Category: What’s Up in YA

Hey YA Readers: Let’s catch up with the latest haps from the YA world.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by by The Unblemished Trilogy by Sara Ella.

Sara Ella masterfully takes readers to new worlds in the jaw-dropping finale to the Unblemished trilogy, as Eliyana fights to save everything—and everyone—she loves.

With the fate of the Reflections at stake, Eliyana must destroy the void… but at what cost?  Traversing the realms of fantasy and reality through a labyrinth of plot twists, Unbreakable delivers a thrilling conclusion to Sara Ella’s Unblemished Trilogy.  Sara Ella continues to examine real world issues young women face every day regarding their own self-worth, strength, and confidence to define themselves in a complicated, mixed-up world that doesn’t always make sense.

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Get ready to learn about a lot of adaptations, updates on adaptations, and more!

• In honor of the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter, we’ll be getting new jackets for the series. Check ’em out here individually and in their full set glory.
• New covers and bonus content is coming in honor of the 10th anniversary of The Hunger Games.
• Scott Westerfeld is revisiting his 10+ year old series “Uglies” with a new spinoff series.
• Peep the first photo from the movie The Hate U Give and mark down on your calendars to see the film this fall (!!).
• Robert Muchamore’s “Cherub” series will become a television series and we should see more YA hitting screens with this deal in place.
• Epic Reads offers up YA books you should read based on your favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe movies.
• Some Canadian YA adaptation news: Cherie Dimaline’s book The Marrow Thieves has been optioned for television.
• A good number of YA authors are on this roundup of Latinx authors to be reading right now.
• It feels silly to preview movies coming in 2019, but, here are some adaptations coming in 2019, including YA.
• Dana L. Davis’s Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now is in development as a TV series, and this would be fabulous on-screen.
• Jennifer Wang’s delightful The Prince and the Dressmaker has been optioned. It’s weird to me it’s described as a graphic novel with “crossover YA appeal,” as if a graphic novel cannot be YA. This one is!
• Nicola Yoon’s husband David just scored one of the biggest YA deals this year.
• And finally, a fabulous piece about the growth of east Asian YA.

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Cheap Reads…

Grab ’em while they’re cheap!

For $4, you can get the Twin Peaks-esque thriller Take The Fall by Emily Hainsworth.

Calling My Name by Liara Tamani, a wonderful coming-of-age story about a black girl in Houston, is $2.

$2 will get you the witchy How To Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather (that Mather, indeed).

Pick up Julie Murphy’s Ramona Blue for $2.

Love sports and romance? These Miranda Kenneally’s books are $2-$2.50 each: Coming Up for Air, Defending Taylor, Jesse’s Girl, Things I Can’t Forget. 

Finally, you can snag the first book in Heidi Heilig’s duology, The Girl From Everywhere, for $2.

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

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram.

Hey YA Lovers: This week’s interview is a total treat I cannot wait to share.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by 9 Days and 9 Nights by Katie Cotugno from Epic Reads.

In this sequel to the New York Times bestseller 99 Days, Molly finds herself in Europe on her summer vacation with her new boyfriend Ian, desperately trying to forget everything that happened a year ago. But there on a London tube platform, the past catches up to her in the form of Gabe, her ex, traveling on his own parallel vacation with his girlfriend. And Molly and Gabe can’t bring themselves to tell the truth about who they once were to each other to their new significant others. Now Molly has to spend 9 days and 9 nights with the boy she once loved, the boy whose heart she shredded, without Ian knowing. Will she make it through, or will everything that happened between her and Gabe come rushing back?

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If you have listened to the “Hey YA” podcast at all, you know Eric and I are huge fans of author Bryan Bliss. If you aren’t a listener, here’s that said another way: I’m a huge fan of Bryan Bliss, as are many other YA readers.

One of the most frequent questions I get from readers, both here and in other venues, is about “books for boys” or “authors for boys.” I always answer the same thing: books don’t have gender, and all books are for all genders. It’s the attitude of “for boys” that holds those books back from connecting with a reader who truly needs it.

I still 100% believe that. I also knew that after reading We’ll Fly Away, which comes out tomorrow, I wanted to angle this interview a bit to answer some of those gender-related questions in a way that makes clear there are aspects of the patriarchy that absolutely harm male-identifying people (the belief in books being gendered is one of them). Bryan was kind enough to talk with me about his new book, about what we do and don’t see when it comes to male platonic relationships, and so much more.

You’re in for a treat.

 

Kelly Jensen: Give us the pitch for We’ll Fly Away.

Bryan Bliss: Best friends since childhood, Luke and Toby have dreamed of one thing: getting out of their dead-end town. Soon they finally will, riding the tails of Luke’s wrestling scholarship, never looking back. If they don’t drift apart first. If Toby’s abusive dad, or Luke’s unreliable mom, or anything else their complicated lives throw at them doesn’t get in the way. We’ll Fly Away weaves together Luke and Toby’s senior year of high school with letters Luke writes to Toby later—from death row.

 

KJ: Your book explores the inner workings — and the circumstances leading to — a teen boy sitting on death row. What inspired this setting and story?

BB: I used to work as a newspaper reporter and I was assigned as a press witness to an execution. I saw a man put to death. This isn’t something I particularly enjoy talking about for a variety of reasons, but ever since it occurred I’ve been searching for a way to process it. I tried a number of different things – from graduate education to activism to writing letters with men on death row. All of those, individually, were deeply rewarding experiences. But I still felt an itch. I had something to say and, after close to 15 years of ignoring this story, I wrote a few pages. Honestly, I didn’t think anybody would want to publish it. A death row book for teenagers? Thankfully, my agent and editor disagreed. Now that’s it’s out there, I hope it can inspire teenagers to think about capital punishment. I hope it can break their hearts to the injustice and inhumanity and barbarism involved. If nothing else, that’s a win.

 

KJ: One of the things that stands out in this book is its exploration of friendship and more specifically, male friendship. What drew you to this? Why do you think we rarely see male friendship at the heart of YA novels?  

BB: Friendship, for me, is the most interesting topic to write and read about in a novel. I love the shared history. I love the potential for betrayal and, naturally, the hard-won forgiveness that is baked-in when you’ve invested the time and energy into that sort of relationship. That’s all gold for a writer, especially a writer like myself who may or may not (ahem) be good at constructing epic, high concept plots. So, friendship allows me to really dive deeply into character, into the backstories—which, I think, is something I’m good at. As far as male friendship is concerned, I like having the opportunity to portray young men who are in platonic relationships. I like showing deep level of intimacy. Friendships that are self-effacing and genuine. And if I’m being honest, I like being able to write characters who float between low-brow humor and intense discussions about their fears. As to why we don’t see it? I’m not sure! But I hope there’s more of it out there, because giving young men an opportunity to see themselves as something outside of how society typically teaches them to be would probably be good for everybody involved.

