Worth checking out Cory Doctorow's YA novels... they tend to be more varied than the typical fare - a good example of what you can do with the genre.

Yes, there's a "coming of age", "figuring out what you want to do with your life" common element to them - but then one might argue that many alleged adults in today's world have not actually come of age yet. Maybe we need more of this stuff in our literature.

Yes, if you can stand Doctorow's breast beating over EFF type themes of autonomy, government, security, etc... Which might be just your thing ;)

He's not breast-beating, just making a clear, compelling, well argued and well illustrated case...

Or, you're right, it might well be my thing :-P

Fair enough, lol. The only reason I call it breast beating is because it's such a clear departure from his very early work.

There are bad YA novels, and bad non-YA novels, in all genres, including fantasy. I've seen plenty of cookie-cutter fantasy stories in the standard fantasy section as well.

And on the flip side, there are a lot of excellent fantasy novels squirreled away in the YA section where many people will overlook them.

What's the basic story? (bonus point if you link to tvtropes.)

People have been saying this about the fantasy and sci-fi genres for decades.