Gritty and Pretty: The Spectacle of "Bad Neighborhoods" in YA Speculative Fiction
How do young adult SFF authors craft a "bad urban neighborhood"? In this video, I explore the mix of danger and allure in the settings of five YA novels: Valiant by Holly Black, The Fever King by Victoria Lee, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, and Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi. I take a look at the liminal spaces of the invented cities, as well as the element of spectacle to determine what these books can tell us about geographies of youth -- and what aspects of urban youth experiences get left out in the distanced worlds of fantasy.
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Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
06:15 - Urban Youth: Liminal Age, Liminal Spaces
28:55 - Gritty and Pretty: Spectacle vs. Neighborhood
55:51 - Conclusion
Transcript: https://kathleenwriting.com/2026/05/2...
Media discussed:
Valiant by Holly Black (2004)
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (2011)
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (2015)
The Fever King by Victoria Lee (2019)
Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi (2022)
References:
Cairns, K. (2018). Youth, Temporality, and Territorial Stigma: Finding Good in Camden, New Jersey. Antipode, 50, 1224-1243.
Debord, G. (1967). The Society of the Spectacle. Trans. D. Nicholson-Smith. Black & Red.
Flegar, Z. & Miskec, J.M. (2024). Introduction: Children's Places, Spaces, Literature, and Culture. In Flegar, Z. & Miskec, J.M. (Eds.), Children’s Literature in Place Surveying the Landscapes of Children’s Culture, pp. 1-9.
Hamilton-McKenna, C. (2024). “Girl. Wherever the Fuck You Want”: The Contingent Mobilities of Literary Adolescence. In Flegar, Z. & Miskec, J.M. (Eds.), Children’s Literature in Place Surveying the Landscapes of Children’s Culture, pp. 79-87.
Levy, M. & Mendlesohn, F. (2016). Children's Fantasy Literature: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press.
Wojcik, P.R. (2016). Fantasies of Neglect: Imagining the Urban Child in American Film and Fiction. Rutgers University Press.