YA Hardcover to Paperback Makeovers: Six to Consider

June 12, 2017 |

It’s been a minute since I’ve done a look at YA book cover changes. For some reason, I keep a massive list of them but can forget to actually write about them when I’m working on posts. Alas, I’ve put together two at once — the one here and one for next month — and hope to continue highlighting these with more frequency because I love looking and thinking about YA book covers.

As usual, some of these changes are great and others are less so. I’d say on the whole, this round falls a little more into the “less so” category for me, but I suspect some of you might feel differently. As always, I’d love to hear what you think, which covers you prefer, and what cover changes you’ve seen lately that have caused you to pause and think.

Original covers in this round-up are on the left, with the redesigns on the right.

Kids of Appetite kicks off this round of cover changes and I have to be honest: I dislike both covers. Quite a bit, in fact. The hardcover looks to me like it’s not only trying too hard, but also that it’s doing too much. The text takes up a significant amount of real estate, and a good portion of that is a tag line that doesn’t seem to add much. I’ve never been a huge fan of illustrate covers, and this one is no exception. As nice as it is to see an inclusive illustration, none of the characters have any personality since we’re only able to see their backs.

The paperback takes what the hardcover did and turned the kids into telescopes. One of them even has on a scarf which kills me. It’s trying so hard to be clever and literary. More, the paperback redesign takes on a new trend from this particular paperback imprint that I’ve not been fond of: it’s making the paperback cover into two pieces, wherein the design is on top, with an underlaid cover that has praise all over it (in redesigns like the one for Jeff Zentner’s The Serpent King or Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You The Sun, one of those cover pieces is simply a quote from inside the book, which literally tells you nothing about the book). These kinds of choices scream adult audience, serious literary business. And if that’s the angle, then it’s succeeding, but….it’s not a YA look. What the paperback does have going for it, though, is the lessening of text. The title and author look much better on this one. It’s also interesting that they not only cut the tag line, but they also got rid of “bestselling” before “author of Mosquitoland.”

Neither of these covers really does it for me. If I had to pick one, though, I’d likely go hardcover, if for no reason other than it features at least two teens of color on it.

Kids of Appetite by David Arnold will be available in paperback on September 5.

The original cover for Sarah Mlynowski’s Ten Things We Did (And Probably Shouldn’t Have) came at the same time we got the original cover for Siobhan Vivian’s Not That Kind of Girl. They feature the same couple in slightly different positions. Back in those olden days of YA in 2011, covers with people on them were all the rage. On the right, though, we have a brand new edition of Mlynowski’s title in paperback that seems to follow the conventions of 2017 design: illustrated and, as I’ve noticed in a number of “lighter” YA titles, totally covered in stuff. See, for example, Lauren Strasnik’s 16 Ways to Break a Heart. Maybe it’s the color choice, but the new Ten Things cover looks really middle grade leaning to me, despite the fact the cover does feature a wine bottle, red underwear, and other items that one wouldn’t associate with middle graders. It is also certainly not a middle grade read in terms of content.

This is a tough one for me, since I don’t especially care for either of the covers. It is interesting to note that the new design denotes that Mlynowski is a New York Times Bestselling author, whereas the original hardcover has a blurb from Sara Shepard. Neither of the covers really do much for what the book is about; I almost wish that the Strasnik design scheme was what we saw for this particular cover, as that might make it feel more appropriate or appealing.

Ten Things We Did hit paperback in its new look June 6.

How about before saying anything about these covers, we pause and just appreciate how different the stories these covers are telling? And yet, what I love about both of them, is they both convey a sense of something Not Good happening. Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee in hardcover looks like a pretty solid horror novel. The doll face is creepy, and it’s made even creepier by the dirt splotches on the doll’s face. The title fonts work pretty well, too, as they’re sparse and it’s really the face of the doll which stands out on the cover. As someone who likes scary, this cover would be enough to make me pick it up.

The paperback edition, though, is also pretty damn good. I think that maybe the hair strands on covers could become cliche very quickly (there’s at least two others that I know of for 2017 alone, including the new E. Lockhart) but on this cover, it certainly does something interesting in conveying the idea this book might be more thriller than horror. The color differences on the hair locks is notable, as is the small pink bow. Like with the original hardcover, there’s a careful use of fonts with the title, wherein both “Amy” and “Dee” are in the same design and “Chelsea” and “Stacie” are in an alternate font. What I don’t like about this cover, though, is the use of the tag line. I think the effect of the cover is lost a bit in there being too much text on it now. Were it gone, the starkness would speak volumes.

Each cover tells a different story about the feel of the book — the one on the left is certainly horror, whereas the one on the right conveys thriller or mystery. I think both work, though as someone who hasn’t read this book, it’s challenging to discern which one is more fitting for the story. But in considering which might make me pick up the book….both actually would catch my eye enough. Perhaps the one on the right is geared a little more toward adult readers than teen readers, but it’s hard to say.

The paperback for Mary G. Thompson’s Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee will hit shelves October 3. It might hit my own TBR a little sooner than that.

Unlike the previous set of covers, I don’t necessarily think the design change for Unnatural Deeds by Cyn Balog offers up anything different. The two images are even almost exactly the same in where they’ve been placed on the cover: dead center. On the original hardcover, we have a pair of scissors cutting a flower, while on the right, we have a take on the “moth to a flame” cliche (just, you know, a butterfly to a lightbulb without any shade on it). The font on both covers feels somewhat uncreative, and it bothers my eyes a bit that the paperback font is not an even size between “Unnatural” and “Deeds.” I also find the fact that part of the word “Unnatural” actually clips the lightbulb to be bothersome. Or maybe it’s the fact that it looks like the lightbulb was slightly altered to allow the title to fit?

An interesting difference between the two: we lost the blurb on the paperback edition. Both still feature the tag line — and neither image really captures the idea of needing to kill to protect. In a lot of ways, these feel like safe images for what sounds like a murder-y type read. Although the cliched nature of the paperback bothers me, there’s something about the black background that works much better than the odd, bottom-of-the-river green on the hardcover.

I can’t say I love either of these nor feel they’re particularly fresh. That said, I suspect teen readers might feel differently, especially those who know what kinds of covers to look for for the types of books they love to read. What’s cliche to me as an adult can, and does, often not feel that way to teens, in part because they haven’t seen it enough to be tired by it. If I had to pick one cover doing it a bit better, I’d go with the new paperback, though I really hope that title font gets fixed. Kirkus called this a “PG-13 version of Gone Girl” and I think we get that more with the paperback, too.

Unnatural Deeds will hit paperback on November 1.

I don’t think I have a cover change I like more in this round-up than this one. Gae Polisner’s The Memory of Things is a 9/11 themed YA novel, and the hardcover made that super clear. The “I” in the title there was masked as the Twin Towers, kind of, if the Twin Towers were uneven in their size. The color of the original was a bright baby blue, and the image in the background of a white angel absolutely popped. But, aside from the small use of the Towers in the title font, the cover didn’t say much other than maybe it’s a book about angels. Despite having enjoyed Polisner’s previous books, there was nothing about this cover that really spoke to me, other than appreciating that it’s pretty sparse.

