Author: Kelly Jensen

Hey YA Readers: I’ve got a special guest newsletter for you today!

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Albert Whitman & Company, 100 Years of Good Books.

It’s been a year since the Catalog Killer terrorized the sleepy seaside town of Camera Cove, killing four people before disappearing without a trace. Like everyone else, eighteen-year-old Mac Bell is trying to put that horrible summer behind him—easier said than done since Mac’s best friend Connor was the murderer’s final victim. But when he finds a cryptic message from Connor, he’s drawn back into the search for the killer—who might not have been a random drifter after all. Now nobody—friends, neighbors, or even the sexy stranger with his own connection to the case—is beyond suspicion.

I am generally not a huge romance reader, though I find myself in the mood and enjoying them periodically. This doesn’t extend, though, to romantic comedies — I cannot get enough of them, especially those delightful YA rom coms that have on more than one occasion made me spit out my drink with laughter.

Sandhya Menon is one of the best in the genre, and her latest book There’s Something About Sweetie (out tomorrow, May 14!) hit all of the notes I love about rom coms. There’s great depth to both Sweetie and Ash, as well as a bunch of moments that are equally swoony, cringeworthy, and humorous. I also found myself connecting with Sweetie and her discussion of being a fat girl who enjoys being active on many, many levels — and more, I found the depths to which the book dug into who does and doesn’t get to talk about and judge your body to be powerful.

I’m excited to have Sandhya here to talk today about rom coms. For readers who love the genre, this will encourage more love. For those who haven’t tried it, I suspect this will be the piece that encourages stepping into the world of love and laughs.

I was recently invited to the Emirates Literature Festival in Dubai, my first international book-related trip as a published author. As you might imagine, I boarded the plane with immense excitement, propelling it through dark, cold skies with the sheer force of my exuberance. Gold souks! Sand! Camels! Really, really tall buildings! I was ready for it all. I’m happy to report that both city and event surpassed all my expectations. And my time there was made even more delightful by a panel I was on with writer and research psychologist Ty Tashiro.

Dr. Tashiro happens to be a relationship expert, and, as a romance writer, I listened very closely whenever he spoke (who says writing can’t be evidence-based?). He said many things that opened my eyes (PSA: His book The Science of Happily Ever After is most certainly worth a read if you happen to have relationships of the romantic type with other humans), but one thing in particular stood out to me.

He spoke of the phenomenon of “mood congruence.” Apparently research shows that, with music, people tend to listen to songs that match their mood—for example, upbeat pop when they’re newly in love, depressing indie rock when they’re going through a break up, classical if they’re wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches while reading Camus (not really, I just made that last part up). But with books, Dr. Tashiro said, the opposite is true.

People turn to books as a source of escapism—to lift them out of whatever emotion they’re feeling. Somewhat contrarily, we tend to read dark books when we’re in a good place emotionally. And lighter genres—like romantic comedies—tend to resonate with people who need to feel hope, who want to believe in the presence of joy. Readers of rom-coms need to believe that no matter how horrible real life currently is, they exist in a universe where true love could arrive on one’s doorstep at any moment and sweep the depressing debris away. They want to feel like life is one giant meet-cute waiting to happen.

And boy, do I identify with that.

The contract for my first romantic comedy, When Dimple Met Rishi, arrived at a time in my life when I really, really needed to escape into a happy world.

We were gearing up for a presidential election that was going to rock the nation, one way or another, and I was already beginning to see a trickle-down effect in the very red state in which I lived at the time. I remember sitting in my car one evening, trying to leave the mostly empty parking garage at work, only to find that I’d been fenced in by a very large truck plastered with KKK and alt-right stickers. There was nowhere to go, and no one to help. The driver revved his engine, making eye contact in my rearview mirror, blocking me in for a good heart-pounding thirty seconds before tearing off.

Once the shaking in my hands calmed down, I drove home, said hello to my family, walked to my office, and wrote two thousand words in my book. My aggressively happy, everything-is-going-to-be-fine, happily-ever-after-guaranteed book. I could’ve painted a giant middle finger on my car or set my neighbor’s lawn signs on fire, but this felt somehow more well-adjusted.

But I don’t think the need to read (or watch or write) rom-coms comes from such a dramatic place every time. Sometimes, it’s just about fighting against that malaise so many of us have been feeling for a couple of years now—the sense that, no matter how hard we fight or how loud we shout, things refuse to change. Being happy, even for a few hours, feels revolutionary in such conditions. If you’re a woman and/or a marginalized person, snatches of time in which you can forget, in which you can laugh or be entertained or fall in love, feels like treasure you can’t help but hoard.