 

KJ: Faith plays a role in this story, as well as in your other books. Can you talk a bit about the role in plays and why it’s important in We’ll Fly Away?

BB: This is going to sound strange, seeing as my first novel was literally about religion, but We’ll Fly Away is probably my most thematically religious novel. At the heart of We’ll Fly Away is the idea that nobody is beyond redemption. Nobody, no matter what they do, is a lost cause. This is core theology for me, perhaps the only thing that allows me to still play in the world of religion and faith. From the very beginning of the novel you know that Luke is guilty. That’s something that I wanted to struggle with as a writer, but also something I hope the reader will also think about as well. By the end, you know who Luke is. You know why he’s on death row. And he is 100% guilty. But does that make him a “bad” person? Does that mean we should throw him away? The epigraph from the book comes from Sister Helen Prejean and, I’m paraphrasing here, says that’s it’s easy to forgive the innocent. It’s how we treat the guilty that tests our morality. How you answer that question also determines your theology.

KJ: Another powerful aspect of We’ll Fly Away is the way both boys are growing up in tremendously difficult home lives. This book specifically looks at poverty in a way we rarely see. Can you talk a bit to this and maybe talk a bit about where you’ve seen it in your own reading of YA?

I read a newspaper article once that had the headline: “Death Row Isn’t a High-Income Neighborhood” and that, again and again, is backed up by even the most cursory glance at capital punishment. Poverty is a common denominator for those sentenced to death. This, plus my own experience growing up poor, made for an obvious connection when I started writing the book. There’s a tenuousness to living in poverty that isn’t shown in young adult literature enough. It’s a balancing act that, if disturbed, sets in motion a chain reaction of events that is nearly impossible to stop. Your entire life becomes a reaction. That’s what happens in We’ll Fly Away, but I think it’s the reality of many, many teenagers and I wanted to portray it as authentically as I could. That said, Tyrell by Coe Booth and Gem & Dixie by Sara Zarr immediately come to mind.

 

KJ: What have been some of the most influential YA reads in your life as a reader and/or as a writer?

BB: As a reader, one of the first great books I remember reading was Hoops by Walter Dean Myers. That kicked off a love of Walter Dean Myers that is still present to me as a reader and a writer. I’ve read most of his books, with the major exception being Monster, only because I know it will be great and could’ve taken over my own vision for We’ll Fly Away. That said, I’m literally reading it right now. From there, I love everything Nina LaCour writes, but most recently We Are Okay absolutely killed me both as a reader and a writer. I just finished an ARC of Dream Country by Shannon Gibney and – holy crap! – it’s very, very good. Fingerprints of You by Kristen-Paige Madonia is amazing, underrated, and one of my favorites. Conviction by Kelly Loy Gilbert is another one that has stuck with me. I’m probably missing some obvious ones and it kind of stresses me out.

KJ: Your book is told in a bit of an alternative format — it’s both narrative and includes letters. What do you think makes books told in these alt formats appealing to readers and what are some of your favorites that you’d recommend to YA readers?

BB: I love it when a book plays around with structure. The letters in We’ll Fly Away came out of a short story I wrote during my MFA program. But it wasn’t two, three years later until I realized that story was actually the start of this novel I’d been trying to write forever. As a writer, alternate structures allow me to move around the story in a way that isn’t possible if you’re stuck in one point of view. And I think the same is true of readers, maybe? As far as other books go, I point to Steve Brezenoff’s Brooklyn, Burning and how it uses (or, actually, doesn’t use) pronouns. Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down surprised me when I first opened it, because it feels like poetry—like the form is just as important as the words. Lips Touch Three Times by Laini Taylor is unique in that it connects three short stories to a powerful overall effect. Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero was one that blew me away in both how she structured the story as well as how she used poetry. Again, stress. There’s just so many.

 

KJ: If you could go back in time to your 12 or 13 year old self and pass along one YA book, which would it be and why?

BB: I’m suddenly wishing I held back some of my previous answers, because it could easily be any of the other books I’ve mentioned. So, I’ll go with another book that I love: This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki. When I was 12-13, I was trying to figure out who I was. Trying to fight against a demeaning identity assigned to me by teachers, other kids my age. I love that graphic novel because it shows growth and transformation. It shows a kid who is changing, but still okay. And because we’re playing make believe, I’d drop a note into the book that says, “You’re not stupid, no matter what that English teacher says. But seriously. Turn in your homework, bro.”

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Thanks for hanging out this week, and we’ll be back next with a round-up of recent YA news!

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram.

Happy Monday, YA Readers!

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Summer Constellations by Alisha Sevigny from KCP Loft.

When Julia’s mother announces that she might be selling the family’s campground to a real estate developer, Julia is crushed. How could she stand to leave her childhood home? Then Julia finds an unlikely ally — the developer’s son, Nick — who wants to help her family raise the money they need to keep the campground running. Can Julia trust him to conspire against his own father? And could she ever trust him with her heart? This tender story reminds readers of summer’s possibilities … and how sometimes love is written in the stars.

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April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month in the US, and one of the things about months like this is that there’s often a big push for awareness when the month begins, but the enthusiasm and support peter out near the end of the month. It’s natural, given how much our attention is diverted daily — not to mention the things that push for our attention over the course of a month.

I thought it’d be worth putting together a short booklist to offer up recent (within the last year) and forthcoming YA titles which explore aspects of rape, sexual assault, and rape culture. These are books that will provide even more depth and nuance to the books available now or which have become touchstones in the YA category on these topics. Both fiction and nonfiction are included.

Since I’ve not had the chance to read each of these, I’ve pulled descriptions from Goodreads, along with publication dates. It’s worth mentioning: be aware that the content in some of these books may be triggering for some readers.

The Fall of Innocence by Jenny Torres Sanchez (June 12)

For the past eight years, sixteen-year-old Emilia DeJesus has done her best to move on from the traumatic attack she suffered in the woods behind her elementary school. She’s forced down the memories–the feeling of the twigs cracking beneath her, choking on her own blood, unable to scream. Most of all, she’s tried to forget about Jeremy Lance, the boy responsible, the boy who caused her such pain. Emilia believes that the crows who watched over her that day, who helped her survive, are still on her side, encouraging her to live fully. And with the love and support of her mother, brother, and her caring boyfriend, Emilia is doing just that.

