Dena and YA. Together at last.

So it's the last night before my husband comes back into town. I can't say I've really enjoyed him being gone, like some wives do. I get lonely and I hate sleeping alone at night so I've recruited my 4 year old to sleep with me. Not having that much needed break at 5 pm is not that easy, but I've kind of developed a haphazard routine. My hats are off to those single parents out there that do it all alone 100% of the time. I'm freakin' exhausted.

Luckily, I've been kept company by everyone that participates in Tina's Practice Room. Basically you unplug for an hour to write and then you chat about the progress you made after the hour is up. Unfortunately, both times I have participated I erased more words that I wrote. But I did manage to type out an outline of sorts for a YA novel. Yes, I might be branching out into the YA world soon. But before I really get into that, I need to do my research.

What are your favorite YA books and why? Why would you recommend them to me? I'm creating a list and I want to read as many good ones as I can. I have to admit, I'm excited to branch out into YA. PB's are hard as crap. On the plus side, I finish them quickly. On the downside, they're hard as crap.

So....I'd like to take a stab at this but I'm embarrassingly naive when it comes to YA fiction. I haven't read this stuff in years. I didn't even know if they had sex and hard core violence in them- apparently they have both quite frequently. So my question is this- what makes them young adult?

Anyway, please leave your favorites in the comment section! Thanks, guys!