The Call is Coming from Inside the Culture: Young Adult Horror Literature from 1980-2024

Although YA literature is increasingly included in educational research and scholarship, it is rarely analyzed as a distinct collection of diverse subgenres, instead being broadly collected as a universality based on teen readership (Brooks & Cueto, 2018; Hill, 2014; Hunt, 2009). Consequently, scholarly research on YA horror as a high-interest genre has been limited. This study explored the trends and tropes of contemporary YA horror (2014-2024) to establish whether the genre can be said to have definitive boundaries and whether the genre has significantly evolved since the 1980s. By conducting a critical content analysis within and between 10 contemporary YA horror novels published between 2015 and 2024 and six classic YA horror books published between 1980 and 2014, I identified parallels between texts and real-world events or broader societal processes. Subsequently, I examined the various strategies by which authors characterized the experience of fear for young readers, through tropes including evocation of emotional moods and physical response through fear, supernatural/monstrous beings, hauntings, betrayals, discomfort/disestablishment, and frightening initiations into adulthood. Findings indicated that non-supernatural villains, themes of revenge and bullying or social exclusion, and the Final Girl archetype were common genre elements across the identified eras of YA horror. Monstrous creatures or settings, the presence of the uncanny, interstitial, or contradictory, a balance between humor and unease, and the tension between control and powerlessness were thematic elements identified in every YA horror text.