Should I keep pursuing my Contemporary YA Book? > Likes and Comments
date
newest »
newest »
So basically of my book "Love zindabad not johad" did contained Suicide which was justified and was sync with story but it turned out to be disaster in market. So i believe from reading above your book is not a commercial book , don't expect much from it cause it is a book for certain small group of people cause people stay away from darker and weirder themes and yes i say go for " Adult" category.


I've fallen into some doubt, which is a terrible thing to feel as a writer, and I need some help understanding why I am only receiving rejections for my novel query. It's an LGBTQ YA contemporary novel and here are the basics:
1. Setting is 2000-2003 in Tennessee, high school. My thinking behind this timeline was to strike up nostalgia, the feeling people had in childhood before social media and cellphones, etc.
2. Harper Meadows is my protagonist, he starts the book in Freshman year, deciding to come back to school two years after his little brother was killed in a school shooting. Harper's whole family has been torn down because of this tragedy, and he decides to give life one last chance, looking to find a new sense of family and a new life far from the one he is stuck in. He knows if he cannot find this, he will not turn into his parents, living a shallow, grief-stricken life, and he will choose to take his life. Harper is a bisexual oy who meets his best friend turned lifeline, but Shawn is too afraid of what might happen to them if he pursues anything further than a friendship with Harper.
3. In this book, there are definitely trigger warnings including a suicide attempt, school shootings, and Harper's queer friend Jonathan who gets killed for being gay. None of this is meant to be senseless violence in the book as everything is meant to show the importance of gun violence awareness as well as the intolerance for queer people that needs to be acknowledged and changed.
4. Although there are a lot of dark moments, I strive to bring comfort and a sense of how to go through life while dealing with so much grief, and how to keep going to reach a better future. In this book, Harper creates found family, he has a best friend he cares so much about, and who cares about him, almost filling in for the brother he lost to violence. Harper rekindles with his family, and they learn how to live again even without their lost child. Harper learns from his found family Benny and Wanda how to stand up against intolerance and how to "use the worst of humanity to create the best." This is a book for those who have lost so much to grief and who don't know where to turn anymore.
5. As a queer writer, I am a survivor of a school shooting and of suicide myself. I wrote this because I came to the point once where I decided, after losing my own family, that I did not want to live anymore. Writing this book was the only thing that saved me during that time, and I need it to reach the people who struggle with mental health and who don't believe staying is worth the pain.
Please, if you think this book is worth anything, to a YA audience, a new adult audience, anyone, please let me know. If the time frame is too late, please say something. If you think there is too much violence, please make me aware. I don't want to give up on this, I care so much, but I think I'm losing momentum, and I need to know this matters.
It's called, It Gets Better, Harper Meadows.