"New Adult" fiction

[_ocelott_]

The teen blogger/reader over at In Which A Girl Reads brings up a very good question: why is there such a gap in fiction between YA and "adult" novels? Either the protagonist is a high school student or they're established in their adult life, with seemingly no transition between the two. There's not much out there that depicts, say, a 19-year-

Comments

[future_guardian]

I thought the blog post was interesting, first of all. It would be interesting to see if publishing companies take note that there are people who want New Adult to be a legitimate category with all publishing companies.

Second, there's something that's been bothering me about the YA, New Adult, Adult categories. Okay, it seems that:

YA=Lead character is between the ages of 13 and 18.
New Adult=Lead character is between the ages of 18 and (I think) 26.
Adult=Characters in their 20s+ that have a steady career.

Okay, so where does a book that focuses on a character from a span of time (say, age 12 to age 25)...that is more in-depth than most YA...does not have the OOMPH! an adult novel usually has...was written for the New Adult crowd but has absolutely no real-world basis and especially no college life...fit? Have I come up with the one book that is unpublishable? Would writing and submitting that book mean a huge fight among author/agent/publishing company?
That's actually the novel I've been currently writing, and it has been driving me crazy!