But when a startling discovery about her attacker’s identity comes to light, and the memories of that day break through the mental box in which she’d shut them away, Emilia is forced to confront her new reality and make sense of shifting truths about her past, her family, and herself.

Honor Code by Kiersi Burkhart (Available now)

Sam knows how lucky she is to be part of the elite Edwards Academy. As she dreams of getting into Harvard one day, she’s willing to do anything to fit in and excel at the private high school. Even if that means enduring hazing, signing up for a sport she hates, and attending the school dance with an upperclassman she barely knows.

But when she learns the high cost of entry, will Sam be willing to bury the worst night of her life in order to “keep the community sacred”? As the line between truth and justice blurs, Sam must find out for herself what honor really means.

I Have The Right To: A High School Survivor’s Story of Sexual Assault, Justice, and Hope by Chessy Prout (Available now)

The numbers are staggering: nearly one in five girls ages fourteen to seventeen have been the victim of a sexual assault or attempted sexual assault. This is the true story of one of those girls.

In 2014, Chessy Prout was a freshman at St. Paul’s school, a prestigious boarding school in New Hampshire when a senior boy sexually assaulted her as part of a ritualized game of conquest. Chessy bravely reported her assault to the police and testified against her attacker in court. Then, in the face of unfathomable backlash from her once trusted school community, she shed her anonymity to help other survivors find their voice.

This memoir is more than an account of a horrific event; it takes a magnifying glass to the institutions that turn a blind eye to such behavior and a society that blames victims rather than attackers, while offering real, powerful solutions to upending rape culture as we know it today.

Prepare to be inspired by this remarkable young woman and her story of survival, advocacy, and hope in the face of unspeakable trauma.

The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed (Available now)

Three misfits come together to avenge the rape of a fellow classmate and in the process trigger a change in the misogynist culture at their high school transforming the lives of everyone around them in this searing and timely story.

Who are the Nowhere Girls?

They’re everygirl. But they start with just three:

Grace Salter is the new girl in town, whose family was run out of their former community after her southern Baptist preacher mom turned into a radical liberal after falling off a horse and bumping her head.

Rosina Suarez is the queer punk girl in a conservative Mexican immigrant family, who dreams of a life playing music instead of babysitting her gaggle of cousins and waitressing at her uncle’s restaurant.

Erin Delillo is obsessed with two things: marine biology and Star Trek: The Next Generation, but they aren’t enough to distract her from her suspicion that she may in fact be an android.

When Grace learns that Lucy Moynihan, the former occupant of her new home, was run out of town for having accused the popular guys at school of gang rape, she’s incensed that Lucy never had justice. For their own personal reasons, Rosina and Erin feel equally deeply about Lucy’s tragedy, so they form an anonymous group of girls at Prescott High to resist the sexist culture at their school, which includes boycotting sex of any kind with the male students.

Told in alternating perspectives, this groundbreaking novel is an indictment of rape culture and explores with bold honesty the deepest questions about teen girls and sexuality.

Saints and Misfits by S.K. Ali (Available now)

How much can you tell about a person just by looking at them?

Janna Yusuf knows a lot of people can’t figure out what to make of her…an Arab Indian-American hijabi teenager who is a Flannery O’Connor obsessed book nerd, aspiring photographer, and sometime graphic novelist is not exactly easy to put into a box.

And Janna suddenly finds herself caring what people think. Or at least what a certain boy named Jeremy thinks. Not that she would ever date him—Muslim girls don’t date. Or they shouldn’t date. Or won’t? Janna is still working all this out.

While her heart might be leading her in one direction, her mind is spinning in others. She is trying to decide what kind of person she wants to be, and what it means to be a saint, a misfit, or a monster. Except she knows a monster…one who happens to be parading around as a saint…Will she be the one to call him out on it? What will people in her tightknit Muslim community think of her then?

Things We Haven’t Said edited by Erin E. Moulton (Available now)

Things We Haven’t Said is a powerful collection of poems, essays, letters, vignettes and interviews written by a diverse group of impressive adults who survived sexual violence as children and adolescents. Structured to incorporate creative writing to engage the reader and informative interviews to dig for context, this anthology is a valuable resource of hope, grit and honest conversation that will help teens tackle the topic of sexual violence, upend stigma and maintain hope for a better future.

Tradition by Brendan Kiely (May 1)

Prestigious. Powerful. Privileged. This is Fullbrook Academy, an elite prep school where history looms in the leafy branches over its brick walkways. But some traditions upheld in its hallowed halls are profoundly dangerous.

Jules Devereux just wants to keep her head down, avoid distractions, and get into the right college, so she can leave Fullbrook and its old-boy social codes behind. She wants freedom, but ex-boyfriends and ex-best friends are determined to keep her in place.

Jamie Baxter feels like an imposter at Fullbrook, but the hockey scholarship that got him in has given him a chance to escape his past and fulfill the dreams of his parents and coaches, whose mantra rings in his ears: Don’t disappoint us.

When Jamie and Jules meet, they recognize in each other a similar instinct for survival, but at a school where girls in the student handbook are rated by their looks, athletes stack hockey pucks in dorm room windows like notches on a bedpost, and school-sponsored dances push first year girls out into the night with senior boys, the stakes for safe sex, real love, and true friendship couldn’t be higher.

As Jules and Jamie’s lives intertwine, and the pressures to play by the rules and remain silent about the school’s secrets intensify, they see Fullbrook for what it really is. That tradition, a word Fullbrook hides behind, can be ugly, even violent. Ultimately, Jules and Jamie are faced with the difficult question: can they stand together against classmates—and an institution—who believe they can do no wrong?

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Cheap Reads…

Grab these books for under $3 in ebook format before the calendar flips over to May (aka: do it today).

Burn Baby Burn by Meg Medina

The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye

The Evaporation of Sofi Snow by Mary Weber

Exo by Fonda Lee

Get It Together, Delilah by Erin Gough

If I Ever Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth

A Spy In The House by YS Lee

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum

Wild Swans by Jessica Spotswood

Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo

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Grab a good read or ten, and we’ll see you again next week with a very special interview.

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram.

Currently reading Down and Across by Arvin Ahmadi

 

Happy Monday, YA Readers: Let’s dig into all of the book talk we can.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by White Rabbit by Caleb Roehrig.

Rufus Holt is having the worst night of his life. It begins with the reappearance of his ex-boyfriend, Sebastian. Just as Rufus is getting ready to move on, Sebastian turns up out of the blue, saying they need to “talk.”

