Young adult novels can be basically defined as books that are marketed towards teens and contain main characters between the ages of 12 and 18, sometimes reaching to early 20s. What young adult literature is not is a story that leaps into adulthood. The majority of the stories (short of maybe an epilogue set years in the future) take place during the characters’ teen years. They don’t typically deal with adult situations and problems such as divorce or financial troubles, etc. Also, a common misconception about young adult novels is that, because they are meant for teens, the stories must be immature and the writing poor. One only need look at authors such as John Green, Hannah Moskowitz and Maggie Stiefvater to see that those claims are false.