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This is the video for the video essay I discussed in my last post, “The Precious Boy.” Just in case anyone is interested in watching it all the way through.

In case the video won’t play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4kuR1gyOeQ

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The Precious Boy

I’m a fake Harry Potter fan. I’m exclusively a fan of the movies and haven’t read the books, from what I have read, I hate them. When everyone else was reading Harry Potter, I avoided the books like that plague. I think part of that is due to J.K. Rowling. I’m not one of J.K. Rowling's biggest fans, especially with trying to add in diversity to her books long after they’ve been published. That’s annoying to me, if you wanted diverse characters, you should have written them, to begin with, not mention it years later. The one thing I like about J.K. Rowling is her character Newt Scamander. To me, Newt Scamander is the best example, currently, of a realistic YA male character and of how masculinity should be presented either. I’m not the only person that thinks he’s great too.

Jonathan McIntosh is a pop-culture video essayist, mainly he examines masculinity and politics, in you guessed it pop-culture. I’ve seen a few of his videos before, and that’s how I stumbled across his video essay, “The Fantastic Masculinity of Newt Scamander.” McIntosh talks about how revolutionary Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is for the presentation of masculinity, particularly onscreen. In his video essay, McIntosh says:

“Newt Scamander, protagonist of this Harry Potter spinoff, is an unconventional male hero. The kind of character typical relegated to sidekick status. He performs a refreshingly atypical form of masculinity, especially for the lead in a fantasy adventure story. His is a quiet, vulnerable, yet confident form of manhood.”

McIntosh goes on to explain that Newt is truly great because he has the power of empathy and vulnerability, something that is rarely seen in a male lead because it labels them as weak. McIntosh points out that compared to Harry Potter’s franchise, Newt isn’t set out to destroy the big baddie in an epic duel, instead, Newt tries to save his antagonist. He points out that Newt isn’t even responsible for the destruction of his antagonist and, “this triumph over evil isn’t shown to be a cause for celebration, it is instead framed as a melancholy event. Melancholy because our heroes failed to save the monster.” Newts' character doesn’t want to hurt other people, he doesn’t want to resort to violence, he rather find a way to save everyone that won’t involve people getting hurt. Compared to most male leads, Newts’ character is the polar upset of them, yet, he’s no less of a man than them. Just because he’s shy and sensitive doesn’t mean he’s weak.

McIntosh and I are on the same page when it comes to the brilliance of Newt Scamander. I believe that Newt Scamander is a male lead more YA authors should try to have. A male lead that doesn’t stick to the toxic idea of toxic masculinity and shows a refreshing view of what masculinity should be. Newt may be exclusively a film character, but there’s no way that authors can write similar, more diverse male leads. If writers are writing to appease their audience based on the market (my previous post, “My Books Bring All the Ladies to the Yard”), Newt shows that we don’t need to take the market into account always. I don’t see Newt applying to any of the original sexy ideals and masculine standards that are normally written, and his film did just fine without it. Writing more diverse male leads, that have a healthy concept of masculinity isn’t impossible, I’d love to see more YA books with healthy male leads. I find Newt to be a good point any YA writer can look to, to see that presenting positive masculinity is important.

                                                  Works Cited

McIntosh, Jonathan. “The Fantastic Masculinity of Newt Scamander.” The Pop Culture Detective Agency, The Pop Culture Detective Agency, 29 May 2017, http://popculturedetective.agency/2017/the-fantastic-masculinity-of-newt-scamander.

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“The Man” by The Killers. I mean, come on! How could I not use this song?

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Maven Calore: The Crazy Ex-Boyfriend

I love villains in YA, they’re problematic characters that are overtly cruel, and they can just be plain fun to read. I don’t want the villain to win, of course, but I tend to find YA villains have more depth to their motivations than. Villains can get even more fun when they have a past connection to the protagonist that keeps the protagonist from truly being able to finish them off for the longest time because they still remember the person they used to be. This is the dynamic at play with Mare and Maven of the Red Queen series.

                                          SPOILERS AHEAD

The Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard is set in the segregated world of the silver bloods and red bloods. The silver bloods having cool superpowers that allow them to assert control of red bloods and keeps a godlike status. When we’re first introduced to Maven, he’s a prince, but towards the end up the series, he finds himself with the crown, and he’s not a righteous king. Maven is the evil king that Mare has to remove from power to save the red bloods before he kills them all because he’s apparently into mass genocide. The problem is that Mare is in love with Maven even though he’s done horrible things to her and want’s to destroy her race. Aveyard does write an interesting dynamic between the two, but I still find the relationship highly concerning.

