Young adult struggles and issues
A Thing of Beauty has officially been launched and the e book and paperback versions are now available on Amazon. My novel is waiting for the quiet girl who will see if Rebecca Ramey find her place. Can she make new friends in suburban Dallas while sorely missing her home and horses in East Texas?
It’s waiting for the kid wrestling with her identity as an adopted child. She will find older sister, Jessica Ramey asking these same questions. Also, the sisters witness older friends and neighbors grappling with divorce, teen pregnancy, parental PTSD, drug use, and oblivious parents. Kids will read on to see if these dramas resolve–or not.
A coming-of-age story for adults
Yes, A Thing of Beauty has been launched, and it is waiting for adults who relate to coming-of-age stories. Let’s face it: we are each navigating some new life passage or the other all our days. We root for the characters in young adult fiction, remembering our own youth. In this novel set in 1978-79, we will remember waiting in long gas lines, and facing unemployment. Adults will recall the cold war, and the emerging Iran crisis. Also they will enjoy the nostalgia of disco and outlaw music sung by Willie Nelson. Some will relate to these girls and their parents as they process historic calamity in their extended family.
A Thing of Beauty for grandparents
Young adult fiction’s appeal to grandparents is all too obvious. After all, as The Random Thoughts of a Madman suggests, teens and grandparents share a good many things in common. I will own up to the following: My kids are beginning to suspect my driving as they will their daughters’. Most teens and I do spend a deal of time occupied with social media. Furthermore, both teens and their grandparents do continually turn up the volume on their music. Additionally, my grandkids’ parents will point out our collective selective hearing and tendency toward forgetfulness.
Fellow grandparents will be pleased to know that adversarial Ma-maw and Granddaddy become heroic allies for their granddaughters. That’s all I have to say about that. No spoilers. You’ll have to see for yourself.
Loving Young Adult Fiction
In his blog, Chuck Wendig shares the universal appeal of this category. He observes that young adult fiction has a “snappier, sharper… a more urgent read.” Wendig says, “They also tend to be more quickly paced and with a great deal of dialogue.” I invite you to experience quiet, but feisty Rebecca Ramey speaking her mind. It’s a thing of beauty.
