I sent out my very first query in over 3 months last night, and there is something that just keeps nagging at me. It's times like this when I wish this blog wasn't brand-spanking new and I actually had the courage to post the link on my Facebook page. My question is this:
HOW IS A NOVEL ABOUT COLLEGE KIDS NOT CONSIDERED YOUNG ADULT?
My protagonist is twenty-one, but she lives at home with her mother. She goes to bars. She goes on dates- to the bowling alley. She works part time as a waitress at a country club.
Does that really sound like someone who has life figured out? I am thirty years old, and to this day, I don't consider myself an adult. Sure I'm married and domesticated, but I love Taylor Swift and Britney Spears and Glee. I have cabbage patch dolls in my spare room - one of which was a gift for my 24th birthday. Yes, I said 24th. And my book shelf is so full of YA novels that I often say I never aged past seventeen - mentally, of course. Physically, the years are starting to show.
So how does it make sense to call this girl of twenty-one (who thinks a lot like I do) an adult instead of a young adult? And worse- what does that make me? I did the right thing and called my novel a "contemporary paranormal romance" in my query, but I can't help feeling like the label doesn't fit. I hear romance and I think graphic sex scenes and racy covers. I think Fabio with fangs. And that's not my book at all. I believe college students and high school students AND adults (if I'm speaking as one) alike would enjoy it, and since there is no graphic content, I don't want the term "romance" to be misleading.
I guess I'll have to hope the query spoke for itself. If anyone happens upon this post and has wisdom on the topic, please feel free to share. I need to send a few more queries and I don't want to do anything to lessen my already slim chances!
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