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2017: Favorite Reads, Reading Experiences, and Year-End Reflection

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2017 Favorite Reads

As 2017 draws to a close with less than a week left, I feel strongly enough that my favorite reads of the year won’t change too much. I always wonder about the lists of favorites that many post early: are they going to miss something that they read later? Are books publishing at the end of the year getting cheated a bit?

Here’s what I’m calling my favorite reads of 2017. I’ve limited to books published this year, though I did read a number of great backlist titles as well. This is a mix of fiction and nonfiction, as well as young adult and adult titles. These are in alphabetical order, not in any ranking. It was interesting to look back and see what books really hit me at the beginning of the year that I’d sort of forgotten about by this point.

 

 

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez

This story about a girl who loses her sister — the daughter who’d been the “good Mexican daughter” of the family — is a look at grief, at cultural pressures, and at how to juggle your familial obligations with the dreams you have which extend beyond the boundaries of your city. A fresh voice, with a powerfully drawn Chicago from an author who I cannot wait to read more from. Sanchez put out a poetry collection a couple of months before this book hit, and I am itching to dig into it.

 

 

I Believe In A Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo

My heart does this little fluttery thing every time I think about this book. Desi Lee lives with her single father, and she is awkward as all get out. But after one poor encounter with a boy too many, she turns to K-Dramas to help her create a list of ways to find love and keep it. This is a hilarious read, with tons of heart, and it’s a rom com that should appeal to both those who love romance, those who love humor, and those who find themselves falling in love with pop culture. This book has mega appeal to any reader who has a fandom and turns to it in times of need. Though K-Drama wasn’t a thing Desi started the story loving, it really becomes a passion for her. Goo includes a ton of recommended viewings in the back of the book, too.

 

 

 

 

Janesville by Amy Goldstein

Not enough people read this book, especially those who fell in love with Evicted by Matthew Desmond (which is also fabulous). Goldstein takes a hard look at Janesville, Wisconsin, and what happened to what was once a true middle class city that thrived around manufacturing and more specifically, a GM plant which paid great wages, when it shut down. I live close to Janesville, and I’ve worked in many of the Rock River cities nearby, which also suffered as a result of this. The book takes a peek inside the lives of a variety of families impacted by the GM closing, as well as the closing of the formerly thriving pen company Parker Pens. It’s a HARD read, but it’s a great one about the ripple effects of job loss. It’s imperfect, but there is so much to pull from here on a micro level that reflects a lot of the macro level economic changes in the last decade. There’s some really insightful stuff in here, too, about the former darling Paul Ryan and how his image has really been changed in the city that once reveled in what he could do for it. For readers who’ve ever been confused by Wisconsin politics, well, this one will help a lot.

I compare this one to Evicted a lot because Evicted takes place in Milwaukee, and it’s incredible to see what happens there vs. Janesville — the two cities are only about 70 miles apart.

 

 

 

 

The Lake Effect by Erin McCahan

I laughed so hard reading this book, and every time I think about it, I find myself trying to stifle a laugh. This is a book about a boy in the summer between the end of high school and beginning of college. He takes a job as an assistant to an elderly woman on the shore of Lake Michigan and all of the….quirks she has. But as much as her quirks are a riot, the true riot is all of the mishaps he has while trying to keep her happy and doing his job for her. Then he meets the girl next door who has some kind of secret that he wants to get to the bottom of. The second (SPOILER) is that she has crones disease and it has made her life a living hell (END SPOILER) and he learns how to lean into the fact she’ll never be anybody but exactly who she is.

There’s a scene in this book that involves funerals (okay, a lot of those) but one in particular had me in hysterics on the train. I had to close to book so as not to get too many weird stares.

 

 

 

 

Like Water by Rebecca Podos

We’ve all read a ton of YA books about the kids who get out of their small towns as soon as they graduate. This is not that book. This is instead about the girl who sticks around to help out in the family restaurant, as well as to help her father who is succumbing to his illness. It’s a book about sexuality and the fluidity of language and definition when it comes to sexuality. This is a book that’s all about a powerful voice, some gorgeous writing, and a take on the sort of “after high school” story we rarely see. Super inclusive, as well as incredibly creative (the summer job that Vanny gets is one of my favorites in YA of all time).

