I went to my first funeral when I was 15. Not for a grandparent, great-uncle or elderly family friend, but for a girl my age. Tammy had been hit by a car walking home from school one day. She never made it home. 

Tammy wasn’t a close friend, but we’d been friendly. Tammy had been one of those quiet, shy, reserved kids, who kept her head down and, yes, maybe was considered odd by the rest of us. I think she would have been surprised at the number of people who attended her funeral. 

But a lot of us did show up because, like me, a lot of us had never experienced the sudden death of someone we knew. It was strange and disorienting. Awkward. Uncomfortable. What did we say to Tammy’s parents? What did we say to each other? 

My friend Tracey and I approached Tammy’s closed casket together. We paid our respects, though we weren’t quite sure what that actually meant. We stood in front of the closed casket, staring at it.

Then Tracey leaned into me and whispered, “Which way do you think her head is?” 

I couldn’t stifle my laugh. Tracey’s comment and my reaction were perhaps insensitive and inappropriate, but it’s what we thought. I’d shake my head later at our behaviour, but honestly, we didn’t know how else to break the tension. 

We didn’t know how to cope with the strange grief we were feeling. 

Death and grief are common, recurring themes in YA literature. Often teens in the novels struggle to cope with the death of a loved one—a parent, a sibling, a close friend—and sometimes they do it “right” (whatever that means) and sometimes they go off the rails (according to people around them). 

Every story is different, obviously, because every character and every situation is unique, but the loss they struggle with is universal. Sometimes, like in novels such as The Hate U Give (2017) by Angie Thomas, or Brother (2017) by David Chariandy, the protagonists have additional burdens of injustice (both protagonists must learn to cope with the death of a young Black man at the hands of police), or Indigenous literature like Marrow Thieves (2017) by Cherie Dimaline or Indian Horse (2012) by Richard Wagamese which feature young protagonists struggling with the deaths of loved ones at the hand of racist government officials.

Other stories are quieter, less specifically about a preventable, reprehensible death, and more about the grief from loved ones succumbing to illness, such as classics like Anne of Green Gables (1908) by L.M. Montgomery, or Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J.D. Salinger. 

In fact, you don’t have to look very far to find death or grief in YA novels. The death of Evangeline’s mother in my YA fantasy Evangeline’s Heaven (2022) impacts my protagonist from the time she’s a young child. She barely remembers her mother; her father Lucifer is all she has, but still she clings to a part of her that’s always been missing. It alters the course of her life. In my forthcoming Amaranth novel (May 2024) Lyra is surrounded by death—in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. She herself is immune, and that fact alone makes her life lonely. 

If death is a part of life, death is most definitely an important part of YA literature. We need it. We need to see how teens cope (or don’t cope) with grief. We need to see how people other than ourselves react to tragic loss. We need a roadmap, a guideline or even a what-not-to-do. 

Because, ultimately, we need to feel like this overwhelming pain, grief, loss and heartache can be overcome. If our beloved characters can find a way through then maybe, just maybe, so can we. 

I still think of Tammy. I’ve had decades of life experience; she’ll always be 15. I’ve experienced loss and even more profound grief since then, but I’ll never forget the confusion of my first taste of it. 

Books helped me then. Books can help you now. 

No matter how you respond to grief—whether you make awkward comments in front of a classmate’s casket and laugh too loud at the funeral—you’re not alone. Pick up a YA book to keep you company in your grief. You’ll always find someone who gets your pain. 

Growing up, I was such an angry teen, although most people who knew me during my teenage years would probably be surprised to hear this. I was raised in a Southern family where the unofficial but uncontestable motto was, “Never air dirty laundry in public.” This meant no matter how bad things were at home and no matter how miserable I was, I was never to speak about it outside the house. And not only was I supposed to keep the truth to myself, I was also supposed to pretend like the truth didn’t exist…because heaven forbid anyone in the community find out my family wasn’t perfect.  

