Rite of Passage<\/a><\/em>, winner of the Nebula Award for Fiction in 1968, sounds like a YA novel by modern standards \u2013 and read that way, it\u2019s quite a good one, not least because the main character, a girl of about thirteen named Mia Havero, is extremely well-written. She\u2019s spirited and smart, but arrogant to the point of obstinacy, and her relationships with her peers, notably her best frenemy Jimmy, feel realistic within the artificial setting of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMia narrates the book, so we know she\u2019s survived Trial already, but the bulk of the book comes before she, Jimmy, and their group are dropped on a hostile planet, as she recalls some of her adventures growing up on the starship and getting into various sorts of mischief. She sneaks around the ship through the air ducts, going to forbidden areas and learning things about their makeshift civilization that only people like her father, one of the ship\u2019s political leaders, would know. She also struggles to make friends, between her father\u2019s position in the hierarchy \u2013 with some hints at significant political divisions among leadership, including what the starship\u2019s relationships should be with the colonies \u2013 and her own attitude, something she struggles to understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n