YA as a Genre

11/19/2025

I want to try something a little wacky tonight. I've taken note of how much you enjoyed working as a small group in the discussion board space--the work on the poems two weeks ago was really thrilling (I mean that--thrilling), and I want to try to capture that energy and enthusiasm again as we talk about Young Adult Lit.

Young Adult is a kind of genre fiction at it's heart--certainly at least in it's current iteration. We could have just as easily used YA during the week we talked about genre fiction. But, because I know so many students are active readers in the genre--and some of you imagine yourselves writing in this genre one day, I wanted it to have it's own week.

Now for the wacky part: Each of you are going to write a micro YA short story. I'm going to give you a first sentence. After that, you are off and running. I'll give you a good 10 to 15 minutes to write and post. Then you'll read what your classmates have written and posted. As you read what others have written as their short story, what do you notice the stories seem to have in common? What plot elements, character or characters, themes? Are there commonalities about language, sentence structure, POV? As you notice, post. Try to read as many of your colleagues as you can and respond.

Finally, after that, go back through the comments and comment one more time: what do these stories seem to have in common with Dear Medusa? Be specific. This is your ICRN for the week, so I need to see that you read? As you make connections to our novel this week, what, in the end, can you say seem to be the distinguishing characteristics of this particular genre?

HERE IS YOUR OPENING: On the first day of 10th grade, I stared at the back of Maria Kukowski's head. Maria Kukowski sat in front of me in every class, in every grade since I started at St Margaret Mary's. That's what happens when you have an "L" last name and someone has a "K" last name, and you both live in the same dinky town with the one dinky Catholic school. I had stared at her hair when it was dirt brown like a normal person in 3rd grade and when it had the blue streaks in 7th, and now I was staring at her bright blond highlights at the start of 10th.

Man did I hate Maria Kukowski.

30 Comments

Paul Sweeney

11/19/2025 03:51:38 pm

On the first day of 10th grade, I stared at the back of Maria Kukowski's head. Maria Kukowski sat in front of me in every class, in every grade since I started at St Margaret Mary's. That's what happens when you have an "L" last name and someone has a "K" last name, and you both live in the same dinky town with the one dinky Catholic school. I had stared at her hair when it was dirt brown like a normal person in 3rd grade and when it had the blue streaks in 7th, and now I was staring at her bright blond highlights at the start of 10th.

Man did I hate Maria Kukowski.

She was so fake. I think a lot of my classmates were fake, honestly. In 7th grade at just 13 years old she started talking about social justice and inequality, and three years later all of that had vanished alongside her "alternative" hair, replaced with the blonde you'd expect of your average popular girl. It was probably another phase. Everyone was trying to figure out what they were in this town. You had to be a "somebody" because if you had a gimmick then you at least had an identity, even though it was a place where nothing ever happened and standing out was pretty worthless.

That's why I didn't bother with it. All I did was sit there in my desk, do my work, go home, do my homework, play video games, go to bed, wake up, eat breakfast, go to school, do my work, go home, do my homework, play video games, go to bed, over and over again. There's that one SpongeBob episode where the office guy just repeats the same routine over and over again and I guess I was just preparing myself for that. Though this town didn't really have jobs where you sit behind a desk all day. It was more like you'd be working one of the farms or maybe helping out at one of the stores. If you were lucky you'd open your own, or become a teacher.

If you were really lucky, you'd just move away and only visit on the holidays, because it was that kind of town. The old people stayed behind, and the kids moved out because there was nothing for them there. Meanwhile, in the lousy Catholic schools, all of us too young to flee had to pretend that this was the only town in existence and do our best to stand out so we could feel like we were unique or something.

Maybe that's why I hated Mary Kukowski. She was trying to stand out, and now she was just like everybody else. I didn't play that game. I just kept to myself, knowing that in just a couple of years I'd be in a big college in some city miles away from here, and I could talk to my parents over the phone and not in person, because talking to them in person meant I was still living in this town, and I knew that as soon as I turned 18, I couldn't bear to live here one more instant.

So yeah, I hated Mary Kukowski quite a bit.

Glen Beaulieu

11/19/2025 04:17:09 pm

I think it's funny that we both went with the "fake" angle with Mary Kukowski! I think we also went with the sort of "outsider" angle, which I appreciate as well. Also, love the Spongebob reference!

