Young Adult - Defined

Dear Toffel,

    So many movies are coming out for "Young Adults", many of them starting as YA novels.  I thoroughly enjoyed the whole "Hunger Games" series and the movies, so far.  I feel that "Divergent" flexed my imagination more than most books I've read.
    What  exactly is "Young Adult"?  I don't really get it.

Thanks
- Older Adult

Dear Older,

    I have searched many sources and keep coming up with an age range.  Taking the two ends of the spectrum from them, a young adult is anyone between 12 and 24.
   That being said, I worked in and managed a children's bookstore for many years and the rule I learned there and from a couple of conventions I went to of the American Booksellers Association was that there must be a teenage protagonist.  This may not be the case any longer.  It is in the case of both "Divergent" & the "Hunger Games" series.

~ Toffel

Dinner Party Difficulties

Dear Toffel,
I am going to a dinner party with a bunch of people.  By no means am I uneducated, but I am afraid it may be a free-for-all with trying to sound the most "intellectual" and "deep".

Do you have any ideas or advice for conversation and being more at-ease in the situation?

Thanks,
Insecure in Iowa

Dear Insecure,

First, some advice:

1. Use your listening ears.  People love to talk and merely by agreeing or disagreeing, you will be remembered as a great conversationalist.
2. Memorize everyone's name and use them.  EVERYBODY  loves to hear their own name.

Next, a couple of conversation starters:

1. What if our brains were the auxiliary brains and the real functioning organ was our hearts?  Every time a person got a heart transplant, they would get a new personality and a whole host of new psychological  problems.  On the other hand, their old Psychological problems would be gone.
2. What superpower would you choose, flight or invisibility?  Why?

        

Ok, those are my initial thoughts.  Who wants to chime in?


~Toffel