Young Adult Fiction: The relevance of bestsellers in the construction of an alternative canon

Abstract

In Portugal, the young adult (YA) fiction label (instead of youth literature) is quite recent and its use in bookshops and public libraries is not common yet, despite the success of specific authors, series and collections aimed at this particular audience. The French chain FNAC, present in several Portuguese cities, has created a specific area (both on physical bookshelves and on its digital platform) dedicated to YA literature (“jovem adulto”) and the Portuguese online bookshop WOOK has followed suit on its website. The creation of specific YA fiction bestseller lists allows us to identify the main trends (Cart, 2017) with respect to the publication and reading of these books, by including not only best-selling books but also the most popular authors. The purpose of this text is to analyse a set of YA novels systematically present on both of the abovementioned lists during the summer of 2018 in Portugal, reflecting on their themes, narrative structure, and linguistic style. The analysis includes peritexts, such as covers and layout, and epitexts, such as publisher recommendations and online reviews, in order to understand the relevance of paratextual elements in determining the success of bestsellers. This study will attempt to identify the main trends in contemporary YA publishing (Koss & Teale, 2009; Nilsen & Donelson, 2009; Wolf et al., 2010), including the relevance of movie and TV series adaptations, as well as social media influence, with respect to the creation of an alternative reading canon.