Sponsored by Crown of Coral and Pearl by Mara Rutherford from Inkyard Press
For generations, the princes of Ilara have married the most beautiful maidens from the ocean village of Varenia. But though every girl longs to be chosen as the next princess, the cost of becoming royalty is higher than any of them could ever imagine . . .
For fans of Sarah J. Maas and Three Dark Crowns comes a new YA fantasy series intertwining politics, forbidden romance, and the power of sisterhood.
Hey YA Readers!
As you’re enjoying today’s edition of the newsletter, I’m spending the week soaking in as many books as possible on vacation. Vacation as in, time off on my couch with a pile of books. AKA, the best thing in the world.
And how am I deciding what to read this week? I’m pulling titles from some of the awesome YA book talk that’s gone down on site over the last month.
Let’s catch up together.
- ‘Tis the season for YA ghost stories!
- This piece on white bias in literature, rooted in discussion of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, is just fantastic.
- Great campuses in high school manga.
- Dig into some YA books about music.
- Plop some of these Fall YA books to your TBR.
- Excellent YA science fiction series.
- This is a ridiculously fun piece: Five Sweet Valley High characters meet their counterpart in Saved By The Bell.
- Five great books about mental health.
- If you like Edgar Allen Poe’s poetry, here are some YA book recommendations.
- Speaking of Poe, have some neo-gothic YA novels.
- 50 excellent YA books that will hit shelves in paperback this fall.
- Check out the cover and excerpt for The Perfect Escape, a rom-com hitting shelves next year.
- Maybe you need some epic YA fantasy.
- Or maybe you’re looking for some YA books about teens embedded in technology.
- Love The Baby-Sitters Club? I took a deep dive into why the series endures, both in a long-form piece, as well as in an episode of our podcast Annotated.
- Pair those two pieces with this definitive ranking of parents of The Baby-Sitters Club.
- Enjoy some books about teens with big secrets.
- How well did you do on this hardest YA quiz?
- The perfect YA nonfiction books about social activism for you or the young readers in your life.
- A principal tied to classroom book censorship is arrested for child pornography.
- Norma Klein’s YA books highlighted the messiness of adulthood.
- And last, but not least, six YA couples to ship from this summer.
Thanks for hanging out, y’all, and we’ll see you later this week!
— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram (note the new name!) and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.