What’s distinctive about spooky Young Adult books?

Ask Alice is an online column written by our former Secretary, Dr Alice Boer-Endacott, who has published several young adult fantasy novels and a non-fiction mini, under ‘A B Endacott’.

Like it or not (and if you’re me…not), October is spooky season. I try to ignore the ever-increasing proliferation of pumpkins, skeletons, and ghoulish apparitions that pop up around this time each year. However, I can’t help being a little influenced by my surroundings (it helped I was reading a YA thriller last week). I’ve been thinking about the increase in horror YA titles and thriller YA titles published in the last few years (this article claims Karen M. McManus’ One of Us is Lying (2017) really kicked off the thriller trend), or what I am crudely lumping together under the umbrella of ‘spooky reads’. They’re around, but I don’t think they’ve been extensively discussed.

While I could ask several questions on the subject, I’m going broad, and looking at what is distinctive about YA spooky reads? 

To help me answer this question, I reached out to three of my favourite LoveOzYA people, who I would argue are the absolute queens of scream (and everything spooky inbetween):
First, Katya de Beccera, author of horror books When Ghosts Call us Home, They Watch from Below, and forthcoming adult horror Little Kin – also my former PhD supervisor extraordinaire. Second, Margot McGovern, author of psychological thriller Neverland and horror This Stays Between Us. Finally, Ellie Marney, author of the thriller None Shall Sleep sequence, and forthcoming adult thriller No One is Safe.

I started by asking Ellie, Katya and Margot what they felt the difference was between writing spooky reads for Young Adults and adults.

Margot opened with the observation that, to her, the primary difference was “what ideas and themes are going to resonate with teen vs adult readers, and how you signpost and contextualise mature content for those readers.”

Katya’s answer built upon this by articulating that YA characters are “experiencing the world with fresh eyes, which often comes with heightened emotions in response to a lot of ‘firsts’, from one’s first crush to first friendship, to the first taste of what it means to be growing up. […] Teen protagonists may as well be dealing with ‘grown-up’ problems, but they still operate within a specific context, dealing with school, parents, siblings and so on. With a few exceptions, teen characters don’t have full control of their lives, not in the same way as adults do.” She added that by contrast, “my next book, Little Kin (forthcoming in 2026) is written firmly for adult audiences, with its protagonist at the peak of her career and dealing with the reality of looking after an aging parent, while searching meaningful connections and trying to understand herself.”

Margot’s subsequent elaborate captured this dichotomy well. She explained: “This Stays Between Us, explores complicated teenage friendships, consent in early romantic relationships, and the difficulty of finding and elevating the truth amid a chaos of misinformation. So the tension and malevolence in the story is woven around those elements.”  She went on to say, “One of the things I love about writing YA is that you’re working with teen characters who are actively questioning and shaping their identity and what they value. They’re also learning to be independent and navigating big emotional experiences, which means they’re taking risks and making mistakes. And dropping those characters into a high-stakes thriller narrative is a really fun way to heighten and showcase all that internal work they’re doing.”

Certainly, the experience of teenagers who are dynamic and experiencing many things for the first time within the context of restrictions imposed by their age (and lack of experience) is a hallmark of Young Adult literature. However, the tension between encountering these restrictions and wanting to push back against them is captured in these kinds of books, especially.

This article noted thrillers hook readers from the very beginning with the mystery. Moreover, “there’s a subversiveness built into the genre. You’ve got kids poking around, asking the questions adults won’t. They’re disobedient by design.” It continues: “They’re solving crimes, but they’re also solving systems. Bringing down a ‘big bad’.” Not only is this increasingly important for teenagers in a world where they’re seeing systems fail them, but it involves the reader in the mystery. Thrillers have a participatory element because the reader becomes a detective, picking up on clues, questioning characters. Brooks makes a point which is particularly close to my heart, that this is a particular form of critical thinking – a nice secondary benefit.

However, the broader takeaway remains: thrillers hook and engage readers in ways that really appeals to teenagers. That discovery of self, and discovery of the world isn’t as much of a cornerstone of thriller and horror for adults.

Ellie, who is currently preparing her first adult thriller for publication, noted, “It took me a while to hit my straps when writing my first adult book […] adult fiction, it seems to be very much about tone – the characters are more mature in tone, their lives are established, there’s no restrictions on what they can/can’t do unless they make those restrictions for themselves. There’s the sense of freedom (and responsibility) that comes with adult independence, and they have a certain self-awareness. They can also have more direct thoughts and conversations about adult topics like desire, sex, money, vices, etc – and their behaviour has a more confident maturity. Adults are often less idealistic – they can be cynical, a bit more world-weary.”

