Jeremiah or Conrad? Ben or Paxton? Maddy or Cassie? If you regularly find yourself scrolling through an endless wave of these questions across social platforms, you must have wondered why the recent Young Adult romances are making such a soaring breakthrough with Gen Z audiences. From Netflix’s Never Have I Ever and XO, Kitty, to Prime Video’s Off Campus and Euphoria, young audiences of today simply cannot stop talking about these stories and the characters in them. While you go and get your popcorn tub and prepare yourself for the binge, t2 decodes what is making these YA romances tick so perfectly with Gen Z.
Minimalistic, close-knit plots
While intricate plots full of suspense and high-octane thrills are entertaining to watch when you are looking for that adrenaline rush, comfort shows to come back to whenever you crave familiarity are rare. Whether it is Devi’s school in Never Have I Ever, the Fishers’ pastel-hued beach house by the serene ocean in The Summer I Turned Pretty, the small-town high school in Euphoria or the Briar University in Off Campus, the usual settings in YA romances are spaces we all can identify with easily, because who does not have fond memories from school or college, and who doesn’t recall nostalgic vacations with people they have known since childhood?
Conrad, Belly and Jeremiah in The Summer I Turned Pretty
As far as the stories are concerned, there is not much left to the imagination, but ironically, the predictability of these plots is exactly what keeps viewers hooked. Will Nate settle for Maddy or Cassie? Will Belly choose Jeremiah or Conrad? Will Belly forever stay in her childhood haven at Cousins or expand her horizons in Paris? Will Hannah and Garrett’s fake love affair make way for real feelings? The catch is, we all know the answers to these questions, which makes relishing the journey towards the climax comfortable to watch.
Relatable and realistic protagonists
One of the most significant aspects of YA romances, and a crucial factor for their success, is the presence of at least one realistically sketched protagonist whom audiences can find easily relatable. Such characters can easily take young audiences into confidence so that everything they feel can easily be conveyed to those watching the story unfold. In Never Have I Ever, the protagonist Devi experiences several relatable dilemmas faced by every adolescent and young adult: having to lie to parents for hangouts, crushing hard on the popular boy at school, academic rivalries, misunderstandings with friends, and the list goes on. Similarly, in Off Campus, Hannah’s desire to get noticed by the cool musical guy Justin, even if it means framing someone as her fake boyfriend, is something many young viewers will relate to. In Euphoria, every character becomes attractive with their glamorous and messy facets alike. From Maddy’s vulnerability in toxic relationships, Cassie’s desperation to be seen and validated, to Rue’s loneliness finding no outlet, every character in these stories has something which young people can easily relate to.
Romance as a spectrum
While traditional boy-meets-girl tropes anchor most YA romances even with the rising exploration of homosexuality and bisexuality on screen, recent releases do take a much fresher and more inclusive approach to romance by including homosexual couples and bisexual characters on an equal footing with heterosexual pairings steering the show. In Netflix’s XO, Kitty, the protagonist, experiences a queer awakening as she develops intense feelings for her close female friend Yuri. However, the endgame sees Kitty uniting with her soulmate, Min Ho, as the two fly off to Portland to start the next chapter of their lives. Jeremiah Fisher, the second lead in The Summer I Turned Pretty, is also seen exploring romantic relationships with both men and women, which is an important development from the original books, as highlighted by author Jenny Han, who wished to make the character more relevant and inclusive for today’s audiences.
Yearning, yearning, and yearning
The “yearner”, a type of hopeless romantic, is one of the most trending figures with the youth as far as teenage and YA romances of today are concerned. For a generation riddled with a mostly non-committal vocabulary in relationships, confused by situationships, benching and breadcrumbing, it is indeed comforting to witness lovers waiting on their partners for years, or staying loyal to them even when chances of union seem low. Stolen glances, gazing at the love interest from across crowded rooms or classrooms and holding hands are some gestures that create the slow-burning tension perfect to make audiences feel all the romance just from the vibes, even with minimal verbal declaration.
The college heartthrob whom everyone desires can also be emotionally invested and yearn for his crush whom he cannot have, like Justin in Off Campus silently harbouring intense romantic feelings for Hannah, whom he regularly sees with Garrett, finding a release for his heartbreak through music. Conrad in The Summer I Turned Pretty suffers a similar dilemma as he keeps pining for Belly, who is engaged to his brother, Jeremiah. In the first few episodes of Euphoria, Rue is in a fix with her newfound romantic feelings for Jules, her best friend, who has no inkling of the rising complications in their equation.
Friendship as a haven against the chaos of love
Taylor and Belly in The Summer I Turned Pretty
Enduring friendships that survive through thick and thin are an underrated yet defining facet of YA romances. When the protagonists find themselves emotionally exhausted with the turbulence of first love and chaotic love triangles, they fall back upon their best friends who see them through every storm in life. Taylor in The Summer I Turned Pretty; Eleanor and Fabiola in Never Have I Ever; Allie, Sabrina and Grace in Off Campus; and Yuri in XO, Kitty act as pillars of support for the protagonists Belly, Devi, Hannah and Kitty respectively. Even with steadily growing complications all around them, the female protagonists in Euphoria, including Maddy, Cassie, Rue, Jules and Lexi find each other side by side in every crisis, which significantly enhances the emotional impact of the series.
Pictures courtesy: Prime Video and official Instagram profiles of The Summer I Turned Pretty; Euphoria; XO, Kitty; Never Have I Ever; and Off Campus