Over the whole series, Maven does a lot of cruel things to Mare, there is one brutal action, that I think trumps them all. In Glass Sword, the second book in the series, a big red flag arises when Maven brands Mare with his initials. This is his way of showing Mare that she will always belong to him, no matter where she goes, he will always follow her and bring her back to him because they belong together. No. This is such a big no. There are so many things wrong with this that I don’t know were to begin. You don’t brand someone to show them affection, branding someone is a sign of ownership, and Maven doesn’t own Mare, she’s her own person. At this point, Mare isn’t interested in Maven as a love interest anymore, she cares for him but doesn’t want to be with him. Maven can’t seem to get that though and keeps going after Mare, like a crazy obsessed ex-boyfriend, trying to win her back. It’s disturbing to see because this dynamic is seen a lot in abusive relationships, and in this case, Mare starts seeing him as a love interest again. She should be trying to escape him, but instead, she’s still attracted to him.

This is the role Maven plays throughout the Red Queen series, the crazy ex-boyfriend. At first, I found Maven's character compelling, but then his obsession with winning Mare back to me ruins the rest of his characterization. He had solid motivations (for a mass murderer) as to why he is an evil king, now he sounds like a guy on the news who was arrested for stalking his ex-girlfriend. I thought Aveyard's male lead was very compelling at first, but then he lost his appeal after the first book when he fell into the role of becoming a love interest, not a dynamic character. At this point, Maven shouldn’t be a love interest. He’s abused Mare, and it’s creepy how intent he is to get back with her. I think Maven is a great example of how a great male lead can fall victim to being just another possessive love interest. He didn’t need to have a romance with Mare, and now everything he does revolves around Mare, it’s a concerning behavior that I don’t want to see. Maven would be a great villain without his obsession for Mare, now his obsession is his defining characteristic. I see Maven as a bad male lead not only because he’s the crazy ex-boyfriend, but he also sends a message to younger audiences that isn’t a good one. If someone leaves you and you keep pursuing them and asserting your ownership over them, they may come back to you. Maven could’ve been a great male lead, instead, he’s been relegated to another male lead stereotype, a real shame too.

                                                     Works Cited

Aveyard, Victoria. Glass Sword. HarperCollins. 2016.

Aveyard, Victoria. Red Queen. Scholastic Inc, 2016.

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“Help I’m Alive” by The Metrics is actually the opening song for Miss Representation! I think this song embodies not only the struggle of breaking out of the box society norms put you in, but also emphasizes that characters in books are real people in their own right.

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Rhysand: The Broody Bat Boy

When A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, first came out I didn’t bother to read the book, or the series that followed. I was going through holocaust literature and Anne Frank phase, which in itself was weird, I didn’t have any interest in reading some of the popular YA novels at the time. Flash forward to late 2016, I’ve finished the amazing Six Of Crows duology and have become obsessed with reading similar books. I’m talking about that dark YA fantasy, real good stuff, and I get a recommendation for A Court of Thorns and Roses. Again I postpone it for a few more years before finally picking up the book, and man do I have some mixed feelings.

A Court Of Thorns and Roses is the story of Feyre, who finds herself sucked into the dark courts of the faeries after she unintentionally kills a wolf faerie. To repay for the death of the fae, she’s whisked away into the house of Tamlin, who is a problematic character himself. Feyre discovers that she may be the key to overthrowing the evil queen Amarantha, which she does successfully at the cost of her humanity becoming an immortal High Fae. Why does she do it? For love. A Court Of Thorns and Roses is a Beauty and the Beast retelling, Feyre being the beauty and Tamlin being the beast. And that's were High Lord of the Night Court Rhysand comes in. When he’s first introduced it’s pretty clear that he’s supposed to be a potential love interest, Rhysand and Feyre end up getting married later in the books. You’d think as a Beauty and the Beast retelling, Tamlin and Feyre would end up together, but that doesn’t happen, instead, he becomes an antagonist to Feyre. Rhysand became a favorite suitor of Feyre’s because Tamlin becomes abusive early on. There are multiple scenes that Tamlin forces himself on Feyre, and while he doesn’t go all the way, he’s still sexually abusing her. No means no idiot. His most controversial moment is when he actually bites Feyre's neck and seriously injures her. Tamlin goes from being a chill dude to physically and sexually abusing Feyre, letting Rhysand come in and be the perfect love interest.

I see Rhysand as a problematic male lead, not a perfect love interest. For one, he traps Feyre in a debt to him that forces her to live and serve him at the Night Court, and second he drugs her. To provide context part of the debt is that Feyre must spend a week of every month with him for the rest of her life, and he decides to do that by taking her to Feyre parties and flaunting her in front of Tamlin. When he does this, he dresses her up in what Feyre calls a napkin (it’s a very showy dress), has these ink lines placed all over her body, which is very exposed, so that he knows if she’s been touched. I find this highly invasive. I see this as Rhysand forcefully advertising Feyres sexuality, yet at the same time, he’s monitoring her body. That alone is creepy, it’s Feyre’s body, he shouldn’t get a say in anything she does. To make matters worse, he forcefully drugs her before each party. When Rhysand first offers her a drink she declines, because she knows she’s not supposed to accept anything a faerie offers, but Rhysand can get in someone's mind and persuade them to do what he wants, in this case making Feyre drink something drugged. She wakes up the next day only for the pattern to repeat each time, and at first, she’s upset about this, but Rhysand justifies his actions. He claims that this was his way of protecting her at these parties, apparently what goes down she really shouldn’t know, and Feyre is okay with this. I don’t see anything okay with this, what Rhysand is doing is essentially the date rape drug, except without actually doing anything to Feyre. This isn’t okay at all, but Feyre finds this fine because she’s slowly becoming attracted to him, and he pulls the protector card.

If Rhysand went around and started drugging girls' drinks and forcing them to drink them, no one in their right mind is going to be okay with that! He'd probably be arrested on some sort of attempted sexual assault charge. Maas treats this behavior as okay though, because he’s protecting Feyre, and as a man, it’s his job to protect women. In a previous post, I mentioned the Three P’s, and Rhysand falls victim to that of the protector. He’s a bad example of how a protective character should be, this isn’t protective, he’s violating Feyre. Honestly, the only other reason he isn’t called out more is that Tamlin is so much worse to Feyre that Rhysand can come across as a savior. But in reality, he’s no better than Tamlin, with his manipulation of Feyre. Besides that, Rhysand doesn’t do a whole lot else he just kind of sits around doing nothing. There’s not a whole lot of characterization with him besides being manipulative and sitting at home brooding all day. While Maas is a fantastic writer, her character Rhysand isn’t a good example of a healthy male lead. He falls into negative masculinity stereotypes, and his only real use is the love interest of Feyre. There’s nothing representative about Rhysand, and he’s similar to so many other male leads, except he drugs his love interest in his spare time. So, after reading A Court of Thorns and Roses, I’d say I’m pretty disappointed in the male lead and his continuous relationship with Feyre, something that should’ve ended when he first drugged her.

                                                    Works Cited

Maas, Sarah J. A Court of Thorns and Roses. Bloomsbury, 2015.

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Much Ado About Domestic Abuse

There’s a lot of discourse in the YA community about romanticized abuse between the leads. The abuse tends to be instigated by the male lead, creating a relationship that is rooted for by readers (usually by accident). A problem I find is the relationship is usually toxic because unhealthy masculine qualities in the male lead tend to make him a controlling and possessive partner. Yet, this is often seen as sexy. In a previous post, I mentioned the target audience of YA is female readers but didn’t mention the age range. I think YA can be read at any age, but as the name suggests, the genre directed at a younger audience. With this in mind let’s take a look at abusive relationships with teenagers.

Raychelle Cassandra Lohmann has a Ph.D. in Counselor Education, who works with children and young adults. Her work is truly amazing, and worth a read, I’m interested in an article of her’s I came across, “Abusive Teen Dating Relationships.” In the article, Dr. Lohmann tells the story of a teenage domestic abuse survivor, Tanisha Bagely, who was abused, both physically and mentally by her boyfriend when she was only 15. Tanisha’s story is heartbreaking as she struggled to deal with the abuse of her then-husband (they got married after high school), only leaving her abusive partner to protect her children. In Tanisha’s interview with Dr. Lohmann, she describes the more extreme aspects of her partner's abuse early on in the relationship:

“He knew my every move, who I was with, where I was going, and who my friends were. He would threaten me, and tell me if I ever left him he would kill me. I began to believe him and...soon the words became my reality. He started forcing me to skip school lunch and have sex with him. Once when I refused, he threw me down a flight of stairs. He was very physically abusive. I remember, he use to cut me all over my body with a knife. If I so much as spoke with another guy, he would hit me. One time he punched me so hard he gave me a black eye only because he thought I knew another a guy. In truth, I had never seen him. Because of the abusive relationship, I didn’t have a good high school experience.”

