Upcoming Trends: More Mermaids, Psychological Thrillers, Human Experimentation, and More

Our last post on upcoming trends we see in YA lit was such a hit that we decided to follow it up with a more in-depth discussion. Five Hub bloggers–Gretchen, Sharon, Mia, Nicole, and Emily–attended publisher previews, watched preview webinars, picked up ARCs, and scoured upcoming releases titles to get a sense for what’s been published recently and what’s coming soon. Here are some of the trends we observed.

Mermaids
This isn’t a new trend (we talked about it last fall), but it’s definitely still going strong!

• Of Poseidon by Anna Banks (May 2012)
• Real Mermaids Don’t Hold Their Breath by Hélène Boudreau (May 2012)
• The Vicious Deep by Zoraida Cordova (May 2012)
• Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown (June 2012)
• Waking Storms by Sarah Porter (June 2012)
• Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama (September 2012)
• The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan (September 2012)

Psychological thrillers

• Shift by Em Bailey (May 2012)
• Holding on to Zoe by George Ella Lyon (July 2012)
• Henry Franks by Peter Adam Salomon (September 2012)
• Lindsey Lost by Suzanne Phillips (September 2012)

Contemporary titles with male protagonists

• Plunked by Michael Northrop (March 2012)
• Lexapros and Cons by Aaron Karo (April 2012)
• Nothing Special by Geoff Herbach (May 2012)
• The Downside of Being Charlie by Jenny Torres Sanchez (May 2012)
• Personal Effects by E.M. Kokie (September 2012)

Human experimentation

• Starters by Lissa Price (March 2012)
• Adaptation by Malinda Lo (September 2012)
• Beta by Rachel Cohn (October 2012)
• Zom-B (October 2012) and Zom-B Underground (January 2013) by Darren Shan
• When We Wake by Karen Healey (March 2013)

LGBT titles

• Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom by Brendan Halpin and Emily Franklin (February 2012)
• The Difference Between You and Me by Madeline George (March 2012)
• It’s Our Prom (So Deal With It) by Julie Anne Peters (April 2012)
• Adaptation by Malinda Lo (September 2012)
• Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kristin Cronn-Mills (October 2012)

The Jazz Age
The stage was set for this trend with the success of Bright Young Things and the Flappers series but is coming to a head with Libba Bray’s upcoming The Diviners (September 2012). This seems to be a reflection of a larger cultural trend: “Boardwalk Empire,” the PBS documentary on Prohibition, and the upcoming film adaptation of The Great Gatsby also focus on the Roaring 20s.

We also talked about how a lot of body-swapping dystopias focus on physical perfection. Examples go back to Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and Wither by Lauren DeStefano, but also include Adaptation by Malinda Lo and Starters by Lissa Price. Mia quipped, “I just want to see a heroine who has hairy legs and is proud of it.”

There were also a few micro-trends we noticed but weren’t able to fully flesh out but will definitely be watching.

Books reminiscent of the TV show “Revenge”

• Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian (September 2012)
• The Innocents by Lili Peloquin (October 2012)

Books with fishing in them

• Catch and Release by Blythe Woolston (February 2012)
• Dying to Know You by Aidan Chambers (April 2012)

Animal- and plant-based twists on dystopian/post-apocalyptic stories

• The Last Free Cat by Jon Blake (August 2012)
• Rootless by Chris Howard (November 2012)

Women in vaguely Victorian times making their homes on possibly haunted estates

• Amber House by Kelly Moore, Tucker Reed and Larkin Reed (September 2012) [we seem to have gotten two titles mixed up--there's another one like this out there!]
• The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron (September 2012)

We also talked about how historical fiction is getting a makeover and becoming more exciting, nodded to the long list of cancer titles this spring (Never Eighteen, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, The Probability of Miracles), and are keeping our eye out for cataclysmic events that throw teens into desperate survival situations.

What was also interesting to us was what we weren’t seeing as much of: simple romance stories, books about addictions, non-dystopian sci-fi, road trip books, and contemporary titles with humor rather than tragedy.

What about you, Hub readers? What trends do you see happening this summer and fall?

– Gretchen Kolderup, currently reading Beware the Ninja Weenies by David Lubar

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