Review of Queer Anxieties of Young Adult Literature and Culture

Abstract

Derritt Mason writes in his Introduction to Queer Anxieties of Young Adult Literature and Culture, “I hope to move beyond a conception of queer YA as a literary genre grounded in visibility and coherent sexual identity, arguing instead for an affective trans-media approach that complicates and enhances the way we […] think and write about queer YA, children’s literature, and genre” (18). Mason opens his examination of YA literature and culture by highlighting the work of Frances Hanckel and John Cunningham, noting that the “important work of positively role modeling gay youth and properly educating heterosexual readers […] is undone by the persistent twinning of homosexuality and hopelessness” (3). As educators, librarians, scholars, and other critics of YA literature work to evaluate queer representation within the field, some, such as Michael Cart and Christine Jenkins, make note of the belief that queer literature can and should continue to grow and improve, that the anxieties which have existed for decades can be addressed and fixed, creating a literature that is positive and helpful. Mason argues, “YA critics desire a version of the genre that will provide young readers with the fictional role models ostensibly necessary to their thriving. For queer YA’s young protagonists, however, the future is often managed by anxiously delaying its arrival” (14). It is this tension between the desire for forward movement and the stalling of the present, while looking to an uncertain queer future, that Mason turns to throughout the remainder of the text.

Keywords

• queer ya
• ya studies
• queer anxieties
• queer theory