For better or worse, I was very good at the role I was forced to play. What I didn’t realize, however, was that the things you ignore don’t actually go away. I could pretend I was fine all day long, but pretending never made me fine. It only made me more disconnected from myself and the world around me, and made me feel like I couldn’t trust anyone, including myself, because when you’ve been raised to spout lies, you slowly lose your ability to recognize the truth. 

And so, I stuffed my anger, betrayal, disappointment, and fear down deep inside me and hoped they’d go away.

They didn’t. 

In fact, they did the opposite…they grew. Sparks turned into flames that built into an inferno that burned. All. The. Time. 

It wasn’t acceptable for a good Southern girl to be angry, but I couldn’t deny my feelings even though I also couldn’t acknowledge them outright, which led to a terrible predicament. The best I could do was try and keep my fire to myself, keep the lid on my constantly boiling temper, and since I didn’t have healthy coping strategies to draw on, keeping the lid on my temper meant isolating in my room or spending hours at the barn with my horse. 

Now, this is by no means an abnormal revelation, as most, if not all, teens have their sullen, surly, or irritable moments (or months).  Often this is due to the hormonal fluctuations we experience during our teen years, when our bodies are hijacked from the inside out by mood-altering chemicals we have no control over. These chemicals can take us from ecstatic to miserable to optimistic to despondent in the space of a single hour or less. But for me, it was more than that.  

I wasn’t allowed to be angry. And because I had no experience or practice being angry, I didn’t know how to handle the feeling when it surfaced. I became stressed out reading books where the protagonist was angry, especially if the protagonist was a girl, like me. I’d shake my head and mutter things like, “She should have known better than to say that,” unconsciously siding with those in the book who refused to allow the girl the right to feel her feelings. Over time, I recognized this tendency born from my trauma, and by slowly exposing myself to books where girl characters were allowed to be mad, it helped me become more comfortable around that particular emotion. I could relate to how the character felt, and I could review the decisions they made and decide for myself whether I would have acted similarly or different. Most importantly, I could do this safely, without worrying my anger might overwhelm me or bring everything I knew crashing down around me. 

Books taught me that I wasn’t alone, that others experienced intense feelings they also worried might bring about unwanted or dangerous consequences. They showed me different ways to respond, ways that were healthy, as well as ways that were destructive, giving me information and allowing me to choose what I wanted to emulate. Here’s just a few of my favorite books with angry female characters:

• Rage is a Wolf by KT Mather. The main character, Elaine, is mad. She’s mad about global warming, how animals are being mistreated, the apathy of her classmates, and the lies told by adults that perpetuate the status quo. She finds ways to take action, and I just love watching her wrestle with her rage.

• The Conqueror’s Saga by Kiersten White. This is a genderbent retelling of Vlad the Impaler…Lada is angry about how she’s treated for having been born a girl, she’s angry about her homeland being invaded, and she’s angry about being denied so many things she thinks ought to be hers. While she’s not necessarily the most likeable character, she never fails to impress and inspire me.

• Blood Scion by Deborah Falaye. Sloane is furious…furious at how her people have been treated, furious at how she has been used and manipulated, furious at how she’s been lied to, and furious over feeling powerless. This wasn’t the easiest book to read, probably because much of it just hit too close to home, but it was powerful and one I still think about frequently.

As my fantastic blog partner, Jen, so beautifully said, “The power of YA stories doesn’t come from sharing the same experiences. The power comes from validating your own experiences.” Knowing others feel angry, even if they’re only characters, and seeing how they express their rage has been immensely cathartic for me, and I hope everyone has the chance to see their self and their own experiences reflected in the stories they read.

ALSO, if you ever wonder why my main character, Sebastian, in Reign Returned is a Pyromancer with unquenchable fire running through his veins…well, now you know.