It’s interesting how much a YA book cover not filled with blurbs or tag lines can stand out for that alone.

The paperback edition of the novel doesn’t make the 9/11 connection clear, and in a lot of ways, that’s of service to the book. The yellow color pops and is fresh, and the image we see is that of a cityscape. As a non-New Yorker, this image doesn’t exactly place me in that city, though it does place me in A city; I think this is a hugely positive thing, as it will appeal to a larger range of readers who, like me, can tire of the same New York City story (I tend to think sometimes New York City publishing forgets that not everyone cares about NYC….growing up, all anyone ever wanted to do in my town was get to Chicago, and though we’re seeing more Chicago-set books now, they’re still few and far between). The almost generic feel of the city here, though, works really well, and I appreciate how the color and saturation of the image actually work against the yellow background. More, that font! The font itself tells a story in a way that the original didn’t. Like the hardcover, the paperback is clean, clear of extra text, and I think it literally pops from the screen and will pop from shelves.

No question, the paperback is the big winner here for me. It hits shelves on August 29.

Finally, here’s the paperback makeover for Ruta Sepetys’s Salt To The Sea. The original cover tells a pretty powerful story. It’s clear, at least to me, this is a historical fiction read, and there’s something to be a big element of survival to it. The color saturation and the lines in the image itself are powerful. It has a cold feeling to it, and there’s always something neat about a book cover that makes you feel a sensation just by looking at it.

What the original cover has that’s kind of annoying: so much text. Not only do we have the blurb from the Wall Street Journal review, we have a note that it’s by an international bestselling author of another book and that the book itself is a New York Times Bestselling novel. Do teen readers care? I don’t think that they read those blurbs and are suddenly moved to pick up the book. But alas, I’m curious about how much the teen appeal is in consideration.

I say that because the paperback book is not, at least in my mind, for teen readers. The cover is very adult historical fiction, and it also tells absolutely no story except that there might be people who died, as represented by shoes. I think the tag line also conveys that, and it’s a tag line that isn’t on the original hardcover. But at least we lost the other text in this rendition.

As noted before, notice how the paperback edition of this book is two-fold: there’s the cover, and then there’s a bigger cover beneath it, like with Kids of Appetite. This isn’t a particularly library friendly style, though it is a style that really screams Literary Fiction Adults Will Like. In this case, we lose the cool of the blue water and we now have a green hue to it. Though it is, without question, a pretty and appealing cover, it doesn’t tell nearly the story the hardcover does. Nor, do I think, does it care about reaching teen readers. None of those shoes even look like they’d belong to a teen (we have children’s shoes, as well as what appear to be a pair of shoes from an adult couple).

Hands down, for me, the hardcover does it better. I wish it had about half the text it has on it, but it gives so much more feeling and emotion, and I think it appeals far more to the audience for whom it was published (if YA is for teens, of course, which is in and of itself a debatable suggestion).

Salt To The Sea hits paperback on August 1. Interestingly, as I looked up the pub date on Amazon for this one, it was quoted as being great for readers who loved All The Light We Cannot See…another adult-aimed read.

Microtrends In YA Lit: The Odd and Not-So-Odd Coincidences Popping Up

February 13, 2017 |

There are trends, and then there are things that aren’t quite trends, but they’ve appeared in more than one place and stick out as being odd to show up that frequently. The things in that second category are what I like to call “microtrends.” They’re not full-blown trends, a la books with “Girl” in the title or mermaid reads from a few years back. Rather, they’re two or three or four books that have something in common with one another that isn’t itself entirely common.

Let’s take a look at a handful of recently-observed microtrends. Will any of these become bigger, full-blown trends? Have they been trends? Can you think of other recent examples of these microtrends (within the last year or so)?

Descriptions of books are all from Goodreads.

The Canterbury Tales

We can pretty quickly highlight the retellings and remixings of classics in YA lit. There are plenty of homages to Jane Eyre, to Shakespeare, and the Brontes, to name three. But how about this one: the retelling of Chaucer’s classic The Canterbury Tales?

I didn’t read The Canterbury Tales until my senior year of high school, and I believe only part of it was assigned reading. Instead of reading the entirety of the tales, we were put into small groups, assigned a character or group of characters, and then read and created presentations about their stories. I loved learning about the book that way, and it made me appreciate the format and creativity behind the tales. I haven’t read any of these spins on the tale, though I certainly plan on picking up at least one.

Worth noting that one of these titles is a Middle Grade read, too. Likely middle grade readers won’t know the inspiration, but that’s not going to be of any detriment to them enjoying the story.

Sometimes We Tell The Truth by Kim Zarins

In this contemporary retelling of The Canterbury Tales, a group of teens on a bus ride to Washington, DC, each tell a story—some fantastical, some realistic, some downright scandalous—in pursuit of the ultimate prize: a perfect score.

Jeff boards the bus for the Civics class trip to Washington, DC, with a few things on his mind:
-Six hours trapped with his classmates sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
-He somehow ended up sitting next to his ex-best friend, who he hasn’t spoken to in years.
-He still feels guilty for the major part he played in pranking his teacher, and the trip’s chaperone, Mr. Bailey.
-And his best friend Cannon, never one to be trusted and banned from the trip, has something “big” planned for DC.

But Mr. Bailey has an idea to keep everyone in line: each person on the bus is going to have the chance to tell a story. It can be fact or fiction, realistic or fantastical, dark or funny or sad. It doesn’t matter. Each person gets a story, and whoever tells the best one will get an automatic A in the class.

But in the middle of all the storytelling, with secrets and confessions coming out, Jeff only has one thing on his mind—can he live up to the super successful story published in the school newspaper weeks ago that convinced everyone that he was someone smart, someone special, and someone with something to say.

The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz

1242. On a dark night, travelers from across France cross paths at an inn and begin to tell stories of three children. Their adventures take them on a chase through France: they are taken captive by knights, sit alongside a king, and save the land from a farting dragon. On the run to escape prejudice and persecution and save precious and holy texts from being burned, their quest drives them forward to a final showdown at Mont Saint-Michel, where all will come to question if these children can perform the miracles of saints.

Join William, an oblate on a mission from his monastery; Jacob, a Jewish boy who has fled his burning village; and Jeanne, a peasant girl who hides her prophetic visions. They are accompanied by Jeanne’s loyal greyhound, Gwenforte . . . recently brought back from the dead. Told in multiple voices, in a style reminiscent of The Canterbury Tales, our narrator collects their stories and the saga of these three unlikely allies begins to come together.

Feral Youth by Shaun David Hutchinson (September 5)

At Zeppelin Bend, an outdoor education program designed to teach troubled youth the value of hard work, cooperation, and compassion, ten teens are left alone in the wild. The teens are a diverse group who come from all walks of life, and they were all sent to Zeppelin Bend as a last chance to get them to turn their lives around. They’ve just spent nearly two weeks learning to survive in the wilderness, and now their instructors have dropped them off eighteen miles from camp with no food, no water, and only their packs, and they’ll have to struggle to overcome their vast differences if they hope to survive.

