Author: Kelly Jensen

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What's Up in YA

đź“—Get Your YA News Right Here

Hey YA readers: It’s time to catch up on all the YA news!

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Vesuvian Books.

Break a mirror. Walk under a ladder. Step on a crack. Innocent childhood superstitions … But someone at the Trask Academy of Performing Arts is taking things one step further when the campus is rocked with the deaths of some of its star students. Senior Layna Curtis realizes the random, accidental deaths of her friends aren’t random—or accidents—at all. Someone has taken childhood games too far, using the idea of superstitions to dispose of classmates. As Layna tries to convince people of her theory, she uncovers that each escalating, gruesome murder leads closer to its final victim: her.

There is some great news to share in this week’s YA roundup!

Recent Book Mail

Here’s what has hit my inbox in the world of YA (and YA adjacent) books this week. From top to bottom:

The Blood Spell by CJ Redwine

The Cerulean by Amy Ewing

Stolen Time by Danielle Rollins

Fame, Fate, and the First Kiss by Kasie West

We Set The Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia

Hide With Me by Sorboni Banerjee

Spin by Lamar Giles

How To Survive in a Stranger Things World

Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas

White Rose by Kip Wilson

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi

For Your TBR Consideration

Two books I’ve read recently I wanted to highlight here this week include one I’ve finished and one I’m in the midst of (a recommended read from a newsletter subscriber!). Both are available now.

A Heart In a Body In The World by Deb Caletti is a moving, powerful feminist read about the anger and frustration women carry with them not only in this cultural moment, but historically as well. What does it mean to be violated? What does it mean to be used as a tool of anger by men and boys? This is what Annabelle struggles with. As a means of working through her grief and her mental health after a terrible tragedy, she decides she’s going to run from her home in Washington state to Washington DC. The goal? Figure out how to heal herself. Along the way, she makes and finds incredible people who help her do just that. While the book takes on serious and heavy issues, it’s also a book about being empowered, about hope, and about how people can come together to show each other kindness. There’s one badass grandfather figure in the story, too, and each of the characters are well-rounded and whole. A delight of a read that is exceptionally timely, too.

I just began Neal Shusterman’s Dry, which was cowritten with his son Jarrod. This book is easily within the cli-fi subgenre I highlighted in a recent newsletter. A standalone novel, the book explores what happens when the water supply in Southern California begins to dry up. Called the “tap out,” locals discover the news isn’t making its way into national headlines as they’d hope it would — there have been other, “splashier” disasters taking on the media’s attention. What happens, though, when everything you need to survive suddenly disappears? How do you tell your pet you can’t give them water? What happens when all of the stores are out of it? How do you survive? A powerfully real look at what could be a realistic crisis and not just a future-set fantasy. This has been optioned for film and I suspect it’d be great on the big screen.

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

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram

 

 

 

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What's Up in YA

✍🏽Karen Rivers On The Power of Second Person in YA

Hey YA Readers! Today we’ve got a really fun guest newsletter.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Epic Reads.

A young woman with a dangerous power she barely understands. A smuggler with secrets of his own. A country torn between a merciless colonial army, a terrifying tyrant, and a feared rebel leader. The first book in a new trilogy from the acclaimed Heidi Heilig blends traditional storytelling with ephemera for a lush, page-turning tale of escape and rebellion.

Karen Rivers is prolific in the world of kid/middle grade/YA lit, but if you haven’t read her books, you’re in for a treat. Her next YA book You Are The Everything comes out tomorrow, October 30, and it would be the perfect place to begin your journey into her work.

You Are The Everything has earned a number of accolades and they’re well-deserved. The book follows Elyse and her long-time crush Josh, who are the sole survivors of a plane crash that kills the rest of their classmates on a flight back home from a trip to France. After a long period of recovery back home in California, Elyse and Josh aren’t merely the two who survived; they’re now a loving, passionate, and popular couple who are living their dream lives in Wyoming.

It all sounds great. It all sounds luminous.

But it’s possible none of this is true at all.

Rivers’s book is told in second person, and it’s a story about grief, about trauma, and about missed opportunities. It’s about destiny and how we can — and cannot — take control of our own lives. Saying any more would ruin this brilliant and unique read.

I asked Karen to talk a bit about her book, as well as talk about the choice to write You Are The Everything in second person and other books YA readers might love that are told in a similar style.

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You

I first remember seeing the use of second person in everyday speech a few years ago, when I was watching reality TV, one of my guilty pleasures.  When contestants were being interviewed one on one, I noticed, after some emotional scene had occurred, they answered with “you” instead of “I”.

