Am I too old to write a YA novel?

I wrote a Young Adult novel, and, personally, I think it's very good. My MC commits a crime and is punished, after which he must rebuild his life and eventually make amends for his past crime. I read the whole Harry Potter series and, frankly, was not very impressed. It had a lot of "bells and whistles," but not much that thrilled me. My MC is an 18 year old man who must learn from his mistakes. My plot has action as well as a moral. However, being in my 40's, I'm not sure if I could write something that appeals to a young adult. Is there any way to tell?

Most YA books are written by people well above the readership ages.

The way to tell whether the demographic will like it is to have some people in that demographic read it and give you some feedback. Know any teenagers? Ask their parents first though to see if they might object to the storyline.

I couldn't agree more with Lady Indis Dress. I am 44 and write both young adult and adult novels (and now I'm branching out into other genres as well).

If you think about it, it takes so long to get a publishing deal that even if you started in your 20's you'd be lucky to get a contract for several years at least. If you know any schools/colleges in the area you could appraoch their head teacher (our local schools fill out a feedback form whenever a child reads the book. THis tells me what they liked/didn't like/any suggestions. Listening to what they think is vital.