Tanisha’s story isn’t some freak isolated incident, many high school students are in abusive relationships. Dr. Lohmann mentions a report done by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) that found at the time (2014), “approximately 10% of high school students have reported physical and sexual victimization from a dating partner in the past 12 months.” Dr. Lohmann furthers mentions in the same report it was found, “23% of females and 14% of males who experienced abuse by an intimate partner, first experienced it between the ages of 11 and 17 years.” What makes the numbers even worse is the fact the true number is unknown, as many incidents aren’t reported. Abusive relationships are a serious problem among teenagers and young adults, as Dr. Lohmann found, with many victims not realizing till it’s too late that their relationship with their significant other isn’t a healthy one. To help unsuspecting victims, Dr. Lohmann points out common behaviors in abusive relationships teens should be aware of. These include isolation from friends and family, making you feel at fault, controlling you (what you say or wear for example), threatening you, making you feel useless/sad than happy, forcing you to do something you don’t want to do, and abuse (emotional, sexual, physical, mental, and financial). These are just a few attributes that are addressed and if a teen feels they’re in an abusive relationship is encouraged to seek help from a trusted adult.

Reading this article, I found it alarming to realize abusive relationships are so common amongst teens. I’m concerned not just by the statistics though, but abusive relationship attributes, YA male leads can be seen displaying those same attributes. Often the male lead is seen controlling his love interest, constantly keeping tabs on her and not trusting her around other men, even going as far to turn her against her friends. One of the standard personality traits of the YA male lead is that he has to be manipulative. Well, a manipulative partner is an abusive partner, not someone that should be romanticized. I find it particularly disturbing that authors highlight the aspects of control and manipulation in these alpha male leads, those qualities aren’t necessarily healthy (self-control can be good). YA characters are supposed to reflect real young people. Writing books with romanticized toxic relationships gives teens the idea that that’s how a relationship is supposed to work.

National Domestic Abuse Hotline: 1−800−799−7233 or TTY 1−800−787−3224

                                              Works Cited

Lohmann, Raychelle Cassada. “Abusive Teen Dating Relationships.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 31 Aug. 2017, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/teen-angst/201708/abusive-teen-dating-relationships.

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While I don’t personally agree with all of Gillettes’ philosophies, I think this advertisement offers a view of the protector norm. The idea of protecting other people shouldn’t just be a masculine concept but a universal one, going to show some of the norms if construed right can be helpful.

In case the clip isn’t working: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koPmuEyP3a0

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No Doesn’t Mean Yes

In my research to find out more about the male view of toxic masculinity, I came across an opinion piece that offers an interesting take on the idea of masculinity. One that I think sums up what psychologists and educators have been saying about toxic masculinity for years, by putting the idea into more blunt terms.

The concept comes from the self-help author, Mark Manson, who also runs his own blog. In one of his posts, “What’s the Problem with Masculinity?,” Mark Manson defines the concept through the “three P’s: protector, provider, procreation,” claiming that the three P’s are the expectations of masculinity that apply to any age (historical) only with slight twists to how we view them. Manson and the psychologists he references have both concluded that fundamentally how we define masculinity is through the three P’s, although psychologists also attribute that lack of “feminine” attributes to the definition as well. To get at the meat, of the idea Manson connects them as, “The more you protect, the more you provide, the more you fuck, the more of a man you are.” Some would consider this a caveman concept, but Manson has a point. These are the traditional ideas of masculinity, that’s why having a ton of children back in the good old days was seen as a sign of a strong man because he can produce a lot of children and keep them safe. Interestingly enough, the protector and provider is a concept that is taken to heart by Southern Baptists. So, it’s not a stretch to say that Manson has hit at the traditional roots of masculinity that we can still see today. In my opinion, I don’t think the protector and provider aspects, are always a sign of toxic masculinity, the situation matters. To me, it depends on how much control is going into it, a guy doesn’t need to defend every woman he sees, we’re perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves.