For example, when asked how he felt about being rejected by The Bachelorette, a contestant might say, “Well, you know, you’re broken-hearted, you’ve put so much into the relationship and then you’re done and you just don’t get it.  You’re blind-sided.”

When this happened, I would scream at the TV:  “You mean, I’m broken-hearted!  Not ME! You!”

I had to understand, so I began Googling.  I read about the psychology of the second person.  I read that it was a way of distancing yourself from your emotions.  I read that frequently survivors used this language. I read that trauma sometimes triggered it, that soldiers interviewed after battles would default to it.   I learned that “you” is the language of pain.

I filed this information away in my mental cabinet where I keep things I’ve found interesting but I’m not sure what use they’ll have.

I continued to yell at the TV.

*

I’ve been a blogger for many years, long after the Internet declared that blogs were dead.   Blogging is a way of stretching my creative muscles before a novel-writing sprint. It’s my way of unwinding, unraveling things in my own life, helping me see what I need to understand about myself.   I used my blog a lot when my marriage-like-relationship transformed into a divorce-like-situation.

When I blogged about things that had been devastating to me, I noticed that I defaulted to the second person.

“Interesting,” I thought.

I thought about pain.  I thought about distance.

I don’t remember this being a conscious decision.   (I do notice that I’ve used it less lately. I hope that means that I’m happy now.)

“Start with the yellow dress that you bought two years ago,” I wrote.  “It hangs on the handle of your dressing table such that every time you open a drawer, the dress billows and soars like a bright yellow flag, reminding you of the life you bought the dress to suit, a life that you didn’t have then and don’t have now.”

It turns out that they’re right:  when you’re feeling pain, it’s easier to be you, not me.

*

When I sat down to write YOU ARE THE EVERYTHING, I knew the plane was going to crash and everything that happened after that would be so very very emotional and so very very hard.

I imagined the reporters and the microphones and the questions.  “You survived,” they might say. “How does that feel?”

How would I answer, if it were me?

“Well,” I might say.  “It feels surreal. You ask yourself, why did I survive when so many others died?  You wonder why you were spared.”

I began to write.

I wrote the words:  “You are on a plane.”

There was never a choice with this book.   It had to be second person. There was no other way.

*

My favourite second person novel is You by Caroline Kepnes. In the novel, the narrator, Joe Goldberg, a writer/stalker/bookstore clerk becomes obsessed with a customer, Guinivere.   As the novel slowly, horrifically unfolds, Joe addresses Guinivere the whole time. In this way, the “you” in the book is not true second person, but the book is a masterpiece of slowly intensifying suspense, the kind of book you stay up all night to finish.  At least, I did. While it’s not YA, but almost surely has broad YA appeal. The absolutely mesmerizing narrative voice made me foist this one on friends, on family, on strangers in waiting rooms.

Similarly, Lucy Christopher’s Stolen, a 2011 Printz honor book , is an Australian YA novel that lyrically and gorgeously weaves a picture for the reader using the second person.   The entire novel is told through a letter from Gemma to her kidnapper, a man named Ty. Again, the novel had a captivating, read-it-straight-through quality. There is a poetic beauty in the language that made it stand out in my memory for years.

In the 2016 Hugo Award-winning fantasy The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemison dips in and out of multiple points of view.   For me, the second person passages lifted off the page. They were so compellingly beautiful that I read and re-read them, savoring the language.   The NYT calls this book, “Intricate and extraordinary” and it is not just these things because of the immersive fantasy elements, but because of Jemison’s use of language, the way her fluctuating points-of-view add delicate layers to an already immersive experience.  By alternating the voice in this way, she is able to magnify the emotional connection that the reader has to the story. She, in fact, invites you in: “You are she. She is you. You are Essun. Remember?”

Rebecca Stead has long been one of my favourite middle grade authors, and in 2015, she released GOODBYE, STRANGER, which I would put right on the magical border between YA and MG (with broad appeal to both audiences), she similarly layers multiple points of view, including second person, as her narrative voice shifts from character to character.  This book feels like a series of glass blocks stacked together, evenly, precisely, perfectly. It’s also noteworthy that until the end of the novel, the reader isn’t told who the “you” voice is, which keeps the reader turning pages until the end, when the blocks all come together perfectly to tie the book up in the most satisfying way.

Justin Torres’ We The Animals (2011) – the movie version just won the 2018 Sundance Next Innovator Award — is not second person at all, nor is it – like YOU – marketed as YA, but it’s another book worth mentioning here, as Torres’ book has wide YA appeal.   In this novella, Torres uses the third-person plural – the only time I can remember reading a book in this voice – and turns his short, surprising novel into poetry. The “we” is the three brothers, but who speak through one voice. I remember when I read this book years ago, reading the first page and thinking, “What is this?”  And as I kept reading, I was delighted.  This book, in my memory, feels like a fragment of something astonishing.  I’m still so impressed that he made it work, this unusual voice, that it was the voice that made the story soar.