I’m lucky to have gotten heartwarming emails and letters from readers who’ve read my books during painful breakups, during chemo sessions, during knock-down-drag-out fights with parents who just don’t understand them. They tell me how horrible things have been, all the terrible feelings they’ve been keeping inside them until they were ready to burst. And then, somehow, through providence or luck or a wonderful teacher or librarian or friend, they found my books precisely when they needed to find them. And each time, no matter the circumstance, the message they write to me is the same: “Thank you for helping me forget and for making me laugh.”

So, perhaps the biggest secret behind romantic comedies is this: We consume them to forget where we are, and to remember who we are. As a writer, I cannot think of a more sacred purpose for my books.

Thank you so much, Sandhya, for sharing, and a big thank you to everyone hanging out again this week to talk all things YA books.

We’ll see you again on Thursday!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA readers: Let’s catch up on the latest news.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Always Smile by Alice Kuipers from KCP Loft.

Seventeen-year-old Carley Allison had it all. She was on the edge of fame as a singer and was reaching for the highest levels as a competitive skater. Her world came crashing down when she was diagnosed with a rare kind of cancer in her trachea. Faced with an uncertain future, Carley rose to the challenge and performed on television for an audience of millions. Now her memory lives on in the countless people she touched with her courage. Bestselling author Alice Kuipers weaves their stories together with the blog Carley kept in the final months of her life and her personal rules for living well in the worst of times.

Here’s what is happening in the world of YA!

• Originally pulled from its original publication date, Blood Heir will be published this fall.
• YA author and comic creator Cecil Castellucci will be publishing a memoir. If you didn’t know already, her classic Plain Janes will be getting republished and repackaged this year, too.
• The Impossible Fortress has been optioned for Netflix.
• Holly Black’s next novel in the “Folks of the Air” series has a new release date — you can get The Queen of Nothing this year, not next.
• An update on the Mackenzi Lee Loki novel from Marvel. Oh, and here’s the cover.
• Speaking of covers, I’m sold on the next Anna-Marie McLemore book by the cover alone and fortunately, the book sounds as great as it looks.
• There’s a Twilight concert tour happening.
• If you haven’t already read Juliet Takes A Breath, you’ll want to make sure you pick it up when it’s republished.
• The Sun Is Also A Star film is coming!
• In anticipation of The Rise of Skywalker, there is a new Star Wars YA novel in the works.
• There is a lot in this study that needs to be looked at and it’s a correlational result, but there’s been an increase in teen suicides in the time following the release of 13 Reasons Why on Netflix.
• Want to spend the night in Hagrid’s Hut? This one’s a possibility, Potterheads.
• Of course, don’t forget you can score your free YA audiobooks this week with AudiobookSync.

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I wish I used pencils because I am obsessed with these. $15 for the entire set.

Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you again next week. There’s a really great guest coming to talk about her latest rom-com and the power of the genre.

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA Readers: Let’s talk mental health today.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Disney Publishing Worldwide, publisher of The Lovely and The Lost.

High-octane suspense meets survival epic in this young adult thriller about a missing girl, a teen with a twisted past and an unconventional family with an unconventional family business—training search and rescue dogs.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, which means it’s a great month to highlight some of the recent YA books that bring in mental health. Long-time readers know that mental health is a passion of mine, as a person with anxiety and depression, as well as editor of the YA anthology (Don’t) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start The Conversation About Mental Health, which came out last fall.

As the conversations around mental health continue to happen more frequently — that’s in no small part to today’s young people being more open than past generations, even though there is no question the discussions are still highly stigmatized — it’s refreshing to see how the various challenges people have with their minds emerge in books.

Below are a few of the YA books I’ve read this year that include a mental health thread in some capacity. This isn’t comprehensive, and I’ll revisit this list later this year to add more to it. Note that all of these deserve requisite trigger warnings because they take mental health and illness head on.

Brave Face by Shaun David Hutchinson: This memoir, out later this month, follows Hutchinson’s teen years as he began to discover his sexuality, as well as what it’s like to live life with depression. Add this to the list of YA authors being raw and vulnerable about their own growing up.