Inspired by The Canterbury Tales, Feral Youth features characters, each complex and damaged in their own ways, who are enticed to tell a story (or two) with the promise of a cash prize. The stories range from noir-inspired revenge tales to mythological stories of fierce heroines and angry gods. And while few of the stories are claimed to be based in truth, they ultimately reveal more about the teller than the truth ever could.

“How To Disappear” Title

These are going to get confused quite easily, seeing their titles are the same or so close to similar. I can only imagine a teen coming to the reference desk or a bookstore asking for “that YA book about how to disappear” and being handed three different recent titles.

I guess the more interesting thing to note here is that they’re books about girls disappearing in some capacity. There’s an outstanding short story in Roxane Gay’s Difficult Women that ends on the note that the best women are the dead ones, and I can’t help but wonder if this is just a step before that final death (and that’s what makes them compelling enough). I don’t mean that, of course, on the individual story level; I mean it on the collective level of a society that dislikes women.

Two of these books are from the same publisher.

How To Disappear by Ann Redisch Stampler

Nicolette Holland is the girl everyone likes. Up for adventure. Loyal to a fault. And she’s pretty sure she can get away with anything…until a young woman is brutally murdered in the woods near Nicolette’s house. Which is why she has to disappear.

Jack Manx has always been the stand-up guy with the killer last name. But straight A’s and athletic trophies can’t make people forget that his father was a hit man and his brother is doing time for armed assault. Just when Jack is about to graduate from his Las Vegas high school and head east for college, his brother pulls him into the family business with inescapable instructions: find this ruthless Nicolette Holland and get rid of her. Or else Jack and everyone he loves will pay the price.

As Nicolette and Jack race to outsmart each other, tensions—and attractions—run high. Told in alternating voices, this tightly plotted mystery and tense love story challenges our assumptions about right and wrong, guilt and innocence, truth and lies.

How Not To Disappear by Clare Furniss

Our memories are what make us who we are. Some are real. Some are made up. But they are the stories that tell us who we are. Without them we are nobody.

Hattie’s summer isn’t going as planned. Her two best friends have abandoned her: Reuben has run off to Europe to ‘find himself” and Kat is in Edinburgh with her new girlfriend. Meanwhile Hattie is stuck babysitting her twin siblings and dealing with endless drama around her mum’s wedding. Oh, and she’s also just discovered that she’s pregnant with Reuben’s baby.

Then Gloria, Hattie’s great-aunt who no one even knew existed, comes crashing into her life. Gloria’s fiercely independent, rather too fond of a gin sling and is in the early stages of dementia. Together the two of them set out on a road trip of self-discovery — Gloria to finally confront the secrets of her past before they are erased from her memory forever and Hattie to face the hard choices that will determine her future.

How To Disappear by Sharon Huss Roat (August 15)

Vicky Decker has perfected the art of hiding in plain sight, quietly navigating the halls of her high school undetected except by her best (and only) friend, Jenna. But when Jenna moves away, Vicky’s isolation becomes unbearable.

So she decides to invent a social life by Photoshopping herself into other people’s pictures, posting them on Instagram under the screen name Vicurious. Instantly, she begins to get followers, so she adds herself to more photos from all over the world with all types of people. And as Vicurious’s online followers multiply, Vicky realizes she can make a whole life for herself without ever leaving her bedroom. But the more followers she finds online, the clearer it becomes that there are a lot of people out there who feel like her— #alone and #ignored in real life.

To help them, and herself, Vicky must find the courage to face her fear of being “seen,” because only then can she stop living vicariously and truly bring the magic of Vicurious to life.

Geeks and Cons

Last year, I pulled together a short reading list that highlighted fandom and fanfiction as a trend in YA. This isn’t quieting down by any means; if anything, it’s becoming bigger and much more loud and proud. Geeks are finding their way, and not only are we seeing more geeks, we’re seeing more and more fan-centric conventions (aka “cons”) popping up. The con setting is such a great one because the framing device offers so much tension, so much opportunity for drama, and a workable timeframe for a well-plotted, emotionally-infused story.

And just because it makes sense, I’ve included fandom-themed reads here, too. A really interesting thing I noticed in poking around on Goodreads is that about 10 years ago, “Geek” in the title or description of a book was a pejorative; that’s not so much the case in these now.

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia (May 30)

In the real world, Eliza Mirk is shy, weird, and friendless. Online, Eliza is LadyConstellation, anonymous creator of the wildly popular webcomic Monstrous Sea. Eliza can’t imagine enjoying the real world as much as she loves her digital community, and has no desire to try.

Then Wallace Warland, Monstrous Sea‘s biggest fanfiction writer, transfers to her school. Wallace thinks Eliza is just another fan, and Eliza begins to wonder if a life offline might be worthwhile. But when Eliza’s secret is accidentally shared with the world, everything she’s built—her story, her relationship with Wallace, and even her sanity—begins to fall apart.

With illustrations from Eliza’s webcomic, as well as screenshots from Eliza’s online forums and snippets of Wallace’s fanfiction.

Follow Me Back by AV Geiger (June 6; first in a series)

Tessa Hart’s world feels very small. Confined to her bedroom with agoraphobia, her one escape is the online fandom for pop sensation Eric Thorn. When he tweets to his fans, it’s like his speaking directly to her…

Eric Thorn is frightened by his obsessive fans. They take their devotion way too far. It doesn’t help that his PR team keeps posting to encourage their fantasies.

When a fellow pop star is murdered at the hands of a fan, Eric knows he has to do something to shatter his online image fast—like take down one of his top Twitter followers. But Eric’s plan to troll @TessaHeartsEric unexpectedly evolves into an online relationship deeper than either could have imagined. And when the two arrange to meet IRL, what should have made for the world’s best episode of Catfish takes a deadly turn…

Told through tweets, direct messages, and police transcripts.

Geekerella by Ashley Poston (April 4)

Geek girl Elle Wittimer lives and breathes Starfield, the classic sci-fi series she grew up watching with her late father. So when she sees a cosplay contest for a new Starfield movie, she has to enter. The prize? An invitation to the ExcelsiCon Cosplay Ball, and a meet-and-greet with the actor slated to play Federation Prince Carmindor in the reboot. With savings from her gig at the Magic Pumpkin food truck (and her dad’s old costume), Elle’s determined to win…unless her stepsisters get there first.

Teen actor Darien Freeman used to live for cons—before he was famous. Now they’re nothing but autographs and awkward meet-and-greets. Playing Carmindor is all he’s ever wanted, but Starfield fandom has written him off as just another dumb heartthrob. As ExcelsiCon draws near, Darien feels more and more like a fake—until he meets a girl who shows him otherwise. But when she disappears at midnight, will he ever be able to find her again?

Part romance, part love letter to nerd culture.

Grace and The Fever by Zan Romanoff (May 16)

In middle school, everyone was a Fever Dream fan. Now, a few weeks after her high school graduation, Grace Thomas sometimes feels like the only one who never moved on. She can’t imagine what she’d do without the community of online fans that share her obsession. Or what her IRL friends would say if they ever found out about it.
Then, one summer night, the unthinkable happens: Grace meets her idol, Jes. What starts out as an elusive glimpse of Fever Dream’s world turns into an unlikely romance, and leads her to confront dark, complex truths about herself and the realities of stardom.

Kat and Meg Conquer The World by Anna Priemaza (November 7; for some reason, it won’t let me load the cover, which you can see here)

Kat and Meg couldn’t be more different.

Kat’s anxiety makes it hard for her to talk to new people. The only place she feels safe is in front of her computer, playing her favorite video game.

Meg hates being alone, but her ADHD keeps pushing people away. Friends. Her boyfriend. Even the stepfather who raised her.

But when the two girls are thrown together for a year-long science project, they discover they do have one thing in common: their obsession with the online gaming star LumberLegs and his hilarious videos.

Meg’s pretty sure this is fate. Kat doesn’t know how to deal with someone who talks faster than she thinks. But if they can stick together and stay out of their heads, they might figure out how to help each other—and build the kind of friendship Kat never knew she wanted and Meg never believed she’d find.

Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde (March 14)

When BFFs Charlie, Taylor and Jamie go to SupaCon, they know it’s going to be a blast. What they don’t expect is for it to change their lives forever.

Charlie likes to stand out. SupaCon is her chance to show fans she’s over her public breakup with co-star, Jason Ryan. When Alyssa Huntington arrives as a surprise guest, it seems Charlie’s long-time crush on her isn’t as one-sided as she thought.

While Charlie dodges questions about her personal life, Taylor starts asking questions about her own.

Taylor likes to blend in. Her brain is wired differently, making her fear change. And there’s one thing in her life she knows will never change: her friendship with Jamie—no matter how much she may secretly want it to. But when she hears about the Queen Firestone SupaFan Contest, she starts to rethink her rules on playing it safe.

Internet Famous by Danika Stone (June 6)

High school senior and internet sensation Madison Nakama seems to have it all: a happy family, good grades, and a massive online following for her pop-culture blog. But when her mother suddenly abandons the family, Madi finds herself struggling to keep up with all of her commitments.

Fandom to the rescue! As her online fans band together to help, an online/offline flirtation sparks with Laurent, a French exchange student. Their internet romance—played out in the comments section of her MadLibs blog—attracts the attention of an internet troll who threatens the separation of Madi’s real and online personas. With her carefully constructed life unraveling, Madi must uncover the hacker’s identity before he can do any more damage, or risk losing the people she loves the most… Laurent included.

Shoes on Covers

It’s been a few years since we’ve seen shoes taking up some real estate on YA book covers in a way that makes it clear those shoes have meaning in some way. In the cases of these books, that meaning comes in a black boot. Serious business.

16 Ways to Break A Heart by Lauren Strasnick (July 25)

Natalie and Dan were electric from the moment they met. Witty banter and sizzling chemistry made falling in love easy—even inevitable. He was in awe of her subversive art and contagious zest for life; she was drawn to his good-guy charm and drive to succeed as a documentary filmmaker.

But that was before. Before hot tempers turned to blowout fights. Before a few little lies turned to broken trust. Before a hundred tiny slights broke them open and exposed the ugly truth of their relationship.

And now Natalie wants Dan to know just how much he broke her.

Over the course of one fateful day, Dan reads sixteen letters that Natalie has secretly, brilliantly hidden in places only he will find. And as he pieces together her version of their love story, he realizes that she has one final message for him. One that might just send his carefully constructed life tumbling down.

Unfolding through letters, texts, and chats, Lauren Strasnick’s smart, sexy, page-turning new novel is the ultimate he said/she said breakdown of a relationship gone wrong.

Dress Codes for Small Towns by Courtney Stevens (August 29)

The year I was seventeen, I had five best friends…and I was in love with all of them for different reasons.

Billie McCaffrey is always starting things. Like couches constructed of newspapers and two-by-fours. Like costumes made of aluminum cans and Starburst wrappers. Like trouble.

This year, however, trouble comes looking for her.

Her best friends, a group she calls the Hexagon, have always been schemers. They scheme for kicks and giggles. What happens when you microwave a sock? They scheme to change their small town of Otters Holt, Kentucky, for the better. Why not campaign to save the annual Harvest Festival we love so much? They scheme because they need to scheme. How can we get the most unlikely candidate elected to the town’s highest honor?

But when they start scheming about love, things go sideways.

In Otters Holt, love has been deﬁned only one way—girl and boy fall in love, get married, and buy a Buick, and there’s sex in there somewhere. For Billie—a box-defying dynamo—it’s not that simple.

Can the Hexagon, her parents, and the town she calls home handle the real Billie McCaffrey?

In Some Other Life by Jessica Brody (August 29)

Kennedy Rhodes turns down an acceptance to an elite private school, instead choosing to stay at her high school and jump at the opportunity to date the boy of her dreams. Three years later, Kennedy walks in on that same boyfriend cheating with her best friend—and wishes she had made a different choice. But when Kennedy hits her head and wakes up in the version of her life where she chose to attend the private school, she finds that maybe it’s not as perfect of a world as she once thought.

Wedding Bells

I remember a conversation a few years back — back when Erin McCahan’s I Now Pronounce You Someone Else came out — about how there aren’t many weddings or marriage stories in YA fiction. I’ve thought about that a lot, seeing that I have known many who’ve gotten married in their late teens or given it some serious thought (and I got married in my very early 20s). Whenever I see a book that has something to do with marriage in YA, it lands on my radar for this reason, and this year, it looks like we have a few. These don’t necessarily have to do with wedding bells ringing, but they do explore some aspect of wedding culture.

You might, of course, recall that Jenny Han, whose book is featured below, does explore this in her previous solo trilogy, too, if this is a topic that fascinates you.

Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han (May 2)

Lara Jean is having the best senior year a girl could ever hope for. She is head over heels in love with her boyfriend, Peter; her dad’s finally getting remarried to their next door neighbor, Ms. Rothschild; and Margot’s coming home for the summer just in time for the wedding.

But change is looming on the horizon. And while Lara Jean is having fun and keeping busy helping plan her father’s wedding, she can’t ignore the big life decisions she has to make. Most pressingly, where she wants to go to college and what that means for her relationship with Peter. She watched her sister Margot go through these growing pains. Now Lara Jean’s the one who’ll be graduating high school and leaving for college and leaving her family—and possibly the boy she loves—behind.

When your heart and your head are saying two different things, which one should you listen to?

Prince in Disguise by Stephanie Kate Strohm (Fall 2017)

A romantic comedy in which a Mississippi teen finds herself in front of the cameras as her beauty-queen big sister prepares for a reality-TV wedding to a Scottish aristocrat.

