Here is a new post from guest writer Kati about the shift of the “teen trash novel.” We hope Kati continues to write such insightful pieces! - Stephanie

As I’ve been picking up lots of inexpensive teen paperbacks in outdoor book sales this summer, ranging from the Beverly Gray mysteries of the 1930s-1950s to the Sweet Dreams romances of the 1980s, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about young adult novels for girls and how (and if) they’ve really changed that much over the years. There has definitely been a shift from the idealization of the wholesome Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames types who, while insufferable at times, were mostly identified by their intelligence, competence and dedication to their chosen lines of work, love for families and friends and, ok, glowing cheeks, trim figures, and titian hair. The YA novels today that are enjoying the most attention belong to the Sweet Valley High school of teen trash but there are some important differences. While the Sweet Valley series was far from socially conscious, realistic, or progressive, it was really just a throwaway trifle, and at the end of the day, the cruel and materialistic characters were ridiculed and the good, caring, and self-sacrificing characters prevailed.

There have been many essays and articles about the controversial so-called problem novels for girls, featuring sex, drugs, self-destruction, and suburban anomie. It seems, however, that there are really at least two types of novels that are really being discussed here. There is the escape novel (The Gossip Girls; Rainbow Party) and the refuge novel (Cut; Luna). The refuge novels provide mirrors for those teens who are usually marginalized in mass culture. There is huge variety in such novels and much to be said about them, but that’s for another day. As far as the trashy escape novels go, anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that girls (and women?) read The Gossip Girls and other books of its ilk because they want to exit their own dull lives absent of excitement, whippet-thin beauty, scandal, glamour, and of course, scads of money. They want to become the white, heterosexual, rich, conventionally beautiful, sophisticated characters therein. The “characters” however, are mostly just collections of physical descriptions (“Cammie had bee-stung lips and deep-set honey colored eyes. Naturally slender, her legs went on forever. True, she’d purchased the 34C breasts and had her ordinary brown hair chemically transformed into that riot of fiery curls, but so what? The total package screamed goddess”The A-List, 69) addictions/bad habits (bulimia, alcohol, smoking, drugs, cosmetic surgery) and brand names (Starbucks, Chanel, Eres, Gucci, Lexus, Jimmy Choo, Cristal, Barney’s). The take-away here is that a certain prescribed beauty and the purchase of many choice items determine the high value of these girls, yet they necessitate and thereby validate falsity, cruelty, and self-destruction.

One of the real problems I see here and in most mainstream media content and resources for young people, is the intersection between hyper-sexualization and corporate colonization of the teen’s unique and different bodies and desires. I wish there existed mainstream teen literature that could both allow girls and women to be sexual without punishing them and also provide a space that wasn’t so slavish to the joys of capitalism. Librarians and libraries are in a bind. The librarian who doesn’t want to push literature that celebrates socioeconomic ills may turn off a reluctant reader. I do not agree with people who say, “As long as they’re reading…” I think message matters more than the medium and that only reading trash is not any better than watching trash. It is important to make less harmful literature appealing to teens without denigrating their choices. Librarians and teachers must present alternative choices to teens (and children and adults) who are awash in media that provides the pleasure of oppression.