In the classroom, I was a big believer in seating plans, even in the senior grades. It’s comfortable for kids to form their own packs and live within them, but it’s better to learn interpersonal skills with people outside your own social circle. Additionally, kids who may not have their “pack” in that particular class, or who see themselves as lone wolves (willingly or unwillingly) are offered the opportunity to integrate. 

I always mixed up my seating plans, never leaving kids with the same group for more than a few weeks. In my ideal, hopeful world, I wanted to think the students could meet, and maybe befriend people they normally wouldn’t have. 

But best laid plans and all… Yes, my good intentions sometimes backfired. One time, two students who’d been side-by-side for about three weeks both audibly sighed with relief when I switched up the seating arrangements.

“What?” I’d asked them, frowning. 

It turns out Ryan and Lisa had been a couple; not long before I’d sat them together, they’d broken up. It was a very awkward three weeks for them both. 

“Why didn’t you say something?” I asked, apologetic. (Contrary to some people’s thinking, teachers can’t possibly follow all the ins and outs of all student relationships!) “I would have moved you weeks ago!”

They kept their mouths shut, they explained, because they didn’t think I’d take their reason seriously. They were “just” a high school (ex) couple. They thought I’d dismiss their feelings. 

I wouldn’t have, though I understood their concern. Adults often dismiss teens’ emotions as trivial or transient. Oh, it’s just a crush. It’s puppy love. It’s not real. The comments may come from an adult’s own experience—perhaps a divorce crushed them more than a high school break up—but it’s wholly unfair to trivialize the feelings of teens. 

That’s why I love YA literature. The protagonist is always a teen, and that protagonist always feels something. Deeply. Teens are intense. Research shows that emotional regulation in adolescence is a challenging skill, and teen protagonists embody that challenge in every story. 

Take Maggie Stiefvater’s bestselling Wolves of Mercy Falls series. Shiver (2009), Linger (2010), Forever (2011) and Sinner (2014), a complex story about love and friendship among werewolves and humans. (Soon to be turned into a movie!)

Grace, a human and Sam, a werewolf in the winter and human in the summer, fall in love. Their challenges to be together are immense. Life-and-death immense. Maggie Stiefvater’s writing shows the depth of characters, emotions and feelings these teens have, and though it’s a paranormal story, they feel real. How Grace and Sam feel about each other is as profound and true as any love story about adults. It’s a reminder that we can’t—and shouldn’t­—judge the intensity or validity of someone’s emotions based solely on age. 

Now, that’s not to say you’ll find your true love in high school. You may very well have dated someone about whom you had a fleeting crush and the end of your relationship will not leave you scarred forever. 

It’s not about whether you feel the same as Sam and Grace, or even any other YA protagonist. The power of YA stories doesn’t come from sharing the same experiences. 

The power comes from validating your own experiences. 

Adults should do well to remember that. 

Teens feel, and feel deeply. You deserve to have those emotions respected.

I learned my lesson, too. From that moment on, I always asked my students to talk to me if they were uncomfortable with their seating partner. Just in case I accidentally paired them with their ex. 

But, I told them, they also had a responsibility. If I ended up seating them next to the person who would become the love of their life and future spouse, they’d have to come back and find me. 

No one’s come forward yet, but I’m a romantic optimist. 😊 Married high school sweethearts do exist (including my own in-laws who have been married for more than 50 years!) thus proving that no feelings are too trivial as a teen. 

Feel how you feel and know you have every right to feel that way. Then pick up a YA book to know you’re not alone. 

Creating Our Own Character Arcs

As human beings, our brains love labels…without us needing to exert even the slightest conscious effort, the second our mind encounters something new, it immediately goes to work finding a place for it within the information we’ve accumulated up to this point in our lives. Research from neuroscience and neuropsychology suggests that we group information because categorization allows us to simplify our complex world, enabling us to react quickly and effectively to new experiences. While this is highly adaptive from a survival perspective, it’s less helpful and, in fact, often harmful when it comes to navigating the world we now live in.