Once and For All by Sarah Dessen (June 6)

Louna, daughter of famed wedding planner Natalie Barrett, has seen every sort of wedding: on the beach, at historic mansions, in fancy hotels and clubs. Perhaps that’s why she’s cynical about happily-ever-after endings, especially since her own first love ended tragically. When Louna meets charming, happy-go-lucky serial dater Ambrose, she holds him at arm’s length. But Ambrose isn’t about to be discouraged, now that he’s met the one girl he really wants.

Color Split Covers

This one is a pretty self-explanatory cover trend. I know there are more than the ones below. Book covers that are split in half into two colors (I keep thinking that The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli fits this, but it doesn’t, since it’s the arrows on the cover which are in different colors and not the background color itself).

History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

When Griffin’s first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes. Even though Theo had moved to California for college and started seeing Jackson, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he’s been imagining for himself has gone far off course.

To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his heartache is Jackson. But no matter how much they open up to each other, Griffin’s downward spiral continues. He’s losing himself in his obsessive compulsions and destructive choices, and the secrets he’s been keeping are tearing him apart.

If Griffin is ever to rebuild his future, he must first confront his history, every last heartbreaking piece in the puzzle of his life.

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (March 28)

The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around— and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance to lose his dream forever.

What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?

The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? and if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham (February 21)

Some bodies won’t stay buried.
Some stories need to be told.

When seventeen-year-old Rowan Chase finds a skeleton on her family’s property, she has no idea that investigating the brutal century-old murder will lead to a summer of painful discoveries about the past… and the present.

Nearly one hundred years earlier, a misguided violent encounter propels seventeen-year-old Will Tillman into a racial firestorm. In a country rife with violence against blacks and a hometown segregated by Jim Crow, Will must make hard choices on a painful journey towards self discovery and face his inner demons in order to do what’s right the night Tulsa burns.

Through intricately interwoven alternating perspectives, Jennifer Latham’s lightning-paced page-turner brings the Tulsa race riot of 1921 to blazing life and raises important question about the complex state of US race relations – both yesterday and today.

The Places Between Breaths by An Na (September 5)

Sixteen-year-old Grace is in a race against time—and in a race for her life—even if she doesn’t realize it yet…

She is smart, responsible, and contending with more than what most teens ever have to. Her mother struggled with schizophrenia for years until, one day, she simply disappeared—fleeing in fear that she was going to hurt herself or those she cared about. Ever since, Grace’s father has worked as a recruiter at one of the leading labs dedicated to studying the disease, trying to lure the world’s top scientists to the faculty to find a cure, hoping against hope it can happen in time to help his wife if she is ever found. But this makes him distant. Consumed.

Grace, in turn, does her part, interning at the lab in the gene sequencing department in hopes that one day they might make a breakthrough…and one day they do. Grace stumbles upon a string of code that could be the key. But something inside of Grace has started to unravel. Could her discovery just be a cruel side effect of the schizophrenia finally taking hold? Can she even tell the difference between what is real and what isn’t?

Immaculate Conception

If it’s two books, and it’s one from 2015 and one from 2017, I don’t know if it technically qualifies under my own made-up rules of what a microtrend is. Alas, there are two recentish books about the immaculate conception, and I couldn’t help highlighting them because what a topic. Again, the bigger picture of what books like this and books about dead girls and missing girls say about our culture’s beliefs and interest in teen girls.

Immaculate by Katelyn Detweiler

Mina is seventeen. A virgin. And pregnant.

Mina is top of her class, girlfriend to the most ambitious guy in school, able to reason and study her way through anything. But when she suddenly finds herself pregnant—despite having never had sex—her orderly world collapses. Almost nobody believes Mina’s claims of virginity. Her father assumes that her boyfriend is responsible; her boyfriend believes she must have cheated on him. As news of Mina’s story spreads, there are those who brand her a liar. There are those who brand her a heretic. And there are those who believe that miracles are possible—and that Mina’s unborn child could be the greatest miracle of all.

The Inconceivable Life of Quinn by Marianna Baer (April 4)

Quinn Cutler is sixteen and the daughter of a high-profile Brooklyn politician. She’s also pregnant, a crisis made infinitely more shocking by the fact that she has no memory of ever having sex. Before Quinn can solve this deeply troubling mystery, her story becomes public. Rumors spread, jeopardizing her reputation, her relationship with a boyfriend she adores, and her father’s campaign for Congress. Religious fanatics gather at the Cutlers’ home, believing Quinn is a virgin, pregnant with the next messiah. Quinn’s desperate search for answers uncovers lies and family secrets—strange, possibly supernatural ones. Might she, in fact, be a virgin?

Fathers Own Stores

This would be one of those microtrends you only discover because you’ve read the books. In this case, both girls are the daughters of independent grocery stores. In both cases, the girls are closely linked to those stores, as well as their fathers, and both are set in the boroughs of New York City. These are excellent examples of highlighting class, too.

Another interesting connection between these two books: the main characters go to fancy high schools outside their own neighborhoods.

The Education of Margot Sanchez by Lilliam Rivera (February 21)

THINGS/PEOPLE MARGOT HATES:

Mami, for destroying my social life
Papi, for allowing Junior to become a Neanderthal
Junior, for becoming a Neanderthal
This supermarket
Everyone else

After “borrowing” her father’s credit card to finance a more stylish wardrobe, Margot
Sanchez suddenly finds herself grounded. And by grounded, she means working as an indentured servant in her family’s struggling grocery store to pay off her debts.

With each order of deli meat she slices, Margot can feel her carefully cultivated prep school reputation slipping through her fingers, and she’s willing to do anything to get out of this punishment. Lie, cheat, and maybe even steal…

Margot’s invitation to the ultimate beach party is within reach and she has no intention of letting her family’s drama or Moises—the admittedly good looking but outspoken boy from the neighborhood—keep her from her goal.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (February 28)

Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl’s struggle for justice.

The F-Word Titles

Here’s a little known fact: my book was originally proposed with the title F* It Up: Feminism for the Real World. That dropped pretty quickly, and even when we began brainstorming new titles, I realized how frequently the little wink-nudge of the “F-Word” was being used for book titles.

It’s still a wink-nudge, but at least in YA, it’s not only being used for books about Feminism. There are a few other “F” words, too.

The F-Word by Kiley Roache (June 27)

For Cassandra Davis, the F-word is fraternity—specifically Delta Tau Chi, a house on probation and on the verge of being banned from campus. Accused of offensive, sexist behavior, they have one year to clean up their act. For the DTC brothers, the F-word is feminist—the type of person who writes articles in the school paper about why they should lose their home.

With one shot at a scholarship to attend the university of her dreams, Cassie pitches a research project: to pledge Delta Tau Chi and provide proof of their misogynistic behavior. They’re frat boys. She knows exactly what to expect once she gets there. Exposing them should be a piece of cake.

