Review: Cancer and Young Adult Literature

In lieu of abstract: Illness has, since the 1960s, been a recurring – and often controversial – theme in young adult literature. However, it was not until the 2000s that illness narratives in YA fiction began to gain broader cultural traction, a development closely tied to the increasing number of such novels being adapted into films. It was also during this period that the term “sick-lit”, often used pejoratively, began circulating to describe stories featuring young people – frequently teenage girls or those close to them – grappling with serious illness and occupying a liminal space between life and death. A persistent critique of such narratives is that they romanticize and exploit illness and suffering. Others, however, argue that these stories possess strong didactic potential: by engaging with illness narratives, young readers may develop empathy and be better equipped to confront life’s most difficult realities.