Young Adult Fiction

I Wanna Be Where You Are by Kristina Forest

August 14, 2019 Leave a Comment

320 pages | Contemporary | Roaring Brook Press | Release Date: 6/4/2019

When 17-year-old Chloe Pierce gets the opportunity to audition for her dream ballet school she’ll have to break her overly cautious mother’s rules for the first time to audition. Her carefully planned day trip is quickly derailed into an unexpected weeklong road trip, when her troublemaking neighbor Eli Greene–and his dog Geezer–tag along for the ride.

I read this book while on vacation and it was the perfect YA vacation read. Forest has crafted a solid debut about discovery, friendship and confidence-building in a fun rom-com package. In our 19 to 2019 I said this looked like the kind of book teen me would have enjoyed and it totally was!

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Birthday by Meredith Russo

August 3, 2019 Leave a Comment

288 pages | Contemporary | Flatiron Books | Release Date: 5/21/2019

Content Warnings: transphobia, homophobia, and domestic violence

Eric and Morgan are best friends who share everything–including a birthday. On their 13th birthday, Morgan is ready to tell Eric they identify as a girl even though they were assigned male at birth. But that moment never comes and in each chapter, we visit Morgan and Eric on their shared birthday and watch how their lives grow and change through adolescence.

The cover calls this a love story—and it is–but this isn’t exactly a romance, which is kind of what I thought it was going to be. This story takes place in small-town Tennesse where the only way out is football. Morgan has to struggle with toxic masculinity, poverty and alcoholism while trying to come out as trans. There is also mention of and one scene of domestic violence as well as lots of homophobia and transphobia so it can be a tough read at times.

Birthday is a heart-wrenching but ultimately hopeful story about friendship and love I’m sure we will be hearing about around Printz time.

A Curse So Dark and Lonely By Brigid Kremmerer

July 19, 2019 Leave a Comment

496 pages | Bloomsbury YA | Fantasy | Release Date: 01/29/2019

The big marketing push for this book in the blogosphere totally put this book on my radar. Brigid Kremmer is a veteran YA author and the premise of this book sounded pretty intriguing; Harper, a modern teen girl, teams up with Rhen a prince from another world, to end a curse. While the ending is quite the cliffhanger I generally found that this book wasn’t for me

I want to preface this all by saying I’m sort of fascinated by YA Fantasy and the tropes it often inhabits. Tropes that I think are so prevalent that the YA Fantasy novel Damsel purposefully turns them on their head. Some things I keep an eye out for are :

No Boys …. Unless They’re Cute

YA Fantasy has no shortage of brooding cute boys. Usually royalty. If there isn’t one just wait until book 2

Capitan of The Guard

In a YA fantasy world, you can usually count on a high ranking bodyguard or royal protector. 9 times out of 10 this character is secretly in love with their charge. I feel like this character’s existence is an easy way to create an emotional bond between the main (usually royal) protagonist and the secondary character. Kremmer turns this concept on its head during the last few chapters which was pretty interesting.

Rebel

There is always a rebellion. A lot of YA fantasy has a fight-against-the-machine-tear-it-down mentality. This is one of my favorites tropes in YA fantasy because whether or not I will read the second book in a series depends on how much the rebellion has changed the status quo.

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Timekeeper by Tara Sim

July 9, 2019 Leave a Comment

8 hours 48 minutes | Fantasy | Skypony Press | Release Date: 11/8/2016

In Sim’s Victorian London clock towers do more than just tell time…they keep it moving. Danny Hart is London’s youngest clock mechanic and his job is to repair England’s many clock towers. But when Danny falls in love with the spirit of the Enfield clock tower their forbidden relationship could stop time forever.

Oh, and they solve a crime.

I kept hearing Eric Smith talk about this book on the Hey YA podcast so when I saw it at the library I decided to pick it up. This is such a unique genre-bending story. It’s got a steampunk setting with fantasy elements and some mystery beats. I will say, the rules about clock spirits and how they work and who can see them does fall apart if you look too hard. I’m a little afraid Sim will have to break her own rules to continue telling more stories in the series.

The audiobook is narrated by Gary Furlong (whose name kept making me think of the character in Veep) who gives a great performance and I highly rec this on audio. Furlong has this great arsenal of British male accents, although he only has about one female voice in him. I see he does some romances so I’ll have to check those out.

Even though Danny is 17-years-old I think this is a great YA for younger readers. It has interesting themes and questions without being too dark. Sims’ world is also inclusive. The clock spirit, Colton, is a boy and Danny being gay is part of his story but not the whole story. I do kind of side-eye the half Indian character who is constantly described as fair and blonde.

Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts) by L.C. Rosen

July 3, 2019 Leave a Comment

337 pages | Contemporary | Little Brown | Release Date: 10/30/2018

17-year-old Jack Rothman loves sex and finds his reputation as the school slut somewhat amusing. When he uses his experience to write an advice column he’s prepared for more gossip and judgment but nothing prepares him for an anonymous stalker leaving little pink notes in his locker.

This book has a pretty high bar to clear. It has to give advice about sex and sexuality to minors in a way that is safe, inclusive and frank, explore the multiple facets of being a gay teen and build a thriller-like stalker plot. Somehow, L.C Rosen (the pen name of SFF author Lev AC Rosen) manages to do it all and more in this gem of a YA contemporary.

I’ll admit as some who is *mumbles* *mumbles* years old I was clutching my pearls at how explicit the advice column sections were, but I think it’s ridiculous to think teens aren’t talking and thinking this way. Especially gay or lesbian teens who don’t have a lot of models for love and romance for people their age. The columns go beyond just sex advice and also talk to teens who don’t feel like they want to have sex or straight boys who feel like they don’t fit into the way media portrays their desires. I will say the Jack in the advice column seems a lot more mature and worldly than the one in the story but I think it’s a conceit that makes sense for the book.

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We Set The Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia

June 29, 2019 Leave a Comment

9 hours 54 minutes| Dystopian YA | Harper Audio | Release Date: 2/26/2019

On the island of Medio, young women are trained to take up positions as sister wives to the island’s highest ranking men. 17-year-old Daniella Vargas is paired with her bully Carmen and the two are married to Mateo Garcia–a boy being groomed to become president of their island country.

Dani’s life looks picture perfect but she has a secret. She’s an illegal immigrant and was bought over from the wrong side of Medio’s border as a child. This secret makes her vulnerable to the resistance group La Voz, who begin blackmailing her for information to help their cause. As Dani embarks on this new life full of discovery and danger she begins to understand her own privilege and that there is more to life than what she ever imagined–including her feelings for her sister wife, Carmen.

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