Bingo. That’s a nice observation.

Little Willow: So Scott was right. Maybe Cal has a birthday before the end of the book?

Kevin: But Justine, where you’re spot on is in the freedom. With four adult books behind me it felt completely liberating to write a story that wasn’t hidebound by genre or convention.

You’re describing exactly how I feel about it. Though I was going from scholarly non-fiction.

apart from that, this is an interesting topic, and i have no opinion to offer.

It’s whatever I’m interested in reading, so, no difference except where it’s shelved.

As a writer? Could have gone either way. The deciding vote was the phrase “The VP of Children’s Publishing wants to make a preempt on the book”.

As an adult writer who’s just making his first foray into YA (my agent has the first of my quartet out with publishers right now) I can safely say there was almost no difference at all. I certainly didn’t make any concessions and the book is the same length (60k – admittedly, I write really short adult books!).

But Justine, where you’re spot on is in the freedom. With four adult books behind me it felt completely liberating to write a story that wasn’t hidebound by genre or convention.

Ref: Amazon.com

Please! It is so cheating! Whose point of view are those books from? Exactly. So they’re not about a middle-aged professor who has affairs with his students. They’re about a student who gets entagled with her teacher. Totally different! It’s not about mid-life crisis and ennui and descent into death. It’s about first explosive love and finding yourself.

Cal in Peeps is twenty, isn’t he?

Of course I do adore SOME adult books. Jane Gardam, Jane Austen, Anne Tyler, Margaret Atwood and A.S Byatt are some authors (sorry that’s such a girly list) that immediately spring to mind that do excellent character and plot (Anne Tyler is extremely good at writing about domesticity for example and turning it into something deeply epic and enormous), and I’m currently reading The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks, which is essentially an elegant study in character, with an engaging and unusual structure. And occasionally I love a book that appeals to my intellect like Calvino, Perec, or Kundera – sometimes I just want to be challenged. But the difference is I am usually engaged even by weaker YA because of the strength of characterisation where I often find when reading not so crash hot adult fiction (and is it my imagination or is there a lot of that about at the moment) that my attention wanes because I’m not identifying with anyone.

I agree with Scott. I think identity both on a personal level and on a wider, what it is to be human living on this troubled earth level is definitely a common element in ya. as a structural editor of ya, we often ask authors to strengthen this journey, particularly if it’s sitting between ya and af but doesn’t have the reach of an adult book and we want to situate it more firmly in the ya market.

in “how it’s done”, she’s in h.s. and he’s a young professor at a neighboring college. young… but still a professor.

oh, bah. why am i thinking about this so hard when i have actual work that needs doing?

(and also, i have lots to say on the subject of octavian nothing – but the crux of it is, yeah, it’s totally a teen book.)

1. They involve a youthful protagonist.
2. They employ a point of view presenting the adolescent’s interpretation of the events of the story.
3. They are characterized by directness of exposition, dialogue, and direct confrontation between principal characters.
4. They take place over a limited period of time and in a limited number of locales, having few major characters, and resulting in a change or growth step for the young protagonist.
5. The main characters are highly independent in thought, action, and conflict resolution.
6. The protagonists reap the consequences of their actions and decisions.
7. The authors drew upon their sense of adolescent development and the concomitant attention to the legitimate concerns of adolescents.
8. The stories mirror current societal attitudes and issues.
9. The stories most often include gradual, incremental, and ultimately incomplete “growth to awareness” on the part of the central character.
10. The stories are hopeful.

Obviously, not all books published as YA meet these criteria, but it’s interesting to think about.

and sometimes the paper quality.

and how explicit the sex is.

but then as an adult I have learned to broaden my tastes to include more: as a kid and then teen reader, i rejected with every nerve of my being the haute cyncial, hip downer sixties existentialism as much as I did the fifties rah rah paternaistic-patriotic jingoism. my definition–what I wrote for myself, what i still write when in kid mode–is fun, adventure, maybe some swashbuckle, might be some horror, hopefully good surprise, and oh yes there must be either tentacles or pie. and i do not mean good pie, because some deserving recipient is going to be wearing it. Oh yes, there was also wings on fishing poles.

I was a bit surprised that Secret Society Girl was pub’d as adult. Though I think that’s changing for the YA release. Diana?

Jennifer: and I read at least two this year about a middle aged professor having an affair with a teenager (teach me and how it’s done

I haven’t read How It’s Done but the high school teacher (not professor) in Teach Me is not middle aged. You are so cheating!

You can read Book Thief in a day because it’s not actually YA. In Australia it was published as the adult book that it is. I don’t know what happened with you crazy yankees.

Hannah: Oh sure, an actual serious non-cranky definition of YA is very tricky to come up with. I know what you mean about the feel of it, though.

Sherwood: Those are very elegant. Of course if I thought about it I could come up with exceptions.

Katerate: I think adult fiction is either more physical or more academic intelligence is applied (not that YA isn’t intelligent—but you won’t read about specific chemical formulas and crap you learn in college in YA).

An Abundance of Katherines is full of mathematical formulas! And it’s a fun read as well.

Have you read Octavian Nothing? It messes with lots of assumptions about what YA is and isn’t. Plus it’s one of the best books I read last year.

There was one time that I strayed from the best seller shelf and I picked up Anne Rice’s Ramses the Damned. And it was atrocious. No character development. Terrible plot. It was all about having sex and killing people.

To be fair I can name you YA books that fit that description . . . But on the whole if you pick up the YA bestsellers to read they’re going to be a million times better than the adult bestsellers.

See? Any definitions we come up with—there are holes to pick in them. Definitions are stupid.

YA cuts to the chase. Adult fiction is too embarassed.

I like Hannah’s thing of warmth too.

of course, much af is about identity too, but in af the questions are, um, let’s say . . . less existentially raw. more refined and less primal, much like af plots. and yeah, that’s it: teenager readers are raw existentialists.

but with better slang.

Yeah, yeah, I know I started it, but now I’m filled with remorse and thinking of all the wonderful adult books that are chock full of character and narrative. Anything by Angela Carter or Patrick O’Brian or Naomi Novik or Geraldine Brooks or Jane Austen (or it cheating to go back that far in time) or Karen Joy Fowler or Geoff Ryman etc etc.

YA still rules the enitre universe, but.