Hurray for YA!
Three of my favorite stories these days fall under the label ‘YA:’ Young Adult. Perhaps I’m regressing. Perhaps I’m catching up to a genre that did not own a label back when I was age-appropriate. Regardless, I love the exuberance, the freshness, the ‘everything is critically important’ intensity that YA captures. The essence of being a teenager. When the world unspools before us in endless possibility, and our mercurial feelings sizzle within our changing bodies; and we lay the foundation of the human beings we will become.
If you want a good read, I suggest It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. I’d never heard of this book which I selected from the Little Library in front of my house because I rather liked the cover. Our hero, Craig, is an over-focused junior high student who studies methodically to win a spot in a coveted NYC high school. Once there, he flounders. His floundering spirals into depression, which leads to suicidal ideation, Zoloft, ignoring Zoloft, too much pot, and an extended stay at the local psych hospital. The book is depressing, but also not. The characters on the psych ward are more eccentric and lovable than those in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The staff are human and caring. Craig’s parents are pillars of understanding. You know from the first page (the title, really) that everything is going to work out, but finding out just how satisfactorily it does is worth the journey. The lovely novel takes a notable twist after the last page, where the publisher reveals that the teenage author spent five days in an adult psych ward and wrote the book in just five weeks upon his release. What is truth and what is fiction?
If you prefer movies, one of my recent favorites is The Hate U Give (2018). I know, I know, it was a book first. But I did not read the book; only saw the movie. Perhaps the most balanced portrayal of the police violence against Black people I have seen. The story is told from the perspective of a Black girl, Starr, whose aspirational parents send her to an almost-entirely-white prep school. When a childhood (unarmed) friend is killed by a police officer during a dubious traffic stop — and Starr is the sole witness — the tension between the two communities she inhabits provide the opportunity to explore/expose every facet of the situation.
If streaming is your route, watch Heartstopper, now in its second season on Netflix. It’s kinda corny, very queer, and utterly enchanting. Nick and Charlie are the premier couple in the show, but there’s also Tara and Darcy; Tao and Elle; and even a glimmer of romance for chubby bookworm Isaac. The setting is a pair of gendered British public schools (which in the USofA means private school). Many blazers, ties, and plaids. Much kissing and never anything beyond first base. But isn’t that where all the tensions reside — in those first kisses? I can’t be sure how Heartstopper appeals to a straight audience, though I imagine it translates well. Among gay men of my age, we all watch, appalled still at the struggles young queer people must endure, even as we yearn for how these teenagers can express themselves in ways denied to us. On top of that, Olivia Coleman plays Nick’s ever supportive, ever tender mother. Where was she in 1973?
None of these YA offerings are great art. They’re something more immediate, more essential to everyday life. They each reflect the world as it exists, and illuminate positive paths to move forward in ways that always entertain, but also inform and challenge.
