Writing About My Teenage Self Healed Me

I think you should try it too

Writing a book for young teens was never on my career bingo card.

I’ve read my fair share of Young Adult fiction - YA, they call it, in the bizz, books about older teens, say aged 14-18. I’ve inhaled books like The Hunger Games, the Twilight series, The Hate U Give, and… Harry Potter? Would we call that Young Adult? I don’t think Harry Potter is a kids book, not really. Oh! And John Greene’s The Fault in Our Stars - that book!! I read that when I was 28, and again at 35, and both times marveled at the maturity to the banter, the deftness cancer and death are navigated with, the way teen sex is depicted. If you haven’t read it, I wholeheartedly condone it as one of your winter warmers. It’s exemplary.

I’m not alone in reading YA as an adult. The target audience might be those 14-18-year olds, but it turns out 78% of YA books are bought by over-18’s, and not as gifts. Young Adult books are being read by adult adults.

My agent and I got into a chat about this, one day in mid-2022, wondering if this might be contributing to the “adultificaton” of teen books.

What about teens who aren’t ready for murder and death and sex, my agent said. We need books for them! The book bridges between primary school readers and high schoolers, with gentler themes!

Oh yeah! I said. Nice books about a nice girl just trying to get through a day? I used to love books like that. Call me shallow, but books about girls figuring out themselves, figuring out first kisses and first friendship fall-outs and first bad grades…

Exactly, my agent said. You know, you could probably do a good job of that…

And so, after some investigation, I decided to rise to the challenge of it. To write a book about a Year Nine girl who hadn’t been sullied by the world, yet, based on… well. Me.