Heroine by Mindy McGinnis: Two softball players are involved in a car wreck, and when one of them develops an addiction to the opioids prescribed to her for pain management, their friendship — as well as her whole career in softball and in high school — begins to fall apart. Powerful, timely, and compassionate in terms of where, how, and why addiction can happen.

I Wish You All The Best by Mason Deaver: When Ben comes out as nonbinary to their parents, they’re kicked out of their home and reach out to their sister who they haven’t seen in over ten years. As Ben begins integrating into a new school, they have to decide who they’ll share their identity with, as well as come to terms with their tumultuous family history. Ben struggles with anxiety openly, with medication, as well as with a therapist.

The Revolution of Birdie Randolph by Brandy Colbert: Out in August, one of the big themes through this book is how alcoholism can impact families and relationships within them, and how alcoholism is a disease that can be wretched to work through. Written in Colbert’s signature thoughtful, moving style, this is a book that readers will be talking about for a long time.

The Waking Forest by Alyssa Wees: It was so pleasantly surprising to see a non-contemporary book take on the topic of anxiety. In Wees’s debut, a girl dealing with terrible dreams slips into them and discovers that everything she thought she knew about her life may not, in fact, be the truth. Throughout, she and other characters talk openly and honestly about living with anxiety.

We Are The Perfect Girl by Ariel Kaplan: Kaplan’s book offers therapy as a means of her main character not only better understanding her mental health, but discovering the challenges she’s been dealing with all together. Main character Aphra struggles with body dysmorphia, but it’s not until her therapist articulates it to her does she understand where many of her own motivations and behaviors come from. This book? It’s funny. Really funny. And yet it doesn’t shy away from this kind of big stuff, either.

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf: Set in the 1960s in Malaysia, Alkaf’s debut offers a main character who struggles with obsessive compulsive disorder and carefully explores how her Muslim culture viewed mental illness like that during this period of time. Not only is the OCD palpable, but the look at how mental health perspectives have shifted over time also highlights how far we’ve come culturally — as well as how far we still have to go (and more, how we can offer respect and understanding to cultures that view mental health differently).

Thanks for hanging out, y’all, and we’ll see you again later this week with some YA news!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA Readers: A new month of fresh YA ebook deals are here!

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Waiting for Fitz by Shadow Mountain Publishing.

Addie counts everything. All the time. She can’t stop. Fitz is haunted by the voices in his head and often doesn’t know what is real. When Addie meets Fitz, they immediately connect and wish they could both make more sense of their lives. Fitz feels if he can convince Addie to help him escape the psych ward, everything will be okay. If not, he risks falling into a downward spiral that may keep him in the hospital indefinitely. Waiting for Fitz is a story about life and love, forgiveness and courage, and learning what is truly worth waiting for.

Get your read on with these fantastic YA ebook deals. Prices current as of Friday, May 3.

Have you heard how great Maurene Goo is? She’s a queen of the rom com, and her book I Believe In A Thing Called Love is $3.

• Michael Barakiva’s debut One Man Guy, a queer romance, is on sale for $3 ahead of his sophomore novel coming this month.
• Have you read Caraval by Stephanie Garber? The book launches a trilogy and can be yours for $3.
• Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum is $2.
• There are a whole bunch of classic Judy Blume teen reads on sale. Score Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret?, Here’s To You Rachel Robinson, Just As Long As We’re Together, and It’s Not The End of the World are $2 each.
• The first book in the Beka Cooper series by Tamora Pierce, Terrier, is $2.
• Itching to fall into a fantasy series? Try the first book in Kiersten White’s And I Darken for $2, and if you love it, grab book two, Now I Rise, for $2.

I adored Jessica Spotswood’s The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls, about sisters living and working in a resort town for their last summer together, and you can score it for $2.

• Grab the outstanding YA nonfiction biography Vincent and Theo by Deborah Heiligman about the Van Gogh brothers for $3.
• Although not technically YA, this book has such appeal to YA readers and features young main characters that I’m including it. You can grab Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived In The Castle for $2.

Thanks for hanging out, y’all, and I hope your to-read piles just exploded in greatness.

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA readers: Open up your TBR because you’ll be making it longer.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Inebriated by Katey Taylor.

Barely seventeen and as pretty as can be: the summer is their playground. Cait and her best friends take on San Francisco’s party scene with fake IDs and short dresses. When Cait meets Adrien Cross, the charismatic lead singer of her favorite band, she’s introduced to a hedonistic world of liquor and lust that she never wants to leave. But then that world spirals out of control and the harsh realities of reckless living take a toll on Cait and the ones she loves. What will be left when the makeup masks wash off, the bottles are empty, and Cait loses her grip on everything?