Then Rufus gets a call from his sister April, begging for help. He and Sebastian find her, drenched in blood and holding a knife beside the dead body of her boyfriend, Fox Whitney.

April swears she didn’t kill Fox, but Rufus knows her too well to believe she’s telling him the whole truth. April has something he needs, though, and her price is his help. Rufus has one night to prove his sister’s innocence . . . or die trying.

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Do you ever feel like your to-read list will literally never end? Because 1. so does mine and 2. this won’t help out the situation much.

• A look at YA books about divorced parents.
• What are essential pulp YA reads for the not-so-young adults? We’ve got 5 recommendations from the hosts behind the podcast “Teen Creeps.”
• DC-based YA authors one reader discovered at Awesome Con (with book recs for where to begin with their titles).
• Interracial couples featured on YA book covers.
• Christian reads for teens (& for tweens, too). During my time working as a teen librarian, this was one of the most common requests I got.
• Speaking of that, why recommending books to young readers is important. Though the piece focuses on the very young readers, the thoughts here absolutely apply to teen readers.
• It’s debatable whether Madeleine L’Engle is YA or much more situated in the middle grade arena, but regardless of where you land in that debate (or care), a reading pathway to her work.
• Love READY PLAYER ONE? These 4 YA books will be up your alley.
• This list isn’t entire YA titles, but it’s one that YA readers will appreciate regardless: 50 must-read coming of age books.
• Have you picked up these must-read April YA books yet?
• And if you’re already thinking about the books hitting shelves over the next couple of months, then this guide to 170+ you can read between April and June will help you tremendously.
• Big fan of LOVE, SIMON? Here are some more YA titles to read.
• Grief in YA is a huge topic, but this list of 10 titles can help you wade in and try reading some of the best.
• Readers who want more books like This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp will do well to try these out.

 

Cheap Reads!

Because a good deal on YA is a good deal. Try one of these ebook steals:

Tiffany Schmidt’s Break Me Like A Promise is $2. You can read this without reading the first in the duology, and if you love romantic suspense, get on it.

A Tyranny of Petticoats, an anthology of short stories about “belles, bank robbers, and other badass girls” through history edited by Jessica Spotswood is $2.

Jeff Zentner’s The Serpent King is $2. This is for the YA readers who want their feelings punched.

 

Reading Recs!

A few quick picks from my recent reading worth mentioning. I’ve admittedly read a lot of female-led books lately, but I promise for readers itching to hear about boys in YA, there’s a special newsletter coming for you soon. In the mean time, let’s hear it for the girls (/rimshot).

First, I’ve just begun From Twinkle, With Love by Sandhya Menon, which comes out May 22, and I’m smitten. It’s a romantic comedy, and it’s told in a really compelling form: through letters from Twinkle to her favorite female filmmakers (her dream is to become like one of them). This is for those seeking some snort laughter and a lot of heart.

 

 

Devils Unto Dust by Emma Berquist might be one of my favorites of 2018 so far. This standalone is part Western, part zombie novel, and fully about one badass teen girl who has to find her father, as there’s a bounty out on him that could impact her and her siblings if not settled. The pitch for this is True Grit meets 28 Days Later and tbh, it’s a perfect pitch.

 

 

If you love a book about enterprising girls, then Siobhan Vivian’s Stay Sweet is out this week and absolutely worth picking up. What happens when a girl who is super likable is put into the position to be in charge of the legendary ice cream stand in her town? How does she keep the place afloat? How does she instill order? This book is sweet, it’s smart, and will appeal to readers who love Morgan Matson or Jenny Han.

 

Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now by Dana L. Davis is out May 1, and it follows a girl who just lost her mother as she’s sent to live with a father she’s never met. And that father, who lives with his four other daughters and a new wife in southern California…is an adjustment from her life in Chicago. This book digs into race, colorism, into family, and it’s also a story about Tiffany’s decision to break some of the rules in her new family that allow her to build a powerful friendship with a “weird” boy who is an outcast at her new school. The pacing on this isn’t perfect, but the voice is pitch-perfect and the story so enjoyable that it’s easy to let go.

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

–Kelly Jensen, on Twitter and Instagram as @veronikellymars.

 

 

Hey YA Readers!

Since it’s April, which means National Poetry Month in the USA, let’s take a peek at some of the YA novels in verse that have — or will — hit shelves this year.

Verse novels are among some of my personal favorites, though I’m a bit ashamed to say I’ve only read one of these so far. I’ll be hanging out with you all in the land of making that TBR even bigger.

Let’s get our verse on. Descriptions are pulled from Goodreads.

500 Words or Less by Juleah del Rosario (September 25)

Nic Chen refuses to spend her senior year branded as the girl who cheated on her charismatic and lovable boyfriend. To redefine her reputation among her Ivy League–obsessed classmates, Nic begins writing their college admissions essays.

But the more essays Nic writes for other people, the less sure she becomes of herself, the kind of person she is, and whether her moral compass even points north anymore.

Blood, Water, Paint by Joy McCullough (Available now)

Her mother died when she was twelve, and suddenly Artemisia Gentileschi had a stark choice: a life as a nun in a convent or a life grinding pigment for her father’s paint.

She chose paint.

By the time she was seventeen, Artemisia did more than grind pigment. She was one of Rome’s most talented painters, even if no one knew her name. But Rome in 1610 was a city where men took what they wanted from women, and in the aftermath of rape Artemisia faced another terrible choice: a life of silence or a life of truth, no matter the cost.

He will not consume
my every thought.
I am a painter.
I will paint.

I will show you
what a woman can do.

The Opposite of Innocent by Sonya Sones (September 4)

Lily has been crushing on Luke, a friend of her parents’, ever since she can remember. He’s been away for two endless years, but he’s finally returning today. Lily was only twelve when he left. But now, at fourteen, she feels transformed. She can’t wait to see how Luke will react when he sees the new her. And when her mother tells her that Luke will be staying with them for a while, in the bedroom right next to hers, her heart nearly stops.

Having Luke back is better than Lily could have ever dreamed. His lingering looks set Lily on fire. Is she just imagining them? But then, when they’re alone, he kisses her. Then he kisses her again. At first, the secrecy and danger of their relationship thrills Lily. But soon Luke begins to expect, then demand much more than kissing. He won’t stop pressuring her to do things she doesn’t want to do. Lily wishes she had never flirted with Luke. She feels imprisoned in a situation that’s all her fault. How will she escape?

People Kill People by Ellen Hopkins (September 4)

People kill people. Guns just make it easier.