 

 

Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert

This was my first read of 2017, and it remains one of the best YA books I’ve ever read. It’s a story about a solid and powerful sibling relationship — half siblings borne of a blended family — and what happens when one of those siblings struggles with bipolar disorder that the other one can’t fix. It’s also about relationships and romance, about sexuality and about living one’s life on one’s own terms. Colbert is an expert at weaving in a lot of plot lines and complexities among her characters and doing so without ever making the book feel over stuffed or unreal.

 

 

 

Malagash by Joey Comeau

This little book is one that I saw virtually no talk about, despite the fact it deserves so much more love and conversation. Sunday’s father is about to die of cancer, and she’s figured out a way to replicate his life in the virtual world through a virus. By creating this virus, her father’s words and voice will live in the hard drives of millions across the world. Of course, this book isn’t about the virus. It’s about the way we all mourn loss, especially the loss we know is coming and can’t do anything to resolve. It has a lot of dark humor woven through, but this tiny little book (all 182 pages) is an emotional powerhouse.

 

 

Nomadland by Jessica Bruder

I picked this one up to listen to on a series of long drives and found myself unable to stop listening until I finished it. Bruder explores the new American lifestyle that came from the loss of retirement security in the great economic crash. The book followers a few individuals as they make lives for themselves in RVs and other moving vehicles, scraping together pennies in seasonal jobs that seek people just like them out. Back when my husband and I took our annual vacation this year, we went up to the Apostle Islands (a National Park in Wisconsin’s part of Lake Superior), and one of the couples we met while there had told us they lived in Arizona but had spent the summer as camp hosts in Wisconsin, and this was one of their destinations on their way back home. Bruder’s book is a look at lives like theirs.

But what made this really a strong read for me was the look at Amazon’s practices with their warehouse employees. I feel like everyone “knows” how tough Amazon working conditions are, but I felt myself getting sick thinking about someone like my grandmother being forced to walk 20+ miles a day on concrete floors, get repetitive stress injuries, being told to pill up at the pain pill stations, and more, just so they could meet unreasonable daily quotas. It really changed how I use Amazon.

This was a book I recommend with Janesville when it comes to thinking about how much our economy and the middle class has changed.

 

 

 

 

Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson

I think Watson’s YA is some of the most underrated YA out there, and this book — another read with a short page count — packs in so much about race, class, and discrimination. But in addition to taking a sharp look at all of those meaty topics, this is a book that, at heart, is about a girl who loves art. Her passion shines through, and it was such a powerful reminder that, amid all of the awful and tough things a person experiences in their daily life, there can be something that drives them and keeps them afloat.

 

 

 

 

A Short History of The Girl Next Door by Jared Reck

I’m not a crier. But this book? I was crying for the entire second half of the (again!) short little read. This is a book about a boy who has grown up with a great female friend across the street and how he feels when suddenly, their freshman year of high school, she gets a boyfriend. He has to struggle with never taking a chance with her beyond their friendship.

But then THE THING happens and suddenly, this book becomes one about learning how to grow up, deal with your emotions for yourself, and learning that the world does not revolve around you and your pain is not worse than anyone else’s. There’s a great look at toxic masculinity that, while not called that, is so clear and obvious that it begs to be talked about. I read a book earlier this year that has been gracing the New York Times List over and over which tried to do this, but failed spectacularly. But Reck’s book? Gets it.

This is one that readers itching for younger YA protags will want to pop on their reading list. Also, it’s a feels book. You’re going to have them all. And you’ll need tissues, too.

But it’s worth it.

 

 

 

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

If I could choose to write with the sort of brevity and emotional impact as any writer, it’d be LaCour. This is a powerful book about grief, about friendship, and about love. It’s a slower read, but it’s absolutely beautiful. It oozes with loneliness while settling into your bones and making you feel like you yourself are not alone. A literary gem.

