I think we all remember the boring horror that was the vampire craze spawned by Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga.  (I still can’t get over the fact that her vampires sparkled.)  For several months you could not find a YA book that didn’t feature vampires in some way or another as every author and their dog tried to cash in on the vampire craze.

Thank goodness it’s died down to a somewhat reasonable level of late.  There have been quite a few trends since then, what with zombies, werewolves and shapeshifters.  I’m not saying trends are bad but they’re a little boring when that’s all you see on the shelves at your local bookstore.

As for the next trend, I honestly don’t have a prediction.  I think shapeshifters are relatively popular right now but there’s not as big of a market for the supernatural as there was even a year ago.  Right now it’s still all dystopia, all the time in the YA market.

Anyway, what do you guys think will be the next supernatural fad in YA?  Shapeshifting werewolves, sparkling zombies or something equally ridiculous?  I can hold out hope that authors will try to move away from European myths and draw creatures from African and Asian cultures, but that’s really quite a pipe dream.