But the boys of Delta Tau Chi have their own agenda, and fellow pledge Jordan Louis is certainly more than the tank top wearing “bro” Cassie expected to find. With her heart and her future tangled in the web of her own making, Cassie is forced to realize that the F-word might not be as simple as she thought after all.

The Other F-Word by Natasha Friend (March 7)

A fresh, humorous, and timely YA novel about two teens conceived via in vitro fertilization who go in search for answers about their donor.

Milo has two great moms, but he’s never known what it’s like to have a dad. When Milo’s doctor suggests asking his biological father to undergo genetic testing to shed some light on Milo’s extreme allergies, he realizes this is a golden opportunity to find the man he’s always wondered about.

Hollis’s mom Leigh hasn’t been the same since her other mom, Pam, passed away seven years ago. But suddenly, Leigh seems happy—giddy, even—by the thought of reconnecting with Hollis’s half-brother Milo. Hollis and Milo were conceived using the same sperm donor. They met once, years ago, before Pam died.

Now Milo has reached out to Hollis to help him find their donor. Along the way, they locate three other donor siblings, and they discover the true meaning of the other F-word: family.

The Big F by Maggie Ann Martin (August 29)

Danielle effed up. Big time.

Danielle’s plans for the future were pretty easy to figure out… until she failed senior English and her single college application was denied. Suddenly she’s in hot water with very few options, because honestly who applies to a safety school when their mom is a semi-famous “college psychic”?!

Determined to get her life back on track, Danielle enrolls in her hometown community college with a plan: pass her English class and get back into Ohio State and her mother’s good graces. Romance isn’t on her radar… until she reconnects with her childhood crush and golden-boy-next-door, Luke.

Between family drama, first love and finding her own way, Danielle can’t help but feel a little overwhelmed. Thankfully she has her friendship with the snarky and frustratingly attractive Porter, her coworker at the campus bookstore, to push her to experience new things and help keep her afloat.

Feminism: Reinventing the F Word by Nadia Abushanab Higgins

While most people say they believe in equal rights, the word feminism—America’s new F-word—makes people uncomfortable. Explore the history of US feminism through pioneers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, and Gloria Steinem. Meet modern leaders such as Rebecca Walker and Julie Zeilinger, who are striving to empower women at work, in government, at home—and in cultural and personal arenas. Learn from interviews with movement leaders, scholars, pop stars, and average women, what it means to be a feminist—or to reject it altogether. After reading this book, readers will be able to respond to “Am I a feminist?” with a confident, informed voice.

Hardcover to Paperback Makeovers: 6 To Consider

May 23, 2016 |

It’s been a while since I’ve flexed ye old cover change talk muscles, but after writing a lengthy newsletter for Book Riot about cover trends in YA, I wanted to keep going. Let’s take a look at a few recent and upcoming YA books getting repackaged in their paperback editions. Some of these are winning makeovers and some of them might be less-so.

The original hardcover looks are all on the left, and their paperback redesigns are on the right. As always, feel free to weigh in with which you like best, which you think may serve the books or their readers best, and I’d love to know of other redesigns you’ve seen lately (I am currently obsessed with the paperback redesign of Fiona Wood’s Wildlife, which you can’t seem to find anywhere except in images from NOVL, so click to see it here).

Bonus for this round of makeovers: two of them are getting title changes in their paperback incarnations, too. Good luck any and all collection development and readers advisory librarians because I’m sure that won’t be slightly frustrating.

Jenn Marie Thorne’s debut novel The Wrong Side of Right is going from a technicolor look with the simplistic image of a city skyline — DC, of course — and a collection of different handwritten fonts for the title to a cover which features a really uninteresting — and definitely not teenage looking — couple blowing bubbles in front of a painted American flag. The font on the paperback is really a downgrade from the original, as is the entire package. The tagline, “Their love is politically incorrect” makes me wonder what could possibly be politically charged about two white kids holding hands?

I think I’ve gone on the record a few times talking about how people on book covers don’t do it much for me unless it’s a person of color or someone who has something remarkable about them. In this instance, I think the paperback is a huge downgrade. It looks really generic and feels like it has an expiration date to it with the couple’s style.

The Wrong Side of Right will hit shelves in paperback on August 2.

When I first looked at the cover for the paperback of Renée Ahdieh’s The Wrath and the Dawn, I was underwhelmed (see: people on covers of books). It was nice to see a brown girl, of course, so I gave it bonus points for that.

But then I realized that it’s actually a genius cover: it’s the same as the hardback, but with the red designed layer removed. There’s been a tagline added and the title has been made bigger, but it’s the same girl, holding the same pose, and without being hidden.

What gives it an even bigger thumbs up is that the book’s sequel follows the same design as the original hardcover:

Those who like keeping their designs the same in a series don’t have to worry about the redesign of the paperback of the first book impacting the hardcover of the second. It’s the same style; I will bet anything that the paperback of The Rose & The Dagger will remove the blue overlay and we’ll see the fierce brown girl as the starring image on the paperback next year. This entire package is smart, savvy, and unique from what so many other redesigns of series have done.

The Wrath and the Dawn is available in paperback now.

Hotel Ruby, the second book Suzanne Young released last year from Simon & Schuster, sort of fell under the radar, despite the fact Young is a well-loved author (and we like her work here at STACKED since it’s so teen friendly). But this year, it’s getting a redesign in paperback, along with a new title. Rather than staying Hotel Ruby — which I’ll say is a little confusing because what does “Ruby” refer to here, the hotel or the girl in the image? — it will become Hotel for the Lost. Rather than sport an image of a girl behind golden doors of an elevator, it’s getting a spooky, chilling, eerie, and super atmospheric redesign. I love the gothic feel, the new title, and feel like it has such a bigger appeal to its package than the original.

The new tagline is really great: “Stay tonight. Stay forever.” I don’t need to guess what this book is about in the same way I do with the original cover and title. I really want to know why there is just one light on in that hotel, too.

My only criticism for the new look is that it’s not especially memorable; I’ve seen it before and will see it again. However, that sort of familiarity might work in favor for a novel like this, since readers will immediately know whether it is or isn’t a book for them.

Hotel for the Lost will be available October 4.

Carrie Ryan’s Daughter of Deep Silence had a big reveal, and I remember people being really excited by the cover. It’s not bad, despite being a pretty unremarkable white girl on the cover. The image of the ocean art behind her is memorable, and the deep ruby hue in the bottom half of the cover really makes the title and font choice stand out. At the same time, it sort of resembles an Ally Carter “Heist” series novel; they aren’t even in the same realm of books, but without thinking hard, I connect the two and wouldn’t be surprised if that was a challenge for readers hoping for one thing and getting another.

But that paperback redesign does the book even fewer favors. The weirdly hued blue against the weirdly hued yellow font that seems like a relic of the 1970s is completely forgettable, even off putting. I don’t think I even understand the tagline, either, nor what it has to do with the book’s title. Taglines should compel the reader to pick up the book, but this one, in conjunction with the title, lends itself to confusion, rather than curiosity.

It also looks like an adult novel, rather than a YA novel. If that’s the market that it’s geared toward, it might do better than in the teen section.

