arts & entertainment
Supernatural
success
Paranormal fiction gains
popularity with teens
By J. Rentilly
THE DEATH OF TEEN LITERACY has
been greatly exaggerated, as it turns out, and
it’s not only the vampire blockbuster series
Twilight taking a substantial bite out of adolescent Twittering and joysticking. Capitalizing
on the wild success of Stephenie Meyer’s
bloodsucking saga, virtually every publisher
is fast-tracking—and hitting the commercial
and critical jackpot with—young adult novels
bearing supernatural themes.
In coming months, bookshelves will be
packed with the extraordinary, teen-targeted
adventures of hunchback spies, immortal
teens, werewolves, phantasms and, of course,
more vampires.
“We’re very much in a golden age of teen
literature right now, and many of these books
are about paranormal or supernatural subject
matter,” says David Levithan, editorial director at Scholastic and a widely acclaimed
young adult (YA) author himself. “Reading
can be a great escape for teens, so the fantastical certainly feeds into that.”
Levithan believes that two literary
series—Harry Potter and Twilight—are primarily responsible for the sudden surge in
paranormal prose aimed at teenagers, stating
that “part of this trend is trickle-up”—young
readers who were hooked on J.K. Rowling’s
boy-wizard extravaganza and are looking for
more mature thrills—and “part of it is trickle-down: adult readers grabbed by Twilight who
no longer feel silly or stigmatized for reading
‘kids’ books.’ ”
Megan Tingley, senior vice president and
publisher at Little, Brown Books for Young
Readers, who also acquired and edited the
Twilight saga, agrees. “[These books] put children’s fiction on everyone’s radar screen, and
that, along with the rise of the Internet, set the
stage for the YA explosion. Suddenly, everyone was looking for another great book to
read and the media was looking for a new,
great publishing story, and the Internet provided a way for fans to share their passion for
a new author or book at lightning speed. It
was like pouring gasoline on a fire.”
So along comes Alyson Noel’s Evermore;
Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series;
the House of Night series by P.C. Cast and
daughter Kristin Cast; Kelley Armstrong’s My
Darkest Powers trilogy; and the birth of an
entirely new genre called “steampunk,” a collision of Victorian tropes, steam-pow-ered technology and high
adventure, as epitomized in
Arthur Slade’s The Hunchback
Assignments. Many of these
authors also pen adult fiction,
but are particularly enamored of
their prom-bound readership.
“Teen readers are fiercely loyal
to authors, they read a lot of the
books, they recommend a lot of
books and they really treat reading
as a significant, not just a leisure,
activity,” says Clare, bestselling
author of the Mortal Instruments series,
which features vampires, demons and
Shadow-hunters in a battle for the
future of the human race.
The keys to captivating teen readers, according to most successful YA
authors interviewed for this story, are
clear, clean storytelling; honoring
readers’ intelligence and never writing
down to them; and characters, characters,
characters. Alyson Noel, whose Evermore
deals with star-crossed lovers who possess
otherworldly powers, says, “It’s important to
keep the writing honest and authentic.
Today’s teens are smart and savvy, and no
matter how fantastical the world the author
creates, readers want to connect with the
characters in a very real way.”
The powerful relationships readers create
with their fictional doppelgangers account for
the large number of YA series. Few YA
smashes are one-hit wonders; instead, they
are part of a trilogy or more, not only for
commercial reasons, but also because readers
e
adventure, as epitomized in
authors also pen adult fiction,
as a significant, not just a leisure,
which features vampires, demons and
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n
readers’ intelligence and never writing
The Costco Connection
A variety of young adult fiction with
paranormal plots and characters will be
available in most Costco warehouses and
Costco.com in September and October.
L.J. Smith’s series The Vampire Diaries has been turned into a TV series, which premieres this month.
crave that ongoing relationship.
“Readers form connec-
tions with the characters, and
they want to stay with them.
An annual book is like an
annual visit from an old friend.
That may be even stronger with
teens,” says Bitten author Kelley
Armstrong. “They’re at the point
in their lives where relationships
are vitally important, and that
may extend into their relationship
with a beloved series character.”
But why do so many of these books
grapple with zombies and vampires and
ghosts? “Most teens feel alienated in high
school, so the idea of actually being—or
meeting—an alien or a witch or a ghost is
actually relatable to them,” says Little,
Brown’s Tingley. “They think their lives are
boring, and the supernatural world is more
interesting and provides a means of escape
from everything they don’t like about their
own lives.”
But House of Night author P.C. Cast, who
relishes reinventing vampire lore, believes the
entire process begins with an author being
true to him- or herself, regardless of the tar-
geted age group. “The thing that makes these
books good is that, for each one, I tell the
story I want to read,” she says. “Other readers,
young or old, follow from there.” C
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J. Rentilly is a Los Angeles–based journalist
who writes about film, music and literature.