Again, there was beautiful overlap between the answers, as Katya pointed out, “perspective must shift when writing for adult audiences, as characters in their 20s, 30s and beyond have likely already experienced all of it, probably more than once, so their view of the world is different, perhaps a little jaded.”

Indeed, Ellie added, “There’s no obligation to maintain an upbeat or hopeful tone in adult fiction the way there is in YA (although sometimes it’s nice to leave the reader on an upbeat note, so they keep coming back!)”

That lead to my next question, whether there is a difference between what level of gore, or graphic or intense content can be portrayed in Young Adult and Adult spooky books. The answers here were particularly interesting.

Margot said, “As far as I can tell, there aren’t hard and fast rules when it comes to graphic content. When This Stays Between Us was on submission, the feedback was mixed. One publisher said it was too violent for their YA list, while others were enthusiastic about the story’s darker elements. [The book includes] a content warning to ensure that readers and their caregivers are aware of the dark/mature concepts and can decide whether it’s appropriate for them – because that threshold is subjective.” However, she acknowledged, “I think carefully about how I signpost and contextualise graphic/explicit scenes for teen readers.”

By contrast, Ellie had a more specific takeaway: “So far, my experience has been that you can push the boundaries more with swearing and depictions of things like personal vices (drinking, drug-use, etc) as well as guns and sex and violence. Interestingly, even in adult books, my editors have drawn a line regarding some descriptions of gore and violence! I just write what feels true for the scene, and negotiate with my editors about it later […] It also depends on your genre: I’m writing action-y thrillers, so some violence is expected, but not as much gore as say, splatterpunk horror.”

However, Katya seemingly echoed Margot’s point, saying, “what’s considered ‘too much’ is subjective, but YA stories do generally tend to be less graphic, and if there’s any sex, it’s subdued rather than descriptive. However, these restrictions are not clear-cut, and there’s certainly plenty of books marketed at teens which break these ‘rules’.” She shared that Little Kin (her forthcoming adult novel), while not necessarily ‘scarier’ than any of her other books, “does have a sex scene, and in my view, that certainly sets it apart from my four YA novels!”

With this being said, there are similarities between what Young Adult and Adult readers of these texts want that should also be acknowledged. Katya noted, “I gravitate toward so-called ‘elevated horror’, where ghosts and monsters always mean something, existing as a metaphor and carrying a deeper meaning.” Famously, a lot of horror has the ‘monster’ at its core serving as an analogue of some anxiety or fear, be it something to do with the broader world, or something more personal (as a pregnant woman – yes, I absolutely can shoehorn my pregnancy into this article – I’ve been thinking a LOT about the Alien films…). Indeed, this article observes a significant uptick in recent years of horror titles on YA shelves, and explains this because “horror gains popularity in troubled times because it provides us with a distraction from the terrors of the real world [in part, because it can] offer us a way to work through our own fears through relatable characters experiencing similar ones in a fictional environment.” That’s appealing to readers of any age.

One interesting other difference between Young Adult and Adult books in general, but which I would argue make books of this nature especially compelling is the fact that YA books often genre blend. There is often significant overlap between horror and thriller, with even romance bleeding in. Equally, we can observe thriller tropes in books categorised in other genres. This multi-dimensional storytelling is really compelling and really engaging, making Young Adult ‘spooky’ books distinctive.

Yet for all this distinctive genre blending and difference in content, Margot’s parting observation is worth bearing in mind: “I think there’s sometimes a misconception that YA thrillers are softer, more innocent relatives of their adult counterparts, which isn’t the case! Teens who are into thriller reads expect the real deal. They’re wary of anything that feels censored or diluted; they want dark, challenging stories that scare and surprise them.” However, those stories need to speak to them as readers with respect to what’s going on in their internal (and external) lives – they also need to be a damn good story.

Really, my favourite hallmarks of YA as a not-quite genre really assert themselves when it comes to thinking about what’s distinctive about YA spooky reads: blending of genres, testing of existing authority structures, and interrogation of characters’ worldview and sense of self – with an expectation of some kind of personal growth. It’s an interesting space, and one we could probably stand to explore a little further.

A huge thank you to Margot, Ellie, and Katya for their generous contributions.