ABSTRACT
The demarcation of reading by age is always a tricky one, perhaps especially so when it comes to teenage fiction. What is at issue is not so much the teenage of the reader as the teenage or ‘young adulthood’ of the characters. The expectation is that teenagers should read about the things that they themselves are doing or would enjoy doing if only they could. For this reason, teenage fiction has evolved as the most narcissistic of all fictions as, in its current form at least, it seems primarily directed towards mirroring society and in so doing offering reassurance about ways of behaving.