11/19/2025 04:19:18 pm

Sorry for the double post! I think we both captured that feeling of being alienated or otherized that Alicia feels in Dear Medusa as well. I think that feeling of being out of place, surrounded by people who are still trying to figure themselves out, is a super common thing for people to feel growing up, which is why I feel it is super prevalent in YA fiction.

11/19/2025 04:21:07 pm

About that spongebob reference: that's another characteristic of YA, to include, when possible, popular culture or references that would only be understood by a certain generation, the one it is written for. If you think about it, that connects back to the conversation that started class--that each generation has it's own YA touchstones.

Isabella

11/19/2025 04:19:23 pm

Hi Paul! You really tapped into that teenage angst that's present in a lot of YA pieces, especially with the cynicism surrounding the typical 9-5 life and wanting to leave their home town. It reminds me of Alicia's attitude towards her life in the novel and how at first, she was just kind of going through the motion of things without doing much to change her circumstances. And similar to Nina's, your character seems to have some sort of jealousy towards Maria.

11/19/2025 04:26:47 pm

This speaks to a comment I make elsewhere: that YA novels are about going from a young person thinking about their problems as young people and growing up enough over the course of the novel to react to them as adults. Angst is the universal symbol of not acting like an adult in the face of difficulty. We see that a lot in Medusa. She's not a particularly likable character really.

Ashley Luise

11/19/2025 04:26:35 pm

I love how you explored coming-of-age from the perspective of wanting to get out; this is such a crucial aspect of a lot of YA lit. The Spongebob reference also stood out to me, and reminded me of the point in Dear Medusa where Tumblr is mentioned. As someone who grew up in the generations of both of these references, I felt a certain relatability, and this is an element of YA that I think is so important. Young readers want stories that focus on their experiences in the world they're living in, which both you and Dear Medusa achieve.

11/19/2025 04:03:11 pm

I didn't always hate her. Back when she had dirt brown hair we were best friends. We met in Girl Scouts because our mom's were cookie managers so for long weeks we were forced together. We were both shy back then and so it took a while, but one day she pulled out a copy of the Baby Sitter's club and I couldn't help but ask her if she was a Stacey or a Mary Anne or a Claudia. That was it. Back then, being Melissa Linewiewicz was the best because that meant I was always sitting next to Maria Kukowski. But one day, in 7th grade, she didn't show up for our regular after school book talk. We weren't reading Babysitters any more. We had just finished To Kill a Mockinbird and I wanted to talk with her about how I felt about Boo Radley, how I felt like I understood him and ask her what she would hide in the tree and all of it. But Maria never showed up and the next day, the day with the Blue Hair, she told me that she hadn't read the book and she that books "weren't a thing anymore". I keep trying to remember if it was really that sudden. And when I think about it now, maybe it wasn't. Maybe I had noticed she wasn't paying as much attention when we met--not about the books but about me. Maybe that wasn't the first time she missed a meet up. I don't know now, but then it felt like it happened in just that one instant. Maria wasn't shy after that, but I was. She had other friends who also had died bits of hair. She started painting her nails even though you weren't allowed to do that at Mary Marg. She would roll her skirts way above her knees. My mother would ask me about her sometimes, why I didn't have Maria over, and I would just say she had sports or something. But don't think that I just wasted away some like some fragile flower. I got over Maria. I joined the student newspaper and then year book and then when we started 9th grade I joined student government. I was--I am--an A student. I'm in a million AP classes that Maria was never in--not a single one. I was running for a senate seat to. represent 10th grade. I had almost forgotten about Maria Kukowski by then. until homeroom in 10th grade when she showed up bright and shiny, not a blue hair in sight. Instead, she had silvery blonde highlights in long, poker straight hair. Her nails were short and painted the faintest pale pink. Not a single sister would notice it and if they did they'd think it was just the natural pink glow of a super good student. What, I thought, was she actually up to? Then as I stared at her hair and smelled the peachy rosy stink of whatever shampool she used, Maria Kukowski, the Maria Kukowksi who had not said word one to me in five years, turned around to look at me and said "hey Missy, so good to see you. I'm running for class senate. Hope I can count on your vote."