 

 

 

 

You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie

This book gave me a lot of the same kinds of feelings that LaCour’s did, but this one is a memoir about Alexie and his relationship to his mother. It’s vulnerable. Told through short vignettes, this explores relationships, family, life on the reservation, and the challenges Alexie had with his mother…while also offering compassion and insight into why and how she did what she did as a mother and what it was he was able to get from his relationship with her. Readers who love Alexie’s YA book will want to give this a read, in part because he talks about the book and the process for how it came to be. It’s not an easy nor a quick read, but the format and style make it one you can pick up and put down over the course of time you need to read it.

 

 

 

 

2017 Favorite Bookish Moments

I was so lucky to be able to do so many things relating to Here We Are‘s release this year, and I got to meet so many incredible readers and writers. Here’s an abbreviated reflection on some of my favorite moments relating to that, as well as some of my favorite/biggest reading moments:

  • I attended two literary festivals: the Tucson Book Festival (wherein I got to see this gorgeous city with the help of Hannah Gomez, who gave me a grand tour as a local) and the San Antonio Book Festival (wherein I spent the morning of my event wandering the River Walk alone, visiting the Alamo again, and then having my event in the most amazing cathedral talking about feminism with Jessica Luther and Siobhan Vivian).

 

  • I’d asked my publicist about doing an event at Book People — the bookstore which really was a buoy for me during my time in Austin — and it happened. Not only did it happen, but it was a standing room only event, and I’ll never forget seeing so many faces from my time at school down there. One of the folks who attended said it was likely the biggest assembly of UT iSchool students in one place that wasn’t a study session.

 

  • After my annual review for Book Riot, we’d talked about dreams/goals/what I’d like to do. We did not once talk about beginning a YA podcast, but a month later, the idea was floated to me, and then when I floated to Eric Smith that I’d love him as a cohost, it was born. This is such a fun little biweekly podcast, and it’s fun to talk enthusiastically about books and reading with someone who is as enthusiastic as Eric is.

 

  • For my 33rd birthday, I set a goal of funding 33 classrooms through Donors Choose. This was in mid-August. By my birthday at the end of September, one of my editors at Algonquin asked if she could take part and up the number of funded classrooms to match her birthday age (her birth date was a few days after mine). We funded over 56 classrooms in a little over a month. It was incredible and reminded me how, when a community can come together, big changes can happen.

 

  • I did a bookstore event in Vermont, driving there by myself from Providence, Rhode Island. It was my first time renting a car alone, and it was my first time driving through the northeast. It was my first time in Vermont. When I got to the bookstore, I was surprised to see not one, not two, but THREE of my friends from various parts of my life. Unbelievable love.

 

  • And that day? It only got better when I then drove from Vermont to the Hudson Valley for an event at Oblong Books, where another friend had surprised me by showing up. Book people are the best people.

 

  • I sold my second anthology (Don’t) Call Me Crazy, about mental health, and spent almost all year putting it together. It’s in copyedits now for a fall publication date.

 

  • I rediscovered my love of nonfiction books on audio. I finally got an audible subscription — a perk of being a podcast host for my job — and I’ve listened to a lot of great nonfiction while doing various household tasks. I’m considering installing one of those bluetooth shower speakers when we move into our new home early next year (we’re moving from Wisconsin to Illinois, which isn’t bookish news, though I guess saying we’ll be 4 blocks from an amazing local indie and under a mile to the local library IS bookish).

 

  • I made the difficult, but necessary, decision to step down from my role as a panelist on this year’s first round YA Cybils committee. It wasn’t giving me what I needed in terms of discussion or critical evaluation, so I did what was best for me and left. No hard feelings with the Cybils or anyone involved; it was 100% for and about me and my needs.

 

  • I read all of Harry Potter for the first time. I revisited all of the Ramona Quimby books. I read through all of Stephen King’s It. I’ve started thinking a bit about what it is I’d like to make my reading project for 2018, and I’m thinking about the LM Montgomery books I never read (I tried reading the Emily series at one point, but I wasn’t ready to commit).

 

  • This here little blog celebrated 9 years. I continue to love what Kimberly and I are able to do every week and continue to appreciate those of you who are new readers, long time readers, or who happened to stumble upon us.