**

KAREN RIVERS is the author of twenty-one novels for children, teens, and adults, including the highly praised The Girl in the Well Is Me, All That Was, Before We Go Extinct and A Possibility of Whales. She lives in British Columbia, Canada. Find her online at karenrivers.com or on Twitter @karenrivers.

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Thanks, Karen, and thanks readers for hanging out! We’ll see you again in November (~spooky~)

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram

 

Categories
What's Up in YA

đź“šLet’s Pile Up Your YA TBR

Hey YA readers: Let’s catch up on YA book talk from around Book Riot this month.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Easy Prey by Catherine Lo, from Amulet Books and PiqueBeyond.

Only three students had access to a teacher’s racy photos before they went viral. There’s Mouse, a brainy overachiever so desperate to get into MIT that he would do almost anything, legal or not. There’s Drew, the star athlete with a history of passing private photos around. And there’s Jenna, a good girl turned rebel after her own pictures made the rounds last year. All three deny leaking the photos, but someone has to take the fall.

Before diving into a round-up of recent YA book talk over on Book Riot, there’s this worth dropping in:

Dumplin’ will be airing on Netflix beginning December 7. I don’t know about you, but I’m grabbing my tiara and preparing for it.

 

Two new episodes of Hey YA have dropped, too. Tune in for discussion of YA friendships and recent/upcoming reads for your TBR, as well as talk about YA anthologies and small/indie press YA books.

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Recent Book Mail

I just got back from a YA lit conference, so the top few books are things I bought while there. From top to bottom!

500 Words or Less by Julia Del Rosario

Hope Nation edited by Rose Brock

Kens by Raziel Reid

We Regret To Inform You by Ariel Kaplan

Cold Day In The Sun by Sara Biren

The Dysasters by PC and Kristin Cast

Wind Rider by PC Cast

Snow In Love by Nic Stone, Melissa de la Cruz, Kasie West, and Aimee Friedman

That’s Not What I Heard by Stephanie Kate Strohm

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Cheap Reads

Grab these YA books while they’re available for just a few bucks or less. Deals current as of Tuesday, 10/23.

Looking for a haunted twin story? Into The Grey by Celine Kiernan is $2.

Laurie Devore’s How To Break A Boy (that cover!) is $3.

Want to revisit or pick up The Princess Diaries for the first time? It’s only $3.74.

Speaking of classics in YA, Louise Rennison’s Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging is $2.

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

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram.

Categories
What's Up in YA

đź’ˇYA Books That Mix Comics With Prose

Hey YA Fans: Let’s talk about a fun YA format — the graphic hybrid.

“What’s up in YA?” is sponsored by Epic Reads.

A dark, twisted, unforgettable fairy tale from Elana K. Arnold, author of the National Book Award Finalist What Girls Are Made Of. The rite has existed for as long as anyone can remember: When the king dies, his son the prince must venture out into the gray lands, slay a fierce dragon, and rescue a damsel to be his bride. This is the way things have always been. When Ama wakes in the arms of Prince Emory, she knows none of this. She has no memory of what came before she was captured by the dragon or what horrors she faced in its lair. She knows only this handsome young man, the story he tells of her rescue, and her destiny of sitting on a throne beside him. It’s all like a dream, like something from a fairy tale. As Ama follows Emory to the kingdom of Harding, however, she discovers that not all is as it seems. There is more to the legends of the dragons and the damsels than anyone knows, and the greatest threats may not be behind her, but around her, now, and closing in.

I love books that play with format in unexpected ways. This is one big reason why novels in verse are so captivating: they take something that seems familiar — poetry — and uses that format to tell a full narrative.

One of my favorite takes on format is what I call the graphic hybrid. These are books which integrate comics into the narrative. They’re not graphic novels and they’re not traditional novels (and in some cases, they’re not novels at all). They blend the two into a cohesive and compelling story.

There aren’t a whole lot of books that fall into this hybrid category, but whenever a new one arises, my fascination with them and desire to see more of them rises. This year, we’ve had at least two books, one fiction and one nonfiction, play with this format. A bonus, too, is that the nonfiction title also integrates verse into the story telling.

Find below a small selection of the small number of these graphic hybrids. They’re a great study in storytelling, as much as they’re a great way to help readers who are looking for comics but also a traditional book find something to try. They’re also great for introducing those who are a bit more reluctant to either format to something new.

