Most YA books tend not to hyper focus on whether or not the protagonist wakes up with a painful zit on their chin, or the rate at which hair seems to grow out of places you definitely don’t want hair, and that is okay by me. After growing up in the late ‘90s and early 2000s where it seemed like a lot of teen media was unhealthily obsessed with “ideal” appearances, there’s a part of me that is grateful…but also, for real, where are the teens in YA that deal with this stuff in a non-toxic manner? Where are the books normalizing that you might have acne or forget to shave your legs, and it’s okay? When I think about YA books I’ve read in the last year or so, only two books that have protagonists learning to reconcile with the realities of their bodies immediately spring to mind: Perfectly Parvin by Olivia Abtahi and TJ Power Has Something to Prove by Jesmeen Kaur Deo. It’s not lost on me that both books are about girls who aren’t white trying to fit into a very white and Western ideal of beauty. I loved both of these books for their journeys and what they had to say about beauty, bodies, and how society perceives and judges women. I also really like that the cover of TJ Powar features TJ with a visible mustache, unibrow, and hair on her knuckles! YA book covers don’t tend to show these realities on book covers because, well…publishers want to sell books, and they want their covers to be “attractive.” Even in their marketing, they are buying into an ideal that is rarely achieved by most teens, especially teens who might come from disadvantaged backgrounds where the money might not be available for these kinds of beauty and personal care routines. I would love to see more YA books that feature all sorts of body angst, and characters who learn to feel comfortable in their own skins, whatever new weirdness we might be facing. Body Talk: 27 Voices Explore Our Radical Anatomy edited by Book Riot’s own Kelly Jensen is a great YA nonfiction starting point as it explores body hair, disability, sexuality, and more. But I’d also like to see more YA protagonists dealing with the sometimes frustrating and very relatable issues that arise with just existing in imperfect human bodies. Because we all have body hair, and we all get blemishes, and it’s all normal. So let’s see that reflected in YA fiction!
