Reddit reviews The Goodness Gene

A shot in the dark here - The Goodness Gene, by Sonia Levitin.

From this review:

>Will and his twin brother Berk are the sons of Hayli, the Compassionate Director of the Dominion of the Americas. The world is barely recognizable from the world we live in. In this utopian world, people only get married when they’re old, babies are created and born in labs, as is food, and a person’s ration of pleasure stamps are used for virtual travel and sex (neither of which occurs other than virtually). As a new government intern, Will leaves the area for the first time with a girl named Leora. However, he becomes incredibly sick and stuck in Leora’s colony until he is better. He finds out some life changing things about Leora and, more importantly, himself.

Here's something I've been wondering about.

Can some of those posters who typed "No it wouldn't work because it's not on a subject familiar to teenagers" please explain why they feel familiarity with a small part of the premise is important? Sorry if that sounds rude but to be honest, I really can't understand why "It has to be familiar to teenagers (beyond the sense of it being about teenage issues in general, ie in the sense of subject if you know what I'm saying) is an important factor for judging if something is YA or not.

Here's an example of what I mean. This probably isn't a good analogy but I hope what I say is clear.

Say you have a book set in Australia (I live here and I'm an Aussie) about an Italian-Australian girl who discovers her father is an admirer of Mussolini and believes Italian fascism was a great thing and should be implemented over here and the story is how she deals with the fact that her father is a fascist and the judgements she faces when this news gets out.

Maybe my friends are a different group than most young adults, but I think most people I know would be more familiar with Fidel and Che (if vaguely) than with Mussolini beyond knowing that he was a fascist and the leader of Italy from the Great Depression to WWII and that his regime were allies of the Nazis. He also had a number of sympathisers outside of Italy, as did Franco and Hitler.

I probably know a bit more than the average person my age about Mussolini, although it's not that much: for example, one of the things he did while in power was to go to Southern Italy and help out in the fields for a day (make it look like he was sympathising with the rural workers) then return to his Ducal Palace.

Anyhow, the point of this example is to ask this: If a book focusing on teenage issues told from the perspective of Che Guevara's clone is called adult fiction because it has

>a plot involving historical events

then a book about a girl whose father is literally a fascist and follower of Mussolini would also count as adult fiction for the same reason. Because anything serious involving a historical figure has to involve the events they were involved in in some way as well. It's pretty much unavoidable, even in books like [this one which has twin brothers who are Hitler clones as protagonists] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Goodness-Gene-Sonia-Levitin/dp/0525473971)