Agony House by Cherie Priest, with art by Tara O’Connor

If you’re a fan of haunted house stories, this new book from Priest and O’Connor will be totally up your alley. It follows Denise and her family as they move back to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. They’re rehabbing a rundown house with the hopes of living there and turning it into a bed and breakfast. BUT IT MIGHT BE HAUNTED. The book takes on this, as well as some brilliant themes of gentrification and race.

Chasing Shadows by Swati Avasthi, with art by Craig Phillips

If this book had published in 2017 or 2018 and not 2014, I think it would have hit a much more enthusiastic audience but one of the beauties of back list titles is introducing them to new readers. This gem of a book follows three best friends who find themselves victims of a shooting. One of them dies, leaving the other two to suss out what their relationship is to one another — especially as one girl succumbs to mental illness and grief. Smart, moving, and powerful, with art that really gets what wrestling with monsters like mental illness and grief feels like.

Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor with art by Jim Di Bartolo

It’s been so many years since I read this one, but it never falls out of my memory. The book is comprised of three short stories, all having to do with love and romance. But it’s not exactly what you expect: it’s supernatural, it’s not always safe, and with the added benefit of illustrations, it’s absolutely absorbing. This was a National Book Award Finalist nearly 10 years ago for a reason, and given the massive success Taylor’s seen in recent years, it’s worth a first visit or a repeat reading.

Mary’s Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein by Lita Judge

It’s Frankenstein’s big year this year, and this book hit shelves early in the year, too, so I hope it hasn’t been forgotten or overlooked because it’s brilliant. This is a nonfiction book in verse with illustrations (!) that follows the story of how Mary Shelley conceptualized and wrote the evergreen classic Frankenstein. I thought I knew quite a bit about the book and creator, but this book highlighted how much I knew that was actually not entirely true. The “bet” that led to the book being written? True, but, when the story of Frankenstein is presented that way, it undercuts the years of thinking about the story Shelley spent before putting pen to paper. A moving, smart, and timely read in a format that’s remarkable and unique.

Also cool? Judge did the writing and the art herself.

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

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram

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Check Your Shelf

Political Book Sales Are Up Over 50% and More Must-Reads for Librarians

Welcome to Check Your Shelf! This is your guide to all things book talk worth knowing to help librarians like you up your game when it comes to doing your job (& rocking it).

“Check Your Shelf” is sponsored by The Rule of One, the first read in an epic series by real-life sisters Ashley Saunders and Leslie Saunders.

Don’t obey. Resist. In a dystopian United States, a one-child policy called The Rule of One is ruthlessly enforced. But Ava has a secret—she has an identical twin sister, Mira. For 18 years Ava and Mira have lived as one person, down to the most telling detail. But when their charade is exposed, their worst nightmare begins. Branded as traitors, hunted as fugitives, Ava and Mira rush headlong into a terrifying unknown. How far will they go to stay alive? An epic series from real-life sisters Ashley Saunders and Leslie Saunders begins with The Rule of One.

Before diving in, a quick set of announcements. I’m stepping back from putting together the “Check Your Shelf” newsletter after this week and passing it along to Katie…and “Check Your Shelf” will be hitting your inboxes every week beginning in November. More library love coming your way!

Libraries & Librarians

Book Adaptations in the News

Books in the News

By the Numbers

Award News

All Things Comics

Audiophilia

Book Lists, Book Lists, Book Lists

Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous

 

How cute is this set of buttons? Grab both “Librarian” and “Ask Me” for $3.

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Thanks for hanging out & we’ll see you again soon.

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and Twitter.

 

Psst: Even though I won’t be writing this newsletter any longer, I am still hanging around Book Riot. If YA lit is your jam, subscribe to the twice-weekly “What’s Up in YA?” newsletter to keep me in your inbox. 

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What's Up in YA

đź“”Find Your YA Book Title

With fall in full swing up in the Northern Hemisphere, so comes the influx of YA book news.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith.

When Louise Wolfe’s first real boyfriend mocks and disrespects Native people in front of her, she breaks things off and dumps him over e-mail. It’s her senior year, anyway, and she’d rather spend her time with her family and friends and working on the school newspaper. The editors pair her up with Joey Kairouz, the ambitious new photojournalist, and in no time the paper’s staff find themselves with a major story to cover: the school musical director’s inclusive approach to casting The Wizard of Oz has been provoking backlash in their mostly white, middle-class Kansas town. From the newly formed Parents Against Revisionist Theater to anonymous threats, long-held prejudices are being laid bare and hostilities are spreading against teachers, parents, and students — especially the cast members at the center of the controversy, including Lou’s little brother, who’s playing the Tin Man. As tensions mount at school, so does a romance between Lou and Joey — but as she’s learned, “dating while Native” can be difficult. In trying to protect her own heart, will Lou break Joey’s?

