Zohal99

Whilst YA Fiction in a sense existed before the 21st Century, it was never a properly defined genre that you could visit in the bookstore. You usually had your Childrens books and then your Adult books and your Classics. YA Fiction exploded into being with the publication of the Harry Potter books which we can consider as Modern Classics. This topic would be on the game changing books that have contributed to the growing shape and form of Young Adult Fiction.

For example, Harry Potter led to the popularity of YA adventure and action books such as Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series. Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games is a staple in the genre for creating a wave of Dystopian fiction. Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight and Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter books paved the way for the multitude of paranormal fantasy books. John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars contributed to the overwhelming popularity of Contemporary novels that delve into difficult and important topics that teenagers go through in life.

Of course there are positives and current or potential implications on these books in terms of how they have shaped the genre as well as how the genre is marketed, or at least what publishers looks for in this realm of Young Adult fiction. This would a very interesting topic to look at.

Speculative Fiction is an umbrella genre for stories that are other-worldly. For example, fantasy, science-fiction, dystopian fiction, paranormal fantasy and more. I think it would be interesting to discuss the genre as a whole, in terms of story dynamics. A lot of speculative fiction has one foot in reality and another in a fantasy-like setting. Often speculative fiction has a lot to tell us about our reality, whether this is reflecting our reality or subverting reality to reveal new truths about the world. It would be great to look at the varying degrees to which this occurs in speculative fiction.