A.S. King is a two-time Printz Award winner for her YA novel Dig and the teen anthology The Collectors, which she edited. Her forthcoming novel, Pick the Lock, is a surreal exploration of a toxic family. Stephanie Kuehnert is the author of YA novels Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone and Ballads of Suburbia. Her YA memoir Pieces of a Girl depicts her experience as a survivor of addiction and abuse. We asked the authors to discuss their new books and the urgency of portraying domestic violence and hope for survivors in both fiction and nonfiction for young adults.

Stephanie Kuehnert: Hey, Amy! I’m really thrilled to get to talk to you about our books, and in particular, how domestic violence plays a role in them. Tell me about yours and I’ll tell you about mine?

A.S King: Hi Stephanie! I am also excited to be here. Let me tell you about Pick the Lock. It’s September 2024, Jane is 16, and has been trapped in her house since the pandemic being poorly homeschooled by her father. In her house is a System of human-sized pneumatic tubes, in which her mother is locked by her father, Vernon, who controls the System and where Jane’s mother, Mina, goes. Or so he thinks. The book starts just days after Jane discovers a cache of security videos that begin to unravel what she’s been told her whole life about her mother. She slowly learns the truth about domestic violence, and she grapples with confusion, anger, and regret. What follows is her rebellion—she writes a punk opera, ventures to rescue her mother, and discovers the true power of the System. There’s also a rat named Brutus, a Serbian gardener named Milorad, and a punk band called Placenta. Like many of my books, this novel is an examination of why we continue to normalize violence against women and girls.

Kuehnert: Pick the Lock is exactly the kind of book that I needed as a teen, something that makes visible the experience of that kind of harm and is a reminder that with our survival comes the power to enact change.

Pieces of a Girl is a zine-style memoir of my teenage years, and one major element is relationship abuse. A pivotal moment in my life was attending a domestic violence volunteer training at 16, seeing the Duluth Model Power and Control Wheel, and recognizing some of my own experiences on it. While I am grateful that I had this moment because I needed that validation, I wish that it had come through a book instead. Then, rather than taking in information that dropped me off an emotional cliff, I could have followed a character like Jane and got a sense of what she did—and what I could do to survive and be empowered.

King: I am so happy you found this information so young, though I am also sorry it wasn’t in the form of a book. I am sad to say that I knew about abuse and I certainly called it out when it was being done to me, but what I didn’t know about is the cycle—how the apologies aren’t sincere and the lies will keep growing—and in that time when the abuser has you trying so hard to make the relationship work, that’s when you lose yourself. The confusion is like quicksand. I wish I knew about that a lot earlier.

Kuehnert: Yes, exactly! For me, the confusion led to so much self-doubt, and as a result, my healing was really messy and nonlinear and I felt shame around that. That’s a big part of why I wrote Pieces, so readers who relate to some aspects of it would feel less alone, especially in terms of what survival might look like for them.

Why did you write Pick the Lock?

King: My kids told me about lies that had been told to them about me, many of them outlandish and frightening. I had no idea this was happening. When I found out, I drew this doodle of a chair in a tube on a Post-It note and stuck it to my desk.

It represents how it feels to be living in the same space with people who lie about or believe lies about you. Counter parenting is a form of isolation I wish on no one. What came from this doodle were years of research and healing, an infatuation with the history of pneumatic systems, and Pick the Lock.

But wait. Go back. What drove you to go to domestic violence volunteer training at 16? And how did you cope with that emotional cliff?

Kuehnert: Well, I had plenty of practical explanations for volunteering (looks good on a college application), but deep down there was a tiny piece of my intuition that my abuser hadn’t squashed, and thankfully, it guided me. It also drew me toward zines and Riot Grrrl feminism, which were the things that helped me cope. Again, healing was really messy for me—I coped in a lot of really unhealthy ways and it took time to break those patterns, but creating zines and then writing fiction and having a community who told me that my voice mattered is what ultimately got me through.

King: Your voice absolutely matters. And art transforms pain. I think it makes sense that we both coped through art. Art heals. That’s why we make it.

Pick the Lock by A.S. King. Dutton, $19.99 Sept. 24 ISBN 978-0-593-35397-4

Pieces of a Girl by Stephanie Kuehnert. Dutton, $24.99 Mar. ISBN 978-0-5254-2975-3