Manson also points out a disturbing finding from a report done by the U.S. Department of Justice that found in forcible rape or other sexual offense cases 16% to 17% of perpetrators were less than 18 years old. He raises this point because Manson wanted to point out the men tend to be more sexually aggressive than women, even at a young age. Manson thinks this is due in part to the idea of masculinity, particularly the procreation aspect. He talks about how young men, like himself at one point, were taught that women are supposed to serve their sexual needs as adults. While this belief may not be true to every man, and women are definitely not sex objects, Manson shows that the idea of being sexually aggressive is taught at a young age and can translate into the real world.

I had another post about violence in teen relationships, and I think it’s important to address the reality of sexual violence. You would be surprised to find out how common sexual violence is in YA, and that a majority of the time the perpetrator is written to be a man. That man also tends to be the male lead. YA is directed towards young adults, and while dealing with sexual abuse is important, authors need to be careful. I often find authors romanticizing the abuse, the female lead says, no but the male lead knows what she needs, so he keeps going until they’re finally banging. This isn’t consensual at all and sets a bad example of how men should be treating women. If your partner says no, that means no, there’s no other interpretation. I would like to see YA male leads that care about consent and care about their partner, and vice versa. Anyone can be a victim of sexual violence, and it’s important to teach teens what a healthy sexual relationship looks like, especially with young men.

                                                  Works Cited

Manson, Mark. “What's the Problem with Masculinity?” Mark Manson, Infinity Squared Media, 22 Apr. 2019, https://markmanson.net/whats-the-problem-with-masculinity.

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Here’s the trailer for the documentary. I absolutely recommend the documentary to anyone interested in social issues or looking for an interesting watch!

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The Manly Man

The other day I came across the documentary, The Mask You Live In. I was excited to watch it as I’m a fan of the director Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who directed the acclaimed Miss Representation, a film about how women are presented in American media. The Mask You Live In is, in essence, a follow up to the Miss Representation, except this time it tackles masculinity in America.

Newsom takes a different direction from Miss Representation and looks at how peer and familial relationships enforce the idea of masculinity. The Mask You Live In, makes a point out what it deems as side effects of the American idea of masculinity, those being removed from expressing their emotions, lack of intimacy (close friendships), hypersexualized (especially when it comes to women), and violence. Newsom attributes, these factors to the idea of American masculinity, in her documentary, she shows that these ideals, are being enforced by friends and male family members of young men. This is where the idea of language comes in, “be a man” or “man up” is used in contexts to enforce the ideas of masculinity instead of opening up or trying a non-violent solution. Newsom also brings a lot of different voices into her documentary to show this idea of toxic masculinity. Experts in psychology and counseling (usually in the education field) talk about the real-world consequences of masculinity, issues such as rising depression and suicide in young men, and outbursts of violence that comes with it. Then we see the view of the young men in conversation with their fathers or other adult men, talking about how they pressured to behave in this “masculine” way because it’s the only norm they’ve been taught. They also talk about the loneliness they feel, that they can’t seem to form any real connections with people. The Mask You Live In, shows that this narrow-minded attitude of masculinity has negatively affected the behaviors and attitudes of young men in America, leaving them trapped in this toxic mindset they can’t escape.

One line that stuck with me was in one of the interviews with Dr. Niobe Way, a professor of developmental psychology that studies the mental health of young men. In her interview Dr. Niobe Way said, “They really buy into a culture that doesn’t value what we feminized, if we’re in a culture that doesn’t value caring, doesn’t value relationships, doesn’t value empathy, you are going to have boys and girls, men and women who go crazy.” American culture doesn’t show emotionally vulnerable men. Think of most of the leading roles in film, for example, we see these big burly men coming in to save the day, having sex, being a badass and kicking ass. It’s the same visual role redone continually. Books should be different from what we see onscreen. A book allows you to build more of a character for them to be more real than any onscreen character can be because a reader can get more into the character's mind even if the story is told from the perspective of the female lead. Instead, with YA authors, in particular, we are experiencing the onscreen phenomenon of the emotionally closed off and violent male lead.

I think YA authors should be crafting more realistic male characters, especially in regards to the male lead. American culture has a distinct stereotype when it comes to crafting a male lead, and authors have the opportunity to break that mold. To create a male lead that isn’t afraid to express his emotions and doesn’t need to resort to violence as an outlet or as a way to resolve conflict. YA authors could pave the way with representing a new age of YA male leads that have feminizing character qualities, for young boys to pick up a book and see that they don’t have to be brawny, they can be sensitive and open with people. I believe that we need to write male leads that can actually be related to and become figures that the new generation of YA readers can look up to.

                                                     Works Cited

The Mask You Live In. Directed by Jennifer Newson, The Representation Project, 2015.

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All My Books Bring Ladies to the Yard

In an email to Melissa Dahl, YA book blogger Aaron Bergh said, “More women read YA than men. For sure. Why? Who knows. I think a big part of it is that men want to be ‘men,’ and in our society, a man would never read a book with teenagers on the cover.” He’s not wrong women have complete control in the YA industry. Looking at sale value alone, in 2014 Science of Us (a research institute) found 60.5% of YA novels were bought by females, only 39.5% had been bought by men (Dahl).

 A similar reading study, conducted by the Pew Research Center, found that in an average year, men read an average of 4 books, while women read an average of 6 books. To note: the study didn’t take into account the genres read, only the amount of books read. The studies bring something interesting to light, women read not only more than men, but they have more purchasing power than men, specifically when it comes to YA. The market dictates a lot of things, what genres and issues will have success and which will die out when writing an author takes into account the way the market is shifting to determine their success, most importantly to find their audience. Sure, authors tend to have a demographic they would like to target, but when it comes down to it, a largely female audience will have to be taken into account. There’s another factor that comes with targeting a female audience, the fact most YA writers are women. In the article by Meghan Lewit, “Why Do Female Authors Dominate Young-Adult Fiction?”, it was found that on the NPR list, 100 Best-Ever Teen Novels, that 63% of the books were written, by female authors. The YA genre is dominated by female readers and writers, this phenomenon causing YA to shift in an entirely new direction. At the forefront of this change, YA female characters are finally getting a chance to have more complex stories and character arcs, we’re witnessing the birth of the strong female lead. It’s amazing to see stories about these empowered young women taking on the world, the problem is with more female writers and readers, what’s happening with male leads?

A longstanding issue with male writers having a female lead is that they didn’t understand how to write a female lead. Often shes an over-sexualized, Mary Sue relying on the male lead to come in and show her that she’s beautiful and save her from all her troubles. To simply put it, male writers wrote female characters with a misogynistic attitude. A lot of women writers and readers argued that male writers shouldn’t write female leads if they weren’t going to research into crafting a realistic female, that all male writers essentially wrote the same female lead just in different stories. This conversation hasn’t happened with female writers creating male leads, instead more accurately portrayed female leads are being produced and their male counterparts, reduced to horrible representations of young men. With a largely female-based audience, the male leads are now the ones being exploited and are near-identical carbon copies of each other. A pattern full of hypersexualized young men, poor diversity, similar character arcs, abuse, and a dose of toxic masculinity. With the focus on creating strong female leads, these female writers appear to have fallen into the trap of oversimplifying their male leads through the lens of masculinity standards. While Dahl and Lewit weren’t able to identify a real reason why men aren’t large fans of YA, Bergh seems to capture the idea. Harsh masculinity norms are tearing away at deeper characterization of male leads, instead, we’re given leads that are meant to show the perfect man and it’s coming at a cost.

                                               Works Cited

Dahl, Melissa. “The Dudes Who Read Young-Adult Fiction.” The Cut, New York Media, 8 June 2014, https://www.thecut.com/2014/06/dudes-who-read-young-adult-fiction.html.

Lewit, Meghan. “Why Do Female Authors Dominate Young-Adult Fiction?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 7 Aug. 2012, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/08/why-do-female-authors-dominate-young-adult-fiction/260829/.

“Your Favorites: 100 Best-Ever Teen Novels.” NPR, NPR, 7 Aug. 2012, https://www.npr.org/2012/08/07/157795366/your-favorites-100-best-ever-teen-novels.

Zickuhr, Kathryn, and Lee Rainie. “A Snapshot of Reading in America in 2013.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, Pew Research Center, 16 Jan. 2014, https://www.pewinternet.org/2014/01/16/a-snapshot-of-reading-in-america-in-2013/.