 

  • Attending and speaking at NCTE/ALAN was one of my favorite experiences, as was moderating a panel at ALA on feminism, inclusivity, and the need for all of us to do better — where I got to have five excellent women of color talking about their work, about their stories, and learn so much that, I hope, makes me not just a better person, but also a more thoughtful and critical reader.

 

  • I created the #RiotGrams challenge for Book Riot and ran this Instagram bookish photo challenge in February, June, and October (which, incidentally, will be when it hits again this coming year if you want to take part). It was so fun to build such a fun bookish community on Instagram and build my TBR simultaneously.

 

  • I kept up with Litsy (you can follow me there @kelly) and with Goodreads, as well as kept a massive reading spreadsheet for myself. My longest read this year was It by Stephen King. And with a good estimation, my total page count landed somewhere in the 145,000 range, with roughly 135 books read total.

 

  • One fun thing I did this year: I tracked my library holds on Instagram. I’m going to do this again in the new year, perhaps with a special tag so I can round them up periodically for sharing.

 

 

Thanks for this year, 2017. I’m eager to see where 2018’s reading leaves me. I know for now, in this last week, I’m ready to pick up a few “for me only” reads, tackle some of the excellent gift books I’ve received, and relaxing.

 

 

Cybils Wrap-Up: Stats and the Ones That Got Away

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I read 91 books this year as a panelist for Round 1 YA speculative fiction. Out of those 91, I finished 68 and left 23 unfinished. Of those 68 I finished, 21 were books I had read prior to the start of Cybils season. This means I read 47 books in their entirety (and about 25-50 pages of an additional 23 books) in about three months, which works out to a whole book every two days. That’s quite a lot of reading!

I love our shortlist for YA speculative fiction this year, and I think it’s nearly as perfect as it can get. That said, there were some great reads that I loved but didn’t make the cut. I wish we could have put 15 books on the shortlist! Alas, I will comfort myself by blogging about them and telling you why they are fantastic. I hope you’ll give them a shot and recommend them to the teens in your life.

The Islands at the End of the World by Austin Aslan
I loved this story of survival in a worldwide power blackout featuring a teenage girl with epilepsy set on the islands of Hawaii. Leilani is half Native Hawaiian, half white, about to begin a medical study for an epilepsy treatment when the blackout hits. She and her father must try to make it back to the Big Island from Oahu and reunite with the rest of their family amidst the chaos and danger. The first portion of the novel is pure survival, with a few hints at the source of the global catastrophe. Later on, it becomes clear what’s causing the blackout, and it’s completely unique and very much science fiction. The writing during this portion is particularly lovely and I read it several times over because I loved it so much. There’s also a great portrayal of a positive father/daughter relationship that I don’t see much of in YA fiction.

Not only is this a fast-paced survival story with a really fresh SF twist, it also features a protagonist of color with deep ties to the environment of Hawaii and her Native Hawaiian culture. Being half-white, half-Native, Leilani often feels caught between two worlds, never belonging completely in either. This crisis allows her to explore that tension and eventually determine that she does have a home and a purpose in Hawaii as she’s always wanted. It’s obvious Aslan has a great love for Hawaii as a place and for its people and their culture (he is not Native but lived there for some time). There’s a solid end to this with room for a sequel, which I very much look forward to reading.

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
Intense romance, an often-cruel heroine, a unique re-telling of a beloved fairy tale, and lovely writing all combine to make this debut a complete winner. It’s lush and creative and I loved every minute of it. I wrote about it more in February of last year.

Dissonance by Erica O’Rourke
This is a world-building lover’s dream with lots of details about parallel/alternate worlds and how Walkers like protagonist Del travel between them. It’s also partly a thriller featuring a conspiracy and plenty of flawed characters with secret motivations. It’s not a particularly fast read, but it’s creative and deep. More here.

The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson
Well, you all know this is a book of my heart. It’s terrific high fantasy with a spirited heroine who is determined to claim a life of her own. You can read more about my love for it here.

