ABSTRACT
Derogatively labeled “sick-lit,” many recent Young Adult novels tell tearful stories of young people dying from cancer. The moniker might be new, but the literary trope of the dying child is not. It can be found throughout Western literary history, with peaks in romantic and Victorian writings. In this moment, however, popular culture is conspicuously full of narratives of young people dying from disease, with many of the stories becoming bestsellers and successful films. How can that be? What do these titles say about our time?
