sick-lit
n. A literary genre that features individuals dealing with fatal or devastating diseases.
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Examples
2013
Literary media have been abuzz about the "sick-lit" controversy: novels written for teenagers with themes of death, fatal disease and psychological disease such as anorexia.
—Russell Smith, “Sick-lit: a symptom of publishing’s decline?,” The Globe and Mail, February 13, 2013
2013
The blurbs for 'teen sick-lit' — as it's become known — trip over themselves to promise their books will drive readers 'to tears' or leave them 'devastated'.
2000 (earliest)
If you want to read a good book by a famous person, check out Karen Duffy's "Model Patient," which takes the genre of Sick Lit — wherein mostly female memoirists explore their battles with cancer, depression, lupus, anorexia, et al. — and turns it on its head.
—Jennifer Weiner, “Celebrity Biography Roundup: Jewel and Karen Duffy,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 02, 2000