Get a head start on your reading plans for the fall and add these great books to your (already crumbling, tumbling, falling over) to-be-read piles and lists. Since I have not yet read any of these, I’m relying on Amazon descriptions — I have these on my own to-read, too.

Not to give you heart palpitations or anything, but the next preview newsletter in a few weeks will begin to feature (gasp!) 2020 titles.

The Babysitters Coven by Kate Williams (Sept 17)

Seventeen-year-old Esme Pearl has a babysitters club. She knows it’s kinda lame, but what else is she supposed to do? Get a job? Gross. Besides, Esme likes babysitting, and she’s good at it.

And lately Esme needs all the cash she can get, because it seems like destruction follows her wherever she goes. Let’s just say she owes some people a new tree.

Enter Cassandra Heaven. She’s Instagram-model hot, dresses like she found her clothes in a dumpster, and has a rebellious streak as gnarly as the cafeteria cooking. So why is Cassandra willing to do anything, even take on a potty-training two-year-old, to join Esme’s babysitters club?

The answer lies in a mysterious note Cassandra’s mother left her: “Find the babysitters. Love, Mom.”

Turns out, Esme and Cassandra have more in common than they think, and they’re about to discover what being a babysitter really means: a heroic lineage of superpowers, magic rituals, and saving the innocent from seriously terrifying evil. And all before the parents get home.

I’m Not Dying With You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal (August 6)

Lena and Campbell aren’t friends.

Lena has her killer style, her awesome boyfriend, and a plan. She knows she’s going to make it big. Campbell, on the other hand, is just trying to keep her head down and get through the year at her new school.

When both girls attend the Friday-night football game, what neither expects is for everything to descend into sudden mass chaos. Chaos born from violence and hate. Chaos that unexpectedly throws them together.

They aren’t friends. They hardly understand the other’s point of view. But none of that matters when the city is up in flames, and they only have each other to rely on if they’re going to survive the night.

Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters by Emily Roberson (Oct 22)

Sixteen-year-old Ariadne’s whole life is curated and shared with the world. Her royal family’s entertainment empire is beloved by the tabloids, all over social media, and the hottest thing on television. The biggest moneymaker? The Labyrinth Contest, a TV extravaganza in which Ariadne leads fourteen teens into a maze to kill a monster. To win means endless glory; to lose means death. In ten seasons, no one has ever won.

When the gorgeous, mysterious Theseus arrives at the competition and asks Ariadne to help him to victory, she doesn’t expect to fall for him. He might be acting interested in her just to boost ratings. Their chemistry is undeniable, though, and she can help him survive. If he wins, the contest would end for good. But if she helps him, she doesn’t just endanger her family’s empire―the monster would have to die. And for Ariadne, his life might be the only one worth saving.

Ariadne’s every move is watched by the public and predestined by the gods, so how can she find a way to forge her own destiny and save the people she loves?

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi (Sept 10)

There are no monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. Jam and her best friend, Redemption, have grown up with this lesson all their life. But when Jam meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colors and claws, who emerges from one of her mother’s paintings and a drop of Jam’s blood, she must reconsider what she’s been told. Pet has come to hunt a monster, and the shadow of something grim lurks in Redemption’s house. Jam must fight not only to protect her best friend, but also to uncover the truth, and the answer to the question–How do you save the world from monsters if no one will admit they exist?

In their riveting and timely young adult debut, acclaimed novelist Akwaeke Emezi asks difficult questions about what choices you can make when the society around you is in denial.

The Stars and The Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus (Sept 17)

Trinidad. Sixteen-year-old Audre is despondent, having just found out she’s going to be sent to live in America with her father because her strictly religious mother caught her with her secret girlfriend, the pastor’s daughter. Audre’s grandmother Queenie (a former dancer who drives a white convertible Cadillac and who has a few secrets of her own) tries to reassure her granddaughter that she won’t lose her roots, not even in some place called Minneapolis. “America have dey spirits too, believe me,” she tells Audre.

Minneapolis. Sixteen-year-old Mabel is lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out why she feels the way she feels–about her ex Terrell, about her girl Jada and that moment they had in the woods, and about the vague feeling of illness that’s plagued her all summer. Mabel’s reverie is cut short when her father announces that his best friend and his just-arrived-from-Trinidad daughter are coming for dinner.