Shout out to a book I really enjoyed as today’s sponsor — if you haven’t, add Hearts Unbroken to your TBR.

Grab your favorite snack and get ready to get caught up on the latest in YA news this week!

Cake, Frieda Kahlo, and Other Alternatives to Necromancy is my YA book title. What’s yours?

 

Recent Book Mail

A very manageable mail week, so enjoy the seasonal photograph! From top to bottom:

The Light Between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth

Orphaned by Eliot Schrefer

Broken Things by Lauren Oliver

 

Cheap Reads

Prices for these books are current as of Tuesday, October 16. Snag a good read for a little less cash.

Frost by Marianna Baer — if I could recommend a creepy YA book for the season, this is my favorite and wildly underrated. $4.

Printz Award winner Bone Gap by Laura Ruby is $2.

Want another good Printz Award winning read for $2? Try Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta.

Nic Stone’s must-read debut Dear Martin is $2.

Matt de la Peña’s Mexican White Boy is $2.

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan is $2.

Feral Nights, the first in a trilogy by Cynthia Leitich Smith, is $2.

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

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and Twitter

Categories
What's Up in YA

🌏Hot In Here: Must-Read YA Climate Fiction

Hey YA readers: it’s not a happy topic today, but it’s an essential one.

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

The worst thing that’s ever happened to Craig is also the best: Amy. Craig and Amy should never have gotten together—Craig is a Dungeons and Dragons master with no life skills and Amy is the beautiful, fiercely intelligent student body president of their high school. Yet somehow they did…until Amy dumped him. Then got back together with him. Seven times. Seven breakups. Seven makeups. Seven of the highest lows and lowest highs. Told non-sequentially, acclaimed playwright Don Zolidis’s debut novel is a brutally funny, bittersweet taste of the utterly unique and utterly universal experience of first love.

With the recent climate change report, it’s essential to continue talking about ecological disaster. YA books have been taking this topic on for many years, and it’s become a topic that remains timely and relevant; more, it’s interesting to see how back list titles remain at the forefront of the topic itself.

Climate fiction — also known as Cli Fi — has been gaining ground across all categories of books, especially as imminent disaster is clear. It feels apt to share some of the strong titles in the world of YA which fall into this growing genre.

Descriptions come from Goodreads. Stars denote a first book in a series.

If you’d like to learn a bit more about Cli-Fi as a genre, this piece on Medium from one of the folks behind the push for it is worthwhile reading.

After The Snow by SD Crockett

Fifteen-year-old Willo was out hunting when the trucks came and took his family away. Left alone in the snow, Willo becomes determined to find and rescue his family, and he knows just who to talk with to learn where they are. He plans to head across the mountains and make Farmer Geraint tell him where his family has gone.

But on the way across the mountain, he finds Mary, a refugee from the city, whose father is lost and who is starving to death. The smart thing to do would be to leave her alone — he doesn’t have enough supplies for two or the time to take care of a girl — but Willo just can’t do it. However, with the world trapped in an ice age, the odds of them surviving on their own are not good. And even if he does manage to keep Mary safe, what about finding his family?

Blood Red Road by Moira Young*

Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from. That’s fine by her, as long as her beloved twin brother Lugh is around. But when four cloaked horsemen capture Lugh, Saba’s world is shattered, and she embarks on a quest to get him back.

Suddenly thrown into the lawless, ugly reality of the outside world, Saba discovers she is a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil named Jack and a gang of girl revolutionaries called the Free Hawks, Saba’s unrelenting search for Lugh stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization.

Breathe by Sarah Crossan*

The world has no air. If you want to survive, you pay to breathe. But what if you can’t? And what if you think everything could be different? Three teens will leave everything they know behind in Sarah Crossan’s gripping and original dystopian teen novel of danger, longing, and glimmering hope.

Ever since the Switch, when the oxygen levels plummeted and most of humanity died, the survivors have been protected in glass domes full of manufactured air. Protected . . . or trapped? Or controlled? Alina’s a revolutionary who believes we can save the environment. Quinn’s a Premium who’s never had to worry about having enough air. His best friend, Bea, is an Auxiliary who’s never worried about anything but having enough air. When the three cross paths, they will change everything.

The Islands at The End of the World by Austin Aslan*

Right before my eyes, my beautiful islands are changing forever. And so am I …

Sixteen-year-old Leilani loves surfing and her home in Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawaii. But she’s an outsider – half white, half Hawaiian, and an epileptic.

