It’s like I was telling my esteemed colleague Ty the other day – teen novels are often sharper than adult novels, because teen novels are pitched to the most unforgiving audience in the known world: teenagers who actually read. They can sense stupid artifice and plot boondoggling a mile away, and they can’t stand, utterly can’t stand, being talked down to.

Writers who respect that can end up writing really, really good books – books that are so lancingly smart and sharp and wry that they bear only an insulting comparison to most contemporary fiction aimed at adults.