: My sense (as a reader, not someone who's published a YA novel) is that you kind of want to liken it to a PG-13 movie. If it's too graphic for a 13-year-old to be watching in a movie

@Debbie451

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My sense (as a reader, not someone who's published a YA novel) is that you kind of want to liken it to a PG-13 movie. If it's too graphic for a 13-year-old to be watching in a movie theatre, it's probably too graphic to be published in the YA category.

However:

1) as John Smithers points out, that doesn't mean your protagonist can't still be a teenager. It just means you may have to change the marketing or publishing niche.

2) you can go into great detail about her emotions and thoughts without going into great deal about the acts. The atrocities can happen off-camera, as it were, and that would make the text still suitable for the YA market.

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