Anna

11/19/2025 04:04:46 pm

On the first day of 10th grade, I stared at the back of Maria Kukowski's head. Maria Kukowski sat in front of me in every class, in every grade since I started at St Margaret Mary's. That's what happens when you have an "L" last name and someone has a "K" last name, and you both live in the same dinky town with the one dinky Catholic school. I had stared at her hair when it was dirt brown like a normal person in 3rd grade and when it had the blue streaks in 7th, and now I was staring at her bright blond highlights at the start of 10th.

Man did I hate Maria Kukowski.

As I stared at the bleach nightmare before me, Maria Kukowski popped her gum loudly. Chew chew chew pop. Chew chew chew pop. I hated how much I could hear her saliva moving around in her mouth, her teeth clacking with each chew.

“Kukowski, spit it out.” I think Mr. Chancellor was the only one who hated Maria more than I did.

“Sir yes sir!” Maria turned around and grinned at me, her silver tooth gem winking at me. She stuck her pointer and middle finger into her mouth and pulled out her gum, pinching the end in her teeth so the gum extended into a long, disgusting pull. She stuck the end held by her fingers onto my desk and when she was satisfied with the length of her hot pink bubble gum, she placed her fingers in her mouth once again and flicked the end on my forehead.

When she turned back around Mr. Chancellor finally saw the stringy mess before me. “Get the hell out of my class Kukowski.”
I may not be religious, but I know you probably shouldn’t say hell in a Catholic school. Maria stood up, her chair screeching obnoxiously, and strutted out of the room. When she reached the door she turned back to look at me and grinned, giving a little one-handed wave before making her way to God knows where. I felt my cheeks redden a little and pinched my leg under my desk. I never could understand why she made me blush. Sheer embarrassment? What else could it be?

Mr. Chancellor gave me a tissue, like that would do anything to the sticky pink spaghetti all over my homework, and continued with class. When the bell finally rang, I sprinted to my locker to grab my hand sanitizer. I rubbed my hands furiously and tried to rub the remnants of Maria Kukowski off my hands, off my folders, off my mind. Right when I felt like I might finally be free of her, I heard my locker slam shut.

“Why are you so uptight Janey?” Maria snapped.

“Why are you such a bitch?”

She rolled her eyes. “I just have fun. You should try it sometime.”

“I’m not interested in your kind of fun. I have to get to class.” I tried to shove my way past her but she grabbed my wrist.

“You know Janey, you would be kind of cute if you relaxed once in a while.”

“Get over yourself Maria.”

I twisted my arm and started walking to Bio, but I looked back at Maria for good measure. She actually looked kind of – hurt. When she saw me looking she snapped out of it and turned swiftly to walk the other direction.

The rest of the day I tried to fill my thoughts with anything but Maria Kukowski, but it was like she was burned into my brain. Her stupid tooth gem (who does she think she is?), her stupid chunky highlights, her stupid silver chain that sat just at her collarbone. Her stupid green eyes, with the fleck of brown in the left one that made it so hard to look away. Her stupid skin, which I figured was soft with the vanilla dream lotion she kept in her backpack. Her stupid lips, full and always glossed and slightly tinted mauve. I wondered what that lip gloss might taste like.

Man did I hate Maria Kukowski.

Nina

11/19/2025 04:14:41 pm

Anna! We definitely took a similar approach for this assignment. I mean, it felt like the perfect opportunity for a little enemies-to-lovers moment with that coming-of-age queer aspect! I think a lot of YA novels do just that, incorporate elements of coming-of-age. We saw this in Dear Medusa as well, especially as Alicia was figuring out her sexuality and her interest in girls. I think it's relatable, it reminds me of myself in many ways, and it is definitely something I would have picked up when I was in high school to read!

11/19/2025 04:19:19 pm

I was quickly searching for yours and Anna's. Here we have a classic example of a first experience of love--a crush, a coming to understanding about sexual orientation and being a sexual being. That is a big, big part of a lot of YA (as it is in a lot of novels). What makes it different in this genre is that it is a "first." YA is often called a genre of firsts. A first encounter with love or sex. A first encounter with grown up things--like laws and breaking them (like drug use) or emotions (like loss or anger, or a coming to terms with something "adult" like generational trauma or, as is the case with Medusa, a lived trauma.