Mabel quickly falls hard for Audre and is determined to take care of her as she tries to navigate an American high school. But their romance takes a turn when test results reveal exactly why Mabel has been feeling low-key sick all summer and suddenly it’s Audre who is caring for Mabel as she faces a deeply uncertain future.

The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring (Sept 24)

At the very southern tip of South America looms an isolated finishing school. Legend has it that the land will curse those who settle there. But for Mavi―a bold Buenos Aires native fleeing the military regime that took her mother―it offers an escape to a new life as a young teacher to Argentina’s elite girls.

Mavi tries to embrace the strangeness of the imposing house―despite warnings not to roam at night, threats from an enigmatic young man, and rumors of mysterious Others. But one of Mavi’s ten students is missing, and when students and teachers alike begin to behave as if possessed, the forces haunting this unholy cliff will no longer be ignored.

One of these spirits holds a secret that could unravel Mavi’s existence. In order to survive she must solve a cosmic mystery―and then fight for her life.

Verify by Joelle Charbonneau (Sept 24)

Meri Beckley lives in a world without lies. When she looks at the peaceful Chicago streets, she feels pride in the era of unprecedented hope and prosperity over which the governor presides.

But when Meri’s mother is killed, Meri suddenly has questions that no one else seems to be asking. And when she tries to uncover her mother’s state of mind in her last weeks, she finds herself drawn into a secret world with a history she didn’t know existed.

Suddenly, Meri is faced with a choice between accepting the “truth” or embracing a world the government doesn’t want anyone to see—a world where words have the power to change the course of a country and where the wrong ones can get Meri killed.

Who Put This Song On? by Morgan Parker (Sept 24)

Trapped in sunny, stifling, small-town suburbia, seventeen-year-old Morgan knows why she’s in therapy. She can’t count the number of times she’s been the only non-white person at the sleepover, been teased for her “weird” outfits, and been told she’s not “really” black. Also, she’s spent most of her summer crying in bed. So there’s that, too.

Lately, it feels like the whole world is listening to the same terrible track on repeat–and it’s telling them how to feel, who to vote for, what to believe. Morgan wonders, when can she turn this song off and begin living for herself?

Life may be a never-ending hamster wheel of agony, but Morgan finds her crew of fellow outcasts, blasts music like there’s no tomorrow, discovers what being black means to her, and finally puts her mental health first. She decides that, no matter what, she will always be intense, ridiculous, passionate, and sometimes hilarious. After all, darkness doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Darkness is just real.

Thanks for hanging out, y’all, and we’ll see you again soon!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA Readers: Welcome to news o’clock!

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Tor Teen.

A new YA standalone novel about dark faeries for fans of Laini Taylor and Sarah J. Maas. Prince and his faerie courtiers are staggeringly beautiful, unrelentingly cruel, and exhausted by the tedium of the centuries—until they meet foster-siblings Josh and Ksenia. Drawn in by their vivid emotions, undying love for each other, and passion for life, Prince will stop at nothing to possess them. First seduced and then entrapped by the faeries, Josh and Ksenia learn that the faeries’ otherworldly gifts come at a terrible price—and they must risk everything to reclaim their freedom.

There’s so much great stuff going on. Let’s dive in!

• Get your free audiobooks all summer long. Audiobook Sync is a rad program where you can get free YA audiobooks and classics. The program is live now, so get listening.
• The adaptation of Walter Dean Myers Monster hasn’t yet had a distributor. It does now, and we’ll be seeing this in the fall!
• Remember how the Chaos Walking adaptation was supposed to come out this year? It looks like it…might maybe happen next year? But also it was a mess so who knows.
• Alex Rider adaptation casting news.
• YA author Saundra Mitchell will be adapting the Broadway play The Prom to a YA novel.
• This is so cool: a team of Philadelphia rappers have written and released a song inspired by Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give.
• Jenny Han was named one of Variety’s 2019 Power Women of New York.
• The best YA books by black women you haven’t read yet.
• Have you been reading Refinery29’s YA month series? You can read all of the posts here.
• Casting news for the RL Stine Fear Street adaptation.
• VERY important update on the final book in Libba Bray’s “The Diviners” series.
• A book cowritten by Becky Albertalli and Alisha Saeed is coming and it sounds incredible.
• Speaking of Becky Albertalli….there’s a Love, Simon TV show in the works from Disney’s streaming service.
• The Bank Street Best Children’s Book lists are out. Add some awesome YA to your TBR.
• Last, but not least, a look at YA authors who began their careers in libraries (including yours truly!).

