American Teen Dramas (eBook)

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Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

This was such a fun exploration of teen dramas! It made me nostalgic for ones I watched and curious about ones I didn't. Really enjoyed it.

NetGalley, Jennifer Broomfield

Well-researched, with plenty of anecdotes from newspapers and articles, and plenty of throwbacks to shows and the cultural moments during their release, Hagan has captured the American teenage spirit in her book.

NetGalley, Moshita Prajapati

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

A nostalgic deep dive into the teen shows that shaped generations. From Buffy’s vampires to Riverdale’s chaos, Hagan traces how high school became television’s most dramatic stage.

NetGalley, A D

This was a great and informative read and very readable. It was well-written and well-researched!

NetGalley, Mariam Qureshi

Such a fun read, and quite informative. This is great for people interested in: television and genre history, young adult and teen audiences, fandoms, and 90s-2000s pop culture generally. And it's a fun pick for our customers interested in cult classic TV like Buffy and Gilmore Girls. I have not seen all of the shows Hagan discusses, and I still enjoyed each chapter and learned trivia and behind-the-scenes stuff. This isn't a dense "critical" reading, and it isn't totally a "fandom" take - I liked the grounded in-between place, exploring why different shows were picked up or canceled, looking at when tv shows finally covered different social issues, and considering an era of tv that is gone with the streaming era. I enjoyed Hagan's voice in this - it felt like something that avid readers or podcast listeners could get into; very accessible.

NetGalley, Novie Nim

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars


This book takes the reader through the recent history of teen dramas from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Riverdale. I really enjoyed the detailed summary of shows I haven't seen before - but it was also fun to re-live shows that I have seen like The O.C. There is so much about the actors and small details about these shows that I'd never heard - I liked the connections to link all of the shows.

If you enjoyed any teen dramas over the past 20 years, I strongly recommend this book!

NetGalley, Mike Heenan

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Oh man I loved this. I truly couldn’t wait to read it when I received my copy and it didn’t disappoint. This is a must read if you spent your teens and 20s loving these shows and deeply invested in the fandom spaces that grew because of them.

This book covers a lot of ground for quite a short read. Each chapter is focussed on one show (for example Buffy, The OC, Gilmore Girls, Riverdale)- but many more shows are discussed alongside these. The author engages with these shows both with loving nostalgia and also criticism and seriousness when needed. I laughed out loud multiple times. The description of One Tree Hill (a favourite show of mine) in its final season as ‘hadn’t so much jumped the shark as found itself floundering in the waves, waiting for death’ was a personal highlight!

One running theme and key take away from this book is that, unfortunately, many of these shows simply wouldn’t be made today. Or if they were made they would be given one season and cancelled. Looking back at the longevity of some of these shows in the current climate is truly wild. The author’s reminder that Supernatural survived both the 2007 writers strike and the covid production shutdown in 2020 blew my mind.

The author’s passionate call that TV should allowed to be ‘weird and messy’ and find its way and its audience over time is so important- in the current streaming landscape shows are too often cancelled before they have that chance.

More than anything this book is a celebration of television, but also of the communities and fandoms it spawns. Of the friendships we make, the art we create, the slightly unhinged hot takes we post at 2am on tumblr that maybe we regret a bit 10 years later. If you’ve ever loved a show with your whole heart- this book is for you.

NetGalley, Sonia Hunter

What a delightful romp through TV shows I have loved. As the cover suggests, we start with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and weave our way through the blockbuster ten dramas as they aired.

20% of the book is devoted to Buffy and it helped tremendously that I've seen the show several times. I enjoyed the anecdotes and the "reasons why".

Gilmore Girls features next and the description of how this was such a different show was really enlightening.

NetGalley, Morticia Addams

Given teen dramas are one of my forever greatest television loves, this was a book that I HAD to read. I loved the recaps of shows, including both development, plot, casting, and other facts about their runs. What I loved even more was the chapters focused on shows I hadn't watched. As a testament to how great the recaps of these shows were, these chapters made me want to watch these shows I'd never seen before... a great body of work on a beloved genre.

NetGalley, Andrea Kleekamp