A gun is sold in the classifieds after killing a spouse, bought by a teenager for needed protection. But which was it? Each has the incentive to pick up a gun, to fire it. Was it Rand or Cami, married teenagers with a young son? Was it Silas or Ashlyn, members of a white supremacist youth organization? Daniel, who fears retaliation because of his race, who possessively clings to Grace, the love of his life? Or Noelle, who lost everything after a devastating accident, and has sunk quietly into depression?

One tense week brings all six people into close contact in a town wrought with political and personal tensions. Someone will fire. And someone will die. But who?

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (Available now)

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.

But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself.

So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.

Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.

The Way The Light Bends by Cordelia Jensen (Available now)

Virtual twins Linc and Holly were once extremely close. But while artistic, creative Linc is her parents’ daughter biologically, it’s smart, popular Holly, adopted from Ghana as a baby, who exemplifies the family’s high-achieving model of academic success.

Linc is desperate to pursue photography, to find a place of belonging, and for her family to accept her for who she is, despite her surgeon mother’s constant disapproval and her growing distance from Holly. So when she comes up with a plan to use her photography interests and skills to do better in school–via a project based on Seneca Village, a long-gone village in the space that now holds Central Park, where all inhabitants, regardless of race, lived together harmoniously–Linc is excited and determined to prove that her differences are assets, that she has what it takes to make her mother proud. But when a long-buried family secret comes to light, Linc must decide whether her mother’s love is worth obtaining.

 

Want more about YA books in verse? I made a guide to 100 must-read titles to give you even more great reads in the format. 

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Cheap Reads!

Because you can always justify a new book when it comes with a low price tag, right? Right.

Grab Roshani Chokshi’s The Star-Touched Queen for $3. It’s the first in a fantasy series.

Kim Savage’s After The Woods, a mystery/thriller, is $3, too.

Pick up the older YA book Coffee Will Make You Black, about a girl coming of age on Chicago’s south side during an era of social upheaval, for $2.

 

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

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram.

currently devouring Tiffany Sly Lives Here by Dana L. Davis. 

 

PS: If you love mysteries, you’ll want to make sure you enter our huge giveaway of 15 of this year’s best mysteries. The giveaway runs through May 9, and clicking here will let you enter.

Hey YA Readers!

Let’s catch up on the latest news and happenings.

“What’s Up in YA” is sponsored by As She Fades by Abbi Glines. 

On the night of her high school graduation, Vale McKinley and her boyfriend Crawford are in a terrible car accident that leaves Crawford in a coma.

Slate Allen, a college friend of Vale’s brother, has been visiting his dying uncle at the same hospital. When he and Vale meet, she can’t deny the flutter of an illicit attraction. She tries to ignore her feelings, but she’s not immune to Slate’s charm. Slowly, they form a cautious friendship.

Then, Crawford wakes up . . . with no memory of Vale or their relationship. Heartbroken, Vale opts to leave for college and move on with her life. Except now, she’s in Slate’s territory, and their story is about to take a very strange turn.

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It seems like every time I collect the latest news in YA worth sharing, there are a ton of adaptations. This week’s collection won’t be different — but they’re all so good that it’s hard not to get excited about what we’ll soon feast our eyes upon.

• Sundance winner and YA adaptation The Miseducation of Cameron Post finally has a distributor and you’ll be able to watch it this summer.
• Netflix will adapt The Wicked Deep, which should adapt to the screen really well.
• Speaking of atmospheric YA reads perfectly ripe for adaptation, here’s news on The Hazel Wood. 
• And here’s news about Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses coming to the big screen.
• This summer (!!) we’ll get to watch To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before on Netflix.
• The male lead of The Hate U Give has been recast.
• How about the teen slasher book There’s Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins being made into a slasher film? I’m 100% here. for. this.
• This is a fascinating dive into the magazine Teen Boss. Put this in the “YA adjacent” column of links, but I can’t stop thinking about it and needed to share it.
• Teenagers suggest creative ways to connect classic texts to today’s life. Brilliant. Today’s teenagers are seriously brilliant.
• The Giant Days comic will be adapted into a YA novel.
• The Broadway play “Dear Evan Hanson” will also become a YA novel.
• Thinly veiled metaphors in young adult dystopian fiction. This had me in stitches.
• Audiobook Sync is back this month! You can snag a free pair of audiobooks each week, with tons of great YA titles included.
• There are more queer YA books being published, but are queer girls being left behind? And another thoughtful Bustle piece worth reading: YA novels which are queer reads but under the radar, for young readers who aren’t out (or have other challenges preventing them from reading queer YA openly).
• Tomi Adeyemi on writing the biggest book of 2018 so far.
• YA books to read if you love Black Panther.
• This YA book tour — the Belles and Brujas — looks super fun.

Cheap Reads…

Snag these YA books in eform for not a lot of dough:

You can read Leigh Bardugo’s take on Wonder Woman for $2.

Pick up Jessica Spotswood’s first contemporary YA novel Wild Swans for $2.50.

The fantasy novel The Falconer by Elizabeth May is a whopping 60 cents.

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Thanks for hanging out this week and we’ll meet you back here again soon.

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram.

Hey YA Readers!

We’ve got a great interview to kick off another month of YA fun.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Rebel with a Cupcake by Anna Mainwaring from KCP Loft.

Jesobel Jones says what she wants and eats what she wants — she is who she is, no regrets. But when a wardrobe malfunction leads to a mortifying encounter with a mean girl, Jess’s confidence suddenly takes a nosedive. Being fat has never bothered her before, but Jess starts to wonder if she’s been just a little too comfortable in her own skin. When the boy of her dreams seems suddenly interested, Jess must decide whether to try to fit in or remain true to herself — whoever that is. Fans of Bridget Jones’s Diary will love this bold and hilarious debut.

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Today we’re joined by the hilarious Amy Spalding, author of The Summer of Jordi Perez (And The Best Burger in Los Angeles), which hits shelves tomorrow, April 3. As a long-time fan of Amy’s writing style — a mix of humor, heart, complicated relationships, and romance — it felt only right to bring her here to talk about her new book, about representation of different bodies in YA literature, and about young adult romantic comedies.

Oh, and of course, some of her favorite books. Without further ado, here’s Amy!

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Amy Spalding grew up in St. Louis, but now lives in the better weather of Los Angeles. She has a B.A. in Advertising & Marketing Communications from Webster University, and an M.A. in Media Studies from The New School. Amy studied longform improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.

