Coming-Of-Age; Family Drama; Young Adult Literature
When you've got two main characters that grow up right before your eyes, you know you're reading a coming-of-age novel. Bryce and Juli tell us a story that starts in the second grade, when these wee ones are just seven years old. But thanks to their good memories (seriously, how do they remember all this stuff?), we get to hear the ins and outs of how Bryce and Juli grow up to be big bad eighth-graders. Yep, this book is all about those tween years. And you'd better believe that coming of age for Bryce and Juli has its fair share of drama.
What kind of drama, you ask? As Juli and Bryce grow up, they learn more and more about their families—and there are some definite ups and downs with the Bakers and the Loskis. So this makes Flipped part of the family drama genre. While some of the stuff Juli and Bryce learn about their families is cool, like how Juli's dad has an awesome relationship with her disabled uncle, there's also plenty of tough stuff, like when Bryce learns that his father can be a mean, shallow guy. And working through all this family drama is a pretty big deal for our main man and leading lady.
So we've got a book about two young teens dealing with growing pains and unique families, which is perfect since Flipped is meant to be read by other young teens (who, let's get real, probably have unique family experiences of their own). And because Flipped spends a ton of time focusing on the changing emotions of eighth-graders, we'd definitely put this in the young adult literature category. But that doesn't mean adults won't dig this book too—it may be about growing up, but we've all been there, folks.