Young Adult; Coming of Age
Punkzilla has a big silver P on the cover, and it doesn't stand for Peter (unlike the rest of the Ps in the book). It means you're reading a Printz Honor book, which means you're reading YA. The Printz is this big, fancy award you get if you write one of the five best YA novels of the year. (No pressure, writers.) So when you see one, well, you know what genre turf you're hanging out in.
And it doesn't get much more coming-of-age than a book in which the teenage narrator who sets out on his own to cross the country and loses his virginity in the process. As grown-up things go, sex is one of the biggies. We've got a lot of other firsts here, too: first road trip, first roommate, first death of a loved one, and unfortunately, first time doing meth. Jamie leaves Buckner and does a whole lot of growing up, and fast. The sex part? Awesome. The death and meth? Not so much. But so it goes with growing-up—it's a mixed bag.