Hey YA Readers!
If you’re in the US, it’s likely you are preparing for a big meal sometime this week. As such, this newsletter will not be hitting your inboxes on Thursday. I encourage you to, if you have not been already, to pick up some books by and about Native and Indigenous folks with your time off—and beyond, of course. We Need Diverse Books just created a wonderful resource for finding these titles, no matter where you are in the world, and you can also spend some time with this 2020 piece I put together on the history and future of Native literature for children and teens.
This week, let’s dive into some new releases, as well as some more new releases from the last month or so in nonfiction and graphic formats.
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Bookish Goods
Book Lover Library Card Ornament by AdventureDadGifts
Though this is described as a customizable due date card ornament, you could use this for so many different things other than hanging it up during the holidays. Since it’s customizable, how about creating yourself a sweet reminder of some of your favorite books of the year? There are so many options! $25 and up.
New Releases
We’re barreling on into a holiday week here in the US, which is the top of the slide into the December series of holidays (that is a very bad but also visually interesting metaphor). That means the lists here are going to get shorter for a bit before the publishing world comes back in full force in the new year.
Let’s look at two hardcovers hitting shelves this week. You can see the entire list of this week’s releases right here.
Betting On You by Lynn Painter
If you’d like a sort-of-enemies-to-lovers rom-com with a fake dating trope tossed in, this sounds like it’ll be 100% up your reading alley. Bailey just took a job at a hotel waterpark, and she’s discovered her coworker is Charlie. The Charlie she sat next to on a flight after her parents divorced and she moved to Omaha. He annoyed her then, and he’s annoying her now.
Or at least he was annoying her. She’s actually enjoying working with him, and the two of them are engaged in friendly conversation about the types of people frequently visiting the hotel waterpark. They make a bet on whether or not a pair of coworkers will begin to date, as they’ve been heavily flirting. But now Charlie cannot deny his feelings for Bailey and the fact the two of them need to fake date in order to hedge off some annoyance between Bailey and her mom and new boyfriend.
Perhaps the real bet isn’t on their coworkers but on the future of their own relationship.
The Queer Girl Is Going To Be Okay by Dale Walls
Dawn wants queer love so bad. It’s senior year of high school in her Houston community, and she’s realizing if she cannot have those feelings herself, perhaps she could use her skills as a burgeoning filmmaker to document queer love in other ways. Perhaps that could help her even get a scholarship for college.
Armed with a camera and her two besties, Dawn is ready to take down the obstacles to her dreams—those of film school and those of love.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Bonus New Releases
November has had a nice mix of new YA releases that go beyond the traditional novel or even the short story collection. I try to highlight those as much as possible, but I can’t get to them all in each issue of the newsletter. So today, in part because it’s been a month full of compelling graphic novels and nonfiction and in part because we’re gearing up for a short week here in the US, let’s look at a few additional new titles published recently.
The Boy From Clearwater by Pei-Yun Yu, illustrated by Jian-Xin Zhou, and translated by Lin King (November 28)
This is a work of graphic nonfiction—as in a comic—that is also a work in translation and this particular book is volumes one and two of what will ultimately be a four-volume work (the expected publication of that is May 2024). It is the story of the history of Taiwan, followed in two timelines.
In 1930s Taiwan, Tsai Kun-lin grew up first with his innocence intact, even with Japan’s occupation of the country. But then war hits, and his memory becomes one flush with military parades, air raid sirens, and more. A teenager when the war ends, he works to learn Mandarin and create a strong, solid future.
Then we move to 1950s Taiwan, and while enrolled at Taichung First Senior High School, Tsai is arrested for becoming part of a book club. This leads to ceaseless torture behind bars, and he does not see freedom again until 1960. He’s lost ten years of his life to prison, and Tsai is ready for so much more.
The Denim Diaries by Laurie Boyle Crompton
If you’re looking for a YA memoir, look no further than this one, written partially in verse and partially through illustration. This is Laurie’s coming-of-age story through the 1970s and 1980s in rural Pennsylvania and New York City, following her as she lives through several challenges. This book explores disordered eating, sexual assault, family alcoholism, and more, so know going in this is not going to be easy reading. That said, it includes a nice balance of joy and humor, too. (This looks like an excellent read-alike for Phoebe’s Diary, which came out earlier this fall).
Gender Rebels by Katherine Locke, illustrated by Shanee Benjamin
This full-color, bold, and bright collection highlights 30 must-know people who explode the gender binary. It is a groundbreaker in highlighting trans stories, gender nonconforming stories, and intersex stories of real people and real lives.
As always, thanks for hanging out. We’ll see you on Saturday for YA book deals.
In the meantime, happy reading!
– Kelly Jensen, who you can follow over on her personal Substack.