Labels can certainly be supplied by others, but for this post, I’m going to focus on the labels we assign ourselves. If I asked you to tell me five things about yourself, chances are at least half of your answers would fit within some kind of category or act as a type of label. See if you can spot the categories or labels associated with five facts you might not have known about me:

1. I’m an introvert
2. I love yoga
3. My favorite place in the world is the Sahara Desert
4. I don’t really like putting my head underwater when I swim
5. I grew up in the middle of nowhere on a ranch in Texas

Just from these five statements, you’re already starting to form a mental image of who I am, placing me into categories (extroverted: NO, introverted: YES; cold weather: NO, hot weather: YES) and assigning labels (traveler, Southern, non-swimmer, etc.). Labels aren’t always bad or harmful, but they can be bad or harmful, and it’s important not to take your brain’s categorizing or labeling as truth, even when it’s about yourself. The things we tell and call ourselves can linger far longer than we’d like them to, but the good news is that labels can also change!

Let’s look at two examples of characters changing their self-assigned labels.

In my YA fantasy novel, Reign Returned, my main male character is Sebastian Sayre. We meet him just as he’s completing an assassination contract. His closest business associates are a corrupt crime family. He lives in a cave he begrudgingly shares with a dragon (because even an assassin knows better than to get on the wrong side of a dragon) and shuns any social interactions that don’t involve work or filling his bank account. He loves books and weapons and that’s it. One reviewer described him as “broody and morally grey,” which still makes me inordinately happy. 

Now, obviously, if he remained that way throughout the entire book, it wouldn’t be much of a story, and over the course of his character arc, we seem him going from sullen and isolated to curious and working towards shared goals with someone else. While he chose the labels he starts out with, his experiences show him that he doesn’t have to keep those labels for the rest of his life, and slowly he begins to change, to the point that at the end of the book, he’s in love, part of a new-in-this-lifetime relationship, and starting to think he might need to reconsider his career choices.

Unfortunately, changing labels doesn’t always mean swapping out bad or negative labels for good and healthy ones. One of my favorite villains EVER is Robert Goddard from Neal Shusterman’s incomparable Arc of a Scythe series. If you haven’t read it, go do so, and then come back and finish this blog post. 

* SPOILERS AHEAD *

Carson Lusk starts off as a hard-working high school student desperate to leave the colony on Mars where his parents work. He wants to attend college on Earth and places a strong value on education. He has friends, goals, and dreams and is part of a larger community. Over the course of his character arc, however, he changes the labels he’s used to define himself thus far and goes from friend to murderer, hard-working to deceitful, considerate to selfish, eventually doing whatever it takes to get what he wants. He effectively gives himself the ultimate new label when he changes his name from Carson Lusk to Robert Goddard. It’s a sad but brilliantly told tale that serves as a reminder of the power of our choices. 

Consider taking some time to think about the labels you give yourself. Are they labels you actually want or are you just used to them? What labels would you like to have associated with you and what are some steps you could take towards making those descriptions a reality? You spend more time with yourself than anyone else on the planet, so how you define and think about yourself is incredibly important. When it comes to labeling yourself, choose wisely, as we create our own character arcs every day of our lives.

I once had a student in Grade 9 who was exceptionally smart. Rob’s* marks didn’t reflect his aptitude at all, not uncommon in high school. I encouraged him, challenged him, worked with his parents and guidance counsellors—in short, I did everything I could think of as his teacher to support him. He barely passed. 

Years later, I ran into Rob in the grocery store. He thanked me for my efforts and admitted he had been sabotaging himself back then. 

“The summer before high school, my friends and I got a hold of some pot. We smoked up a lot, but I’d stopped by the time school started. Then I had a falling out with my best friend. He told everyone in our grade that I was a druggie. That’s the way everyone treated me. It didn’t matter that he’d smoked as much as me, nor that I had quit. It didn’t matter who I was—or who I wanted to be. I was just the druggie kid, so that’s the part I played.”

