On Finding My Niche Part Deux

For a while now I've been following the blog, Glass Cases  (if you're a  writer you must take a look)  and the author, an associate Literary Agent for Curtis Brown wrote an interesting post that caught my attention.

I've been fighting with myself for a month now (or possibly forever) about what genre I want to write. I finally settled on Young Adult, not because I was settling, but because it was what I wanted.

Now, as long as I've been writing I've always worried my characters were 'too old' sounding for their ages. That my seventeen year old protagonist was too mature. Though honestly, I wasn't exactly making fart jokes and watching the Simpsons when I was seventeen, and neither was my niece who is eighteen going on thirty.

Maybe it's a family thing?

I digress.

After reading the post in Glass Cases and this post, it got me thinking. Maybe I'm looking at this wrong. Maybe it's okay to write 18-25 year old protagonists.

 Maybe it's okay to put the Adult into Young Adult.

Maybe I'm using maybe a lot.

It's possible.

When I first started writing I wrote a novel about a 21 year old college student who was a government assassin in her 'spare' time. It didn't fit with YA and it didn't fit with the 'Adult' marketplace because women in the age range of 35-50 didn't relate.

Is it possible then, to write for the actual "Young Adult"?

Granted, when I was in high school I would have loved to read novels of college students, and people in their twenties. For that matter, I still prefer to read about younger protags. I have a difficult time losing myself in books with a protagonist who is in her late 30's. Maybe because after 25 everything seems to stay the same anyway?

What are your thoughts on putting the Adult in Young Adult? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

R.S.