It is a great responsibility to try to craft a novel aimed at and intended for young adults, teens who are thirteen to eighteen years old. The writer is responsible for entertaining and keeping the interest of what may be a very new reader, and must try to encourage that reader to pick up another book, and another, by crafting a story that matters.

Through all of this, the writer has a moral obligation to tell the truth about the world. People do wonderful things when we least expect them. And people do terrible things, even when we do not expect such behavior. The strength in telling that truth is doing so without glorifying the good or the evil beyond understanding.

Young readers appreciate and recognize the truth being presented to them, often through characters who are very much like themselves, with the same hopes and fears. They will also learn to appreciate truths about the world, and about themselves, through characters with whom they have little in common except, perhaps, a genuine goodness.