Rob played it throughout four years of high school, just barely passing. But when he looked around at his lack of opportunities, he realized he wanted more out of life. He’d gone back to school, improved his grades and was enrolled in a paramedic program, his dream career. 

Rob was able to turn his life around, but his story was a stark reminder of how we see each other when we’re in high school. Labels define us, whether we want them to or not. They tell us how we’re viewed by others—and how they expect us to act. 

Karen M. McManus’s 2017 YA mystery/suspense bestseller, One of Us Is Lying is a brilliant example of labels, their power and the damage they can inflict. Bronwyn is the brain, so we all know to expect excellence from her, of course. Never a misstep allowed. Nate is a criminal and drug dealer, so we know to expect nothing from him, obviously. Addy is the popular princess, so all beauty, no brains, and Cooper is the jock, all brawn, all the time. 

They’re set up in detention by Simon, the loser who tries too hard, and we all know we need to just get away from people like him. 

Right?

But obviously no one is any label. We learn how Bronwyn’s perfect life isn’t perfect and how Nate struggles with absent parents. Addy is more than a pretty face and Cooper is what he wants the new definition of an all-American athlete to be. 

And we see the incredible amounts of pain Simon suffers from.

Two amazing insights comes from stories like these: 1) We’re not alone. We’re all so much more than the masks we wear at school. We’re all more than the image we portray in the halls. 

2) We’re reminded that the people who walk by us every day at school are also more than what we see. It gives us empathy—to recognize we don’t know what’s going on in everyone else’s life, and as such, maybe we can give them a break. Just like we’d like to people to give us one, too.

And then, instead of suffering for years, kids like Rob—and you—can be their full, dynamic selves. 

(*not his real name)

Welcome to Complicated! I’m so excited to be part of this exciting joint venture with Jen and I hope you’ll join us as we delve into all things YA.

You might be thinking, “Congrats, Katie, for finding a way to spend even more of your time writing, but what makes you think you know anything about young adults?” That’s a great question, and I’m happy to answer. I’ve been writing stories featuring young protagonists since I first picked up a pencil and stapled construction paper together to make my own colorful mini booklets as a child. My debut YA fantasy novel, Reign Returned, was published in 2022, and the sequel, Blood Divided, will be released in October 2023. But I didn’t become an author and then decide I loved writing for teens …I’m a YA author precisely because I love writing the types of stories typically associated with teens and young adults. 

Prior to becoming an author, I was a pediatric neuropsychologist, and I specialized in cognitive testing with teens diagnosed with cancer, specifically, brain tumors and leukemia. In hospital settings, this is a population that is both grossly ignored and terribly misunderstood…which is how I usually felt myself as a teen. Early in my medical journey, I remember being surprised at how quick professionals were to transfer teen patients to me, but I assumed it was just because I was the newest member of the team and didn’t have the luxury of choosing my own patients. What I soon learned was that other professionals struggled to connect with teens because they were too “intense,” “moody,” “self-absorbed,” or “unwilling to let anyone in.” 

Once again recognizing terms frequently used to describe my teenage self, I made it my goal to meet my teen patients where they were at, seeing them as the individuals they were and appreciating them for that even if I didn’t agree with some of the choices they made. Where others saw stubbornness, I saw conviction. Where others saw too much optimism or pessimism, I saw people going all in, for better or worse, on what they believed. When colleagues would complain that someone wouldn’t talk about their feelings as an intentional way to demonstrate power in a therapeutic relationship, I saw someone who was scared but trying to be brave as they navigated being neither a child or an adult, too old for some things and far too young for others.

Being a teen is about being intense, moody, self-absorbed, and learning who to let in…and these are foundational life lessons that we either learn and grow from or reexperience on repeat until we finally decide to try something different. For teens, there’s only now. Everything is filtered through a single point of view, and every feeling is as warm as sunshine, sharp as a papercut, or crushing as a landslide. Stories told from a YA perspective are overflowing with this vibrant urgency, and I relate to it as much as I love it. YA books remind us our decisions have consequences, relationships can help or ruin us, and most importantly, they remind us we’re not as alone as we sometimes feel.

