For the bazillionth time, what is this thing we call YA?
So there I was, reading Ysabel, (which is a fantasy, but also about history and family and coming of age and some other things*) when I had the thought that probably everyone else who has read the book has had:
So. Why wasn't this marketed as a YA novel?
Obviously, there's the... obvious, which is that the author is already a known quantity in the grown-up world.
But then there's also this: Even though the main character is a fifteen-year-old boy, and even though his aforementioned coming-of-age is a big part of the story, Ysabel didn't really feel like a YA novel. To me, anyway. Maybe because YA novels tend to have more of a feeling of intimacy and immediacy and this one made me feel like I was witnessing the events from a bit of a distance? I don't know. Thoughts?
*Which I really enjoyed, by the way, and which I'll blather on at greater length later, probably for O' Canada Day.