While Lei and her father are on a visit to Oahu, a global disaster strikes. Technology and power fail, Hawaii is cut off from the world, and the islands revert to traditional ways of survival. As Lei and her dad embark on a nightmarish journey across islands to reach home and family, she learns that her epilepsy and her deep connection to Hawaii could be keys to ending the crisis before it becomes worse than anyone can imagine.

A powerful story enriched by fascinating elements of Hawaiian ecology, culture, and warfare, this captivating and dramatic debut from Austin Aslan is the first of two novels. The author has a master’s degree in tropical conservation biology from the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America’s Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow, and dreams, means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a fifteen-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones and take refuge from the “recruiters” who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing “factories.”

Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis*

Lynn knows every threat to her pond: drought, a snowless winter, coyotes, and, most importantly, people looking for a drink. She makes sure anyone who comes near the pond leaves thirsty, or doesn’t leave at all.

Confident in her own abilities, Lynn has no use for the world beyond the nearby fields and forest. Having a life means dedicating it to survival, and the constant work of gathering wood and water. Having a pond requires the fortitude to protect it, something Mother taught her well during their quiet hours on the rooftop, rifles in hand.

But wisps of smoke on the horizon mean one thing: strangers. The mysterious footprints by the pond, nighttime threats, and gunshots make it all too clear Lynn has exactly what they want, and they won’t stop until they get it….

Orleans by Sherri L. Smith

After a string of devastating hurricanes and a severe outbreak of Delta Fever, the Gulf Coast has been quarantined. Years later, residents of the Outer States are under the assumption that life in the Delta is all but extinct… but in reality, a new primitive society has been born.

Fen de la Guerre is living with the O-Positive blood tribe in the Delta when they are ambushed. Left with her tribe leader’s newborn, Fen is determined to get the baby to a better life over the wall before her blood becomes tainted. Fen meets Daniel, a scientist from the Outer States who has snuck into the Delta illegally. Brought together by chance, kept together by danger, Fen and Daniel navigate the wasteland of Orleans. In the end, they are each other’s last hope for survival.

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi*

In America’s Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota–and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it’s worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life…

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse*+

While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters.

Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last—and best—hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much larger and more terrifying than anything she could imagine.

Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel to the rez to unravel clues from ancient legends, trade favors with tricksters, and battle dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology.

As Maggie discovers the truth behind the disappearances, she will have to confront her past—if she wants to survive.

Welcome to the Sixth World.

+While technically an adult title, it has such great YA appeal that it’s worth including.

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

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram

Categories
What's Up in YA

🍿So Many Potential YA Movies

Hey y’all: It’s YA book news o’clock!

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Lost Soul Be at Peace by Maggie Thrash.

A year and a half after the summer that changed her life, Maggie Thrash wishes she could change it all back. She’s trapped in a dark depression and flunking eleventh grade, befuddling her patrician mother while going unnoticed by her father, a workaholic federal judge. The only thing Maggie cares about is her cat, Tommi . . . who then disappears somewhere in the walls of her cavernous house. So her search begins — but Maggie’s not even really sure what she’s lost, and she has no idea what she’ll find. Lost Soul, Be at Peace is the continuation of Maggie’s story from her critically acclaimed memoir Honor Girl, one that brings her devastating honesty and humor to the before and after of depression.

Before diving into this week’s YA news links, time to brag! Although the release date for The Hate U Give was bumped up to October 2, it’s still a limited release. But, since I was in New York City this week, I managed to sneak time in to see it. It is even better than you’re anticipating it to be. I highly recommend seeing it when it’s available near you.

That out, here’s what else to know this week!

 

Recent Book Mail

Another big book mail week! We’ll go left to right, then top to bottom.

The Revolution of Birdie Randolph by Brandy Colbert (Goodreads link)

Izzy and Tristan by Shannon Dunlap

Queen of Ruin by Tracy Banghart (Goodreads link)

Rise by Ellen Goodlett (Goodreads link)

You Must Not Miss by Katrina Leno

Positively Teen by Nicola Morgan

Internment by Samira Ahmed

We Contain Multitudes by Sarah Henstra

Trans Mission: My Quest to a Beard by Alex Bertie

Teeth in the Mist by Dawn Kurtagich

Amelia Westlake Was Never Here by Erin Gough

She Did It: 21 Women Who Changed The Way We Think by Emily Arnold McCully

The Perfect Candidate by Peter Stone

Words We Don’t Say by KJ Reilly

Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

You’d Be Mine by Erin Hahn

We Rule the Night by Claire Eliza Bartlett

Little White Lies by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The Lying Woods by Ashley Elston

The Seven Torments of Amy and Craig by Don Zolidis

For a Muse of Fire by Heidi Heilig

Cheap Reads

Grab these great YA books while they’re discounted. Prices current as of Wednesday, October 10.

Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon came out almost ten years ago. Grab it for $2.

Dear Martin by Nic Stone is worth far more than the $2 price tag.

Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson is the first in a high fantasy series and can be yours for $3.

The Falconer, The Vanishing Throne, and The Fallen Kingdom — each of the three titles in Elizabeth May’s “The Falconer” series — are $1 each. Grab ’em all.

Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach, one of my favorite YA reads, is $3.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue is $2.

Heather Kaczynski’s Dare Mighty Things is available for $2.

Pick up Laini Taylor’s award-winning Strange The Dreamer for $3.

Bryan Bliss’s No Parking At The End Times is $4.

Itching for a fun werewolf book? Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock is $2.

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

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and Twitter

Categories
What's Up in YA

đź“š6 More 2019 YA Titles To Know

Hey YA fans: Time to preview even more upcoming titles!

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Epic Reads.

It’s 1871, and Emmeline Carter is poised to take Chicago’s high society by storm. Between her father’s sudden rise to wealth and her recent engagement to Chicago’s most eligible bachelor, Emmeline has it all. But she can’t stop thinking about the life she left behind, including her childhood sweetheart, Anders Magnuson. Fiona Byrne, Emmeline’s childhood best friend, is delighted by her friend’s sudden rise to prominence, especially since it means Fiona is free to pursue Anders herself. But when Emmeline risks everything for one final fling with Anders, Fiona feels completely betrayed. As the summer turns to fall, the city is at a tipping point: friendships are tested, hearts are broken, and the tiniest spark might set everything ablaze.

Grab your TBR. Here are six more YA books — fiction and nonfiction — that will be hitting shelves in 2019 that you should get excited about right now. Descriptions have been pulled from Goodreads since I’ve not yet read all of these (but oh, let me tell you how excited I am!).

What all of these books have in common is that they feature rad-sounding female main characters/rad females from real history.

An Affair of Poisons by Addie Thorley

After unwittingly helping her mother poison King Louis XIV, seventeen-year-old alchemist Mirabelle Monvoisin is forced to see her mother’s Shadow Society in a horrifying new light: they’re not heroes of the people, as they’ve always claimed to be, but murderers. Herself included. Mira tries to ease her guilt by brewing helpful curatives, but her hunger tonics and headache remedies cannot right past wrongs or save the dissenters her mother vows to purge.

Royal bastard Josse de Bourbon is more kitchen boy than fils de France. But when the Shadow Society assassinates the Sun King and half the royal court, he must become the prince he was never meant to be in order to save his injured sisters and the petulant Dauphin. Forced to hide in the derelict sewers beneath the city, any hope of reclaiming Paris seems impossible—until Josse’s path collides with Mirabelle’s, and he finds a surprising ally in his sworn enemy.

She’s a deadly poisoner. He’s a bastard prince. Together, they form a tenuous pact to unite the commoners and former nobility against the Shadow Society. But can a rebellion built on mistrust ever hope to succeed?

Descendant of the Crane by Joan He (April 2)

“Tyrants cut out hearts. Rulers sacrifice their own.”

Princess Hesina of Yan has always been eager to shirk the responsibilities of the crown, but when her beloved father is murdered, she’s thrust into power, suddenly the queen of an unstable kingdom. Determined to find her father’s killer, Hesina does something desperate: she engages the aid of a soothsayer—a treasonous act, punishable by death… because in Yan, magic was outlawed centuries ago.

Using the information illicitly provided by the sooth, and uncertain if she can trust even her family, Hesina turns to Akira—a brilliant and alluring investigator who’s also a convicted criminal with secrets of his own. With the future of her kingdom at stake, can Hesina find justice for her father? Or will the cost be too high?

In this shimmering Chinese-inspired fantasy, debut author Joan He introduces a determined and vulnerable young heroine struggling to do right in a world brimming with deception.

The Revolution of Birdie Randolph by Brandy Colbert (August 20)

Dove “Birdie” Randolph works hard to be the perfect daughter and follow the path her parents have laid out for her: She quit playing her beloved soccer, she keeps her nose buried in textbooks, and she’s on track to finish high school at the top of her class. But then Birdie falls hard for Booker, a sweet boy with a troubled past…whom she knows her parents will never approve of.

When her estranged aunt Carlene returns to Chicago and moves into the family’s apartment above their hair salon, Birdie notices the tension building at home. Carlene is sweet, friendly, and open-minded–she’s also spent decades in and out of treatment facilities for addiction. As Birdie becomes closer to both Booker and Carlene, she yearns to spread her wings. But when long-buried secrets rise to the surface, everything she’s known to be true is turned upside down.