By day, she manages the digital media team for an indie film advertising agency. By later day and night, Amy writes, performs, and pets as many cats as she can.

 

KJ: Give us the pitch for Jordi Perez

AS: I was at ALA Midwinter signing early copies of this book, and a librarian ran over to me and said, “I heard this book is about lesbians and cheeseburgers, the two best things!” So that’s the short pitch.

The longer pitch is that it’s a teen lesbian rom-com about a fat girl who lives and breathes fashion, and falls for the girl she’s competing with at her summer internship. It’s about representation and how you’re seen versus how you see yourself, but also first love, friendship, and cheeseburgers.

 

KJ: Your main character is a queer fat girl who loves fashion and food and has no interest in weight loss. This shouldn’t be, but is, revolutionary in YA. Talk a bit about what inspired Abby as a character.

AS: I knew I wanted to write a queer romcom, initially because there are so many stories where the girl gets the swoony boy, and so I wanted to write about the girl getting the swoony girl. In reading lots of YA, I kept noticing how often stories about queer kids were sad. Kids get shunned, beaten, thrown out of their homes, and sometimes even murdered. Of course, these are realities for many kids—and adults too. Despite strides made, our culture is still incredibly homophobic, transphobic, etc. But I wanted something else in queer YA lit, where things are funny and romantic and warm-and-fuzzy in that special glow you can only often find in romantic comedies. There’s certainly a place for important stories to be told about young queer characters, but look at all the escapist stories about straight kids! I wanted a story for a young queer girl that would make her look hopefully toward her future, and give her at least a temporary respite from the dangers present. I think kids understand the dangers out there; it was fun to write about the other side. It’s exciting having watched other lighter queer books find readers as time’s gone on too!

I’d been wanting to write a fat main character for almost as long as a queer one, and so it all sort of hit me at once that this was the book. I think a lot about fat fashion myself, but I didn’t want to just use Abby as a vehicle for my opinions, though of course I did want to dig deep and be honest about being fat and loving style in our culture. It’s so frustrating whenever a fat character’s storyline and personality are just about being fat! I don’t know anyone in my life who’s fat who only thinks about fat things and does fat things and talks about fat things. But I also did not want to ignore how the world can make you feel as a fat person, even a fat person who doesn’t hate herself.

Something that’s frustrated me, not only in the portrayal of fat characters, but often in how fat people are expected to talk about themselves, is the idea that we’re the “before” in life, or the prologue to the real story. Thin people get stories, adventures, romance. Fat people have to earn it by losing weight first. I wanted to write a fat girl whose story is now.

 

KJ: One of the themes your book explores is being in front of the camera vs. being behind the scenes. Can you talk a bit to this idea? Does Abby see herself as an outsider looking in or an insider looking out?

AS: Abby definitely sees herself as an outsider, at least at the start of the book. She’s convinced that even though she’s skilled at things and has great style that the world wouldn’t possibly see that about her. She also – fairly, to some degree – sees how the world views fat people, and never wants to put herself in a position where she could be subject to ridicule. Throughout the story, though, there’s much to challenge these narrow views Abby has of both herself and the world around her, and I hope it hits the right tone of real but also rom-com gauzy and happily-ever-after!

 

KJ: Your books are among the rare subgenre in YA of romantic comedies. What draws you to writing these funny stories and what writers — inside or outside of YA — inspire you with their own takes on rom com?

AS: I love romantic comedies! And maybe I’m just a goof, but I never really looked around and noticed how rare they were in YA when I was starting out.

Some of the first books I fell really hard for were E. Lockhart’s Ruby Oliver titles and The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot, which are funny, feminist, and quite swoony. So once I had the idea for my own romantic comedy, I just went for it!

I do think that women are not always encouraged to be funny the way men are. Middle grade books are often very funny, no matter the gender of the author and main characters. But then something shifts in YA.

I’m so glad there are so many great people challenging these expectations! I adore everything Maurene Goo writes; she’s so funny and sharp, and her style is so distinctly her. I fell hard for When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon and cannot wait for From Twinkle, with Love.

I’m also always very inspired by art outside of books. Even though it has a lot of very dark moments, I found a lot of inspiration in Fun Home the musical, by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori and based on the Alison Bechdel graphic memoir, particularly in the romance between Medium Alison and Joan in this small, sweet spot of the show unmarred by the tragedy yet to unfold. And even though it’s not about young(er) people, I loved Rhea Butcher and Cameron Esposito’s Take My Wife, in how an openly queer show can still tell stories above love and relationships that are quiet and sweet and not just about coming out or the stereotypical queer storylines that have often been pushed onto queer characters by straight creators in the past.

 

KJ: Despite being humorous, your books are pointedly feminist. Can you talk a bit about where you see Jordi Perez in the larger conversation on feminism and YA literature? Or even feminism and teen culture?

AS: Considering that some of my first experiences in YA were books that read like delicious fluffy confections but contained feminist and sex-positive messages, I honestly never thought about doing anything but! As a feminist, I write through a feminist lens. I loved showing what a queer fat girl is really like, beyond any stereotyping. I didn’t write Abby to be every queer fat girl; I wrote her to be one very specific one. And I loved the power in showing a girl who didn’t hate herself for her size or her queerness, even though she’s in a culture that can send very strong messages to girls to do so.

 

KJ: One of the plotlines in Jordi Perez involves Abby eating a lot of hamburgers throughout Los Angeles to help a friend’s dad with a yelp-like app creation. This begs the question: how much research did you do for this and what’s your favorite burger in LA?

AS: Oh, gosh, I did lots of research. What a chore to have to drive through my beautiful city and eat so many cheeseburgers! Truly, it was the most fun I’ve ever had researching, and the most eager my friends were to help me out. I genuinely spent months eating burgers for the sake of this book. For fast food, I – like most Southern Californians – love In-N-Out. My slightly fancier burger favorites are Umami Burger and Fusion Burger. Barbrix in Silver Lake used to feature a fairly upscale burger I adored, but sadly it no longer appears to be on their menu, so it will have to live on only in my memories.

 

KJ: What have been some of your favorite YA books in the last couple of years?

AS: Beyond those I’ve mentioned already, I loved Robin Benway’s Far from the Tree, Zan Romanoff’s Grace & the Fever, and Nina LaCour’s We Are Okay. A friend told me that Nicola Yoon’s The Sun Is Also a Star had one of the swooniest kissing scenes put to paper, and that friend was not wrong. I know that The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is hardly flying under anyone’s radar, but I feel that for all its buzz it truly is a wonderfully written and beautiful story that more than lived up to its hype – a powerful message in a book that doesn’t read at all like homework.

