Young Adults Who Work in the Entertainment Industry

 Young adults who work in the entertainment industry are colorful main characters for YA novels. Radio Free Texas by Libba Bray focuses on Bowie James who is assigned community service which he serves at the local radio station.  A Season for Falling by Kate O'Shaughnessy reunites child stars Luke Cordova and Claire Hopper, when he hires her to show him a normal teenager's life for his new upcoming show. In The Music of Us by Emerald Alexandrea, Lucy, whose mom is injured and is having trouble paying medical bills,  asks childhood friend Jake, who is in a boy band, to help raise money for mom's medical bills. 

In Radio Free Texas Bowie James starts his senior year in a small 1980 Texas town by taking the blame for setting off a firecracker that was actually set off by his crush Comet Jensen.  His punishment is 100 hours of community service which he chooses to serve at a local radio station run by the anti-establishment DJ Marlon.  In order to keep the radio station on the air, Bowie recruits his friends, including Comet, to work there as interns. When Marlon asks Bowie to do the Sunday night “sermon,” Bowie finds that he actually has something to say about rock and roll, love and coming-of-age.

In A Season for Falling child star CeCe Lafayette, is now Claire Hopper, a senior in a Connecticut high school. She was devastated when her show House of Bricks was cancelled, and she found out her dad had stolen all her money.  When her former costar Luke Cordova comes to town to shoot a film, he hires her to show him what a normal teenager’s life is like. She is struggling to find a way to pay for college, so she is thrilled with the opportunity to earn some money. Accepting generous payment toward her college fund, Claire once again falls under Luke’s spell. Keeping her former relationship with him secret proves to be a challenge.

In The Music of Us Lucy, who is college bound, manages a cat café with her mom. When mom is injured, Lucy emails her childhood best friend Jake, who is now in a boy band.  Even though he ghosted her when he joined the band four years ago, she hopes he and his band will play a concert at the café to drum up business. Jake shows up and they manage to corral his bandmates into doing a fundraiser concert.  Misunderstandings between Lucy and Jake are orchestrated by his manager, who wants him to leave his past behind. But ultimately love prevails. 

Magical realism - Libba Bray, Gayle Forman and Neal Shusterman

 Magical realism is a literary genre in which a realistic narrative is combined with elements of dream or fantasy.  Three popular young adult authors have written new YA novels incorporating this element. Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray follows three different stories in the 1940s, the 1980s, and 2020 that involve a magical oak tree in Germany that helps people find true love. After Life by Gayle Forman introduces Amber Crane who inexplicably returns to life seven years after she was killed in a hit-and-run accident. All Better Now by Neal Shusterman is a dystopian novel about a future pandemic where the people who survive the disease become happy pacifists.

In Under the Same Stars three different groups of teens in three different decades are connected by the mystery of the magical Bridegroom's Oak in Germany, which helps people find true love. The first setting is 1940s Germany where Sophie and Hannah are resistance fighters during WW II. They not only find true love through the oak, but use it to pass valuable forged documents to those trying to escape the Nazis.  In 1980s West Berlin Texan transplant Jenny meets German queer punk Lena, falls in love with her and transforms herself into Dallas, a violin player in a punk rock band. In 2020 Brooklyn, Miles and Chloe are trying to adjust to the pandemic’s restrictions, as they explore the mysteries in her grandmother’s scrapbook, featuring two German teens who disappeared in 1941. The interwoven stories begin to come together as Miles and Chloe discover her grandmother is Hannah, who survived WWII. The themes of connections and the transformative elements of storytelling, which are explored, will resonate with the readers of this powerful new novel. 

After Life involves high school senior Amber Crane, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver seven years ago and inexplicably returns one day to her bereaved family.  Mom and Dad are divorcing, her sister is gay, her college-bound boyfriend works in a dive bar, and her beloved aunt has moved to New Zealand. The overarching questions are “Who killed her? and Why is she back?” Told from many points of view, the novel weaves together the current lives of people impacted by Amber’s death.  Amber realizes she was not the best sister, daughter or friend, when she was alive, and she begins to try to make amends and make sense of her situation. Forman returns to the topic of teen girls in liminal states between life and death, ultimately ending the story with a satisfying conclusion.

All Better Now takes place in a dystopian future where another pandemic dubbed Crown Royal is plaguing mankind.  People who survive it become utterly happy and pacifistic. Three teens experience the pandemic differently. Mariel, a homeless girl whose mother died from the disease, finds she is immune to it. She meets and falls for Ron, the depressed son of a billionaire, who survives Crown Royale with a changed disposition and is determined to infect anyone who hasn't had the disease. Morgan has been chosen by a wealthy Hungarian survivor, Dame Havilland, to find a vaccine against Crown Royale. Interesting ethical questions are explored as Ron and Mariel travel across the country trying to infect as many people as possible. Meanwhile, Morgan tries to find them, as Mariel’s immunity is key to finding a way to eradicate the disease.  The ambiguous ending lends itself to a sequel.