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Get Genrefied: Magical Realism

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Kimberly and I are on the same page when it comes to writing about genre, which we’ve been doing through this Get Genrefied series. It’s so much fun. I’ve been especially appreciating thinking about genre in terms of my own reading experiences. I like to think about the first time I read a book in a particular genre and how it may or may not have impacted my feelings toward that genre.

This month, we’re tackling magical realism. It’s a genre that has specific roots that are fascinating and it’s a genre that’s been popping up more and more throughout YA fiction. It’s also a genre I happen to have a lot of warm feelings toward, thanks to the first time I read a book that could fall into this genre: Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate. This book was one I obsessed over in high school and still think about periodically. I love how real it is and yet what made the book so powerful for me was that it was completely unreal too.

Magical realism is a genre that flirts with a number of genre lines and expectations. It’s not fantasy, nor is it science fiction. It’s not wholly realistic and it’s also not entirely historical. It blends all of these things and it touches on none of them at the same time. David Carr, in an article written for Novelist, notes that magical realism “contradicts the reader’s normal expectation of time, space, or gravity, unexpectedly recounting secular miracles and human enchantments as everyday occasions.” In other words, the world within a novel defined as magical realism is as real as ours and the magical things that happen within that world feel real because they’re just part of that world. Things we might otherwise find weird or jarring are normal within the pages of the story.

What readers tend to find appealing about magical realism is that it’s a blend of the real world and the possible/impossible world. There’s a big sense of mystery but not in the sense of needing a resolution; it’s inviting readers to question what is or isn’t magical about the world around us and it encourages a sense of wonder. There’s not necessarily world-building that happens. The magic is built right into the world around us instead, adding a touch of the surreal to the everyday. To quote Carr again, “The strange and confounding moments of this imaginative and adventurous literary genre may appeal to strong readers who seek intellectual pleasure beyond reading pure fantasy, readers who do not depend on literal explanations for satisfying literary experiences, and yet who are not escapist readers.” While I don’t love some of the qualifiers in this explanations, the take away is that magical realism appeals to those who aren’t necessarily seeking a story set outside our own world and those who don’t require an explanation for strange occurrences within a real world setting. It’s a genre that’s subtle, rather than overt.

The genre has roots in Latin American literature, though it’s been around for a long time. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is credited with writing the novel that best defines all of the features of magical realism in 100 Years of Solitude. Other authors who have written well-known magical realism novels you may be familiar with include Laura Esquivel, Isabel Allende, Jorge Luis Borges, as well as Italo Calvino, Alice Hoffman, and Pete Hamill. Other authors who have been credited with writing magical realism prior to the real growth and recognition of the genre in the 20th century include Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, and Jonathan Swift. In terms of very contemporary writers, Aimee Bender is another magical realist writer and Haruki Murakami is as well (both happen to fall on my list of personal favorite authors because they do this genre in such interesting ways).

While it’s been around in adult fiction for a while, magical realism hasn’t been huge in young adult fiction. Part of why that may be is because magical realism is simply hard to define. Another part might be that books which could be labeled magical realism may not be labeled because whether they’re magical realism or straight realism is left up to the reader and his/her interpretation of the book. What’s equally interesting is that in doing research on magical realism in YA fiction, there’s surprisingly little being said about it. It exists, but there’s not a whole lot, and we’re not talking a whole lot about it.

Here’s a roundup of some of those worthwhile reads:

  • I’m not entirely sure I’d call magical realism a subgenre rather than one in its own right, in part because of the reasons why this post explains (“it’s either general or speculative, depending on how you choose to see it”). But I like the tropes discussion here and the titles offered. 
In short, magical realism is complex, people are interested in it, people are writing about it, but people aren’t necessarily entirely clear on how to best define what it is. It’s literary writing that weaves magic into the everyday with a thread of history. 

Here’s a roundup of YA titles that could be defined as magical realism. Of course, what we’re calling magical realism may be wholly realistic to some readers and may be entirely speculative or fantastic to others. Because it seems like a genre that isn’t huge within YA, we pulled recent and backlist titles to flesh this out. All descriptions are from WorldCat, and we would be eager to not only hear about other titles which might be classified as magical realism in YA, but we’d love to hear about other sites or resources that have discussed this elusive and appealing category of fiction.

Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma: Two years after sixteen-year-old Chloe discovered classmate London’s dead body floating in a Hudson Valley reservoir, she returns home to be with her devoted older sister Ruby, a town favorite, and finds that London is alive and well, and that Ruby may somehow have brought her back to life and persuaded everyone that nothing is amiss.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton: Born with bird wings, Ava Lavender is well aware that love has long made fools of her family. When pious Nathaniel Sorrows mistakes her bird wings for angel wings, 16-year-old Ava faces the man’s growing obsession, which comes to a head with the rain and feathers that fly through the air during a nighttime summer solstice celebration.

Everybody Sees The Ants by AS King: Overburdened by his parents’ bickering and a bully’s attacks, fifteen-year-old Lucky Linderman begins dreaming of being with his grandfather, who went missing during the Vietnam War, but during a visit to Arizona, his aunt and uncle and their beautiful neighbor, Ginny, help him find a new perspective.

Please Ignore Vera Dietz by AS King: When her best friend, whom she secretly loves, betrays her and then dies under mysterious circumstances, high school senior Vera Dietz struggles with secrets that could help clear his name.

There is a very solid argument in that all of AS King’s books could be magical realism, too, but I pulled out two outstanding examples. 

Lark by Tracey Porter: When sixteen-year-old Lark is murdered, she, her childhood best friend Eva, and a girl she used to babysit, Nyetta, find themselves facing hard truths about their lives and seeking a way to move on.

Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz: Rudy’s life is flipped upside-down when his family moves to a remote, magical island in a last attempt to save his sick younger brother, Dylan. While Dylan recovers, Rudy sinks deeper and deeper into his loneliness. 

*In my reading, Teeth is straight fantasy. But I’ve seen this pop up on multiple lists as being magical realism, so I’m including it because I think it’s a case of personal definition of genre.

Boxers by Gene Luen Yang: In China in 1898 bands of foreign missionaries and soldiers roam the countryside, bullying and robbing Chinese peasants. Little Bao has had enough: harnessing the powers of ancient Chinese gods, he recruits an army of Boxers–commoners trained in kung fu who fight to free China from “foreign devils.”

Saints by Gene Luen Yang: China, 1898. An unwanted and unwelcome fourth daughter, Four-Girl isn’t even given a proper name by her family when she’s born. She finally finds friendship– and a name, Vibiana — in the most unlikely of places: Christianity. But China is a dangerous place for Christians. The Boxer Rebellion is in full swing, and bands of young men roam the countryside, murdering Westerners and Chinese Christians alike. Torn between her nation and her Christian friends, Vibiana will have to decide where her true loyalties lie– and whether she is willing to die for her faith.

Green Angel (and sequels) by Alice Hoffman: Haunted by grief and by her past after losing her family in a fire, fifteen-year-old Green retreats into her ruined garden as she struggles to survive emotionally and physically on her own.

Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block: After a devastating earthquake destroys the West Coast, causing seventeen-year-old Penelope to lose her home, her parents, and her ten-year-old brother, she navigates a dark world, holding hope and love in her hands and refusing to be defeated.

Both Hoffman and Block have written many titles that would be considered magical realism. Hoffman’s have been primarily adult fiction, but most of Block’s are YA. 

Skellig by David Almond: Unhappy about his baby sister’s illness and the chaos of moving into a dilapidated old house, Michael retreats to the garage and finds a mysterious stranger who is something like a bird and something like an angel.

Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall: In an adventure reminiscent of Homer’s Odyssey, fifteen-year-old Odilia and her four younger sisters embark on a journey to return a dead man to his family in Mexico, aided by La Llorona, but impeded by a witch, a warlock, chupacabras, and more.

Inland by Kat Rosenfield (June 12): Returning to the coast after living in the Midwest, Callie’s mysterious illness disappears, but when the water near her house begins to call her, she uncovers dangerous family secrets and jeopardizes everything and everyone she holds dear.