 

KJ: What YA authors do you think are breaking new ground within the category and should be on the radars of more readers?

AS: Besides all the authors already mentioned, I was an early reader of Britta Lundin’s Ship It and fell in fast love with it. Anyone who cares about fandom, conventions, and queer YA should pre-order it now! Elana K. Arnold takes huge, bold risks, and I’m always blown away by her work. I love the girls centered in Julie Murphy’s books; they always feel simultaneously like someone startlingly new and a familiar face already in your life.

 

KJ: If you could give your 12-year-old self any YA book, what would it be and why?

AS: Speaking of Julie Murphy, oh, to have gotten to be a tween when Dumplin’ came out and to have read about a fat girl with all the same doubts and fears I would someday have. This book is such a gift.

 

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A big thank you to Amy for taking the time to share this, and a big “good luck” to each and every one of the “What’s Up in YA?” readers as you add even more books to the toppling TBR you have going on.

Until next week, pick up a good book or two and enjoy!

— Kelly Jensen

Currently reading We’ll Fly Away by Bryan Bliss

Hey YA Readers!

Let’s get this week started with a whole lot of book talk.

“This Week in YA” is sponsored by The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan.

Leigh is certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird. Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. She winds up chasing after ghosts and uncovering family secrets. Alternating between real and magic, past and present, friendship and romance, and hope and despair, this is a debut novel about finding oneself through family history and love, perfect for fans of Jandy Nelson and Celeste Ng.

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Grab your TBR, open up your GoodReads page, and prepare to add some titles to your “have to read it” lists.

• A history of the ground-breaking YA lesbian novel Annie on My Mind.
• Celebrating the life of Virginia Hamilton through her nonfiction for young readers.
• See if you can figure out what these YA book covers are. Oh, they’re made out of LEGOS.
• Stunning Harry Potter cakes for Potterheads.
• Real badass ladies of history, as seen through YA fictional takes on their stories.
• We’re getting a new book by Marcus Zusak, author of the bestselling and wildly popular The Book Thief.
• 100 must-read YA book series.
• 10 great books about intrepid girls. Look at these awesome ladies!
• A round-up of teen guides to activism.
• Must-read coming out YA novels for newbies.
• High schoolers debate: are teens accurately represented in YA literature? Dig in!
• Behind the scenes of building a book festival for teenagers from the folks who put together the NoVa Teen Book Festival.
• Get these 40 paperback YA novels on your spring radar.
• Where to begin with reading bisexual and lesbian YA novels.
• This one is for the speculative fiction fans (or the curious!): 100 must-read YA science fiction books.
• YA fantasy series wrapping up in 2018.
• A shameless note that my next book’s cover was revealed on Book Riot. A not-at-all shameless note that you can also check out the cover for Cynthia Leitich Smith’s forthcoming YA novel on site, too.
• Nonfiction by Russell Freedman, who died last week at the age of 88.
• Fat positivity and body love books for children and teenagers.
• Teen girls who just happen to be sleuths in their free time.
• And finally, a look at YA books set in the long-ago past of the 1990s. . . a time before most of today’s teenagers were even born.

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Quick Pick…

The Beauty That Remains by Ashley Woodfolk

This little gem of a novel is about grief and loss, written through the perspectives of three very different characters experiencing three very different deaths in their lives.

A character driven novel to the core, this quiet YA read lingers long after you’re done. Perfect for readers who love those emotionally-charged stories that allow for deep insight into individual characters. This one has a unifying thread of music for all of the characters, and it explores, too, how music can help those grieving.

One of the most interesting themes in the book is that of one’s digital life after death. How it can become both a ghost of the person and a tool for working through their loss.

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Cheap Reads…

Grab yourself a discounted digital YA book because the days are getting longer, which means you have more time to read (or something).

Insignia by SJ Kincaid is $2. Perfect for readers who like fast-paced, action-packed science fiction. First in a series.

Julie Reece Deaver’s classic YA book Say Goodnight, Gracie is $2. I haven’t read this one, but know it’s a title that would likely be included in a YA canon, if such a thing existed.

For nonfiction, check out Victoria: Portrait of a Queen by Catherine Reef at $3.

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

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram

 

 

Hey YA Fans!

Today I’ve got a passionate letter of love and support for teens that, while not 100% about books, is absolutely about books and reading.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by The Final Six by Alexandra Monir from EpicReads.

Perfect for fans of Illuminae and The Martian, this action-packed YA novel set in the near future will take readers out of this world and on a quest to become one of six teens sent on a mission to Jupiter’s moon. When Leo, an Italian championship swimmer, and Naomi, an Iranian-American science genius from California, are drafted into the International Space Training Camp, their lives are forever altered. After erratic climate change has made Earth a dangerous place to live, the fate of the population rests on the shoulders of the final six, who will be scouting a new planet. Intense training, global scrutiny, and cutthroat opponents are only a few of the hurdles the competitors must endure.

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A few weeks back, I wrote a short review about Winifred Conkling’s Votes for Women, a new nonfiction YA book about the Suffragist Movement. Today, Winifred is here to talk a bit about the women in that movement, and how we should look to the teens walking out of their classrooms as change-makers in a similar regard. This piece is perfect for thinking both about how we look at today’s teenagers, but also how we think about the teenagers we’re seeing in YA literature. Especially as YA literature has become more inclusive and taken on more contemporary cultural issues — whether in realistic fiction or speculative — these observations and considerations are worth sitting with.

Not to mention that it’s worth talking about feminism during Women’s History Month in any event.

While Winifred and I share a publisher, I’ve found Votes for Women and her previous Radioactive: How Irene Curie and Lise Meitner Revolutionized Science and Changed The World to be two must-read YA nonfiction titles for readers craving women’s history and feminism.

But without further ado, here’s Winifred! 

Last week, students across the country walked out of their schools to protest in support of stronger gun-control laws. This time, the call for gun reform comes in response to the murder of seventeen students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Valentine’s Day. We all know that this is just the most recent in a painfully long history of school shootings.

Last Wednesday marked the one-month anniversary of the South Florida shooting. Students and teachers walked out of their schools at 10 A.M. for 17 minutes – one minute for each of the lives lost in the massacre.

Thousands of students marched out of their classrooms to honor the dead and call for stronger gun-safety legislation. Marches on Washington are planned for March 24 and April 20, as well, and individual student bodies are making plans for their own walkouts and protests. There will be reports on the evening news and countless selfies of protesters posted on Facebook and Instagram, but it will be too easy for legislators to ignore these calls for change one more time. Success will require a sustained campaign of walkouts and protests — perhaps over months and years rather than a day or two a month. We know this by looking at the long history of protesting in the U.S. And in light of women’s history month, we can look to the suffragists.

On January 10, 1917, Alice Paul and eleven other women stood in front of the gates to the White House in bitter cold. Each of the women carried an oversize cloth banner suspended from an eight-foot pole. They wore hats, gloves, and ankle-length wool coats topped with striped satin sashes. One of the banners read “How long must women wait for liberty?” Another said, “Mr. President, what will you do for woman suffrage?” The others carried banners with the colors of the suffrage movement – purple, gold, and white.

Women stood at their posts daily from 9 am to 1 pm, when another group of volunteers took their place for the second shift, 1 pm to 5 pm. While on duty, the women didn’t talk with one another or with people on the street. Alice Paul knew that their silence would make those who saw them feel uncomfortable. She knew the power of silence – and discomfort. The women were called “The Silent Sentinels.”

At the time, protesting was a new idea, and it was considered radical for women to picket on the streets. But it wasn’t just the newness that made the approach successful; it was consistency. The women stuck with the protest, day after day, in good weather and bad. During the campaign, almost two thousand women protested. They were as young as nineteen and as old as eighty. Some marched regularly; other joined the picket line only once or twice. For a time, the picketers were a tourist attraction, and people would ask to hold a banner and pose for a photograph.

As the months passed, the Silent Sentinels went from being a novelty to being a nuisance. Every time President Woodrow Wilson entered or left the White House, he had to face those women. The messages changed regularly, and over time, the words wore him down and helped to change his mind about supporting women’s right to vote.

Starting in June, the Silent Sentinels began to be arrested and jailed. Although the picketers broke no laws, they were sentenced to three days in jail on trumped-up charges of obstructing traffic. (They never left the sidewalk.) By August, some picketers were sentenced to sixty days in the workhouse. In jail the women were fed moldy and worm-infested food. They were force-fed when they started a hunger strike.

It’s time for a new generation of Silent Sentinels to return to Washington and stay a while. This time they can protest in front of the Capitol Building, to be a constant reminder that Congress must have the courage to act in order to make any progress on the issue of gun safety.

The 21st century Silent Sentinels could make their point devastatingly clear by carrying banners with names and faces of the children and young people who died in their classrooms and were shot down on their college campuses. Every time a member of Congress enters the Capitol Building or poses for an interview with a news reporter, let them see a dead child’s face fluttering in the wind, asking for justice. The silence could speak for those who never got the chance to speak for themselves.

Winifred Conkling is an award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction for young readers, including Passenger on the Pearl and, most recently, Votes for Women! American Suffragists and the Battle for the Ballot.

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Thanks for tuning in this week, and we’ll see you again next with a round-up of recent YA talk around Book Riot.

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram.

Hey YA Fans:

Let’s catch up on the latest in YA news around the web.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Inkmistress by Audrey Coulthurst from Epic Reads.

An action-packed fantasy, perfect for fans of Tamora Pierce and Kristin Cashore.

Asra is a demigod with a dangerous gift: the ability to dictate the future. But her peaceful life is upended when bandits threaten the village of Ina, the girl she loves, and the king does nothing to help.

Asra uses her magic to help, but her spell goes horribly wrong and the village is destroyed.

Unaware that Asra is at fault, Ina swears revenge on the king. To stop her, Asra must become a player in a lethal game of power involving assassins, gods, and the king himself.

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When you’re not reading a book, the next best thing is to read ABOUT books, right? In this collection of links, you can start planning your next movie marathoning sessions, given the amount of news about adaptations there is.

• First and foremost: a look at the diversity numbers from last year’s children’s books. There is a lot to chew over and sit with here.
• Here’s a look at the books which sold the most last year. Anything surprising here? I love looking at these lists (and only wish that we’d seen a book or two by those top-selling authors of color in the image selected).
• And speaking of women of color who sold a lot of books, this NPR interview with Angie Thomas about YA literature, being black in America, and more, is so worth your ears.
• The Sun is Also a Star has a potential lead actress for its adaptation.
• A Hunger Games screenwriter has been tapped to write the screenplay for the adaptation of S.T.A.G.S.
• Check this out: a really great piece about how the future of queer lit is safe in the world of YA literature….as seen in GQ.
• The previous article names the adaptation of Love, Simon as one of the things we have to look forward to from queer YA, and this review of the film is making me very hopeful.
• There’s a stand alone contemporary YA title coming from writing giant Tahereh Mafi this fall and it sounds fantastic.
• Speaking of authors with new books, who else is thrilled to see a new title coming from Sara Farizan?
• There’s a release date for the adaptation of Alexandra Bracken’s The Darkest Minds: August 3.
• The rights to This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp have been scooped by for potential adaptation.
• Laurie Halse Anderson + Wonder Woman = This is some damn exciting news!
• I’m so happy to see narrative nonfiction in YA seeing more time in the spotlight. Scholastic will be publishing more of it soon.
• Audiobook Sync is back! Every week, beginning late next month, you can scoop up two free audiobooks a week. This is especially great for the teen listeners you might know looking for a great new book.
• And finally, the weirdest, “are you joking?” story in recent memory: the former press secretary Hope Hicks may have looked familiar to YA readers because she was a cover model for The It Girl. No, really.

Quick Pick!

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily XR Pan

When Leigh’s mother commits suicide, Leigh’s life unravels. The unraveling only happens harder and stronger when she sees a bird that she knows is her mother. The story follows as Leigh leaves her home town to meet the grandparents she’s never known before to learn more about her family’s history and the person her mother was.

Pan’s debut is lush, absorbing, and perfect for readers who love the magical realism of authors like Nova Ren Suma or Laura Ruby. Leigh’s Taiwanese heritage plays a large role in the story, as do the challenges her mother and grandparents experienced in their young lives. More, this is a book about mental illness and grief that is refreshing, powerful, and much-needed.

Cheap Reads

It’s a wealth of great inexpensive reads this week. Check ’em out!

How Dare The Sun Rise by Sandra Uwiringiyimana is a memoir and tells the story of Uwiringiyimana’s experience growing up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, surviving a massacre, and making it to America. $2.

Brittany Cavallaro’s A Study in Charlotte — the first in a series of mysteries about the teens related to the famous Holmes and Watson — is $2.

The Girl From The Well by Rin Chupeco is $2 and if you like horror, particularly J-Horror, you want to read this one.

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

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram