave, through both the big and small aches of life. You don’t need to be a teenager to appreciate these stories. You just need to be human.

Olivia Liu is a senior at NYU studying English and creative writing. She is currently at work on her young adult fantasy novel, “The Elemental Artifacts.” In her free time, she can be found listening to her favorite storytelling podcast, “88 Cups of Tea.” Follow her on social media @literaryliu.