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby (January 2015): Eighteen-year-old Finn, an outsider in his quiet Midwestern town, is the only witness to the abduction of town favorite Roza, but his inability to distinguish between faces makes it difficult for him to help with the investigation, and subjects him to even more ridicule and bullying.

Making a List & Checking it Twice: Bucket Lists and More in YA

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An interesting microtrend that’s popped up in the last year in YA fiction is the bucket list. Either a character inherits one from a relative or friend who has died or it’s a list that’s been given to them with the understanding it’s the character’s responsibility to complete it or else fill in the blank. 

What’s been interesting about this emerging microtrend in the last year is that it’s not entirely new. It seems like bucket lists or stories where the main character works through a series of items on a list pops up periodically. There are a lot of variations on the list, too: sometimes it’s a straight bucket list that’s propelling the story forward and sometimes, it’s a list the main character keeps in order to keep his or her life in order (Amy Spalding’s The Reece Malcolm List is an excellent example of this). Sometimes, the lists work for the story, and other times, it feels like the list is the only glue keeping the characters and story together. 

As someone who is a list keeper, I find the concept interesting from the start, and I think it’s something that teens who — like me — are compulsive list keepers find this element to be compelling. 

Here’s a roundup of recent YA bucket list titles, along with descriptions from WorldCat. I’ve limited to books published in 2013 and 2014. I would love to know of other titles where there are bucket lists or lists kept out in the last year, so feel free to chime in in the comments. I’d also love to know what you think of the bucket list/list usage in books. What are some of the best ones? Which ones haven’t worked so well? 

Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy: Alice is ready to go out in a blaze of glory, but then she discovers she’s in remission from cancer and she must deal with all of the mistakes she’s made and the people she’s hurt. 

The F-it List by Julie Halpern: When Becca does something nearly unforgivable at Alex’s dad’s funeral, Alex cuts ties with her and focuses on her grieving family. Time passes, and Alex learns Becca has cancer. It also turns out Becca has a bucket list, one she doesn’t know she’ll be able to finish now. That’s where Alex comes in, along with a mysterious and guarded boy who just may help Alex check a few items off her own bucket list.

Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson: Quiet Emily’s sociable and daring best friend, Sloane, has disappeared leaving nothing but a random list of bizarre tasks for her to complete, but with unexpected help from popular classmate Frank Porter, Emily gives them a try.

There Will Come A Time by Carrie Arcos: Overwhelmed by grief and guilt after his twin sister Grace’s accidental death, seventeen-year-old Mark Santos is persuaded by her best friend to complete the “bucket list” from Grace’s journal.

Goodbye, Rebel Blue by Shelley Coriell: Rebecca “Rebel” Blue, a loner rebel and budding artist, reluctantly completes the bucket list of Kennedy Green, an over-committed do-gooder classmate who dies in a car accident following a stint in detention where both girls were forced to consider their morality and write bucket lists.

Nantucket Red by Leila Howland: Before starting college, Cricket Thompson returns to Nantucket for a summer filled with hard choices and infinite possibility. (This description tells you nothing about the list, which is a Life List that Cricket finds). 

May Debut YA Novels

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Time to sink your teeth into this month’s debut YA novels. Like usual, I’m sticking to the very strict definition of debut: it is the author’s first novel ever. I did not include any novels that were the author’s first YA title or their first under a pseudonym. I did include one novel this month that was published abroad last year and is being published for the first time in the US since it was her first novel.

As usual, it’s possible I’ve missed a major title or two, so feel free to let me know in the comments. All descriptions are from WorldCat unless otherwise noted. 

Camelot Burning by Kathryn Rose: Eighteen-year-old Vivienne, lady-in-waiting to the future queen Guinevere, is secretly apprenticed to Merlin the magician and helps him try to create a steam-powered metal beast to defeat Morgan La Fey, King Arthur’s sorceress sister, when she declares war on Camelot.

Infinite Sky by CJ Flood: When Iris’ mum leaves home, her brother, Sam, goes off the rails and her dad is left trying to hold it all together. So when a family of travellers sets up camp illegally in front of their farm, its the catalyst for a stand-off that can only end in disaster. But to Iris it’s an adventure. She secretly strikes up a friendship with the gypsy boy, Trick, and discovers home can be something as simple as a carved out circle in a field of corn. (Via Goodreads). 