Daughter of Deep Silence will be available in paperback July 12.

For better or for worse, there’s this redesign worth thinking and talking about. Galgorithm suffers from a pretty forgettable cover on the left, but a title that’s really obnoxious. I’m familiar enough to know this is a book about a boy who wants to get with a girl and is going to figure out a way to do it. But that title is just bad. I can’t see teens, especially teen boys, picking this one up based on the title alone. I try to avoid gender essentialism, but because it will never go away in the library world, it’s a thing that does merit being brought up in cases like this. Beyond the title, though, the cover is unremarkable. It’s the back of a guy who looks like any white guy, any high school, USA. Which isn’t a criticism but what it is.

The paperback redesign also comes with a title change. So now instead of Galgorithm, it’s either Me You Use or Me + You = Us. I actually have no idea.* How would this be looked up in a catalog or on a website to buy? It’s even more obnoxious needing to guess those combinations than it is to have to type in Galgorithm. At least the former is one word.

But the killer for me on the paperback is that John Green’s name is almost as big as the author’s, and it has a much more prominent and obvious placement. My eye drifts up to the pink “John Green” much more quickly than it does down to the lighter blue of “a novel by Aaron Karo,” despite the all-caps use.

Maybe a solution to this would be calling the book Me + You = Us, with the tagline from the original Galgorithm title. I’d be okay with generic high school white boy as the model, too.

(I’m not over that pull quote from Booklist on the paperback, honestly.)

Me You Us and/or Me + You = Us will be available June 21.

*When I went into Edelweiss, I was informed it’s Me You Us. So that formula on the cover image only makes me more irritated now. Good thing I knew the author’s name and could search that way, but I feel for anyone who doesn’t and will be fighting this battle in the future.

Jennifer Mathieu’s Devoted is getting a makeover, going from a cover that’s wonderful and nicely explanative of the book itself — about a girl in a Duggar-like family who is eager to break free from it — to a painfully generic, way-too-bright, and overly-designed look. The girl on the left looks like the kind of girl Rachel in the story is; the girl on the right looks like the kind of girl Rachel in the story is influenced by.

The paperback has added a tagline and overlaid it on top of the girl’s hair, making it nearly impossible to read, in part because of the color choice and more because of the font choice. Sure, the book is about how Rachel can save herself, but, I kind of get that from the original cover, too. With a much better font. And no need for her hair to take on more work than necessary.

I keep thinking that that tagline is also the title, in part because of where it’s situated on the design and in part because the font for it is almost as big as the title. The title being shoved in a corner doesn’t help.

I’m a big fan of the color yellow, but it doesn’t fit the tone or feel of this book at all. It looks like it might be a nice, light, summer-y read, but it’s not. The color and structure of the hardcover are much more true to the book and will lead readers to a better expectation of what’s inside than the new cover.

Devoted will be available in paperback on September 20.

Falling: An Emerging Cover Trend

December 7, 2015 |

The last few years, I’ve done a huge look at cover trends that will be hitting shelves in the new year. I’m going to mix it up a little this go around, though. Rather than a couple of huge posts with all of the trends, I’m going to highlight them in individual posts throughout the next few months. Consider it more pow, as well as an opportunity for me to see more of the fall covers as they’re released and fit the various trends. All book descriptions provided will be from Goodreads.

Up first is a really curious one to me — it’s the trend of people falling on covers. I’ve talked before about the covers where a shadowy figure is running away from the reader on the cover, and we’ve all seen the deluge of covers featuring girls who are drowning or lying dead in a body of water.

But falling from the sky? This is a new one for me. And it’s not hitting shelves lightly come 2016. First, here’s a 2015 cover that might have inspired this trend:

The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle

It’s the accident season, the same time every year. Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom.

The accident season has been part of seventeen-year-old Cara’s life for as long as she can remember. Towards the end of October, foreshadowed by the deaths of many relatives before them, Cara’s family becomes inexplicably accident-prone. They banish knives to locked drawers, cover sharp table edges with padding, switch off electrical items – but injuries follow wherever they go, and the accident season becomes an ever-growing obsession and fear.

But why are they so cursed? And how can they break free?

It’s an eye-catching cover, for sure. I think the color scheme behind the falling girl is what does it, though, not her. And both that color infused backdrop and a falling teen pepper the trend as it grows in 2016.

Ascending the Boneyard by C. G. Watson (Simon Pulse, February 16)

Everything’s a battle.

Sometimes life gets too real, and Caleb Tosh has taken one hit too many. First, there was the accident that changed everything for Tosh’s younger brother. Now his mom has left. All the pain, the grief and loss, have finally pushed Tosh over the edge.

If only he could have a do-over. Wipe his reality. Start fresh. Maybe he could fix all of his mistakes and everything would be different. Tosh immerses himself in the complex missions from the game he obsessively plays, The Boneyard. The game bleeds into the dark nature of his everyday life, folding reality into surreality until it’s impossible to separate one from the other. Tosh is desperate to Ascend, to reach the next level, to become Worthy.

Readers are brought on a one-of-a-kind, absorbing journey where no one can say what is real and what isn’t—right up until the shocking, yet deeply powerful conclusion.

The Blood Between Us by Zac Brewer (HarperTeen, May 3)

Growing up, Adrien and his sister, Grace, competed viciously for everything. It wasn’t easy being the adopted sibling, but Adrien tried to get along; it was Grace who didn’t want anything to do with him. When their scientist parents died in a terrible lab fire, there was nothing left to hold them together.

Now, after years apart, Adrien and Grace are forced to reunite at the elite boarding school where their parents were teachers. Being back around everyone he used to know makes Adrien question the person he’s become, while being back around Grace makes him feel like someone he doesn’t want to be.

For as much as Adrien wants to move on, someone seems determined to reopen old wounds. And when Adrien starts to suspect that Grace knows more about their parents’ deaths than she let on, he realizes there are some wounds no amount of time can heal. If Adrien isn’t careful, they may even kill him.

Heir to the Sky by Amanda Sun (Harlequin Teen, April 26)

As heir to a kingdom of floating continents, Kali has spent her life bound by limits—by her duties as a member of the royal family; by a forced betrothal to the son of a nobleman; and by the edge of the only world she’s ever known—a small island hovering above a monster-ridden earth, long since uninhabited by humans. She is the Eternal Flame of Hope for what’s left of mankind, the wick and the wax burning in service for her people, and for their revered Phoenix, whose magic keeps them aloft.

When Kali falls off the edge of her kingdom and miraculously survives, she is shocked to discover there are still humans on the earth. Determined to get home, Kali entrusts a rugged monster-hunter named Griffin to guide her across a world overrun by chimera, storm dragons, basilisks, and other terrifying beasts. But the more time she spends on earth, the more dark truths she begins to uncover about her home in the sky, and the more resolute she is to start burning for herself.

The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry (Razorbill, January 26)

Natalie Cleary must risk her future and leap blindly into a vast unknown for the chance to build a new world with the boy she loves.

Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start… until she starts seeing the “wrong things.” They’re just momentary glimpses at first—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right.

That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.” The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.

Emily Henry’s stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we’ve left untaken.

Places No One Knows by Brenna Yovanoff (Delacorte, May 17)

Waverly Camdenmar doesn’t have friends, she has social assets. She doesn’t get sucked into drama, she makes tactical decisions. Her life is dominated by achievement, competition, and functioning as the power behind the throne in her school’s little kingdom of popularity. But even the most resilient mercenary has weaknesses. Perfection is exhausting, and her longstanding alliance with queen-bee Maribeth rests on a foundation of resentment, anxiety, and a nagging feeling that there must be something beyond student council. Waverly’s name might be at the top of every leader board, but she hasn’t slept in days.

In a last-ditch attempt at relaxation, she finds herself at the center of an inexplicable phenomenon when a harmless counting exercise ends with Waverly materializing in front of one of the school’s most dedicated burn-outs. Marshall is not someone Waverly would ever consider … well, she would just never consider him. His nights are spent indulging in the kind of self-destructive pastimes she can only roll her eyes at. But despite herself, her curiosity is piqued. He sees her—really sees her —and his earnestness and his empathy are strangely affecting.

In these ghostly dreams, Waverly can do what she wants and say what she thinks, without risk or repercussion. Without it meaning anything. As nights pass, however, she begins to understand the nature of relationships, and to question her own daytime machinations. Her encounters with Marshall are growing steadily more intimate. Every new interaction forces her to ask herself how close is too close, and her days are becoming restless, complicated by her silent anger at Maribeth, and her budding friendship with a raucous, enigmatic girl who was never supposed to be anything but Waverly’s latest pygmalion project.

The truth is, it’s hard to be cavalier about hurting people when you know them. When you love them. As her edges begin to fray, Waverly must confront the very real danger of losing Marshall to the rigid image she’s spent so long cultivating, and accept that the only way to keep the people who matter to her is to embrace what it means to be vulnerable.

Have you seen other YA novels hitting shelves in 2016 featuring falling bodies? I’d love to know about ’em and more, I’d love to know what you make of this particular trend. I guess the only thing I have to really say about it is that I appreciate it’s not all girls who are falling (and thus falling apart or breaking), as clearly there are also boys who are in the same positions.

Cutaway Covers

October 6, 2015 |

I touched on this sort of cover design a few years ago, and I always enjoy seeing it pop up again. Often, the finished hardback book will have portions of the dust jacket actually cut away, revealing the characters or the action or a cityscape or some other hint at the plot underneath. It adds a lot of interest to the cover, often making two distinct covers for the reader to discover (one on the dust jacket, the other on the hardback underneath). Textured covers always helped sell books to me when I was a teen – and let’s be honest, they help sell books to me as an adult, too. What do you think of this design choice? I don’t think it’s used enough to be overdone yet, but I have seen it more frequently within the past year or so; almost all of the titles below have 2014 or later publication dates.

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh (2015)

In this reimagining of The Arabian Nights, Shahrzad plans to avenge the death of her dearest friend by volunteering to marry the murderous boy-king of Khorasan but discovers not all is as it seems within the palace. [description via WorldCat]

The Rose and the Dagger by Renee Ahdieh (2016)

In a land on the brink of war, Shahrzad has been torn from the love of her husband Khalid, the Caliph of Khorasan. She once believed him a monster, but his secrets revealed a man tormented by guilt and a powerful curse—one that might keep them apart forever. Reunited with her family, who have taken refuge with enemies of Khalid, and Tariq, her childhood sweetheart, she should be happy. But Tariq now commands forces set on destroying Khalid’s empire. Shahrzad is almost a prisoner caught between loyalties to people she loves. But she refuses to be a pawn and devises a plan. [description via Goodreads]

Some of the Parts by Hannah Barnaby (2016)

A devastated teenaged girl sets out on a quest to track down transplant recipients after she discovers that her older brother was an organ donor. [description via WorldCat]

Killer Instinct by S. E. Green (2014)

When seventeen-year-old Lane becomes involved in the search for a serial killer active in the Washington, D.C. area, she worries that her life-long fascination with such murderers has a very real and terrible cause.

Now That You’re Here by Amy K. Nichols (2014)

When street smart graffiti artist Danny is jolted into a parallel world, only Eevee, an alluring science geek, has the know-how to get him home, but as he falls for her, his motives grow foggy. [description via WorldCat]

While You Were Gone by Amy K. Nichols (2015)

Eevee, an aspiring artist and daughter of Arizona’s governor, and Danny, a reformed troublemaker who lives in foster care in his own world, join forces to correct a breach between parallel universes. [description via WorldCat]

The Book of Ivy by Amy Engel (2014)

In an apocalyptic future where girls from the losing faction are forcibly married to boys of the winning faction, sixteen-year-old Ivy is tasked to kill her fiancé Bishop, although when she finally meets him, he is not the monster she has been led to believe. [description via WorldCat]

The Revolution of Ivy by Amy Engel (2015)

Ivy Westfall is beyond the fence and she is alone. Abandoned by her family and separated from Bishop Lattimer, Ivy must find a way to survive on her own in a land filled with countless dangers, both human and natural. She has traded a more civilized type of cruelty-forced marriages and murder plots-for the bare-knuckled brutality required to survive outside Westfall’s borders. But there is hope beyond the fence, as well. And when Bishop reappears in Ivy’s life, she must decide if returning to Westfall to take a final stand for what she believes is right is worth losing everything she’s fought for. [description via WorldCat]

The 100 by Kass Morgan (2013)

When 100 juvenile delinquents are sent on a mission to recolonize Earth, they get a second chance at freedom, friendship, and love, as they fight to survive in a dangerous new world. [description via WorldCat]

Dead to Me by Mary McCoy (2015)

In 1948 Hollywood, a treacherous world of tough-talking private eyes, psychopathic movie stars, and troubled starlets, sixteen-year-old Alice tries to find a young runaway who is the sole witness to a beating that put her sister, Annie, in a coma. [description via WorldCat]

The Notorious Pagan Jones by Nina Berry (2015)

Pagan Jones went from America’s sweetheart to fallen angel in one fateful night in 1960: the night a car accident killed her whole family. Pagan was behind the wheel and driving drunk. Nine months later, she’s stuck in the Lighthouse Reformatory for Wayward Girls and tortured by her guilt–not to mention the sadistic Miss Edwards, who takes special delight in humiliating the once-great Pagan Jones. But all of that is about to change. Pagan’s old agent shows up with a mysterious studio executive, Devin Black, and an offer. [description via WorldCat]

There Will Be Lies by Nick Lake (2015)

Shelby Cooper, nearly eighteen, has been overprotected by her single mother all her life but after a car accident, Shelby’s life is transformed not only by the discovery of secrets about herself, but also by trips into “The Dreaming,” where she is sent on a heroic quest wrapped in Native American mythology. [description via WorldCat]