Is my book *too much* for YA

Beanie5

Live a poem...Or die a fool. \/
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 22, 2017
Messages
1,342
Reaction score
217
Location
Oz
A book called puberty blues written in the 70's might be worth referncing , i've read at least one book about the teenage heroin addiction sqautting culture in england but it escapes me though came across as quite realistic ; censor ship of this stuff is ancient history one of the qoutes from the later book was we wern't worried about dying if we od d all we cared about was if we would get our next fix, that stuck with me as an aside most people are not addicts some are , with the exception of cigarretes the type of drug is secondary IMHO
 
Last edited:

RaggedEdge

I can do this
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 20, 2013
Messages
1,427
Reaction score
762
Location
USA, she/her
When I was a teen, I was about as straight-laced as you can get, but I needed to know about the darker stuff anyway. I didn't want to experience it. I just wanted to understand it - to be as wise as the grown-ups. And yes, I was going to mention GO ASK ALICE. Totally dark. I can't remember how it ends but it satisfied that itch I had! The book totally freaked one of my friends out, too.

Not all of us want or need to read those books as teens (or ever), but I'm glad I did read GO ASK ALICE as a teen, and we mustn't be afraid to let teens grow in wisdom through reading. Without reading, they're a lot more likely to try things in real life, IMHO.

OP: There's a more recent novel I'm reminded of by your post. If I think of it, I'll return to post it. I think your story could work, esp. if you show some redemption through the other girl's arc. Good luck!

ETA: Go Ask Alice is still very much available, and there have been additional books written like it whose covers are similar and therefore are probably published as 'companions' or whatever, although I don't know anything about those.
 
Last edited:

Katrina S. Forest

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 24, 2009
Messages
2,053
Reaction score
280
Website
katrinasforest.com
I think the key (as others in the thread have pointed out) is not glamorizing these things for the sake of drama. I'd also exercise caution with giving all your positive traits to one POV character and all your negative traits to the other. There can (and should, in my opinion) be light and dark in each of them. That's what makes characters interesting.
 

KimJo

Outside the box, with the werewolves
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 17, 2005
Messages
4,028
Reaction score
356
Location
somewhere in Massachusetts
Website
karennacolcroft.com
I'm one of those authors who won't portray characters smoking, or drinking, or having sex (usually. Sometimes my characters overrule me on that last one.) But that isn't because I think it's "wrong" for teens to read about those things, or about any moral judgments whatsoever. It's because as a parent and former teacher, I am just plain not comfortable writing about those things happening among teens. I am aware that they *do* happen, but I'm also aware that I can't write something that makes me entirely uncomfortable without it coming across as forced and artificial. In the few books I have where characters are sexually active, it takes place way, way off-page.

But I think things like that do have a place in YA, and I don't have anything against books that include those things. Honestly, I knew some kids when I was teaching who probably could have benefited from a book like yours. Because of the population I worked with, I had teen students who were heavy drinkers and drug users, and they despised most of the YA to which they'd been exposed because everything was so sanitized. It was too foreign to their experience.

I didn't much censor my kids' reading when they were teens. (They're both legally adults now.) If I was aware that a book included certain topics that my older one would find triggering (severe mental health issues, sexual assault, self-harm), I gave them a heads-up, but I left the choice about whether or not to read it up to them. So if my kids had found a book like yours and wanted to read it, I probably would have asked to read it first for a trigger scan, but I wouldn't have stopped them.
 

c.k.archer

Registered
Joined
Aug 31, 2016
Messages
12
Reaction score
0
Location
USA
I'm so glad to know I'm not alone on this! I'm also currently working on a very gritty YA contemporary with alternating POVs - one that involves severe mental illness, fist fighting, gun violence, and a stabbing in the plot - where one of the characters falls from grace while the other gets, not necessarily a happy ending, but a more hopeful one than the other. I worry a lot about whether it's too much.

But I also think, as with anything, it depends on how the material is handled. Gratuitous sex, violence, and drug use shouldn't be there just for the sake of shock value, but they shouldn't be completely censored either. It should all be used to further a narrative and characters with way more nuance than a summary of the messed up stuff would suggest. There's a lot more to my story than the things I listed earlier as I'm sure there's a lot more to yours. I, like you, want to write stories that are emotionally honest because I believe stories like that are so so important. And, much of the time, writing those stories involves going to some darker places.

The world is not all rainbows and sunshine, and while it's great to have fluffy, fun, hopeful stories, we also need stories that reflect the less fluffy parts of reality. People are always going to have different opinions about sensitive material - especially when it comes to sensitive material marketed toward younger demographics - but as long as it's handled well, I don't see a problem with it.

Gritty stories are just as important as inspirational/hopeful ones. All that matters in the end is that you have a good story and good characters.

Best of luck with your writing!
 

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 24, 2011
Messages
23,079
Reaction score
10,776
Location
Where faults collide
Website
doggedlywriting.blogspot.com
The "let" thing always surprises me when it comes to controlling teen's reading habits.

Honestly, my parents didn't have a lot of say in what I read by the time I was in high school, or even before. I suppose they could have, but it would have been hard unless they searched my backback, bookshelves or drawers to see what I was reading at any moment in time. Or they'd have had to dictate how I spent my babysitting money or what I checked out at the library. I didn't feel compelled to hide my reading choices from them, though I might have if they'd started demanding to see every book I brought into the house or borrowed from their shelves.

I was raiding my parents' bookshelves for reading material by the time I was a pre teen (I was a voracious reader) and found some books with rather grown up themes (my folks had very broad tastes, but my favorites of theirs were the SFF novels). I read a number of rather adult books when I was bored babysitting in Jr High and earlier high school too. You'd be amazed what people had on their bookshelves or lying around their houses in the 80s. I Discovered The Joy of Sex in the living room book case of one employer.

