Posts tagged with teen-literature
Palace of Spies, by Sarah Zettel
We had such high hopes for Palace of Spies, the first book in Sarah Zettel's new YA trilogy. Zettel's writing is consistently solid, she chose an unusual time period for her setting, and she avoided the cover art controversy that has dogged her otherwise-excellent Dust Girl books. The end result, sadly, fell a hair short of our dreams, but let's face it: even Zettel's B-grade work still stands head and shoulders above...
Teardrop, by Lauren Kate
In the author's note following her novel Teardrop, Lauren Kate shares the following story: once, when she was crying, her husband reached out and swiped a tear from her cheek, blinking it into his own eye. If that's the kind of thing that strikes you as indescribably romantic, Teardrop is the book for you. If (like me) your reaction hovers somewhere between “Ew” and “...why?”, move right along...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Palace of Spies, by Sarah Zettel
This week's Book Giveaway title is Palace of Spies, the first book in a historical YA series by Dust Girl author Sarah Zettel. Our review will go up tomorrow morning, seeing as we still have to post our thoughts on the Book Giveaway title we featured over our winter break: Lauren Kate's Teardrop...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Teardrop, by Lauren Kate
Our current Weekly Book Giveaway pick is Teardrop, the first book in a new trilogy from popular YA author Lauren Kate. Her Fallen series was hit-or-miss, but here's hoping she's learned something along the way...
Sacred and Splendor, by Elana K. Arnold
Sacred and Splendor, the first two novels from YA author Elana K. Arnold, are ambitious, creative... and totally devoid of editorial judgment or restraint. The books contain a number of intriguing ideas, but the sum total is a hot mess...
Red, by Alison Cherry
Alison Cherry's debut novel Red has its charms: her heroine is relatable and plausibly flawed, and she has the fun, flowing writing style of a much more experienced author. Unfortunately, the tone of her story kept flip-flopping between campy and realistic, ultimately failing at both...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Red, by Alison Cherry
This week's Weekly Book Giveaway pick is Alison Cherry's Red, which is either an entertaining satire about superficial beauty standards or a questionable (at best) metaphor about racial inequality. I haven't decided which one I think the author was aiming for yet, but I'm hoping to make up my mind before I post our review this afternoon...
Premeditated, by Josin McQuein
Josin L. McQuein's Premeditated is the kind of novel that helps teenage mystery fans grow up into adult ones. In addition to featuring a lot of very teen-friendly romantic and familial drama, McQuein sprinkles her text with a series of tantalizing clues that are just tricky enough to make a young reader feel like Sherlock Holmes...
Touched and Dead River, by Cyn Balog
Cyn Balog's standalone novels Dead River and Touched are the kind of stories that allow YA readers to dip their toes into the horror genre. They're disturbing enough to send the odd shiver up one's spine, but still guaranteed to come with a safely happy ending, making them an ideal choice for kids who aren't quite ready for, say, Stephen King...
Obsidian, Onyx, and Opal, by Jennifer Armentrout
After writing about the upcoming film adaptation of Jennifer Armentrout's sexy-aliens-in-peril Lux series, I requested the first three installments—Obsidian, Onyx, and Opal—from my local library. The books' mega-cheesy cover art was off-putting, but I was hoping the story would deliver some enjoyably soapy Roswell-style goodness...
Jane Jones: Worst. Vampire. Ever., by Caissie St. Onge
Caissie St. Onge's novel Jane Jones: Worst. Vampire. Ever. is an entertaining but uneven take on the joys—and many, many sorrows—of life as a blood-sucking perpetual teenager. Jane Jones has been a high school student for decades, but it never gets any easier. Her parents are still ridiculously overprotective (even though Jane is actually ninety-odd years old), she has nothing in common with her human classmates, and her vampire peers despise her for having a blood allergy...
Could the movie deliver on the HOLY ALIEN HOTNESS?
The covers for this series crack me up, but obviously someone takes them seriously, because THR says that Sierra Pictures has signed up to produce a film adaptation of Jennifer Armentrout's Obsidian. The book is a YA romance about a 17-year-old girl who discovers that her neighbor is actually a "hot alien" (note: that's from the official publisher's description) with...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Paradox, by A.J. Paquette
This week's book giveaway title is A. J. Paquette's Paradox, which I'd like to think is a YA retelling of the 1990 camp-horror classic Tremors. (Sadly, it probably isn't, although someone should really write that book.) We'll be posting our review later this afternoon...
The Beautiful and the Cursed, by Page Morgan
Page Morgan is an ambitious woman. Her debut novel The Beautiful and the Cursed features two heroines, a massive cast, a historical setting, a menagerie of supernatural creatures, and an elaborate mythology centered around gargoyles, which (in Morgan's world, anyway) can be both hideous monsters and ridiculously handsome love interests...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Beautiful and the Cursed, by Page Morgan
This week's book giveaway title is The Beautiful and the Cursed, by Page Morgan. I haven't even cracked this book open yet, but it appears to be a sexy YA supernatural thriller about gargoyles. (Possibly sexy gargoyles, in which case I give the author full points for creativity.) I'll post our review later today...
