So, you’re in a bookstore or the library, let’s head past Stephen King, adult horror, and anything that has a creepy hand or cat on the front cover. Slink on back to the young adult section. Horror is usually mixed in with crime and thriller. Arguably, there are more thrillers and mysteries in YA than horror, but you can still find them there. You’ll probably be looking for authors like Kendare Blake, Rory Power, R.L. Stine, and Tiffany D. Jackson. While I love a good mystery, if you hit Holly Jackson, you’ve gone too far.
There are so many definitions about what makes a book YA, and for the purposes of my evaluation, I am going to define YA horror as books with dark themes, antagonistic monsters or forces, centered around younger characters (ages 13-18) and featuring primarily teen settings (schools, youth camps, etc.). They usually have some off-page violence and focus more on the fantastical elements than the gore.
So, using that definition, we can break it down further. If someone held me over a vat of spiders and asked me what the most important thing about YA horror is, I would say the characters (and then I would survive). Unlike adult books, young adult books usually have the goal to capture the delicate moments in a person’s life between ages 13 and 18. This is the coming-of-age moment. It’s not any different for YA horror, which is coming-of-age, but serial killers. The character-centric stories mean that sometimes it’s not all about the gore, the ghosts, or the grit, but about the friends we make along the way. In fact, most stories are about characters being inexplicably thrown into horror and having to find their way out by facing their fears or realizing something about themselves. We often think about horror through the lens of what happens, while YA horror thinks about who it happened to.
There is nothing wrong with character-driven stories (young adults love that). But it can leave the door open to plot holes and weird screams that are never explained. A well-written story will have a healthy balance of both character and plot. This can be hard when you fit horror into a category specifically for teenagers, because there are just some things you can’t show on page. While I think there is a lot of wiggle room for this kind of thing, you will find that most YA horror novels will have off-page violence or minimal violence and gore. This makes it great for those who are looking for just a spooky good time and not The Shining. A great author will be able to keep the grit of the story, even if they don’t keep all the blood and guts.
The last pillar of YA horror is imperative to single out the genre from others. Horror as a genre usually falls into three categories: occult, slasher, and monster. YA horror is the same. You can also see these categories across genres (in fact, I bet the last book you read about vampires was not a horror novel). We see these elements everywhere, but it’s in horror that they are, well, horrific. Why? Well, horror as a whole, and specifically YA horror, does not romanticize the monster. These zombies aren’t your friends, that vampire is going to drink your blood, and the witch will eat you. The killers are killers, and the heroes, heroes. Sure, there is a little wiggle room (I guess there are nice ghosts, and sometimes the monster isn’t who you think it is!), but generally the whole point of a horror novel is to beat the monster, save the town, and face your fears.
Whether you are settling into your fall season with a pumpkin spice latte and Hocus Pocus or there is something more sinister on your reading list, stay safe and stay spooky.
Hayley Bigelow, Pine Reads Review Writer