We learn about such lofty concepts as thick texts Heathers being the first example of a teen film that is also a thick text

We learn about such lofty concepts as “thick texts” (Heathers being the first example of a teen film that is also a thick text), “anthropology shots”, and the many tropes of the teen film (including the “Obsessive Authority Figure” and the “Rich Kid who Meddles”) while trivia rains from the sky like prom confetti. Criticism, she says, “is an intellectual endeavour and a serious one – it should not, however, restrict itself to works and a critical manner that are ponderous and glum. Teen Dreams by Roz Kaveney (I B TAURIS £12.99)Fan fiction and academic discourse rarely, if ever, mix. When they do, it’s a fair bet that Roz Kaveney, author of books on “reading” The Matrix and Buffy the Vampire Slayer among other things, will be behind it. Her parents’ culture is as alien to her as it is to anyone else.The only problems arise in the translation, which makes a good stab at capturing Doria’s voice without ever quite convincing (phrases like “Oh my days” sound more Enid Blyton than streetwise). Luckily, Gu? is a good enough writer to carry this off without becoming morose or straying from her main point: Doria always sees herself as French, although the French see her as foreign.

Her father, “Mr How-Big-Is-My-Beard”, has abandoned them, returning to Morocco to marry again, this time to a woman who can give him the son he wants. Since then a “whole parade” of social workers have visited them, the latest the kind of person who’s always “smiling for no reason”, while Doria’s mother has struggled on, working as a cleaner.
Written in a snappy, slangy first-person diary style, the story meanders from one humiliation to the next: buying the cheapest kind of no-brand sanitary towel only to find the shop assistants don’t know the price and have to shout about it in front of everyone; or wearing a second-hand pyjama top when she thought it was a sweatshirt – unlike the girls at her school she didn’t understand the English slogan on the front read “Sweet Dreams”. The first time her mother (who, growing up in Morocco, thought France would be like “those black and white films from the Sixties”) walked into their grim little flat she threw up. To order a copy for £15.99 (free p&p), call Independent Books Direct on 08700 798 897. Just Like Tomorrow by Fa? Gu?, trs Sarah Adams (CHATTO £5.99)

Fifteen-year-old Doria lives with her mother in one of Paris’s run-down suburban estates.

“But it has made me realise even more what they go through.” It also means that the word “enjoyed” has been dropped from his vocabulary ‘Sacrifices’ is published by Cape (£16.99). “The trouble is that I wouldn’t know how to write a commercial novel,” he muses. “I actually thought Smashing People, because it was full of jokes and jollity and sex and stuff, would sell.” It didn’t – at least not in Dalrymple quantities – but the Shrewsbury-educated publisher does not seem to care.”I would like to think that I was sensitive to my authors even before I was writing myself,” he says of the impact of his writing on the day job. So, in terms of where you are going to put your money, it is as safe a bet as you can think of.”Does he have pangs of advance envy when he signs the cheques? He laughs that loud hearty laugh “No!” He sits back in his chair and gazes at the ceiling. “His last book sold 50,000 in hardback and will have sold 200,000 in paperback. All William’s books sell 5,000 or 6,000 copies a year and have done since I first published him in 1987. No one is going to suddenly go bonkers,” he says with a passion unusual in editors talking about their employers.But he stiffens at mention of the Dalrymple deal.