Monstrous Bodies

<p> Recent works of young adult fantastic fiction such as Stephenie Meyer's <I>Twilight Saga</I> have been criticized for glamorizing feminine subordination. But YA horror fiction with female protagonists who have paranormal abilities suggests a resistance to restrictive gender roles. The monstrous Other is a double with a difference a metaphor of the Western adolescent girl pressured to embody an untenable doll-like feminine ideal. This book examines what each of three types of female monstrous Others in young adult fiction--the haunted girl the female werewolf and the witch--has to tell us about feminine subordination in a supposedly post-feminist world where girls continue to be pressured to silence their voices and stifle their desires.</p>