Golden Girl, by Sarah Zettel
Sarah Zettel's novel Dust Girl was one of my favorite books of 2012, which meant I was equally excited and nervous to read Golden Girl, the next book in the series. Middle books in trilogies are tough to get right, so I was thrilled to find that Golden Girl is just as entertaining as its predecessor—and possibly even weirder...
Belle Epoque, by Elizabeth Ross
It feels weird to commend someone for an idea that they took from someone else, but that's what I'm doing here: Elizabeth Ross has openly acknowledged that the inspiration for her novel Belle Epoque was taken from an Emile Zola short story, but I give her full props for borrowing with style...
School Spirits, by Rachel Hawkins
Slightly more than a year after releasing Spell Bound, the (totally disappointing, it must be said) conclusion to her Hex Hall series, Rachel Hawkins has returned to familiar territory in School Spirits, the first book in a Hex Hall spin-off series devoted to a different branch of the monster-hunting Brannick family...
How I Lost You, by Janet Gurtler
In a world overflowing with books about teenagers killing one another, it's always nice to discover a well-written YA novel about normal teen drama—one that limits itself to figurative (rather than literal) back-stabbing. This real-world premise wasn't the only thing we liked about Janet Gurtler's How I Lost You, but it definitely helped...
How To Lead a Life of Crime, by Kirsten Miller
Kirsten Miller's How To Lead a Life of Crime is the junior-division version of Catherine Jinks's novel Evil Genius. Both stories are about unhappy boys with a gift for criminal behavior who are approached by shady older dudes offering them a chance to attend schools for budding supervillains, but Jinks's take on the material is far weirder...
Manicpixiedreamgirl, by Tom Leveen
In addition to being saddled with a painfully quirky title that lights up my Spellcheck like a Christmas tree, Tom Leveen’s novel Manicpixiedreamgirl features one of my least favorite YA character types: the wishy-washy teenage male. Leveen’s protagonist is high school student Tyler Darcy, a kid blessed with a long-term (by high school standards) relationship, a supportive family, and a loyal circle of friends. Tyler has literary ambitions, and...
Strands of Bronze and Gold, by Jane Nickerson
In case you were wondering, we didn't actually plan on reviewing two books about twisted relationships between hyper-controlling men and vulnerable young girls this week. This pairing was pure serendipity—creepy serendipity, if that's not a contradiction in terms.
Set in the antebellum South, Jane Nickerson's Strands of Bronze and Gold...
Revolution, by Jennifer Donnelly
I avoid books about the French Revolution (angry mob stories freak me out), reading about time travel (the laws of causality!), or plots that hinge on the deaths of children (...this one is self-explanatory, right?). All three are featured in Jennifer Donnelly's YA novel Revolution, so the fact that I not only finished her book, but even found it reasonably entertaining, is a testament to...
Bad Taste in Boys and Bad Hair Day, by Carrie Harris
If someone set out to re-write Scooby Doo as a book series aimed at teenage girls, the result would probably look a lot like Carrie Harris's Kate Grable novels: Bad Taste in Boys and Bad Hair Day. Like Scooby Doo, Harris's stories are cheerful, ridiculous, and teaming with monsters—none of which, of course, turn out to be genuinely supernatural...
Heart of Glass, by Sasha Gould
YA author Sasha Gould recently released Heart of Glass, the sequel to last year's well-received historical novel Cross My Heart. I found this installment less interesting than Gould's first, but it was still well-written and solidly researched (and blessed with much less Vegas-y cover art)...
Banished and Unforsaken, by Sophie Littlefield
I'm sure most bookstores have filed Sophie Littlefield's novels Banished and Unforsaken with the teen paranormal romances, but that's far from accurate. These books are about a girl who discovers that she has magical healing powers, and is immediately targeted by a series of evil scientists, murderous rednecks, and zombies. She does eventually acquire a boyfriend, but their relationship is never more than a minor plot thread...
Dark Souls, by Paula Morris
Paula Morris's novel Dark Souls isn't the best YA paranormal romance I have ever read, but it boasts likeable characters, an intriguing premise, and literally dozens of ghosts, running the gamut from benign to horrifying. Fans of the genre are in for a creepy, history-infused treat...
MTV hits the books
The Hollywood Reporter informs me that MTV is attempting to turn Elizabeth Norris's young adult novel Unraveling into a TV drama. According to the article, the book is about a teenage girl "who, after being hit by a car, is convinced she died and that her sexy and mysterious classmate Ben is responsible for her miraculous resuscitation"...
The Little Woods, by McCormick Templeman
I was drawn to McCormick Templeman's debut novel The Little Woods as soon as I pulled it out of the publishers' box. The cover art and title managed to be simultaneously elegant, menacing, and teen-girl-friendly, and it appeared to be a murder mystery without a paranormal element—a rare beast, at least as far as YA books are concerned...
That's where all the fun books are.
In a not-particularly-shocking bit of news, Publishers Weekly just posted an article about a new study on so-called "Young Adult" books: according to Bowker Market Research, 55% of buyers of YA books are 18 or older...