Divided We Fall by Trent Reedy
This is not normally a book I’d pick up my own, but I’m glad I did for the Cybils. It tells of a near future that seems so plausible it’s scary (a showdown between the federal government and a state government over a federal ID law that blooms into full-scale civil war). National guardsman Travis is caught in the middle after his gun discharges at a protest. Travis has a great voice; I feel like he exists in so many of today’s small-town, semi-rural high schools, and voices like his aren’t heard enough in YA fiction. The audio production is one of the best I’ve ever listened to. More here.

2014 Reading Stats and Data Sheets

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Every year, I like to take a look at my reading in terms of data. Who was I reading? What was I reading? Were there any trends? I’ve been doing a statistical breakdown of these for a few years now, and I’ve gotten it to a science where I don’t need to look at too much information to get a clear picture of where I am, what I want to do in the next year, and where I could improve.

I’d planned on posting this before the end of 2014, but I made some decisions in terms of stats keeping that I wanted to change. I wanted to look not just at the books I read, but also the books that I bought. Am I putting my money where my mouth is when it comes to things like diversity? What am I buying? 
Then I decided, too, that I wanted to set up a series of spreadsheets for 2015 that looked not just at my books read and books purchased data, but also the books I received from publishers. Am I getting diverse books if I don’t ask for them? What is being sent to me in multiples? I’m not sure this data will tell me a whole lot at the end of this year, but I know it’ll be interesting to look at. I’ve already found there are books I’m getting in multiple. 
Because it’s the start of a new year and I know other people are looking to be more mindful of their own reading and purchasing habits, I’m making my basic Google Doc available for anyone to use. There are three sheets here — one for reading, one for purchasing, and one for review copies received. Save a copy of this publicly-available doc on your own Google Drive or download it to your computer and feel free to adapt it to your own needs. All of the categories are pretty self-explanatory. 
If you want to push your reading and data collection even further, I can’t recommend the Ultimate Reading Spreadsheet from Book Riot highly enough. It looks at way more than I do, but I know how useful that can be. Sarah Enni also created a really robust reading data spreadsheet, especially good for tracking genre/audience of books read, if you’re looking for more options. 
Here’s a look at my last year in reading.
In 2014, I read a total of 113 books. There were a total of 119 authors represented, which included illustrators and collaborators on graphic novels and comics. I did not include the translators of the two books I read that were in translation in that count. 
By gender: 
I read a total of 24 books written or illustrated by men and a total of 95 written or illustrated by women. I’m okay with this break down. I might try to read more men — specifically men of color — in 2015. 
By audience/category:
Out of the 113 books I read in 2014, 82 were YA, 27 were adult, and 4 were middle grade. I was surprised to see that I read that many adult books. I’m hoping in 2014 to read more adult books — I’m especially hoping to read a good chunk of memoirs by women of color. 
Other data:
  • 21 of the books I read were written by authors who debuted in 2014. This is a stat I’m pleased with.
  • 8 of the books I read had LGBTQIA+ themes to them. This is a low number, especially considering I thought I was reading a good spread of these books. But it turns out I happened to read many in a row, and then I didn’t read many more after. I’m going to improve here in 2015.
  • 32, or 28%, of the books I read this year were written by people of color or featured main characters of color. I’ve included Native authors here, even though Deb Reese explains why Native authors aren’t “people of color,” for the sake of my own record keeping. 

Here’s a look at my 2014 in terms of books purchased.
Before I looked at the books I bought, I thought I didn’t buy many books. When I pulled them all out, I’d purchased a total of 46 books, which is more than 3 per month. That’s way more than I thought and far higher than the average person (which ranges somewhere between 6 and 11, depending on what sources you read). There were a total of 47 authors and for some reason, I didn’t include the illustrators in this round. 
Not included in this data are the books I bought for prizes for readers here at Stacked. These are only titles I added to my personal library. 
By gender:
36 of the books I bought in 2014 were written by women, while 11 were written by men. These percentages look pretty darn close to the ones for the genders of authors of books I read in 2014. 
By or about people of color:
Almost one-third of the books I bought were written by people of color or featured main characters of color. Again, I included Native authors and characters in this grouping. This number was solid; this is something I am conscious of when I buy books. One night I walked out of a bookstore this year — a chain — because I could not find one book in the YA section by a person of color that wasn’t on the New York Times list to buy. 
In 2015, I hope to up this percentage even more. 
By category/audience:
I bought slightly more adult, when non-fiction and fiction are combined, than I did YA. But not much. Since I tend to read more YA, I tend to borrow it much more frequently than I do buy it, because otherwise, I would never have any money. 
Keeping track of my reading means when the year winds down and I start thinking about the next year’s reading, I’m able to be more intentional in my choices. Intentionality is what guides my reading, not a set of goals or bench markers.