Symptoms of a Heartbreak by Sona Charaipotra (May 21)

Fresh from med school, sixteen-year-old medical prodigy Saira arrives for her first day at her new job: treating children with cancer. She’s always had to balance family and friendships with her celebrity as the Girl Genius—but she’s never had to prove herself to skeptical adult co-workers while adjusting to real life-and-death stakes. And working in the same hospital as her mother certainly isn’t making things any easier.

But life gets complicated when Saira finds herself falling in love with a patient: a cute teen boy who’s been diagnosed with cancer. And when she risks her brand new career to try to improve his chances, it could cost her everything.

It turns out “heartbreak” is the one thing she still doesn’t know how to treat.

A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II by Elizabeth Wein

In the early years of World War II, Josef Stalin issued an order that made the Soviet Union the first country in the world to allow female pilots to fly in combat. Led by Marina Raskova, these three regiments, including the 588th Night Bomber Regiment—nicknamed the “night witches”—faced intense pressure and obstacles both in the sky and on the ground. Some of these young women perished in flames. Many of them were in their teens when they went to war.

This is the story of Raskova’s three regiments, women who enlisted and were deployed on the front lines of battle as navigators, pilots, and mechanics. It is the story of a thousand young women who wanted to take flight to defend their country, and the woman who brought them together in the sky.

Packed with black-and-white photographs, fascinating sidebars, and thoroughly researched details, A Thousand Sisters is the inspiring true story of a group of women who set out to change the world, and the sisterhood they formed even amid the destruction of war.

Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan

Jasmine and Chelsea are sick of the way women are treated even at their progressive NYC high school, so they decide to start a Women’s Rights Club. They post everything online—poems, essays, videos of Chelsea performing her poetry, and Jasmine’s response to the racial macroaggressions she experiences—and soon they go viral. But with such positive support, the club is also targeted by online trolls. When things escalate, the principal shuts the club down. Jasmine and Chelsea will risk everything for their voices—and those of other young women—to be heard.

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you on Thursday! PS: if you haven’t, go enter to win a custom book stamp for your personal library in our giveaway.

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram

Categories
What's Up in YA

đź“šđź“šYour Must-Read YA Book News

Hey YA Readers: Lots of great news to catch up on today! Grab a cuppa your favorite drink and settle in.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor.

In the wake of tragedy, neither Lazlo nor Sarai are who they were before. One a god, the other a ghost, they struggle to grasp the new boundaries of their selves as dark-minded Minya holds them hostage, intent on vengeance against Weep. Lazlo faces an unthinkable choice–save the woman he loves, or everyone else?–while Sarai feels more helpless than ever. But is she? Sometimes, only the direst need can teach us our own depths, and Sarai, the muse of nightmares, has not yet discovered what she’s capable of.

Movie news, new book news, and more! But before you dive in, go check out this awesome giveaway for a custom bookplate stamp we’re giving away.

Recent Book Mail

It’s been a while since I’ve shared what’s hit my inbox, so this is a big, juicy collection of titles. Listed from top to bottom, starting with the pile on the left.

Words We Don’t Say KJ Reilly

Odd One Out by Nic Stone

Black Enough edited by Ibi Zoboi

Circle of Shadows by Evelyn Skye

Witch Born by Nicholas Bowling

Strangers Assume My Girlfriend Is My Nurse by Shane Burcaw

Almost Invisible by Maureen Garvie

A Field Guide To The North American Teenager by Ben Philippe

And The Ocean Was Our Sky by Patrick Ness

The Opposite of Innocent by Sonya Sones

The Fever King by Victoria Lee

A Thousand Sisters by Elizabeth Wein

Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc by David Elliott

A Sky For Us Alone by Kristin Russell

Easy Prey by Catherine Lo

Damsel by Elana K. Arnold

Bridge of Clay by Marcus Zusak

Impostors by Scott Westerfeld

Sex Plus by Laci Green

Watch Us Rise by Renee Watson and Ellen Hagan

What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera

As She Ascends by Jodi Meadows

Anything But Okay by Sarah Darer Littman

Before She Ignites by Jodi Meadows

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrande

Cheap Reads

Grab these great books while they’re easy on the wallet. Since it’s spooky season, you’ll see a theme in this selection. Prices current as of Wednesday morning, October 3.

Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Rohrig is $3.

Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter is $3.

Chandler Baker’s Teen Frankenstein is $3.

Shutter by Courtney Alameda is $3.

The Devil’s Engine: Hellraisers by Alexander Gordon Smith is $3.

Madeleine Roux’s Asylum is $2.

Ten by Gretchen McNeil is $2.

____________________

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

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram