Description

This collection specifically and solely focuses on Young Adult literature texts where cancer plays a prominent role, including widely-read texts like John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, Nicholas Sparks’ A Walk to Remember, and Jesse Andrews’ Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. The chapters present a variety of arguments, each developing a novel investigation into how these stories explore the effects cancer has on a person, a family, or on a relationship. As scientific studies continue to devlop new understandings of the biology behind cancer, and new sociological studies continue to uncover how a cancer diagnosis impacts the fabric of our culture(s), these collected essays continue to investigate how authors have woven cancer into the stories we write for young people. A number of distinct avenues are taken here, arguing for new approaches in crafting narrative, deeper appreciation for family support networks (or their absence), and what literary criticism can uncover when applied to cancer narratives.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Monster Theory and Parental Loss in A Monster Calls
Sarah Minslow

Chapter 2: The Wilting Branch: The Effects of Cancer on the Family Unit
Abigail Bailey

Chapter 3: A Matter of Perspectives: How Pediatric Patients and Parents Cope with Cancer and Death in Ways to Live Forever and Before I Die
Alessia Silvestrin

Chapter 4: Last Things: Sick Protagonists’ Bucket Lists
Jennifer Marchant

Chapter 5: Grounded in Fantasy or Reality: Comparing real-life accounts of adolescent cancer with fictional themes of experience in popular YA texts.
Katie Doering

Chapter 6: “Oddest and Most Hopeless:” Leukemia, the YA Cancer Narrative, and Writing for Young Adults
Stephen M. Zimmerly

Chapter 7: Teenage Hospital Romance among the Cancerously Ill in Cellular and Too Young to Die
Arka De Barman

Chapter 8: EcoGothic and Bodily Decay in the Film Adaptations of A Walk to Remember (2002), Now is Good (2012), The Fault in Our Stars (2014), Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015), and Clouds (2020)
Jesse Bair

Product details

Published Dec 20 2024
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 200
ISBN 9781666927566
Imprint Lexington Books
Dimensions 229 x 152 mm
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Stephen M. Zimmerly

Contributor

Sarah Minslow

Sarah Minslow is an Associate Professor of English…

Contributor

Abigail Bailey

Contributor

Katie Doering

Contributor

Arka De Barman

Contributor

Jesse Bair

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