“Best of YA” Lists By the Numbers: 2011 – 2014 Stats, Comparisons, and Thoughts

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In 2011, I started keeping track of the YA books that made the “best of” lists across the professional publications, which include Kirkus, Horn Book, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and in instances where it’s happened, Library Journal. My methods of data collection have varied a little each year, as sometimes I’ve been more interested in one element than another or it’s a matter of time, energy, and having read or having had access to titles to verify what they do or do not include.

Since there’s now been four years of data, I thought it would be worthwhile to look at the similarities and differences as seen through these lists. This will be an imperfect post with imperfect data; it wasn’t until the last couple of years I better understood what I was looking at and how to look at it. That means some of the data might be lacking in some years and it might be inaccurate in others. That doesn’t change what’s worth thinking about, though.

All of the data comes from the following posts:

Because the journals have selected varying numbers of titles for their lists, haven’t selected any titles for their lists, and because my own counting has changed over the years, the number of eligible titles in each data set is different. That doesn’t make a huge change, though, when it comes to comparisons by percentages. Most years, between 55 and 90 titles are on these lists. Not all of the categories I’m going to hit in this comparison will have all four years featured; that has been noted where appropriate.
Let’s dig in.
Gender and “Best of” Lists

Have more female authors always been on the “best of” lists? Has there been any sort of change over the last four years? 
In 2011, the gender breakdown was 58% women and 42% men. 
In 2012, 80% of the authors on the “best of” lists were women and 20% were men. 
In 2013, the breakdown was roughly 75% women and 25% men.
In 2014, the break down was roughly 70% female authors and 30% male authors.
Each of the four years, women had more books on the “best of” lists than men did. This is decidedly different than the New York Times Bestsellers list, which is dominated by male authors. On average, 70% of the “best of” authors are women and 30% are men. 
There doesn’t appear to be any trend here in terms of whether male or female authors are earning more or fewer spots each year. 
When it comes to the gender of main characters, comparison is a little tricky, since I haven’t been consistent about keeping track of that. I covered it in 2013 for the first time, but I didn’t create a catch all category of “cast of characters” until this year. So this data is imperfect by nature, but I’m going to share it, since it’s interesting nonetheless. 
In 2013, the split of female and male main characters in YA fiction was almost 50/50. Female voices came ahead only slightly, with 53% of the titles. For a year when there were far more female authors than there were male authors, it can’t be said male voices were underrepresented in the books at all.
2014 had more female voices than male voices represented, but with the cast of characters as a third factor, the representation isn’t hugely different. Again, despite having more female authors on the “best of” lists, the difference in male voices in the books against female voices in the books remains not hugely different. There are plenty of books featuring male main characters and they’re earning recognition. 
Debut Authors and “Best of” Lists

As more people talk about and seek out debut authors, has that impacted the “best of” lists at all? Are we seeing more now than we did in 2011 or are we seeing about the same number? This particular factor interests me as it relates to the Morris award and when the finalists are announced. I haven’t kept record of that from prior to this year, so I can’t make a call on how it may or may not influence picks on these lists.
In 2011, roughly 25% of the books on “best of” lists were by debut authors, while 75% were by authors who’d been previously published.
The numbers changed a little bit in 2012, as 20% of the authors were debuts and 80% were more seasoned authors.
The percentages were unchanged in 2013, with 20% of authors being debut and 80% being previously published.
2014 featured the biggest percentage of debut authors, at almost 29%, with previously published authors filling 71% of the “best of” list slots.
The data shows there’s never been fewer than 20% of “best of” picks going to debut authors. This seems like a really positive percentage and shows how professionals picking these lists aren’t sticking entirely to those voices that are familiar to them. I think that sort of recognition — one that happens with Morris titles, too — helps these books find new readers and helps grow excitement for those debut authors’ sophomore efforts. 
“Best of” Books By Genre