Blast From The YA Past…

Let’s take a peek at a few of the things we’ve written at Book Riot from years gone by.

• 51 beautiful YA book quotes for every mood.
• Great fiction/nonfiction pairings for YA books.
• Quiz: Which Harry Potter character is your reading soulmate?
• Searching for Taiwan in YA literature.
• #OwnVoices YA stories about the immigrant experience.
• The best/worst Harry Potter pickup lines.
• Why we shouldn’t sugarcoat YA.

Ride your ship with this fun bookmark. $5.

Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you later this week!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA Readers! Let’s talk audiobooks.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Caracal, the middle grade imprint of Lion Forge.

When the Hamster Aquatic Mercenaries (H.A.M.) are hired to save their badger allies from flooding, the colony’s most ambitious young hamster pups compete for their chance to join the team and earn glory and prestige. Those who succeed, however, soon discover that life outside their burrow is not the grand adventure they imagined, but instead find a world of deadly threats and conflicting stories about their species’ origins. The Underfoot Vol. 1: The Mighty Deep by Emily S. Whitten, Ben Fisher, and Michelle Nguyen is in stores now from the Caracal imprint of Lion Forge!

There’s something fun about listening to an audiobook performed by someone whose voice is already familiar to you because you’ve seen them on your favorite television show or movie. Certainly, many who listen to audiobooks have favorite non-celebrity performers, but celebrity voices are often a nice entry point for those who are new to audiobooks and don’t know where to begin. Celebrity audiobooks are, of course, also great for long-time listeners who just want to mix up the reading experience.

Find below five awesome YA audiobooks performed by celebrities. By no means is this a comprehensive roundup — I’ll save that for another day — but this is a means of dipping one’s toes into the world of celebrity YA audiobooks.

Since I haven’t listened to any of these and haven’t read all of them (I have read some, of course!), I’m relying on the Amazon descriptions so as not to give too much or too little away.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. Audiobook performed by Lin-Manuel Miranda

Yep! Before Hamilton helped Miranda’s career explode, he performed the audiobook of the award-winning Aristotle and Dante.

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, performed by Tatiana Maslany

This special edition audiobook hit shelves in honor of the 10th anniversary of the book in October 2018. If you’ve already read and listened to this book before, maybe give this a re-read with award-winning Maslany as the narrator.

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by 12 outlying districts. The Capitol keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to death before – and survival, for her, is second nature. Still, if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Leah On The Offbeat by Becky Albertalli, performed by Shannon Purser

You might best know her as Barb from Stranger Things. Whatever happened to Barb, you ask? She’s performing great YA audiobooks. I suspect given how great Leah’s voice is in this book that this audiobook is outstanding.

When it comes to drumming, Leah Burke is usually on beat – but real life isn’t always so rhythmic.

She’s an anomaly in her friend group: the only child of a young, single mom, and her life is decidedly less privileged. She loves to draw but is too self-conscious to show it. And even though her mom knows she’s bisexual, she hasn’t mustered the courage to tell her friends – not even her openly gay BFF, Simon.

So Leah really doesn’t know what to do when her rock-solid friend group starts to fracture in unexpected ways. With prom and college on the horizon, tensions are running high.

It’s hard for Leah to strike the right note while the people she loves are fighting – especially when she realizes she might love one of them more than she ever intended.

Sabriel by Garth Nix, performed by Tim Curry

This entire series is performed by Curry, who is likely best known for The Rocky Horror Picture Show and/or Clue and/or the original TV miniseries It where he portrayed Pennywise.

Ever since she was a tiny child, Sabriel has lived outside the walls of the Old Kingdom, away from the random power of Free Magic, and away from the Dead who won’t stay dead. But now her father, the Mage Abhorsen, is missing, and to find him Sabriel must cross back into that world.

Though her journey begins alone, she soon finds companions: Mogget, whose seemingly harmless feline form hides a powerful and perhaps malevolent spirit; and Touchstone, a young Charter Mage long imprisoned by magic, now free in body but still trapped by painful memories.

With threats on all sides and only each other to trust, the three must travel deep into the Old Kingdom, toward a battle that will pit them against the true forces of life and death, and bring Sabriel face-to-face with her own hidden destiny.

A tale of dark secrets, deep love and dangerous magic, Sabriel introduces Garth Nix as an exceptional new talent.

