Silkpunk, Mermaids, and Drive-Ins: YA Book Talk, June 17, 2024

Bookish Goods

Mermaid Reader Enamel Pin by EmmaCarpenterStudio

‘Tis the season of all things mermaids reading on the beach. Scoop up one of these adorable enamel pins for $12.

New Releases

I’m pulling out three very different new releases to highlight this week. You can, as always, grab the full list here. Note that we’re entering into the slow season in publishing, so the options will become fewer over the next month or two before going full force back into fall. I put the finishing touches on the mega roundups for summer and already see how busy the end of August through all of September will be. Lucky us!

Bad Graces by Kyrie McCauley

I am not entirely sure the cover conveys that this is a magical thriller, but that’s the genre we’re in. Liv Whitlock has lived in several foster homes and has never found a place where she feels fully herself. She’s a bit (a lot?) self-destructive. She knows she needs to turn her life around, and the way she’ll do it is by stealing her sister’s identity.

That works. Liv scores an amazing internship on a film set in Alaska. Before she can even blink, she’s on a luxury yacht with some of the most famous names in the business and Liv cannot believe her luck.

But then a storm destroys the yacht and the entire crew is stranded on island. It’s not only the starvation and the worries about not being prepared for long term survival that cause chaos. It is also the predator who lives there. When the survivors of the wreck find themselves injured on the island, weird things begin to happen in their bodies…and they begin to see how much more like the strange predator they are than they are not.

This one is pitched as Yellowjackets meets House of Hollow.

Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen

Are you looking for a silkpunk fantasy? Here’s one for the TBR.

Aihui Ying is 18 and looking forward to following in the footsteps of her father, a world-class engineer. But when he’s murdered, Ying is left with nothing but a journal of his engineering secrets and a jade pendant that she grabbed from his murderer. She needs to know what happened, and so she takes off to the prestigious and mysterious Engineers Guild. That’s where the father’s past has been hidden.

To get into the Guild, Ying disguises herself as her brother and infiltrates their apprenticeship trials with the help of Aogiya Ye-yang, a prince. Ying has to keep herself quiet since the murder of her father means her safety is also at significant risk. Her father’s murderer still wants to get their hands on his journal.

Inside the Guild, there are not only secrets but deadly weapons. Despite early trust in the prince, Ying begins to wonder what secrets he might be harboring and how they might hurt her plans. Can she get the closure—and, perhaps, revenge—that she needs?

Rules for Camouflage by Kirstin Cronn-Mills

Evvie just wants to get through the last month of high school and graduate, but that’s not going to be easy. She’s got to write a final biology report on foxes, and despite the fact she knows she’d do a better job writing about the octopus she works with while volunteering at the zoo, her teacher, Mrs. Dearborn, won’t have it. Mrs. Dearborn has been far from helpful or accommodating to Evvie at all throughout high school, despite knowing about Evvie’s neurodiversity.

So Evvie finds solace in the Lair, a place for people like her who need time away from the chaotic and unaccommodating world around them. But as Mrs. Dearborn becomes more difficult to manage and a class bully begins upping his harassment of the students who hang in the Lair, things come to a head in an act of violence that forces Evvie and her friends to make a change in the world around them in order to create spaces that are safe and meaningful to them.

This is a book about being true to yourself and standing up for yourself exactly as you are.

For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.

At The Drive-In

There’s an image that pops up in media when trying to evoke a sense of innocence, nostalgia, and youthfulness when it comes to teenagers. That’s the drive-in movie theater. I just recently rewatched my all-time favorite movie Twister and the scene at the drive-in is one I know I’ve seen repeated several times in other movies and TV shows. It’s kind of a perfect, if dated, trope: teen freedom for so long is connected to the ability to drive and where would teens go when able to drive? The movies. Of course, this is more accessible and meaningful for some teens over others, namely those with privilege and who do not need to fear what happens when they’re able to get behind the wheel of a car.

What’s especially notable about this kind of scene is that it’s not necessarily meant to be referencing teens today but a bygone idea of teen-ness (and/or a space where teens who love history or film find themselves drawn to). Drive-ins themselves are far less common than they used to be. And as far as teens at the drive-in or connected to drive-ins in books written for teens, it’s not a very common setting at all.

One of the elements that strikes me as so teen about the drive-in is that it’s one of the few places where it’s understood that teens will be out late at night. During the summer, the first of a double feature might not even begin until 9 or 9:30! Certainly, there’s a thesis-length research paper here on the role of the drive-in and teenagers, but it gets me thinking because the drive-in occupies in my mind the same kind of space that summer camp in YA does.

Here are three YA stories where the drive-in plays a major role in the story. If you know of others, I’d love to hear about them because certainly, my knowledge isn’t comprehensive. I don’t want a quick mention of a drive-in, but am interested in books or short stories where the drive-in is a significant part of the narrative. Perhaps the teen works at one, and it’s a workplace-style drama, or there is some kind of alien visit that happens at the drive-in.

Interestingly, two of these stories involve ghosts.

“A Brief Intermission” by Sara Farizan in Night of the Living Queers

If you’ve read Farizan’s work before, you know there’s a layer of humor within it, even when the stories tackle heavy topics. In “A Brief Intermission,” we meet two movie lovers who work at a drive-in. They’re there on Halloween and their guests are quite ghoulish indeed. It is, of course, pretty queer.

Freaky in Fresno by Laurie Boyle Crompton

This one takes the Freaky Friday concept and runs with it. Ricki and Lana are cousins who could not be more different. Ricki’s big goal is to save the local drive-in movie theater from closing. Lana wants to grow her online makeup channel and influencer presence. So when their aunt gifts them a rad vintage pink convertible, there’s one stipulation: they have to share it.

Ricki knows it’ll be perfect for the drive-in’s grand reopening, but that is the same day as a major convention that Lana knows will help boost her online presence. This leads the girls to have a huge fight…and a minor electric shock that turns them into each other. Now Ricki is Lana and Lana, Ricki. Can the two of them sort out what happened and figure out how to become themselves again? Can they do it before the events they’re looking forward to start?

We Speak in Storms by Natalie Lund

Lund’s story takes some inspiration from the 1967 Belvidere, Illinois, tornado, which killed 24 people. The timing of the storm was right at school dismissal so many young people were among its victims.

The book follows three teenagers on the 50th anniversary of the tornado in their small town of Mercer, Illinois. That tornado killed dozens of teenagers who were at the drive-in and unprepared for the storm. On the anniversary, another tornado hits town in the same place that the prior one did. Everyone is, understandably, shaken.

Told through the voices of Brenna Ortiz, Joshua Calloway, and Callie Keller, the three teens share the stories of their very different lives. But though they themselves aren’t necessarily connected, the connections among them are the story—and more, they come together as a trio over the shared experiences they’re having that relate to the teens whose lives were cut short 50 years prior.

For readers who like a bit of fantasy in their realistic fiction, this one scratches the itch.

My research shows that maybe Queens of New York by EL Shen might fit here but I cannot confirm with any reviews.

Thanks, as always, for hanging out. We’ll see you later this week with your paperback releases and YA book news.

Until then, happy reading!

–Kelly Jensen, currently reading Adventures of Mary Jane by Hope Jahren