I've done some research into YA Literary magazines and it's finally dawned on me: the thing that my work is lacking is romance. Most YA titles, fantasy or otherwise, are heavy in romance. It becomes an integral part of the story: Divergent, The Hunger Games, and Twilight all center around the main love story. I think what's put me off this entire time is Harry Potter. Harry's central theme wasn't about romance, even though it was in the story, and I would consider Harry Potter Young Adult. Of course, those books follow Harry through school whereas my novel doesn't have school in the equation at all.
So, perhaps I've been approaching the genre all wrong. Maybe all this time I've been sending Query Letters to agents who are looking for YA novels when really I should be focusing on Fantasy. Not High Fantasy, but perhaps more urban Fantasy.
I will have to send my query letter out to a few Fantasy agents and see if that makes a difference.
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