This study examines how book clubs were used within a young adult literature course to foster a development of "sympathetic knowledge" of adolescence/ts in preservice teachers as they grappled with their shifting positionalities and subjectivities. Using Critical Narrative Analysis, the data from these young adult book club discussions showed that personal anecdotal responses, perspective-taking, and future casting through storytelling around dominant discourses of adolescents/ce aided in a social ethic toward a (re)negotiation of their charge as future educators of adolescents.