11/19/2025 04:21:48 pm

Hi Anna. I have to agree with Nina that the queer aspect is very interesting, especially in regards to how much more often it has started to pop up in YA books whereas it used to be overwhelmingly heterosexual, at least from what I remember. Like Nina, I also have to reference Alicia's sexuality in Dear Medusa, since that's another example of YA trending more queer and exploring queer themes over the past few years or so.

11/19/2025 04:23:40 pm

I love how you approached this, Anna! I mentioned similar points in my reply to Nina, but I love how you took the enemies to lovers approach to your piece. As we were talking about earlier within Dear Medusa, coming to terms with one's sexuality doesn't have to be traumatic, and you got at this idea really well in this piece. It happens as a slow realization sometimes, and you do a great job showing this in an age-appropriate (for lack of a better term) and realistic way. Even though this piece wasn't meant to be developed into something complex and long, I can already see your narrator's hatred melting off, which is one of my personal favorite aspects of the trope.

11/19/2025 04:25:11 pm

Hi Anna! Similar to what Nina said, I immediately noticed how you both took on the perspective of your characters being jealous of Maria. I think that's common in YA pieces as it's a common experience for teens. I also like how the teacher was fed up with Maria too. I forget the character's name, but it kind of reminded me of the teacher in Dear, Medusa who gave Alicia the razor blade to scratch out the graffiti on her desk.

11/19/2025 04:06:00 pm

On the first day of 10th grade, I stared at the back of Maria Kukowski's head. Maria Kukowski sat in front of me in every class, in every grade since I started at St Margaret Mary's. That's what happens when you have an "L" last name and someone has a "K" last name, and you both live in the same dinky town with the one dinky Catholic school. I had stared at her hair when it was dirt brown like a normal person in 3rd grade and when it had the blue streaks in 7th, and now I was staring at her bright blond highlights at the start of 10th.

Man did I hate Maria Kukowski.

I hated the way she always knew the answers to Mr. Gold’s math problems. Or how she always seemed to know at least ten other people in every single class. I hated the way she passed notes to Sandy Docks and the way Sandy Docks delivered the notes to whomever Maria wanted like it was her only purpose. It was usually to girls like Claire or Margo, sometimes boys like Jack, but never to anyone like me.

So when I watched Maria pull out a pink index card from her backpack and her purple gel pen from the same pencil box she has used since 8th grade then put her head down to write down whatever it was that boys like Jack and girls like Claire and Margo wanted to hear then fold up the paper into a perfect little square then turn around to me.

I hate how she still had those pretty blue eyes I remembered from 3rd grade. Those eyes now looking at me as she placed the pink square on my desk and slid it underneath my math binder. I hate the way I just stared at her, which is all that I felt like I could ever do. Just watch from a distance of about 3 feet where I could never tell her just how much I hated her pretty blue eyes.

I hated how I couldn’t read her expression, how once she had placed the paper on my desk, she turned right back around. I hated the way she had nothing to say but obviously had something to say.

I let the paper sit there for a minute. Two minutes. Long enough for me to start anxiously pulling at the ends of my hair, until I hated that I had no clue what she had written. I quietly lifted my binder, hoping she couldn’t hear the light scrape of the plastic on my desk as I went to read her words.

The small paper square felt large in my hands, like everyone knew I had it and was going to read it. A brief survey of the room calmed my nerves. No one was looking at me. No one ever looks at me. So I looked at the note.

Your hair is really pretty, I hope you wear it down more.

I felt my cheeks redden, and I hated that Maria waited until now to turn around to look at me again. I hated that she noticed my hair was down and not up in its usual bun. I hated that she called me pretty. No, not me. My hair.

But what I think I hated most of all was the fact that I never wanted to wear my hair up again. I think I would hate not knowing that Maria Kukowski, as perfect and pretty as she is, thinks that a part of me is pretty too.

11/19/2025 04:13:37 pm

Hi Nina! I really liked your story and the way you built suspense with something so simple, the pink index card. Passing notes in class is a common trope, but from what I've read and seen, I initially expected it to be negative. So, it was a nice surprise to see it was actually positive, which gave depth to your main character's envy. It reminded me a lot of how Alicia felt towards Blake in Dear, Medusa.

11/19/2025 04:18:44 pm

Nina, we took a similar approach to writing this! I love the beginnings of the enemies-to-lovers trope here, and I see it so often in other YA pieces. The emphasis on Maria's initial perfection really reminded me of how Alicia thought of Blake, and I can definitely see this story turning into how your characters realize they have a lot more in common with one another than they imagine, albeit for much different reasons than Alicia and Blake.

11/19/2025 04:23:17 pm

Ashley notices a trope--enemies to lovers--that is a trope in a lot of romance genres. It's pretty classic. It's important to see that while YA is its own thing, it's made of the saqme kinds of things that all fiction is. This short hand that helps us to see where a story is going.

I.S.

11/19/2025 04:06:34 pm

On the first day of 10th grade, I stared at the back of Maria Kukowski's head. Maria Kukowski sat in front of me in every class, in every grade since I started at St Margaret Mary's. That's what happens when you have an "L" last name and someone has a "K" last name, and you both live in the same dinky town with the one dinky Catholic school. I had stared at her hair when it was dirt brown like a normal person in 3rd grade and when it had the blue streaks in 7th, and now I was staring at her bright blond highlights at the start of 10th.

Man did I hate Maria Kukowski. She always chewed on her pencils, teeth imprinted on the yellow base. The sound of her gnawing away like a gerbil drove me insane. Heat rose from my feet to my face. I flipped open my notebook, grabbed a piece of paper, and tore it off. I scrunched the paper up in my hands and transformed it into a dense ball of fury. Ms. Williams had her back to us as she wrote her name in red Expo marker on the whiteboard. I aimed my sights and launched my attack. It hit Maria right in the middle of the back of her head. She turned around in surprise. Our eyes met, and a scowl quickly took over her wretched face.

“Ow!” she yelled and rubbed the back of her head.

Everyone shifted in their seats, eyes plastered to the scene. A different type of heat–mortification– rose to my face. She always knew how to embarrass me and make herself the victim. I squirmed in my seat and looked at the rest of the class, pretending to wonder what happened.

“What’s wrong?” asked Ms. Williams.

Dread began to set in.

“James threw something at my head. It felt really heavy,” lied Maria. The sniveling snake that she is. She kicked the balled-up piece of paper behind her backpack to hide it from the teacher.

“Ms. Williams, I would never,” I said.

Ms. Williams narrowed her eyes and scanned us carefully. “James, go to the office, please.”

The class collectively gasped. I wanted to vanish into thin air.

“I swear I didn’t,” I pleaded.

Ms. Williams quietly shook her head at me. I put my backpack on, slightly struggling. The thing must’ve weighed twenty pounds with all the textbooks I had to bring. A smug smirk spread across Maria’s face. The first day of school, and she had already managed to subject me to a humiliation ritual. I made my way to the office with fluorescent lights beating down on me, spotlighting my hunched shoulders and furrowed brows. My mind went a million miles a minute to try to come up with some sort of retaliation. I looked down at the vinyl floor. The same type of floor I faceplanted on back in fourth grade when she tripped me in the hallway. Then I passed the cafeteria, where she had poured her entire lunch tray on me in sixth grade. That must’ve been where she got the eggs from to throw at me while I walked home in eighth grade. I still don’t know how she pulled that off. Lost in the thought of my grievances, I arrived at the principal’s office before I could plan my revenge. I hesitated to open the door. My hand rested on its cold handle. Before I went in, I prayed that they wouldn’t call my parents.

11/19/2025 04:24:52 pm

It's funny, in my story, Maria threw things at other people, but in yours, James throws something at her! I really like that; I think that's much more fun to have the main character do something bad for a change instead of being someone on the receiving end of it. I think you pick up on this notion of being believed in YA novels---we see Alicia struggle with that idea too. I think the doctor in "Dear Medusa" even says something along the lines of how kids live in a world where they are often ignored because of their age, which is a super common feeling for an adolescent to feel.