There were also some fairly edgy YA books published back in the 70s and 80s, and many of them were in our libraries and bookstores (even school libraries). I never had anyone at a bookstore or library refuse to sell me or check out a book to me, YA or adult, by the time I was old enough to go to those places on my own (junior high age maybe).

I'd be more concerned about the lack of hope in the OP's mentioned book than about things like sex and drugs on their own. That might be my own taste, though. I liked books with more upbeat or optimistic endings, even back then.
 
Last edited:

Palki

Registered
Joined
Sep 7, 2017
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
I don't think parents would approve of this but teens would want to read about it to be frank. It is the time when most do tend to go into the darker route. My only concern would be that it would encourage more people to do drugs etc. If the character really connects with the reader, they might start emulating their actions and think it is fine just because the character thinks that way.
On the other hand, many teens are intelligent so I wouldn't worry. It all depends on how the reader perceives the moral of the story.
 

CJSimone

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 10, 2016
Messages
1,387
Reaction score
497
Whether it's "too much" for YA depends on the particular reader, the particular agent, the particular publisher, the particular "gatekeepers" of any kind, your intent, the way it's perceived, etc.

From your descriptions, I wouldn't personally say it's too much for YA (how I'd feel about a story like this would really depend on the handling of it all I guess).

My experience, which might help in some way: My WIP in present form is likely "too much"/too edgy for YA, and my Pitch Wars Mentor thinks I should probably tone down some of the edge (to increase marketability / chances of traditional publishing). It's sexual content that makes it edgy (everything else is pretty clean; the only mention of drugs, for instance, is that they don't do much for the MC, like his natural manic and adrenaline highs do). It's too edgy despite all sex scenes being "fade-to-black" and nothing graphic. Edginess is expected in a story like mine, which involves things like juvenile sex trafficking, but ironically that's all fine (even the brief section when the MC is pimped and dissociates), but the relationship with the older girlfriend/music manager is the problem. It's story relevant, but still probably a problem.

If you're going traditional, this is an example of how conservative it can get: My mentor noted at the one use of "tits" in my MS that her editor (she's published by a big name) made her take out "tits" in her YA novel and replace it with "breasts." I don't think many teenage boys say "breasts" and it's a complete voice violation, but...

I think I hear edgier commercials than is allowed in YA.

I'd say there are certain things that are too edgy for YA presently, no matter how they're handled, at least for some readers/gatekeepers.
 

HistoryLvr

Add Salt to Taste
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
349
Reaction score
19
Location
California
99.99999% of the time this question is posed, the answer is: No - have you read a YA novel???

Unless your sex scenes are full-view erotica-level stuff, you're not going to knock yourself out of the YA category with anything you've mentioned.



You show me this plot, I raise you Go Ask Alice. (Published 1971)

I was totally thinking of Go Ask Alice. And that was almost 50 years ago! Some parents don't want their kids to read certain things (my friends weren't allowed to read Harry Potter until college because it's "witchcraft") and some parents don't care or notice. I know I read some raunchy stuff as a teen and the fact that it was raunchy made it all the more cool. There's pretty much a market for everything. Putting aside the question of character growth and all that, I don't think what you are describing is too mature for YA. Not at all. You just have to find an agent/publisher/audience that agrees.

ETA: I totally agree with this too: "Just as teens dying of cancer can be an important story, so can one of survival or not from drugs and the tragedies that are some teens lives."
 
Last edited:

RoseDG

Registered
Joined
Nov 5, 2017
Messages
48
Reaction score
4
Location
California
It might not be something I personally would read, but things like that have been published and sold well. Then again, I did read GO ASK ALICE, despite being straight-edge, because I wanted to understand WHY other teens would do something that made no sense to me. I still don't fully understand the reasons people use drugs -- I intellectually understand that they have problems, want to escape, there's peer pressure, they might be self-medicating and all that, but I don't understand it on an emotional level and I can't RELATE to it. Therefore, I would never attempt to write it, because, frankly, I don't think I could pull it off. Sure, it might happen in the background, but it would never be a major focus of my work.
 

JinxKing

Writerly Prince
Registered
Joined
Mar 26, 2016
Messages
43
Reaction score
8
It's not too much. I wouldn't worry about what authors in a moral panic over showing teens smoking are doing, honestly. What works for them works for them. What works for you works for you.

And let's be real, this is all stuff actual teens experience. I was a stoner in high school, as were most of my friends. Teens can handle depictions of reality, it's just a shame some adults who write for them don't think so.
 

pingle

Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 6, 2018
Messages
575
Reaction score
84
Location
United Kingdom
I read Junk probably around the age of 14. I found it shocking but not too much. I mean, it is shocking, it would be weird to not feel some kind of reaction to it, but I like to think that it broadened the mind. I don't think what you are proposing is too much, be true to it, unapologetic, some people want to read this kind of stuff, and for those that don't there are plenty of nicer books out there :)
 

Banjo152

Registered
Joined
Jul 6, 2018
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
I think it’s really important to have challenging YA books, particularly when they represent aspects of lives that under represented voices are living. Life can be hard and full of dangers, it’s healthy for young people to be challenged by these, especially from the safety of a book.
That being said, it sounds like it might be a hard sell to an agent or publisher. Good luck!
 

tom.gtm

Registered
Joined
Jul 18, 2018
Messages
14
Reaction score
0
I will write what is truthful - nothing more, nothing less. And if it is well received - brilliant. If not, that's OK, too. I think I've got to learn to be OK with that.

This is what your goal should be. I teach high school, and I know firsthand that teens aren't damaged by stories like this. Like someone else posted in this thread, reading these novels is like trying on lives. Doesn't mean everyone who reads something like this is going to become a homeless junkie.