These Gentle Wounds by Helene Dunbar: Fifteen-year-old Gordie is trying to build a new life after tragically losing his family, but when his abusive father returns, Gordie must confront the traumas of the past. 



End Times by Anna Schumacher: When life in Detroit becomes too hard to bear, Daphne flees to her Uncle Floyd’s home in Carbon County, Wyoming, but instead of solace she finds tumult as the townsfolk declare that the End Times are here, and she may be the only person who can read the signs and know the truth.

Oblivion by Sasha Dawn: Sixteen-year-old Callie Knowles fights her compulsion to write constantly, even on herself, as she struggles to cope with foster care, her mother’s life in a mental institution, and her belief that she killed her father, a minister, who has been missing for a year.

One Man Guy by Michael Barakiva: When Alek’s high-achieving, Armenian-American parents send him to summer school, he thinks his summer is ruined. But then he meets Ethan, who opens his world in a series of truly unexpected ways.  



A Girl Called Fearless by Catherine Linka: After a synthetic hormone in beef kills fifty million American women, seventeen-year-old Avie struggles for a normal life in a world where teenage girls are a valuable commodity, but when her father contracts her to marry a rich, older man, Avie decides to run away with her childhood friend and revolutionary, Yates.

The Falconer by Elizabeth May: Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, was destined for a life carefully planned around Edinburgh’s social events – right up until a faery killed her mother. Now it’s the 1844 winter season and Aileana slaughters faeries in secret, in between the endless round of parties, tea and balls. Armed with modified percussion pistols and explosives, she sheds her aristocratic facade every night to go hunting. She’s determined to track down the faery who murdered her mother, and to destroy any who prey on humans in the city’s many dark alleyways. But the balance between high society and her private war is a delicate one, and as the fae infiltrate the ballroom and Aileana’s father returns home, she has decisions to make. How much is she willing to lose – and just how far will Aileana go for revenge? Kimberly’s Review. 

Wish You Were Italian by Kristin Rae: Seventeen-year-old Pippa Preston, sent to Italy for a three-month art history program, decides instead to see the country on her own, armed with a list of such goals as eating an entire pizza and falling in love with an Italian, but soon finds herself attracted both to a dangerous local boy and an American archaeology student.



Killing Ruby Rose by Jessie Humphries: Ruby Rose, a 17-year-old Southern California girl known for her killer looks and killer SAT scores, becomes a vigilante who is also being hunted.

The Eighth Guardian by Meredith McCardle: Amanda Obermann. Code name Iris. It’s Testing Day. The day that comes without warning, the day when all juniors and seniors at The Peel Academy undergo a series of intense physical and psychological tests to see if they’re ready to graduate and become government operatives. Amanda and her boyfriend Abe are top students, and they’ve just endured thirty-six hours of testing. But they’re juniors and don’t expect to graduate. That’ll happen next year, when they plan to join the CIA—together. But when the graduates are announced, the results are shocking. Amanda has been chosen—the first junior in decades. And she receives the opportunity of a lifetime: to join a secret government organization called the Annum Guard and travel through time to change the course of history. But in order to become the Eighth Guardian in this exclusive group, Amanda must say good-bye to everything—her name, her family, and even Abe—forever. Who is really behind the Annum Guard? And can she trust them with her life? (via Goodreads). 

While We Run by Karen Healey

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Karen Healey writes killer speculative fiction. I think I liked While We Run even better than I liked the first book, which was fantastic anyway. When We Wake had an ending, but an open-ended one, making this sequel welcome but not required. This time, the story is told from Abdi’s point of view, and it begins a few months after the first book ended. I don’t want to share too much, but I will say that things aren’t great – Abdi and Tegan are in government custody and are being manipulated and tortured into being mouthpieces. They have a plan to get away – but at what cost? And what will they need to do once they’re free?