11/19/2025 04:07:21 pm

I’m lucky that I sit behind her at least. I can scowl as freely as I want at her perfectly flat-ironed hair, her monogrammed pencil case, and the hundreds of pages of neat black writing in her spiral-bound notebook. I relax my face at the same moment I notice Mrs. McIntosh’s eyes searching around the room. What page of The Hobbit are we even discussing right now? Stupid brain. Stupid Maria Kukowski. “Miss Lester, what do you think?”
What was her question? “Uhh…can you come back to me on this one?” I mumble at the same time I see Maria Kukowski’s hand shoot up as high as we used to swing as kids.
“Sure, Miss Lester.” I know I’ll lose a participation mark for today, but I’m more upset that I’ve opened the door for Maria Kukowski to once again remind everyone of how smart, how engaged, and how perfect of a student she is.
“Excellent point. Class, we should be writing down what Miss Kukowski just said. That means everybody.” I bite my tongue as I butcher Maria’s words in my own spiral notebook.
There was a time before Maria Kukowski where I sat behind Tommy Kessler and was every teacher’s favorite. I knew the phonics and math equations before anybody else did. I got the top marks on our weekly quizzes. I wasn’t invisible to either my teachers or my peers.
Maria Kukowski came to St. Margaret Mary’s on a brisk day in mid-October of my third grade year. I was putting my coat and backpack in my cubby the first time I saw her name etched on an identical apple-shaped nametag labeling the cubby to my left. I tried to ignore it. Mrs. Pritchett will tell the class about it later—when it’s necessary—and everybody should be worrying about themselves anyways.
The principal, Dr. Grant, walked her into our classroom in the middle of phonics. “Class, this is Maria. Today’s her first day of school here; she just moved here from Dover.”
Mrs. Pritchett moved a desk between mine and Tommy’s, and since that day, I’ve been staring at the back of Maria Kukowski’s head. Staring at her name ahead of mine on the gradebook.
Man, I hate Maria Kukowski.

11/19/2025 04:09:38 pm

11/19/2025 04:15:57 pm

So, here, one thing we see is this trope of fighting an authority. That is a central theme in all young adult lit. Sometimes, like in dystopian fiction, we see our characters fighting something like an authoritarian regime or aliens or whatever. But lots of times, as it is in Medusa, it is something a lot more banal--like a rule in school or a parent (like it is in Glen's piece), any authority figure that a young person, in the act of becoming and adult, is fighting against.

11/19/2025 04:32:31 pm

Hi Glen! I really liked your story and how we both had a role reversal type of thing with the paper throwing. It seems like a lot of our pieces center around jealousy. I also like how you mentioned your character doesn't believe in God as that's something kids begin to question as they get older.

Alexandra O'Brien

11/19/2025 04:11:38 pm

On the first day of 10th grade, I stared at the back of Maria Kukowski's head. Maria Kukowski sat in front of me in every class, in every grade since I started at St Margaret Mary's. That's what happens when you have an "L" last name and someone has a "K" last name, and you both live in the same dinky town with the one dinky Catholic school. I had stared at her hair when it was dirt brown like a normal person in 3rd grade and when it had the blue streaks in 7th, and now I was staring at her bright blond highlights at the start of 10th.

Man, did I hate Maria Kukowski. I hated her perfectly obnoxious laugh and the fact that she was always smiling. Nobody does that much, I mean, come on, it was ridiculous. But as much as she laughed, she never said much. She was quiet, kept to herself. The girl knew how to mind her own business. And she never looked at me the way everyone else at school did; that was how I learned that she didn't know who I was, or rather what I was, even after all that time she spent sitting in front of me. She never bothered to turn around. Never bothered to ask a living soul about me. I always thought she was smart for that, until the day I caught her staring at me from across the green of the soccer field.

Little Miss Maria. What would a perfect girl like you look at a boy like me for? Well, of course, for the same reason any other girl would. You see, girls like that need boys like me in their lives. Makes 'em more interesting. People can't be perfect in every way, now can they? It just wouldn't be fair. So I guess that you can say I'm here to even the scales, a sort of angel in disguise. Sure, I might be a pretty shitty person, so it's bold of me to refer to myself as an angel, but people always leave me having gained something. No matter how much I may take from them. It's my special talent. There aren't many other things I am good at than making other people miserable. It's incredible how it manages to drag shit out of people you never knew they had in them; it's quite entertaining. To bear witness to that, to know that you are the catalyst for that brutal change. So when I saw her looking at me, I just knew. This would be my new game of cat-and-mouse - and with no other than perfect little Maria Kukowski.

