I need help settling an argument which I am now less confident on. Is there a difference between a coming of age story vs a story which is primarily focused on character development?
A friend is calling Lessons in Chemistry a coming of age story (specifically about the mother's character development) because he says that the woman learns to understand herself and her place in the world better. With this vague definition, I would say that could also apply to, say, Funny Story (in which the 33yo female lead learns to recognize and deal with her trust issues and longing for a home and family and to establish herself as her own independent person) or Love, Theoretically (in which the late 20s female lead learns to stop being a people pleaser and to establish herself as her own independent person). Obviously both those two books are romance novels, but if you removed the romance element, would they be coming of age stories? Or would they just be realistic fiction with a focus on character development? Is any book a coming of age story if the primary focus is character development and no other genre dominates?
Personally I was strongly on the side of "a coming of age story is different from a character development-driven story" until I tried to define any of this and now all the boundaries are looking really blurred to me.
Apologies if r/books is the wrong sub for this, please redirect me if needed.
by Both-Jellyfish1979