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The Rise of Suicide in YA Fiction and Exploring Personal Biases in Reading

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Suicide and depression are two passion topics for me. Part of it is that I’m someone who suffers from depression — something I haven’t talked openly about because it’s very hard to talk openly about — and part of it is that when I was in high school, I knew more than one person who committed suicide. Though none of the people who did were close to me, those deaths still had an impact on me. Maybe what’s most vivid about them is how much silence had to surround them; the school shut down all avenues of grieving or discussion, with the thought that keeping quiet about what happened would prevent it from happening again. Whether or not that’s true or was the right choice is hard to say. 

Having worked with teens in the library, I know too well that suicide is something they experience in their lives, and it’s something that stays with them forever. Though they’re not one in the same, suicide and depression can often go hand-in-hand, so in many ways, it makes sense to talk about them in tandem. 

Last fall, I put together a resource and discussion guide to suicide and depression, which included a hefty reading list. I didn’t think about forthcoming titles much when I put it together, but over the last few months, I’ve noticed a steady increase in the number of YA titles that are exploring suicide head-on. 

It’s interesting to think about publishing trends in YA and what it is that might drive them. Without any research at all, I can call up 4 or 5 YA titles publishing between the start of the year and end of February where suicide is a major — if not the major — theme. While we know contemporary realistic YA has been in an upswing lately, what is it that made suicide bubble up as a common theme? 

My guess, at least in part, is the perennial popularity of Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why has spurred an interest in finding similar titles. Asher’s been a marvelous advocate for teens, and his book has been a staple of bestseller lists for years. 

I’m generally not someone who needs trigger warnings for reading material. Dark books work really well for me, since so often, they’re at an extreme where I don’t feel the need to ever look at my own life or experiences and try to compare. It’s easy to disconnect myself from the story and look at it as story. Other readers are far more sensitive than I am to tough topics, and for them, knowing ahead of time helps them make an informed decision about whether or not a book is the right read for them. It’s not about censorship, but about making an intelligent personal choice. 

But something’s changed recently, and I find myself almost needing to know a book is tackling the topic of suicide before I go into it. Not a trigger warning, per se, but I’ve found this is a topic I’m no longer able to read as easily as I used to. Maybe it’s having seen first hand with teens today how hard it is to deal with. Maybe it’s coming to terms with my reading preferences and habits and understanding this topic isn’t one that is enjoyable to me as a reader. Part of it may also be that my own thoughts and beliefs behind suicide don’t always mirror the way it’s presented in fiction, which comes as a result of being someone who struggles with an illness that has left me with uncomfortable, complicated, and messy feelings on the topic. 

In other words, it turns out this isn’t a topic I can divorce myself and my own experiences from when I’m reading. 

One of the best things about reading and talking about books is being able to put up a lens to your own biases. You discover new pages in your own story and in your own thinking that you didn’t realize were there before. Sometimes, you discover that what you thought you knew about yourself and your reading habits aren’t that at all; sometimes you discover your habits and preferences simply change and evolve as you grow and evolve. Where mental health books are still a deep and heavy part of my reading life — a topic I seek out and am always eager to read, think, and talk about — suicide is my wading zone. I need to know what’s out there, I need to give some of them a chance, but I don’t need to invest all of my time and energy into them when they don’t give back to me. They are, in many ways, like cancer books for me. A good premise can and does change my mind, but ultimately as a theme, it’s one I don’t seek out even though I’m seeing it with more frequency. 

While I’m no longer working in libraries with teens, thinking about how to share these titles with teens never strays from my mind. Last spring when a teen shared that her friend had committed suicide, I knew I needed to pull out books that might help those in the community grapple with their feelings. But rather than develop a “suicide books” display, I pulled together a larger display on hard topics in realistic fiction, which included mental health, sexual assault, eating disorders, suicide, and more. It felt too on-the-nose, too prying, to build around suicide specifically, even though books on suicide were — and are! — exactly what teens sometimes need and sometimes just want. It’s not that the topic is sexy to them, and in many cases it’s not something even relevant to their lives, but rather, it’s fascinating. It’s fresh to them. 

I’m curious if anyone else has noticed this uptick in suicide titles and if so, what do you make of it? What sort of opportunities or challenges do these books, when presented in a trend-like wave, present? More, I’m interested in hearing about your own reading biases and experiences with them — and I’m curious how it is you’re talking with teens about them. 

If you’re curious about specific titles, here are a handful of suicide-themed YA books out in the first few months of the year. Descriptions are from WorldCat, and if you know of others out early this year, feel free to leave them in the comments, too. 

All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven: Told in alternating voices, when Theodore Finch and Violet Markey meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school–both teetering on the edge–it’s the beginning of an unlikely relationship, a journey to discover the “natural wonders” of the state of Indiana, and two teens’ desperate desire to heal and save one another

The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand: After her younger brother, Tyler, commits suicide, Lex struggles to work through her grief in the face of a family that has fallen apart, the sudden distance between her and her friends, and memories of Tyler that still feel all too real.

When Reason Breaks by Cindy L. Rodriguez: Elizabeth Davis and Emily Delgado seem to have little in common except Ms. Diaz’s English class and the solace they find in the words of Emily Dickinson, but both are struggling to cope with monumental secrets and tumultuous emotions that will lead one to attempt suicide.

I Was Here by Gayle Forman: In an attempt to understand why her best friend committed suicide, eighteen-year-old Cody Reynolds retraces her dead friend’s footsteps and makes some startling discoveries.

My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga: Seventeen-year-old Aysel’s hobby–planning her own death–take a new path when she meets a boy who has similar plan of his own.

Playlist for the Dead by Michelle Falkoff: After his best friend, Hayden, commits, suicide, fifteen-year-old Sam is determined to find out why–using the clues in the playlist Hayden left for him.

These next two books — which I just finished back to back– have been really enjoyable but both also included suicide in them. Knowing that won’t change your experience with either, since it’s not integral to the plot, but seeing it pop up in consecutive reads when this was already on my mind was jarring.

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman: A teenage boy struggles with schizophrenia. (I hope they end up saying more than that in later descriptions, as this one doesn’t come out until April).

I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios: Skylar Evans, seventeen, yearns to escape Creek View by attending art school, but after her mother’s job loss puts her dream at risk, a rekindled friendship with Josh, who joined the Marines to get away then lost a leg in Afghanistan, and her job at the Paradise motel lead her to appreciate her home town. 

I Don’t Get the Hype

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Like a lot of readers, I fall prey to the hype machine every now and then. A few of these books – hyped by publicists, readers, critics, or all three – have become some of my favorite reads: Cinder, Code Name Verity, Grave Mercy.

But some of them will leave me scratching my head, wondering what I missed that everyone else saw. Below are a few semi-recent reads with a lot of buzz that just didn’t work for me. What hyped books didn’t work for you?

Half Bad by Sally Green
This was a Cybils nominee and I listened to it because it had been getting great reviews from trade journals and lots of praise from places like Time Magazine and the New York Times. It was also highly praised in England, where it was first published. It’s about a magical culture that has white witches and black witches – the white witches are good and the black witches are bad. The protagonist is half-code, meaning one of his parents was white one of his parents was black. Reviews praise the voice, and I agree that it’s good, but the story was so nonsensical to me. I never got a full understanding of why white witches were good and black witches were bad. Their behavior didn’t indicate anything of the sort, either subtly or cut-and-dry (aside from the Big Bad, Marcus). And I don’t think that was intentional; it reads more like a sloppy oversimplification for the sake of story, one that doesn’t work. As a result I wasn’t able to buy into the premise at all. I’m still flummoxed by this one many weeks after finishing it, and bemused that so many people seem to love it.

Angelfall by Susan Ee
This was a Cybils finalist and a huge self-publishing success (it got picked up by Amazon publishing, along with its sequels). I thought the story – about killer angels and the girl who gets caught up in their war – was a winner, but the writing was so poor. It was pretty painful to read and I wouldn’t have finished it if it weren’t a requirement for me to do so.

Going Bovine by Libba Bray
This Printz winner is divisive, but I honestly don’t know what the judges see in it. This was also one that I listened to on audio. It was rambling, extremely long, mostly incoherent, and bereft of meaning or depth. Deliberate confusion does not equal literary merit. Here’s my original Goodreads review from 2010 and I stand by it: Pretty
terrible. I can think of only two possible things that might have made
me enjoy this book: a narrator who was able to infuse some spirit into
all the wackiness instead of just sounding sarcastic all the time; or me
having read Don Quixote, because clearly I have missed something. I
thought the book would never end.

2014 Reading Stats and Data Sheets

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Every year, I like to take a look at my reading in terms of data. Who was I reading? What was I reading? Were there any trends? I’ve been doing a statistical breakdown of these for a few years now, and I’ve gotten it to a science where I don’t need to look at too much information to get a clear picture of where I am, what I want to do in the next year, and where I could improve.

I’d planned on posting this before the end of 2014, but I made some decisions in terms of stats keeping that I wanted to change. I wanted to look not just at the books I read, but also the books that I bought. Am I putting my money where my mouth is when it comes to things like diversity? What am I buying? 
Then I decided, too, that I wanted to set up a series of spreadsheets for 2015 that looked not just at my books read and books purchased data, but also the books I received from publishers. Am I getting diverse books if I don’t ask for them? What is being sent to me in multiples? I’m not sure this data will tell me a whole lot at the end of this year, but I know it’ll be interesting to look at. I’ve already found there are books I’m getting in multiple. 
Because it’s the start of a new year and I know other people are looking to be more mindful of their own reading and purchasing habits, I’m making my basic Google Doc available for anyone to use. There are three sheets here — one for reading, one for purchasing, and one for review copies received. Save a copy of this publicly-available doc on your own Google Drive or download it to your computer and feel free to adapt it to your own needs. All of the categories are pretty self-explanatory. 
If you want to push your reading and data collection even further, I can’t recommend the Ultimate Reading Spreadsheet from Book Riot highly enough. It looks at way more than I do, but I know how useful that can be. Sarah Enni also created a really robust reading data spreadsheet, especially good for tracking genre/audience of books read, if you’re looking for more options. 
Here’s a look at my last year in reading.
In 2014, I read a total of 113 books. There were a total of 119 authors represented, which included illustrators and collaborators on graphic novels and comics. I did not include the translators of the two books I read that were in translation in that count. 
By gender: 
I read a total of 24 books written or illustrated by men and a total of 95 written or illustrated by women. I’m okay with this break down. I might try to read more men — specifically men of color — in 2015. 
By audience/category:
Out of the 113 books I read in 2014, 82 were YA, 27 were adult, and 4 were middle grade. I was surprised to see that I read that many adult books. I’m hoping in 2014 to read more adult books — I’m especially hoping to read a good chunk of memoirs by women of color. 
Other data:
  • 21 of the books I read were written by authors who debuted in 2014. This is a stat I’m pleased with.
  • 8 of the books I read had LGBTQIA+ themes to them. This is a low number, especially considering I thought I was reading a good spread of these books. But it turns out I happened to read many in a row, and then I didn’t read many more after. I’m going to improve here in 2015.
  • 32, or 28%, of the books I read this year were written by people of color or featured main characters of color. I’ve included Native authors here, even though Deb Reese explains why Native authors aren’t “people of color,” for the sake of my own record keeping. 

Here’s a look at my 2014 in terms of books purchased.
Before I looked at the books I bought, I thought I didn’t buy many books. When I pulled them all out, I’d purchased a total of 46 books, which is more than 3 per month. That’s way more than I thought and far higher than the average person (which ranges somewhere between 6 and 11, depending on what sources you read). There were a total of 47 authors and for some reason, I didn’t include the illustrators in this round. 
Not included in this data are the books I bought for prizes for readers here at Stacked. These are only titles I added to my personal library. 
By gender:
36 of the books I bought in 2014 were written by women, while 11 were written by men. These percentages look pretty darn close to the ones for the genders of authors of books I read in 2014. 
By or about people of color:
Almost one-third of the books I bought were written by people of color or featured main characters of color. Again, I included Native authors and characters in this grouping. This number was solid; this is something I am conscious of when I buy books. One night I walked out of a bookstore this year — a chain — because I could not find one book in the YA section by a person of color that wasn’t on the New York Times list to buy. 
In 2015, I hope to up this percentage even more. 
By category/audience:
I bought slightly more adult, when non-fiction and fiction are combined, than I did YA. But not much. Since I tend to read more YA, I tend to borrow it much more frequently than I do buy it, because otherwise, I would never have any money. 
Keeping track of my reading means when the year winds down and I start thinking about the next year’s reading, I’m able to be more intentional in my choices. Intentionality is what guides my reading, not a set of goals or bench markers.

You can like what you like

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No one has the right to tell you what you read. What you choose to read is your right and yours alone.

Reading is a process, not an end result. (1)

 

One of the things I love about reading is how much it allows me to connect with other people who also enjoy reading. But more than that, I’ve discovered the more that I read — and not just books, but blog posts, newspapers, magazines, comics — the more I’m able to think about the things I’m reading and the more I’m able to draw connections among different stories and worlds. The more I’m also able to help other people connect to the things that would give them a great reading experience.

I read with a critical eye, even when I’m reading “fluff” material. But never for one second does that mean I think everyone reads with the same level of intensity that I do nor that I can’t separate the critical portion of my brain from the part that wants to enjoy a story. I can find satisfaction in reading a story at the story’s level.

Sometimes — like right now, actually — I find myself reading through books that have made gads of lists for being poorly written, for spreading terrible messages about any number of topics I’m passionate about, for being nothing but bad books. And you know, sometimes the joy is in that exactly: dipping into what is little more than junk.

Sometimes, too, I find myself connecting to a story on a level I never expected to. Earlier in the year, I read a book that tapped into something I’d packed away a long time ago, and I found myself revisiting some pain I thought I’d never think about again. It wasn’t a book about that issue at all. It was a book about something else entirely.

I love to pick up a literary tome periodically, too. But not because I’m trying to balance out the YA reading I do or because I’m trying to make myself smarter or a better person for doing so. I pick them up because I’m interested in the reading experience.

Because I am interested in reading.

I have a huge problem with the notion of a guilty pleasure. If something brings you pleasure, there should be no guilt associated with it. The reason people find themselves talking about guilty pleasures is because someone has taken their right to enjoyment from whatever it is that they like doing. It’s because someone has asserted themselves as an authority, as a person with privilege, and cast judgment upon an activity.

No one has the right to tell you what you should or shouldn’t like.

Regardless of what your education level, your financial status, your job, your haves-and-have-nots in life, what you choose to spend your free time doing is your choice and your choice alone. But more than that, it’s your responsibility to respect that for yourself and respect that for others, too. You should never feel guilty for what you enjoy, and you should never make anyone else feel guilty for what they like, either.

We all go to reading for different reasons, be they for entertainment, for information, for understanding craft and story, for escape from the world, for connection to the world (your own, pop culture, or any other definition of world). Sometimes a book can bring all of these things at once and sometimes, a book does one and does it really well.

Let me say this because I think it’s important and essential and gets missed in many discussions of reading and the power therein: I believe there are people who don’t like reading. And I do not, even for a second, think they’re wrong. I think there might be books perfectly tailored for them, but if someone is not interested in reading, I’m not going to force them to be a reader. That puts me in a position of power and privilege, suggesting to someone that their interests and disinterests are wrong.

They’re not wrong. Their interests aren’t any less valid than mine.

They’re just different.

When someone in a position of huge trust — such as a librarian — suggests that there is a right way and a wrong way to read or that there are right things or wrong things to read, they’re exerting false authority. They’re using their opinion and their belief to belittle and shame someone else. They’re saying that it’s not okay to like what you like.

These people are abusing their power.

But more importantly, it doesn’t matter what your background is. There is never an okay time to shame someone for what they’re reading (or what they’re not reading). There’s never a need to make an argument about whether what someone is reading is good or not or whether it aids in their intellectual development. That doesn’t matter. Reading is an activity sought out because it brings something to someone. That we become obsessed with trying to define what that something is is in and of itself the problem.

This goes to a bigger issue worth touching on: we live in a world where the louder you are and the more you talk, the more perception of power you have. Where the more you produce, the more you’re valued. It’s unfair, but it’s true. We’re a world that focuses heavily on the notion of product and of end result and one that shies away from thinking about or exploring process in and of itself. We want a tangible outcome, a defined start and finish. In being this way, so much of the beauty in the act of doing something is overlooked and devalued. So often we chide ourselves if our process to do something takes a long time or requires more than we expected. Rather than allowing ourselves or others to allow the pleasure in the act of doing, we reward based on the result.

Reading is a process, not an end result.

While we can walk away with something from what we read, what matters to those who are readers is the act in and of itself. There are no better options when it comes to reading. There are only other options. There is no shame in liking what you like and there is no shame in enjoying reading for what it is: an action.

Want to read more about how it’s okay to like what you like? Spend a little time with Liz’s post and Sarah’s post.