A Balancing Act: Negotiating Relationships in Two Contemporary Young Adult Novels from the Philippines

• Main Author: Lee, Gabriela
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2014
• Subjects: Young adult literature; Philippines; Southeast Asia; Adolescence; teen; relationships
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/paha/vol4/iss2/2; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/paha/article/1118/viewcontent/PAHA_204.2_202_20Article_20__20Lee.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Although young adult literature has finally “achieved a sort of acceptance and respect for which it has been searching since the advent of the genre as a viable publishing category in the 1960s,” there is still an absence of critical and creative work on young adult literature in the Philippines. This paper attempts to address this absence by comparing two female protagonists and their relationships in two Filipino young adult novels, Una and Miguel by Lilledeshan Bose, and ’Sup? by Maria L.M. Fres-Felix. By examining how these two characters navigate peer relationships, both romantic and platonic, one hopes to see how the contemporary Filipino teenager can be identified and represented in contemporary young adult literature from the Philippines, and Southeast Asia.