I wrote a novel and I'm working on another with the same teen characters. Agents and publishers ask this question: What well-known book is this like? They need this for marketing the book, so it makes sense. Can anyone here tell me what books I should read to answer that question? Here's the setup of Hit the Street. A high school stoner in affluent Brooklyn in the early 1970s. He's beyond depressed, going to his hippy school and going through the motions of life while longing for death, getting high, and killing time. Then he's shocked by the death of a friend, and circumstances move him onto a path where he's in the flow, not as depressed. A girl he can't stop thinking about has disappeared under strange circumstances, she's just out of his reach, and he won't stop until he gets her back. Then two people who he holds in awe ask him to play detective, on the same day. His mood and outlook are still dark, but now there is a path forward--solving mysteries. And he does solve them.
Can anyone here tell me what books I should read to answer that question?
Here's the setup of Hit the Street.
A high school stoner in affluent Brooklyn in the early 1970s. He's beyond depressed, going to his hippy school and going through the motions of life while longing for death, getting high, and killing time. Then he's shocked by the death of a friend, and circumstances move him onto a path where he's in the flow, not as depressed. A girl he can't stop thinking about has disappeared under strange circumstances, she's just out of his reach, and he won't stop until he gets her back. Then two people who he holds in awe ask him to play detective, on the same day. His mood and outlook are still dark, but now there is a path forward--solving mysteries. And he does solve them.