Much of what makes dystopias so powerful is their connection to our own present-day issues. If you read a synopsis of a dystopia and it makes you roll your eyes, it’s probably because the premise lacks this connection. This is not the speculative fiction Healey writes. Her future world is believable because of the way it differs from the present. She’s taken the issues we grapple with now (or avoid grappling with now) and shown how they could progress, how they could worsen – or perhaps get better. She doesn’t focus on any one thing, either, addressing climate change, government and corporate power, class, race, the effects of colonialism and globalization. The result is a complex future world with a variety of problems big and small, and a diverse group of people struggling with them.

Abdi and Tegan grapple with so very much in this volume. Is collateral damage – any amount – acceptable, even for a just cause? Is complete recovery from trauma possible? At what point does reading people too well become manipulation? How the heck do you fix a world? This stuff is hard. In some cases, there aren’t any good answers. It’s a lot for teenagers to handle; it’s also precisely the kind of thing teen readers see going on in their world.

From a thematic standpoint, this book rocks it. From a craft standpoint, it’s terrific as well. Abdi’s narrative is heartbreaking at times. I feel like sometimes writers of dystopias will have their characters go through really horrible stuff and then gloss over any sort of lasting effects it may have. Healey refuses to do this – it’s obvious Abdi is traumatized by his time in captivity and Healey lets him go through it. She makes us as readers feel it, too. And of course, the plot, which features cryonics and lots of government secrets, is exciting and well-paced, too.

Many of the characters from When We Wake return in the sequel, which means the book is quite diverse. Abdi is a black protagonist, an atheist, the son of Muslims. His three friends are a white semi-religious Christian girl (Tegan), a devout Muslim girl (Bethari), and a transgender girl (Joph). Far from feeling like a checklist, this cast simply feels like the people who exist. You know, the people you see when you take a look at your own community.

Readers who may feel they’ve exceeded their threshold for dystopias and books featuring shitty futures would do well to take a look at this series, which breathes new life into the subgenre. It’s worlds removed from books that bear a striking resemblance to this fun little joke.

Review copy received from the publisher. While We Run is available May 27.

Life By Committee by Corey Ann Haydu

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Tabitha is lonely.

Over the last few months — the last year or so, really — things in her life have changed quite a bit. Her parents, who had her when they were mere teenagers themselves, are expecting a new baby. Tab’s body has changed significantly, too. She’s developed a shape, including boobs, that have garnered attention. She’s gotten so much attention, in fact, that it’s the reason her former friends have ditched her. They think she’s turned into a slutty girl, now that she’s got the appearance of one.

And maybe Tab has changed more than just in her appearance. She can’t seem to stop thinking about Joe, the boy who has a girlfriend named Sasha.

The boy who admitted to liking her late one night.

The boy who kissed her.

Enter Life By Committee: an anonymous, online group of teens who make a deal to keep each other’s secrets safe and secure in exchange for following through with an assignment meant to help the secret teller stretch him or herself. There is a time limit to completing the assignments and failure to complete means those secrets may not be kept safe.

Tab finds Life By Committee by accident. She’s obsessed with note taking in novels — her way of close reading — and she likes to then exchange the book she’s written in for copies of other favorite books to see what other people have written in the margins. It was in flipping through a used copy of The Secret Garden her dad picked up for her she found out about the site.

Corey Ann Haydu’s sophomore novel Life By Committee tackles some interesting aspects of growing up and learning how to navigate the social dynamics that accompany physical change. Tab lives in a small Vermont town where everyone knows everyone else, or so it seems. When her body begins to develop, she’s on the outs with her friends because of the assumptions they make about what her having that sort of body means. Because she’s blonde and because she’s well-developed, they believe she’s heading on a path that means she’s more interested in the attention of boys than she is in being a friend.

In some ways, her friends are right and in other ways, they’re not. Their assumptions impress ideas upon Tabitha, who is indeed interested in boys, including Joe. But Tab also has another boy she’s been interested in, and he happens to be the brother of one of her now-former best friends. So indeed, she is interested in boys, but her interest in them isn’t at the level her friends have suggested. Because we’re inside Tabitha’s mind, too, we’re able to see where she begins to struggle with the perception of who she is and the reality of who she is and what she wants.

