Hey YA Readers!
I hope things are going well in your world. It’s been a slow reading week here, though I have been enjoying my current audiobook a LOT; it’s Meet Me By The Fountain, not YA, but about malls and mall culture, so it does tackle a lot of teen talk and discusses the mall as it has historically appeared in teen fiction.
Let’s take a look at this week’s paperback book releases and YA book news.
Bookish Goods
Red Mushroom Sticky Notes
We’re going more book adjacent than straight bookish today, but what better way to take notes on your current read or save your place in your current read than an adorable sticky note?
These cute toadstool sticky notes are perfect for fans of all things fall and cottagecore. $5.
New Releases
Welcome to paperback releases out this week. This is but a sample of what’s hitting shelves; you can grab the full list of paperback books out this week over here!
Note that you may need to toggle to the paperback edition from the link.
This week, there are no paperback releases in my records by authors of color. This roundup is not representative of this week’s new releases in terms of diversity and representation.
Deeplight by Frances Hardinge
It’s been a minute since I’ve read Hardinge, but she has been continuing to build a big, loyal fanbase in the U.S. (she’s had one in her native UK for a long time). This one is pitched as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea meets Frankenstein, and it follows in the years after all of the gods have destroyed themselves. Finding even a scrap of them can be worth a fortune, but few are brave enough to search the depths of the sea.
Fifteen year old Hark finds a still-beating heart of one of the gods and now needs to protect it with his life. This heart could be the way he saves his best friend. But when his best friend Jett touches the heart, he begins to transform. Now Hark has to decide whether to stay loyal to his friend, despite the weird changes he’s experiencing, or whether he needs to put an end to it.
The Snow Fell Three Graves Deep by Allan Wolf
This one is short and sweet: it’s a verse novelization of the Donner Party. I loved Wolf’s take on the Titanic in The Watch That Ends the Night, and this book does something similar in giving a multitude of voices and perspectives on a single historical event.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
YA Book News
- Haley Kiyoko’s hit song “Girls Like Girls” is being turned into a queer YA novel.
- Celebrating 20 years of the YA novel Born Confused.
- Here’s a nice writeup about Adam Silvera in TIME.
- The film adaptation of I Know What You Did Last Summer hit screens 25 years ago. Typing that made me feel so very old…I saw it in theaters when it came out.
Thanks for hanging out. I’ll be out on PTO next week — I’m taking my “holiday break” at the end of October, instead of during the actual holidays — but you’ll be in the capable hands of Erica.
Until then, happy reading!
— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter.