Last fall I did a post about microtrends in YA fiction, which talked about themes or topics that were popping up in a few YA books at the same time, even if the stories weren’t necessarily comparable or read alikes to one another. I thought it would be fun to revisit this post again, with a new crop of microtrends I’ve noticed in YA fiction over the last year.

All descriptions come from WorldCat or Goodreads.

Reality TV


Reality television as the backdrop or premise of a YA novel isn’t entirely new. But what’s been interesting is that a couple of the books here look at the effects of reality television on the main characters, rather than on the characters being involved with reality television as the story unfolds. 

Reality Boy by AS King (out in October): An emotionally damaged seventeen-year-old boy in Pennsylvania who was once an infamous reality television show star, meets a girl from another dysfunctional family, and she helps him out of his angry shell. 

Taste Test by Kelly Fiore: While attending a New Hampshire culinary academy, North Carolina high schooler Nora suspects someone of sabotaging the academy’s televised cooking competition.

You Look Different in Real Life by Jennifer Castle: Five teens starring in a documentary film series about their ordinary lives must grapple with questions of change and identity under the scrutiny of the camera.  (Okay, technically, this is a documentary film series but it plays out like “reality television” would).

Flash Point by Nancy Kress: Amy had dreams of going to college, until the Collapse destroyed the economy and her future. Now she is desperate for any job that will help support her terminally ill grandmother and rebellious younger sister. When she finds herself in the running for a slot on a new reality TV show, she signs on the dotted line, despite her misgivings. And she’s right to have them. TLN’s “Who Knows People, Baby–You?” has an irresistible premise: correctly predict what the teenage cast will do in a crisis and win millions. But the network has pulled strings to make it work, using everything from 24/7 hidden cameras to life-threatening technology to flat-out rigging. Worse, every time the ratings slip, TLN ups the ante. Soon Amy is fighting for her life–on and off camera.

Pizza, Love, and Other Stuff that Made Me Famous by Kathryn Williams: Although sixteen-year-old Sophie has grown up working in her family’s Mediterranean restaurant in Washington, D.C., she is not prepared to compete on the new reality show, Teen Test Kitchen, when her best friend Alex convinces her to audition. 

These aren’t the first reality show based YA novels, of course. Older titles, for those who love this storyline in their books, include: 

• Reality Check by Jen Calonita
• L.A. Candy series by Lauren Conrad
• The Real Real by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
• Stir It Up by Ramin Ganeshram

Eat, Pray, Love for Teens


Two books recently were either pitched as — or further compared to in some capacity — Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. In other words, these are female-led stories where the main character goes on some kind of adventure to find herself. I know that’s a pretty generic description, so I get why creating the comparison to Gilbert’s book actually says more about the story. But do teens get that reference? I’d be curious about that. 

Return to Me by Justina Chen: Always following her parents’ wishes and ignoring her psychic inner voice takes eighteen-year-old Rebecca Muir from her beloved cottage and boyfriend on Puget Sound to New York City, where revelations about herself and her family help her find a path to becoming the architect she wants to be.

The Year of Luminous Love by Lurlene McDaniel: Eighteen-year-olds Ciana Beauchamp, Arie Winslow, and Eden McLauren of Tennessee rely on their close friendship as they face serious problems the summer before they start college, from parents’ illnesses, to cancer, to two loving the same cowboy.

Physics


When’s the last time you read about physics for fun? That’s popped up a couple of times in young adult fiction this year. Either the main character likes physics or there’s a literary reason behind the use of physics in tying the story together in some way.

Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn: A lonely teenager exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of a family tragedy must either surrender his sanity to the wild wolves inside his mind or learn that surviving means more than not dying.

The Theory of Everything by Kari Luna: When fourteen-year-old Sophie Sophia journeys to New York with a scientific boy genius, a Kerouac-loving bookworm, and a giant shaman panda guide, she discovers more about her visions, string theory, and a father who could be the key to an extraordinary life.

Sticky Fingers


Who knew that kleptomaniacs were so abundant in YA fiction? I think this is an interesting thread running through recent titles, actually, and I think part of my interest is that it’s maybe a bit of an under-explored theme in YA fiction in recent years. 

Death of a Kleptomaniac by Kristen Tracy:  A sixteen-year-old girl with the uncontrollable urge to steal is trapped in limbo with three days before her funeral to find redemption and true love.

Life After Theft by Aprilynne Pike: Jeff is the new guy in school and the only one who can see Kimberlee, a ghost with a lot of (stolen) baggage. To help her move on, Jeff must return everything she stole when she was alive. But being Kimberlee’s accomplice turns into more than he bargained for when his crush and the cops get involved.

Trinkets by Kirsten Smith: When three Lake Oswego High School girls from different social groups, good-girl Elodie, popular Tabitha, and tough Moe, meet in a rehabilitation group, they discover they have much more in common than shoplifting.

Want a few older books featuring teen shoplifters? 

• Living on Impulse by Cara Haycak
• Klepto by Jenny Pollack
• Blonde of the Joke by Bennett Madison
• Crimes of the Sarahs by Kristen Tracy

Wandering Mothers


I’ve read many books this year where the mother just sort of disappears. But these books are a little more specific in how they’re disappearing. For two of the stories, it’s about never wanting to settle and taking the child on the road with them from an early age. For one of the stories, it’s about abandoning the family to find herself (which happens later in one of the other stories, too, just when you think mom has figured out how to settle).

Friday Never Leaving by Vikki Wakefield (September 10): Friday Brown and her mother Vivienne live their lives on the road, but when Vivienne succumbs to cancer, 17-year-old Friday decides to search for the father she never knew. Her journey takes her to a slum of orphans and runaways, ruled by a charismatic leader named Arden. 

Meet Me at the River by Nina de Gramont (October 15): Stepsiblings Tressa and Luke, close as children, fell in love as teens, and neither the disapproval of those around them nor even Luke’s death can keep them apart as long as Tressa needs him.

September Girls by Bennett Madison: Vacationing in a sleepy beach town for the summer, Sam is pursued by hordes of blonde girls before falling in love with the unusual DeeDee, who compels him to uncover secrets about the community’s ocean-dwelling inhabitants.

Emily Dickinson is the new Jane Austen


Where once we couldn’t go through a publisher’s catalog without stumbling across an homage to Jane Austen (okay, we still can’t), now it seems that Emily Dickinson has become a hot commodity in YA fiction. 

And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard (January 2014): Sent to an Amherst, Massachusetts, boarding school after her ex-boyfriend shoots himself, seventeen-year-old Emily expresses herself through poetry as she relives their relationship, copes with her guilt, and begins to heal.

Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia by Jenny Torres Sanchez: Struggling to come to terms with the suicide of her crush, Andy Cooper, Frenchie obsessively retraces each step of their tumultuous final encounter and looks to the poetry of Emily Dickinson for guidance.

Emily’s Dress and Other Missing Things by Kathryn Burak: A new girl in Amherst, Massachusetts, comes to terms with her mother’s suicide and her best friend’s disappearance with the help of Emily Dickinson’s poetry–and her dress.

Nobody’s Secret by Michaela MacColl: When fifteen-year-old Emily Dickinson meets a charming, enigmatic young man who playfully refuses to tell her his name, she is intrigued–so when he is found dead in her family’s pond in Amherst she is determined to discover his secret, no matter how dangerous it may prove to be.

The Cold War Kids

I’ve talked extensively about books set in the 80s for no particular reason, but there’s a few that have come out or are coming out shortly that are set in the 80s because of one specific reason: the Cold War. The bonus of this setting — which is, at times also the drawback — is that it allows the story to be set abroad. It’s a bonus since it’s always great to have more books set outside the US but it’s a drawback because if the historical background isn’t complete enough in the book, it can easily distance the reader (remember that today’s teens likely don’t get much in their history classes beyond World War II, so the context and heft of the time period can be harder to understand).

Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy by Elizabeth Kiem: After a harrowing defection to the United States in 1982, Russian teenager Marya and her father settle in Brooklyn, where Marya is drawn into a web of intrigue involving her gift of foresight, her mother’s disappearance, and a boy she cannot bring herself to trust.

The Boy on the Bridge by Natalie Standiford: It is 1982 and nineteen-year-old Laura Reid is spending a semester in Leningrad studying Russian, but when she meets Alyosha she discovers the dissident Russia–a world of wild parties, underground books and music, love, and constant danger.

Going Over by Beth Kephart (2014): In the early 1980s Ada and Stefan are young, would-be lovers living on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall–Ada lives with her mother and grandmother and paints graffiti on the Wall, and Stefan lives with his grandmother in the East and dreams of escaping to the West.

The Cold War is a less-explored time frame within YA fiction, but it’s not entirely new, either. A couple of older titles include:

• Rose Sees Red by Cecil Castellucci
• Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet (at least one of the timelines is during the Cold War)

Have you noticed any other microtrends over the last year? Others I’ve seen include schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder, as well as books set on islands (which I’ve written about before but may revisit since it’s continued to be a popular setting). Or maybe can you think of other books out in the last 12 months which might fit any of the trends I’ve listed above? 

Current YA seems to be full of girls who can’t remember who they are. Or perhaps if they can remember who they are, they don’t remember the past five years, or five weeks, or five hours. Usually, someone is trying to kill them, and the clue to who and why lies in the lost memories.

After reading The Testing and The Program in quick succession, I realized that amnesia is a pretty huge topic right now in YA fiction. I can see the appeal – it adds automatic suspense and a sense of the mysterious. At the same time, it can be a bit of a cheat (memories come rushing back and all problems are solved!), and it often leads to a disappointing reveal.

Below are just a smattering of titles published within the last twelve months, plus a few upcoming ones we’ll get later in 2013. I think it’s pretty remarkable there are so many in just a little over a calendar year. If I extended the date range to two or three years, there’d be even more (such as Cat Patrick’s Forgotten or Elizabeth Scott’s As I Wake). So many! Descriptions come from Worldcat.

Don’t Turn Around by Michelle Gagnon (August 2012)
After waking up on an operating table with no memory of how she got
there, Noa must team up with computer hacker Peter to stop a corrupt
corporation with a deadly secret. Kimberly’s review

All the Broken Pieces by Cindi Madsen (December 2012)
Following a car accident, Liv comes out of a coma with no memory of her
past and two distinct, warring voices inside her head. As she stumbles
through her junior year, the voices get louder until Liv meets Spencer,
whose own mysterious past also has him on the fringe.

Hysteria by Megan Miranda (February 2013)
After stabbing and killing her boyfriend, sixteen-year-old Mallory, who
has no memory of the event, is sent away to a boarding school to escape
the gossip and threats, but someone or something is following her.

Pretty Girl-13 by Liz Coley (March 2013)
Sixteen-year-old Angie finds herself in her neighborhood with no
recollection of her abduction or the three years that have passed since,
until alternate personalities start telling her their stories through
letters and recordings. Kelly’s review

Unremembered by Jessica Brody (March 2013)
A girl, estimated to be sixteen, awakens with amnesia in the wreckage of
a plane crash she should not have survived and taken into foster care,
and the only clue to her identity is a mysterious boy who claims she was
part of a top-secret science experiment. Kimberly’s review

The Program by Suzanne Young (April 2013)
When suicide becomes a worldwide epidemic, the only known cure is The
Program, a treatment in which painful memories are erased, a fate worse
than death to seventeen-year-old Sloane who knows that The Program will
steal memories of her dead brother and boyfriend.

Arclight by Josin L. McQuein (April 2013)

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau (June 2013)
Sixteen-year-old Malencia (Cia) Vale is chosen to participate in The
Testing to attend the University; however, Cia is fearful when she
figures out her friends who do not pass The Testing are disappearing. Kimberly’s review

The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die by April Henry (June 2013)
She doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t know where she is, or why. All
she knows when she comes to in a ransacked cabin is that there are two
men arguing over whether or not to kill her. And that she must run.
Follow Cady and Ty (her accidental savior turned companion), as they
race against the clock to stay alive.

Another Little Piece by Kate Karyus Quinn (June 2013)
A year after vanishing from a party, screaming and drenched in blood,
seventeen-year-old Annaliese Rose Gordon appears hundreds of miles from
home with no memory, but a haunting certainty that she is actually
another girl trapped in Annaliese’s body.