What genre is this?

[JANE007]

My book is about a girl who comes of age during the glory days of the rave scene. She goes from being 18 to 25 from beginning to end. There are a lot of mature themes in it such as drug experimentation / addiction, sex, language, death & violence. I am not sure which "category" it would fall under. What genre would you consider a book of this nature?

[Garpy]

I'd say the mature end of YA

[StoryG27]

Hopefully someone much more knowledegable than me will respond to this thread because all I can do is guess. Truthfully, I'm not even sure exactly what genre my books fit into, because genre lines are not black and white.

Coming of age usually means YA, but with the sex, drugs, and such, I don't think that's where this will be marketed. Depending on how it's written, it could squeak into the Chick Lit, but I kind of doubt that's the intended audience either, and I don't read it so I don't really know.

I'd say it's contemporary,could even be mainstream contemporary, but it all depends on how much sex, drugs, violence, and such is in the book itself. It's really hard to know without knowing the content and explicitness of the mature issues you mentioned.

Ok, now that I've confused and probably misinformed her, will someone smart actually give her answer...I'm even giving myself a headache here.

[StoryG27]

Garpy, you posted while I was typing, so my wish came true, someone smart did answer her and much more clearly than I did in my incoherrent babbling. Can I blame it on the horrible cold I have?

[maestrowork]

Sounds mainstream or literary to me, depending on how you write it.

I don't think it's YA. Not all coming-of-age books are YA. Plenty of mainstream is coming-of-age. It's not chick-lit either, nor is it "women's issues."

[Garpy]

I'm certain that would be pitched at YA market. Don't forget the readership like to read above their age....so an 18yo protagonist is exactly that age. Also bear in mind that YA these days is happy to tackle some pretty adult themes, in a very in yer face way.

ChikLit traditionally to be more career/mum stuff, older age bracket....say late 20's/30's

[JANE007]

I was wondering if it would be YA, but I think that in some situations it is "a bit much" for that genre... Maybe I should look to see if I can finda any similar type books in the YA genre.

I was hoping to appeal to a mainstream audience, but i'm not so sure it will. I am hoping for an 18-35 readership demographic though.

Is it the agent / publisher who decides which genre it is categorized into?

[Nakhlasmoke]

While perhaps not quite the same, I'm certain Trainspotting never got targeted at YA. Mature or otherwise.

[JANE007]

While perhaps not quite the same, I'm certain Trainspotting never got targeted at YA. Mature or otherwise.

Exactly! That's why i'm not so sure it fits in that genre... I mean, yes the MC is only 18 when the story starts, but the storyline is pretty intense and even disturbing in spots. It's the kind of book that you probably wouldn't want your teenager to read!

Could it be classed as mainstream, or is it too niche for that?

[zarch]

Your description of your book makes me think of She's Come Undone, which would be considered literary, yeah? Coming of age with a definite tilt toward a mature audience.

[Katiba]

There are many YA books that deal with drugs and sex, some of them quite explicitly. A lot depends on how the book is written. A bigger difficulty, in my opinion, to marketing your book as YA is the fact that the main character ages from 18 to 25. It's very rare for a YA to have a main character older than 18 or 19 - in fact, these days I think practically the only 'rule' for a YA is that the protagonist should be under 20. Unless your character is 18 for the bulk of the book and only ages in the last chapter or something, I doubt you could sell this as a YA.

You could either market it as an adult book or - possibly - consider revising the book so that the character is younger, either aging from 14 to 18, say, or remaining 18 throughout the book. I do think your topic sounds like one that could do very well with a YA audience, if the protagonist is young enough.

[maestrowork]

IMHO, the age of the protagonist has nothing to do with whether it's YA or mainstream/literary. It depends on what's in it and who you write it: language, themes, topic, etc.

[Garpy]

at the end of the day, it's the publisher who will decide how and to whom it's marketed. The age of the protagonist and the themes you mention pretty much mark it out as a YA book.....however, if you have written some extremely mature themes into it, then you may have something that is far more interesting to a publisher...namely a crossover book....one that straddles more than one genre. That mean to a publisher, a broader readership....bigger sales etc etc

Trainspotting is an interesting example. I think it was published before we had the established 'Young Adult' genre. I think if it were published now, it would be marketed as a mature-end YA book....AND a contemporary fiction book. In other words a crossover book. The Beach by Alex Garland is another one like that.

[Greer]

I can't imagine Trainspotting would be marketed as young adult. Have you read it? Anyway, YA's been around for ages, way, way before that book come out.

There are zillions of literary/mainstream books with young protagonists. But you're right, the publisher will market it as they see fit.

[HapiSofi]

How long is it? What happens at the end? Is there a romance? Does she learn better, and if so, better than what?

[Garpy]

yeah I've Trainspotting...and it's pretty intense. But YA is growing up....almost to the point where a new genre may start to be defined, because there's no way you can bracket something like Trainspotting with Harry Potter. I'd guess we'll find the publishing biz coming up with a new genre label soon...something like 'Early Adopter' or 'Young Proffesional' or 'Post Teen' or 'Twenty-Up'

[JANE007]

How long is it? What happens at the end? Is there a romance? Does she learn better, and if so, better than what?

Not quite finished yet, but will be 300 pages. The MC (Lilly) gets caught up in a downward-spiralling scene of drugs, promiscuity, dead junkie friends, and turmoil. The divorce of her parents (when she was 16) hit her hard and caused her world to come crashing down. At 18 she was binge drinking, and doing heavy drugs. What starts as a fun and adventerous journey (her introduction to the rave scene) turns into a path of self-destruction as she watches everything around her crumble.

There is a couple of long-term romances as well as random meaningless sex. She gets sick and loses a lot of weight, her personality changes and causes some of her family and friends to question her lifestyle, and she makes poor decisions throughout the book. She eventually "wakes up" one day and decides to clean up her act, although I am still toying with the idea of killing her off at the end (possible OD).

[Lenora Rose]

YA is not only about to grow a new categroy -- it already has. Sharyn November of Firebird Books talked a couple of years ago at World Fantasy Convention about coming up with a new mature-end-of-YA designation for books like Holly Black's Tithe (Sex, violence, death, school drop-outs, bad choices, alcohol, and some really nasty fairies...). (I think it was 16+ instead of the standard assumed 14+, but I don't remember for sure right now.)

OTOH, I scribbled a book dealing with someone who ages from 15-20, but with some mature themes and some severe dark stuff. Before I rethought the question of whether it was *really* ready for publication and trunked it, I was marketing it to adult genres. It got rejected for a lot of deserving reasons, but nobody told me it should be sent off to YA.

On the OTHER other hand, had I kept marketing it then, I probably would have sent it on to some of the places more likely to accept mature-end-of-YA.

[DiscoDan]

YA is tricky, but I'd say the easiest way is to determine if it's YA or not is to compare it to a PG-13 movie, which can have all kinds of violence, sex, drugs, and even limited usage of the F-word.

Also consider Stephen King's novel Carrie which is "Adult" yet it's about a high school girl.