#1 07-05-2012 06:58:56
- hermine strand
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- From: Toronto, Canada
- Registered: 07-03-2012
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is this young adult?
I started a novel as lit fic but am thinking of going young adult because of the robustness of that subgenre. I've eliminated the profanities and some crudities but am concerned that that's not enough.
My protag was born in 1962 with Mullerian agenesis, which was diagnosed in infancy. By 16 she is obviously a virgin but sexually sophisticated in a clinical way. Her short life has included attempts at plagiarism, cold manipulation of her mother, a reputation among younger kids as someone to turn to with personal issues without getting adults involved, confinement in a mental hospital, a later suicide attempt, and a vivid dream about a man attempting to rape her. She got a part-time job at 14 and later used the money to buy a junker car. She is a pioneer of extreme running. But she is extremely secretive about herself and lives under a constant feeling that she is in danger. The book effectively ends when she is 17, but the second-last chapter fast-forwards to her 40s, and the last to her 70s or 80s.
Does this sound too heavy for young adults? If not, what age group might it be suitable for? All comments welcome.
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#2 07-05-2012 07:33:48
- Ann Walters
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Re: is this young adult?
With the part of her as an adult, it's not YA. YA books are all about teens. Your content may work since a lot of YA is pretty edgy these days, but you should read a lot of YA books and see where yours falls.
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#3 07-05-2012 08:05:22
- TessB
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- From: Perth, Western Australia
- Registered: 04-28-2010
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Re: is this young adult?
I agree with Ann! YA is all about teens and I've never read anything with chapters written from an adult POV reflecting on their teen years, that does sounds more adult. There are epilogues that give glimpses of characters adult life after the book, but I think all of these I have read have been at the end of the last book in a long series and are really crossover YA - so they appeal to and have developed a strong adult following even though they are written for the YA audience. A lot of YA is pretty edgy these days, but many of the boundaries are pushed under the guise of fantasy. Beautiful Malice is a YA that has a similar flavour to what you mention. The topics you mention do seem intense and something that an adult would be more inclined to read about instead of a teen ( Just IMO) - but you never know.
The best thing is to read a good number of YA and see how you think you piece would be placed. Tess
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#4 07-05-2012 09:30:12
Re: is this young adult?
The most important things with YA is that it is written with a teen voice and deals with teen issues in a teen way. I read a book the other day that the author had told me was YA. Well, about twenty pages in I could tell it wasn't YA, even if the protag was 14. Some of issues were YA but the voice was that of an adult looking back at their youth and reliving it, and because of that some of the protag's reactions were more like the adult saying 'hey look what stupid things we do as a child'.
You list some of the things your character does, but what would the blurb on the back of the book say? What is the main conflict that your character has?
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