There have been no media adaptations of Chinese Handcuffs. There are two types of young adult fiction books similar to Chinese Handcuffs, the first being those which deal with sexual abuse of teens. When She Hollers by Cynthia Voigt (Scholastic, 1994) concerns a character very much like Jennifer who has been sexually abused for years.

Cynthia Grant's Uncle Vampire (Athenaeum, 1983), Jacqueline Woodson's I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This (Delacorte, 1992), and Francesca Lia Block's The Hanged Man (Harper, 1994) all confront the issue of sexual abuse by a family member. Chinese Handcuffs also is part of a trend in young adult fiction toward a harder edged, even darker kind of writing. Sarah Dessen's Dreamland (Viking, 2000) involves several painful issues, including date violence, as does When Kambia Elaine Flew in from Neptune by Lori Aurelia Williams (Simon and Schuster, 2000).