in a blind-folded taste test, could you tell adults from children?

Lauren Mechling writes about being the author of books for teens at cbc.ca:

“The thing I don’t understand,” she said instead, her voice more hesitant and quiet than before: “Why don’t you just write novels for adults?” I wanted to remind her that the sum her company paid for my book would have purchased four pages of an average adult novel, but I was too busy feeling dejected to respond. I mumbled some unintelligible half-apology and took the elevator down to the lobby.

It keeps happening. When I tell people I write teen fiction, they tend to chuckle condescendingly, or perhaps even look a little embarrassed for me. Upon learning I had begun a second teen book, an editor at the newspaper where I work made the “cash money” symbol by rubbing his thumb against his index and middle fingers. When I ran into an ex-boyfriend he asked me what “the plan” was, meaning, expressly, when would I get around to writing the Great Grown-Up Novel?