Welcome to Complicated! Katie and I thrilled to have you join us. Together we’ll throw out ideas, musings, thoughts and opinions about issues that are important to you, as teens, and we’ll use the lens of our favorite (and maybe not-so-favorite) YA characters. 

Jen’s Story

Who am I to chat about these kinds of topics with you? Well, for one, I write YA novels, so I work hard to get into the heads of teens and youth. Evangeline’s Heaven, my YA fantasy about Lucifer’s daughter was my debut novel in 2022, and I have Amaranth, a YA dystopian novel coming out in May 2024. I’m also hard at work on a whole bunch of other story ideas as well. Secondly, I was a high school English teacher for almost 20 years. I’m not in the classroom anymore—the lure of writing books full time was too strong—but I loved my time with my students. Teens are, generally speaking, an idealistic group of people who either really, really love something or really, really hate something. 🙂 I love their passion energy and determination. Thirdly, I’m a book coach. I help writers—including YA authors—write their novels. I know how stories work. I know when and how and why characters do what they do, and I help writers make sure they do it in a way that you fall in love with them. Finally, I’m also a mom to two teen daughters. Living with two of them is the best hands-on experience about teens that you can get. 🙂

Okay, but why work with teens at all? Why write YA novels? Because you—teens—fascinate me. Your reasons, your motivations, your emotions, your experiences. They’re all different because you’re all different, but still, it’s important to find common ground. Books are one fundamental place to start. Here, for example, is how I got to thinking about Lyra, my protagonist in Amaranth, a story about a 17-year-old girl whose parents have tried to shield her from tyrannical government agents, but who is desperate to break free from her suffocating existence. My inspiration came from one of my students. 

Ibrahim was new to Canada the year I taught him Grade 12 English. He and his family had just fled Libya, where a simmering civil war had exploded. We were discussing Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and, as a way to get them to relate to Hamlet’s outrage at his mother Gertrude, I had asked the students about a fight they’d had with their own mother or mother figure. More often than not, the stories were about messy rooms, borrowing the car, or curfews.

Not Ibrahim’s story. In a tone still brimming with indignation, he recounted the injustice heaped upon him by his mom. Desperate to fight Libyan dictator Gaddafi, Ibrahim begged his mom to let him join the rebels. 

“She wouldn’t let me!” he cried. 

I looked at him, open-mouthed. “You know why, right? Because she didn’t want to, oh, I don’t know… die?”

But Ibrahim felt he hadn’t done his part. He hadn’t fought against the injustice he saw; he hadn’t helped to create the country he wanted for his own future. 

There’s a line, obviously, where adults have to keep their kids safe—teens don’t always know what’s best. 

But where is that line? And when do teens know what’s best for them? 

And though most of my students didn’t struggle with such extraordinary circumstances as Ibrahim’s, many could still feel their parents’ stranglehold—from everything about which courses to take in their senior year or what university they could attend, to what they were allowed to wear out of the house. They felt they had no control over their own lives. 

But what if the parents have good reasons to make the decisions they do—like Ibrahim’s mom? Where does that leave the teen? 

I witness that struggle—your struggle—to become more independent every day and I feel for you. 

But I also see what many teens can’t—that they may not yet be ready for the independence they crave. 

That contradiction fascinates me, and so, Lyra was “born”. I wanted to add my voice to the conversation, but in a way that may also appeal to teens. Here is a girl who carries the weight of the world on her shoulders. For Lyra, it may be almost literal—she may be the only answer to a worldwide pandemic—but for my readers, it may be metaphorical. Which, by no means, makes the emotions any less real. 

That’s why YA novels matter. No matter the big-picture saving-the-world plots, or the small, hold-your-heart-close storylines, teens often feel the same things. YA books remind you, then, that you’re not alone.