Champagne Problems: A Critical Review of Young Adult Literature Marketed as Feminist

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Analyses of Community, Memory, and Cultural Representation in Children's and Young Adult Literature

Abstract

This critical review of feminist young adult literaure explores the affordances and limitations of feminist identities taken on by youth in response to toxic school culture across six young adults novels. The authors draw on feminist scholarship to suggest these books offer roadmaps for youth to navigate activist and feminist identities. The protagonists in these novels experience tensions in defining and developing their feminist identities and utilize a variety of literacy practices, at times upsetting those in power, to enact change in their communities. The authors examine ways in which white feminism has eclipsed what issues constitute a feminist cause and whose voices are centered in feminist projects.

Authors

• Nicole Ann Amato, The University of Iowa

• Katie Priske, University of Iowa