Date Presented

Spring 4-2026

Document Type

Thesis

First Advisor

Dr. Aubrey Plourde

Second Advisor

Dr. Michael Robinson

Third Advisor

Dr. Elizabeth Sharrett

Abstract

Like many contemporary Young Adult (YA) novels, particularly of the YA romance genre, John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (2012) explores the complexities of teenage sexuality. The narrative follows familiar genre conventions: sixteen-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster’s routine life is disrupted when she meets seventeen-year-old Augustus (Gus) Waters. Their initial encounter is immediately charged with sexual attraction. Gus cannot seem to look away from her, while Hazel quickly addresses that he is “a hot boy” (Green 8-9). From this first meeting, the relationship develops much like a traditional YA romance, with their emotional connection and physical desires ultimately culminating in their first sexual encounter on a trip to Amsterdam. However, those familiar with The Fault in Our Stars know that I purposefully left out a crucial part of the narrative, that Hazel and Gus have terminal cancer, to highlight what the narrative turns into without it, formulaic YA romance genre fiction. Hazel and Gus’ terminal cancer controls their everyday lives, including their relationship and their sexuality, and means that they will likely not reach adulthood. In fact, the novel does not end with what one would expect as the happily-ever-after of a YA romance, where the couple ends up together, and any conflicts they face are resolved, because Gus dies at the end, leaving Hazel alone. Since the risks of Hazel and Gus’ terminal cancer linger behind every moment in the novel, loss, loneliness, disease, and death saturate the narrative. As a result, YA literature’s expected roles of sexuality and the power of adult control in relation to sexuality are challenged. Children’s literature, which includes the subset of YA literature, is the only literary genre defined by its audience; yet, despite being written for children and adolescents, it is predominantly written by adults. YA, which will be the focus of this research, allows adults to control the knowledge adolescents possess because of the power adults hold in the author-reader relationship. Literary scholar Roberta Trites describes sexuality as “a locus of power for the adolescent” (102), meaning that knowledge surrounding sexuality is a source of empowerment for adolescents. Therefore, this suggests that, to maintain adult power in the relationship between adults and adolescents, the adult author must control how adolescent readers perceive sexuality in YA. As a result, when discussing sexuality in YA, it is often portrayed through risk-based language, which paints adolescent sexuality as being riddled with dangers. For example, Judy Blume’s Forever (1975) contains a conversation between seventeen-year-old Katherine and her grandmother about Katherine’s boyfriend Michael, in which her grandmother warns her to be “careful” of “pregnancy” and “venereal disease” (37). Katherine’s grandmother’s advice focuses on the dangers of engaging in sexual activity, suggesting that the adult must provide guidance in terms of adolescent sexuality to protect the adolescent. YA literary scholars argue that this emphasis on a risk-based narrative of sexuality as full of consequences (STDs, STIs, pregnancy, violence, ruined relationships, etc.) enhances the adult author and adolescent reader power imbalance by repressing adolescent sexuality through the Romantics’ concept of childhood innocence. For instance, Kokkola points out Trites’ acknowledgment of the “wagging finger of the adult” within Blume’s Forever (43). In the novel, Katherine’s mom says to her, “‘But you have to be sure you can handle the situation before you jump into it ... sex is a commitment ... once you’re there you can’t go back to holding hands’” (84). Katherine’s mother depicts sex as an act that divorces one from a childhood innocence “that you can’t go back to” once the deed is done. This demonstrates the adult attempting to repress adolescent sexuality through the scare tactic of presenting sex as a big and irreversible decision. These explanations of risk-based narratives, however, neglect the idea that a single YA text can present both narratives of risk and resistance. Ultimately, I seek to explore whether the inclusion of sexuality in contemporary YA functions as a method of control over adolescents or gives young people autonomy, showing them that they have the capacity to make sexual decisions for themselves. Therefore, my research examines The Fault in Our Stars as a cultural phenomenon by applying this question to both the YA novel and its film adaptation.

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