Girls’ School Stories in Twenty-First Century Australian Young Adult Literature

This thesis examines how coming-of-age narratives for teenage girls are shaped by school and university settings in Australian young adult novels from the twenty-first century. I argue that the importance of friendships in the coming-of-age journey is the key feature of these stories. It is comprised of two connected parts: a traditional research component and a creative component, which is a young adult novelette titled Girls on the Mark.