With Euphoria getting back with its third season, it revitalizes the Young Adult genre that deeply spread in the series landscape over the past few years.
Originally Young Adult was a literature sub-genre written for readers aged 12 to 18, focusing on themes such as family dysfunction, substance abuse, alcoholism, and sexuality. Contemporary definition would now include social media issues and technologies paranoia, but still related to a teenage audience. Contrary to the coming-to-age fictions depicting the transition from childhood to adulthood, the Young Adult stories delve straight into teenagehood. It’s not about growing and leaving childhood, it’s about experiencing the very specific teenagehood issues, revolving around all kinds of addictions, from physical ones (sex, drugs, plastic surgery) to emotional ones (friendship, love, betrayal), and the specter in-between (sex-orientation, commitment).
Which is why Young Adult is a sum of themes tied to specific characters age, that can take roots in every genre, from drama (Love Sucks, Requiem for Selina, The Idol), fantasy (Charmed, Bitten, Fallen), Sport series (Blue Mountain State, School of Champions) to thriller (Shadow Leaks, Then You Run) or comedy (I Love L.A.)
If you’ve ever wondered what teenagers experience and what carried them away, it’s time to give it a look !
