Welcome to Introducing YASA! This series of blog posts is all about getting to know the YASA executive board members. In this entry, we chat to our Secretary-Treasurer Jennifer Gouck and her animal rescue companion, Belle.
What’s your research area, in three words?
Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Post-2000 US YA, Girlhood
cat, Belle.
What’s the most under-rated YA novel that you’ve loved?
Tim Tharp’s The Spectacular Now. It’s been a while since I read it, but I remember it sparking that swelling feeling in my chest. Sutter, the protagonist, is just so conflicted. My heart broke for him.
Where’s your favourite place to read?
On the sofa with a blanket on a chilly, dark Autumn evening. Preferably with a fire going!
What’s your favourite beverage/snack to have while reading?
Embarrassingly, I can’t snack while I read. I get distracted by my own crunching, end up focused on the food, and can’t take in what I’m reading! My favourite reading beverage is, very specifically, a caramel hot chocolate from Clements Coffee in Belfast, NI. (#NotAnAd)
What is your favourite YA tv/movie adaptation?
Love, Simon is my problematic fave for sure!
What’s a YA on your TBR that you’re excited to read?
Ben Philippe’s Charming As A Verb. I’m also excited for Camp by L.C. Rosen, Layoverland by Gabby Noone, and Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds.
What would your teen-self think of your current research, in a few words?
I think she’d think it was cool. Imagine having a job based on books you love to read anyway!
What’s one YA that you’d love every teenager to read?
It’s incredibly tough going, but Louise O’Neill’s Asking for It is a must-read.
If you weren’t a YA scholar, what other kind of YA practitioner would you be? (librarian, bookseller, author, publisher etc…)
I worked as a Senior Bookseller in the YA section of Waterstones for around 3 years, so I think I would have continued bookselling. It was always my dream to open a little café/bookshop with a resident cat called Catticus (or some other wonderfully punny name).
What is your favourite YA trope?
Even though she’s VERY problematic, it has to be the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, right?! Though I also enjoy “I let out a breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding.”
Thanks for chatting, Jennifer!
Contact Jennifer on Twitter at @JennieGouck.
Jennifer Gouck is a PhD student at University College Dublin. Funded by the Irish Research Council, Jennifer’s thesis focuses on representations of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl in contemporary American Young Adult Literature, Media, and Culture. She is also a feature writer and fiction reviewer for YA literary journal, Paper Lanterns. In 2018, Jennifer was shortlisted for the Irish Society for the Study of Children’s Literature Biennial Award for an Outstanding Thesis on Children’s Literature for her work on rape (culture) in Louise O’Neill’s Asking for It (2015).