When she locked eyes with me, I wondered how long she had been staring. She looked away immediately to the floor, the way a small child does when they're caught in a lie. It was pretty bold, if you ask me, for her to hide in plain sight like that. Something about it just gave her right away, that look in her eyes. The panic, the desperation. It doesn't take a genius to see that the pretty walls of her carefully constructed life were making her feel a bit too boxed in. So of course I saw it. And of course, it interested me, so I began walking over to her.

11/19/2025 04:19:27 pm

Ahh yes, the trope of the "bad boy" falls for the "good girl." I've definitely read a lot of YA novels like this. I feel like if the story were to continue, we would see a lot of character development from the guy who is telling the story. I can feel the story building, I mean, lots of characters start off somewhat unlikeable (it's not an uncommon trope). It reminds me of Dear Medusa in the fact that Alicia herself isn't a completely pleasant person either. Character development though! It's a part of the coming-of-age aspect of YA novels!

11/19/2025 04:19:04 pm

I am noticing the reoccurring theme of identity and expression of identity through appearance. In Dr. Torda’s story, Maria and Missy begin as common with their hair, Maria splits with the dying of her hair, and then is suspicious to Missy when she comes to school blonde. In my story, Maria has a tooth gem, which Janey perceives as performative in some way: “(who does she think she is?). In Paul’s story, Maria dying her hair blonde represents her giving up on being someone different, unique. In Nina’s story, the narrator takes extreme value in the fact that Maria thinks her hair looks pretty. Many teens express themselves through appearance and perceive others’ appearances as some sort of signifier of who they are/may be, so it makes sense to see this in YA fiction. Another theme I saw was rejection versus acceptance of social roles. In Nina’s story, the narrator describes Sandy passing notes “like it was her only purpose” and feels trapped in herself by Maria’s popularity. In Paul’s story the narrator wishes to reject social roles for the other teens in their town. In Dr. Torda’s story the conflict arises when the two friends find other interests, other friends. This idea of social roles and where we fit in them is so prevalent for teens, so once again, it makes sense to see this in YA fiction.

11/19/2025 04:25:01 pm

Yes, Anna! For sure. Another characteristic of the genre is that characters start as "young" but they typically end the novel entering into adulthood. It's a journey. A "Buildingsroman" if you want to use fancy literary terminology.

11/19/2025 04:28:49 pm

These stories seem to share a lot of the same themes from the book, one being the sense of feeling lost in the search for identity. My and Nina’s stories both explore feeling lost in sexuality. Dr. Torda and Ashley’s stories explore searching for identity through “success” and merit. YA literature often reflects the need to “find” oneself, to have something or someone to align with. In Dear Medusa, Alicia has many different identities that are at conflict with each other. She is a runner, she is a sexual assault survivor, she is an ex-best-friend, she is a child of divorce. All of these contribute to her story and she tries to find her way through all these identities on her own and by using the people around her to figure it out.
Friendship conflicts came up both in Dear Medusa and these stories as well. Sarah and Alicia seem to mirror a lot with Missy and Maria from Dr. Torda’s story, for example. In both cases two friends choose different paths which results in a break in the friendship, as well as maybe a misattribution of identity between the friends. Maria sees Missy as too by-the-book and Maria sees Missy as a wild child. Sarah sees Alicia as a “slut,” and Alicia sees Sarah as a judgmental Christian. Friendships can be so intense for teens, so it makes sense that this would come up in lots of YA stories.

Alexandra's Observations on the stories

11/19/2025 04:29:21 pm

I see a lot of stories written in a judgmental tone, picking up on others and how they look. Judging them for their experimentation with themselves or just assuming things based on looks. There's also this weird sort of judgmental, superiority-complex kind of thing about growing up as a teen. Thinking you understand everyone and that your feelings are the most important. I saw a lot of language and things being done that teens would do to feel like an adult, picking on others or using strong language, which really pushes forward that experimental and edgy drama YA can have.

YA as a Genre

Leave a Reply.

Torda and the 489s

Archives

Categories