In the song, Teen Idle, by Marina and the Diamonds, the narrator wishes she did more with her youth. The song illustrates the tumultuous emotions that a teen may go through, even using religious imagery to integrate with the pressure teens face everyday. They may struggle between independence and dependence, as well as the roles society expects them to play. This confusing time is what gets captured in young adult fiction, particularly in fantasy.

As you may or may not know, fantasy is typically characterized as an escapist genre. It teleports the reader to another world, filled with magic and mystery and mayhem. It guides the reader through the characters' perspectives, allowing them to become something they aren’t. Whether that be a gutsy adventurer getting ready to go off on another journey, a noble knight preparing to face a dragon or a kind-hearted ruler who needs to face the juxtaposition of war, it’s these kinds of stories that teen readers enjoy, especially when they’re being confronted with adulthood.

J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series is an interesting example of this. The protagonist is a young boy who is struggling to cope with his newly found magical powers, all the while preparing to face an evil force that had killed his parents. It’s a coming-of-age story where the protagonist has to, in a way, fight this evil force in order to grow up. And when he does defeat the Dark Lord, he is finally able to live his life, independent of outside forces. He had to learn the hard way how to navigate through life with danger at every corner. Despite this, he managed to find friends and family to support him, helping him not lose his way on his journey.

On the other hand, Joseph Delaney’s The Last Apprentice series tells the tale of a young Thomas Ward, who undergoes intense training to become a Spook, a soldier who fights supernatural entities. In each book, Thomas fights different paranormal creatures, all the while trying to determine who he can trust and who he can’t. He meets and falls in love, and, like any other classic teenager, rebels against what his authority figure tells him to do. But despite all the obstacles he’s faced with, he is still able to make the necessary sacrifices and become a Spook, taking over his master’s place. While Harry Potter deals with friendship, The Last Apprentice deals with sacrifice and recognizing that in order for you to do the right thing, you need to have the courage to do what needs to be done.

While themes such as friendship and sacrifice may present themselves in a very grandiose manner, these themes are present in a teenager’s life. For instance, what happens to the importance of friendship if you can’t find any friends? What are you willing to sacrifice to get into that college, or go for that career, or be with the most popular person at school? What are you willing to do to make sure your family goes to bed every night with some sort of financial security?

Fantasy allows youths to explore these problems, not necessarily in the way they may experience it, but in a way that isn’t so threatening. In essence, the fantasy genre teaches them how to be more comfortable with themselves, and to look towards their inner strengths to solve their problems. Teenagers are going to have to prepare for the rigors of life, and reading fantasy is one way to do it.