She likes these boys, but she’s torn about how much she likes them and why she likes them. Physical contact with Joe feels nice, but the emotional intimacy she develops with him via their online chats is nice too. She’s well-aware, too, of what comes with Joe: his girlfriend Sasha. Does Tab feel bad about making out with a boy who is taken? Yes and no. She knows it’s not right, but she also believes Joe when he tells her he’s not that into Sasha anymore.

When Tab dives into Life By Committee, her first assignment comes as a result of her admitting to kissing Joe even though he has a girlfriend. She’s told she needs to kiss him again, and she does. While she doesn’t do it immediately, she does complete the job before deadline, and in doing so, she’s afforded more opportunity to think about what it is she may want in a relationship with him.

Her second secret and second assignment has to do with her father, who has a problem with smoking pot. This secret, one that Tab held deep inside her, is met with the assignment that she’s to smoke pot with him. It’s not meant to get her high nor meant to show her some new side of why he chooses to do what he does to cope with life; it’s instead meant to be a wakeup call to her father — and it becomes just that, too.

What Tab takes from Life By Committee, though, isn’t so much the secret-telling and the assignment-completing. It’s instead a sense of community. Even though she’s at a distance, she finds herself drawn to the other anonymous people partaking in this online group. Who are they? What do their secrets say about them? How and where are they able to complete these assignments and what does success for them look like beyond the assignments? Are they finding love? Happiness? Creative fulfillment?

The idea of Life By Committee comes together in the end of the book, and because it’d be spoiler to explain what happened, I won’t. I will say I saw it coming from pretty far away, and I felt that it was almost too neat a bow on top of the story. I don’t know if that will be the case for all readers, particularly teens, who might see the ending as the kind of outcome Tabitha deserved to have for herself. For me, the idea of Life By Committee more broadly felt a little too convenient and a little too styled in terms of crafting a bigger narrative arc than I prefer. It wasn’t that it was too easy for Tabitha, but rather, it felt a little too easy for getting Tabitha from point A to point B in the story.

Life By Committee‘s strength lies in its character development and in the way it renders how painful it is to feel lonely and like you do not have friends you can rely on. But it’s done in a way that’s smart: Tabitha isn’t necessarily an easily likable character, but she’s easy to feel sympathy and empathy for. This is a girl who is knowingly pursuing a boy who has a girlfriend and Tabitha seems determined to find every bit of Sasha that’s repulsive or annoying and pack it away as evidence for why it’s okay for her to pursue Joe — even though she knows deep down it’s not okay. At the same time, Joe leads Tab on very clearly, and it’s hard to dislike what she does completely because she’s getting all the cues that it’s okay with him. Likewise, Tab’s home life and the changes to come soon because of the new baby, only make her emotional and mental states more complex.

Haydu does well in tackling the complicated body image elements with Tab. In many ways, it was novel to read a book where one becomes so conscious of themselves and the physical changes they’re going through in a way that’s not about weight. It’s about shape and about the way people react to one another during puberty. In many ways, this hit really close to home for me: Tab talks about clothing and how now that she has a different shape, people have commented upon how it’s not appropriate for her to be wearing certain things because it could draw unwanted attention. As a girl who developed large breasts when I was young, this is something I found myself being told quite a bit, and it was something that always made me feel a sense of shame because so little could deemphasize the fact my body now had a new shape. That shame and that sense of wanting to crawl inside yourself because of changes you have absolutely no control over were palpable through Tab and her experiences.

Some of the secondary characters weren’t fully developed, and I didn’t necessarily find myself compelled by the budding romance in the story — either the one Tab has with Joe (if that could be considered a romance) or the one that we find out may exist between Tab and another boy. I wanted to get to know Sasha better, primarily because I felt she was redeemed later on in the story in such a way that she seemed like a really interesting character. Tab’s limited perspective and insight on her as simply the weird girl who is Joe’s girlfriend left me wanting a little more.

Pass Life By Committee on to readers who like realistic YA and who are particularly eager for stories about friendship — or what happens when friendships go sour. Perhaps more than a book about friendship, Haydu’s novel is really about peer relationships and the sorts of feedback loops that exist within them. Fans of Siobhan Vivian should really enjoy Life By Committee.

Review copy received from the publisher. Life By Committee is available now.