White Cat by Holly Black, performed by Jesse Eisenberg

All three books in the trilogy are performed by Eisenberg, who was in Adventureland and Zombieland, as well as in Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they’e all criminals. Many become mobsters and con artists. But not Cassel. He hasn’t got magic, so he’s an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail – he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Cassel has carefully built up a facade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his facade starts to crumble when he finds himself sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He’s noticing other disturbing things too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him. As Cassel begins to suspect he’s part of a huge con game, he must unravel his past and his memories. To find out the truth, Cassel will have to outcon the conmen.

Did you know today launches the annual Audiobook Sync program, too? If you love audiobooks and YA books, you’ll want to make sure you grab your two free audiobooks each week from the program. Check it out! 

Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll catch up with all the latest in YA news on Monday.

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA readers: Let’s catch up on the latest in YA book talk.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Disney Publishing Worldwide.

New from Rick Riordan Presents, the second book in the best-selling Pandava series. Just when she’s learning how to be a Pandava, Aru is accused of stealing the god of love’s bow and arrow. In order to prove her innocence, she must navigate the serpent realm with Mini and two new companions, one of whom is a BOY!

We’ve been talking about YA a ton over on Book Riot, and today seems like a great day to catch up with the happenings over on site. Grab your TBR and prepare for it to get even bigger.

• Do teens get pushed out of YA when YA is referred to as a genre?
• Relevant to the news: 3 YA books about college admissions scandals.
• If you need your book series complete before you read them, then you’ll be glad to discover this list of 50 must-read completed YA book series.
• YA graphic novels for your spring to-read lists.
• 50 excellent must-read YA fantasy books.
• 30 teen book bloggers, YouTubers, and Instagrammers you should know.
• These YA book titles will become your next earworm.
• New and upcoming political YA books to have on your radar. Here are some more political YA books, too.
• Here are over 150 YA books hitting shelves this spring. Too big a list? Try these 20 YA books to add to your spring TBR.
• Three books about when best friends become more than friends.
• You’ll want to listen to these YA poetry books read by the authors.
• YA books that feature religion and faith.
• Time travel back to the 1970s with these YA novels.
• Read an excerpt of We Hunt The Flame.
• Then read an excerpt from Somewhere Only We Know for your rom-com fix.
• Here are some books featuring teens being educated non-traditionally.

Upcoming Authors on Tour

By popular request, here’s a round-up of a handful of YA authors who will be on tour in the next few months. See if you’ll be near one of these bookstores or libraries and pop in to meet a favorite — or a soon-to-be favorite! This is in no way comprehensive.

• Julie Berry: April and May, US.
• Arvin Ahmadi: May and June, US.
• Tahereh Mafi: May and June, US and Canada.
• EK Johnston: May, US and Canada.
• Hafsah Faizal: May and June, US.
• Jay Kristoff: April and May, Australia, US, Canada.
• Sandhya Menon: May, US.
• Elizabeth Acevedo: May and June, US.
• Stephanie Garber: May and June, US.
• Maurene Goo: May and June, US and Canada.
• Sarah Dessen: June and July, US and Canada.

Love YA? Wear that pride on a tee. $25 and up.

Thanks for hanging out and we’ll see you again later this week!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA readers: Your deals are here!

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by The Art of Losing by Lizzy Mason and Soho Press.

A drunken mistake. A life-changing accident. The bonds of sisterhood are tested by addiction and a crushing betrayal in Lizzy Mason’s debut. When 17-year-old Harley Langston sees her boyfriend kissing her sister Audrey at a house party, she’s furious. But when her boyfriend drunkenly tries to drive Audrey home, he crashes leaving Audrey in a coma. Adrift in a sea of guilt, grief, and anger, Harley is surprised to reconnect with Raf, an old friend just out of rehab. As Audrey recovers, Harley can see a path forward with Raf’s help—one guided by honesty and forgiveness.

These deals are current as of a.m., Friday, April 19. Enjoy a little bit of everything genre-wise!

If you haven’t already read Amy Spalding or her latest book The Summer of Jordi Perez (And The Best Burger In Los Angeles), you should pick it up for $2. Rom Com + queer romance + a burger rating app + fashion + a fat main character.

