Last week, I wrote about Young Adult Transgressive Fiction — texts that fall under the YA category, but simultaneously have characteristics of transgressive fiction. Thinking more about it though, YA transgressive fiction books are more closely related to what I call mild transgressive fiction (a text that breaks some norms, but is not focused on making a political statement through the norm breaking). This is just because transgressive fiction seems to be so much transgression and criticism that that’s the whole point of the book, making it a genre that stands on its own, and I’m not sure the transgressive fiction of the YA world completely fits under that… It does question norms and exposes them though.

Push by Sapphire 100% falls somewhere in being a YA book and addressing the socially unacceptable. Claireece “Precious” Jones is a teen who deals with sexual abuse from her father, physical and verbal abuse from her mother, as well as the judgement from a society that doesn’t know her story. She unfortunately can’t read or write which just adds to the mountain of adversity she faces.

Precious gets bullied in school, does not speak up (because of her illiteracy), and is thought of as the bad and stupid kid. She gets pushed out and ends up joining an alternative school, much to the dismay of her mother who doesn’t leave the house and continues to abuse Precious. Precious’s dad has raped her and gotten her pregnant, twice, and her mother calls her a slut, clearly jealous of Precious (in some weird, twisted way).

While disgusting and difficult at times, this is a book that needed to be written. People need to be reminded that this behavior happens in the real world and that there are girls who are forced deal with this.
Precious wants more for her two kids than the life they were born into. She works hard at the alternative school she joins and finds a group of other girls in her class who become a support system to her, one that she never had before. Through learning to read and write and reflect, she learns more about herself and what she’s capable of.

Further tragedy happens to Precious, which was hard for me as a reader because I was rooting for her. She doesn’t let this stop her newfound outlook on life though, which is the best we can hope for in this situation.

The book is written from Precious’s point of view, taking on the writing of someone who is illiterate. As her writing improves over time through school, the book becomes easier to read as well. The writing, paired with the detailed descriptions of incest and abuse make some of the book difficult to read, but as someone who reads transgressive fiction, it didn’t stop me. Even though it’s similar to the book Tampa in that the plot is difficult, I consider this to be a strength of the book — these things happen in real life, don’t get talked about enough, but were very blatantly placed on the table here in Push.

While the content that can be challenging to read, this is what makes the novel a YA transgressive fiction piece, no doubt in my mind. Exposing the dark sides of humanity (horrific ways little girls are sometimes treated), this book tackles multiple transgressive topics through the story of a young adult. The way in which this story can be relatable for young adults also furthers this concept.

For anyone interested in transgressive fiction, I would recommend this book. It has a hopeful end to it, but it makes you earn your way there by traveling through dark, difficult paths first. It brings you to corners of horrific realities which are arguably worse than the imaginary scenarios used to fight against norms in a book like Fight Club.

I’m curious, for those of you that have read Push — what about the book makes it YA? What about the book do you think makes it transgressive?

Young Adult (YA) Literature is another tough genre to pinpoint. Romance is easy, horror is easy, but YA and transgressive fiction both seem to include other genre elements, thus hiding under other genres.

When defining YA lit, I ask myself:
Is it a genre written for young adults?
Do the characters need to be young adults?
Do the stories need to be about common topics that young adults like?
Is it all of the above?

I think about things that I read as a young adult, which included transgressive fiction. I asked for Chuck Palahniuk’s Haunted for Christmas and my mom, who bought it for me, told me that the bookstore clerk told her that people had passed out from reading it (I couldn’t wait to get through it — and I didn’t pass out). There’s no way this would be considered YA, right? But I was his audience and, indeed, YA.

So what makes something YA Lit? Southern Connecticut University says this:

“The term “young adult literature” is inherently amorphous, for its constituent terms “young adult” and “literature” are dynamic, changing as culture and society — which provide their context — change. When the term first found common usage in the late 1960’s, it referred to realistic fiction that was set in the real (as opposed to imagined), contemporary world and addressed problems, issues, and life circumstances of interest to young readers aged approximately 12–18…”

I appreciate they acknowledge that this genre can change as culture and society and the interest of young adults change.

But considering that YA lit refers to a realistic, contemporary world that addresses problems and life circumstances… doesn’t this sound like transgressive fiction? Or at least Mild Transgressive Fiction?
I guess it might depend on the concern we’re addressing, but please, we all have to know that kids deal with taboo things too.

Which leads me to what this blog post is about:

Transgressive fiction doesn’t talk about YA transgressive fiction enough — I mean, ever. When Googling “Young Adult Transgressive Fiction”, the same pages come up that appear when searching for “Transgressive Fiction”. This includes listings of the same novels and authors that adults who are interested in the genre are reading. The stories that are listed aren’t about teenagers (but is that a characteristic of YA lit? If YA lit just has to address problems that interest young readers, can they be about adult characters?). The ones popping up on Google would never be on the YA Lit shelves.

But there are stories that are written about teenagers dealing with transgressive topics, transgressive topics ESPECIALLY for teenagers. Many adults like to pretend teens are too young to be involved in violence and sex, but by trying to keep them away from those plots, these topics become even more “transgressive” for this age group. Right?

Here I list some contemporary novels, probably identified as YA novels, that are either outright transgressive or mildly transgressive.

Push by Saphire
Losing It by Keith Gray
Ask the Passengers by AS King
One Death, Nine Stories by Marc Aronson (Editor), Charles R. Smith Jr.
Go Ask Alice ????
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
Cut by Patricia McCormick
Books by Ellen Hopkins (like Crank, Burned, Glass, etc.)

So it appears that YA transgressive fiction, while not really identified as a genre, does exist.

Are there any other books you would identify as Young Adult Transgressive Fiction?

(Which I guess, at this point, I’m just defining as books focused on transgressive plots with teenager main characters.)