• Want a historical mystery with characters of color by an author of color? YS Lee’s The Agency is $2.
• Elizabeth Acevedo’s award-winning novel in verse The Poet X is $3.
• How about an anthology about queer teens throughout history? Saundra Mitchell edited All Out, which you can snag for $4.
• Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson is $3.
• The first book in Scott Reintgen’s “Nyxia Triad” series, Nyxia, is $2. The second book, Nyxia Unleashed, is also $2.
• Pick up an Edgar Award winning mystery in Mindy McGinnis’s A Madness So Discreet for $2.
• If you’re looking to kick off a historical fantasy series, Blood Rose Rebellion by Rosalyn Eves is $2.
• You can snag a three-book collection of the first titles in the Pretty Little Liars series for $4.
• Itching for some horror? Madeleine Roux’s House of Furies is $2.

Don’t miss the hilarious collection of essays by Shane Burcaw Laughing At My Nightmare for $3.

• A Dexter-style mystery/thriller calling you? You’ll want to try Kim Liggett’s The Unfortunates for $3.
• Lamar Giles is a YA author you should be reading, and if you haven’t yet read Endangered, you can snag it for $2.

Grab one, grab two, or grab ’em all and enjoy your weekend of good YA reads.

See you again on Monday!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA Readers: today highlights YA memoirs, mental health, and more with guest Samantha Schutz.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Algonquin Young Readers, publisher of In the Neighborhood of True by Susan Kaplan Carlton.

In 1958, Ruth Robb’s family moves from New York City to Atlanta after her father’s death. In her new hometown, Ruth quickly figures out she can be Jewish or she can be popular, but she can’t be both. Eager to fit in, Ruth decides to hide her religion. Before she knows it, she is caught between two worlds, two religions, and two boys. When a violent hate crime brings the different parts of Ruth’s life into sharp conflict, she will have to choose between all she’s come to love about her new life and standing up for what she believes.

Samantha Schutz published a YA memoir back in 2016 called I Don’t Want To Be Crazy. It’s a chronicle of her experience with a mental breakdown and the book itself helped serve as a means for her to cope with understanding her mental health.

Nearly fifteen years later in an era where discussions of mental health are happening more frequently — though certainly not at the level they should be happening — Scholastic has republished Schutz’s book with a new author letter. This rerelease marks an opportunity for the title to reach new readers and the note included in the book connects Schutz’s personal experiences at the time of her writing with the research and realities acquired in the time between its publication and now.*

I’m excited to talk with Sam today about I Don’t Want To Be Crazy, her experiences with mental health, and more, what she sees and hopes to keep seeing in terms of mental health representation in YA and with teens more broadly.

Samantha Schutz: Scholastic approached me about creating a new edition a year ago. “People need this book now more than ever,” was a reoccurring phrase I heard from the Scholastic team. In fact, that’s what most people say when I tell them about the new edition of the book.

SS: I’m impressed with the tremendous efforts that publishers have gone to to represent diverse and authentic voices. When IDWTBC first came out, there were just a handful of YA books in this genre. The ones that were impactful on my process included Speak, Luna, Perks of Being a Wallflower, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Crank, Cut, Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy. Now there are so many more books available about mental health issues.

That’s why I started @youmakemefeellessalone on Instagram. People can submit their art and writing about the challenges they are facing. The person submitting benefits because it’s a way for them for them to unburden themselves. The viewers benefits too because they can relate to what they are reading and feel less alone.

SS: I loved reading the journals of Anais Nin during those times. There was something about the way she scrutinized all of her emotions and picked everything apart that really drew me in. I was also a somewhat obsessive journal writer myself, so she was my idol.

The most recent book I read that deals with mental health and really blew me away was Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett Krosoczka. This YA graphic novel memoir is about growing up in a family grappling with addiction and finding the art that helps you survive. It’s painful and honest and incredibly beautiful. Also Little Panic: Dispatches from an Anxious Life, a memoir by Amanda Stern, was wonderful. It was fascinating to be inside the mind of the author as very young girl and hear her seemingly endless anxious thoughts.

I’m also a big fan of anything Ellen Hopkins has written. She takes verse to a whole new level. Any time I see her poems that are written in two columns, I take a deep breath and smile. That format usually means that in addition to being able to read the poem horizontally across the page from left to right, it also means that you can read the vertical columns independently as two different poems. Each way you read it, it takes on a different meaning. It’s incredible!

Thank you so much for talking with us, Sam!

*Of note: Because the content of the book has not changed in the time between its original release and rerelease, there might be some language that doesn’t sit well with contemporary readers.

Thanks for hanging out and we’ll see you again next week!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.