Genre is touch to figure out every year. Some books could go one way or another way, and some books cross genres and blur the lines between them. In fact, something I’ve noticed about many of the “best of” titles over the years is that many of them seem to find themselves on these lists for that very reason — they are doing unique things with genre, making them stand out as memorable. 
But have there been any trends over the last four years? Is there one kind of book doing more strongly than others? Are there genres which don’t seem to appear as many times as others on these lists?
The first stab I took at genre was in 2011, wherein for some reason I thought it was valuable to separate thrillers from mysteries. There weren’t as many genre-braided titles in this year, though as it shows, contemporary/realistic titles had the most representation, followed closely by fantasy, historical fiction, and then mysteries/thrillers, and science fiction. 
The 2012 breakdown looks a little different than 2011, wherein fantasy titles outranked realistic, followed by historical, science fiction, then mysteries/thrillers. There was a noted drop in historical fiction here from the previous year. 
In 2013, I discovered how much easier this data is to look at in bar form than in pie form. Realistic fiction took the top spots this year, followed by historical fiction, then fantasy. If fantasy and paranormal were folded together, it’s likely it would be even with historical, if not slightly more. 
Even when the subgenres of fantasy were collapsed, realistic fiction still held the most “best of” spots in 2014. Fantasy wasn’t far behind. But most interesting is that historical fiction is nearly non-existent in 2014 on the lists — more books were historical fantasy than actual historical fiction. This year also ushered in more titles that were magical realism, as that was a subgenre/blending of genres not seen in previous years. 
Maybe the most interesting thing about this data is how science fiction hasn’t been a leading genre in the “best of” lists. In fact, it’s fallen a bit — are we not seeing science fiction among the “best” anymore? Has there been a drop in the number of science fiction titles being published? Are science fiction books more likely part of a series and thus not always easy to put on “best” lists? There are more questions than answers, but I want to know more about what’s happening with science fiction in YA. 
Also worth noting: despite the fact everyone considered this to be THE year for contemporary/realistic fiction, it’s not really doing better than in previous years. This is a statement I’ve made since the start, and I’ll stick with it: contemporary/realistic fiction isn’t a trend. It’s a staple, and it’s always been there and always been stable. Even if a couple of big names have made it more prominent in bookstores and in getting marketing/publicity money, the trend isn’t changing how well-respected and regarded it is. People have been reading it and people will continue reading it. 
Diversity and the “Best of” Lists

So…have we been seeing more people of color and more LGBTQ representation on the “best of” lists in the last four years? 
My data on this has been presented a few ways, depending on what information I could find about books or authors in a given year. I haven’t made any of this data visual in the past, so I’m going to continue in that trend:
  • In 2011, 8 books were primarily about or featured a main character of color. 2 featured main characters who identified as LGBTQ. I did not count authors in this year, citing that finding the information was too difficult, and I believe this — people have been identifying more in the last couple of years, making that information more public and accessible. 
  • In 2012, there were 89 books and 90 authors represented in the data. I collapsed representation of people of color this year, meaning the count included both the authors who identified and he books that featured a main character of color. There were 20 titles/authors that fit.  A total of 6 books featured LGBTQ main characters or story lines. 
  • In 2013, I kept the author/character counts separate for people of color, and I found that 8 of the authors were people of color, and 10 of the books featured main characters of color, for a total of 18. There were 55 authors and 62 main characters. A total of 5 books by my count featured main characters who identified as LGBTQ, though as noted in the comments, I didn’t include The Dream Thieves, so there are actually 6. 
  • In 2014, there were 14 main characters/authors that I identified as people of color and a total of 6 books that featured LGBTQ main characters or story lines. 

It’s really tough to tell whether or not things are improving or not. Sure, there are more people of color and more LGBTQ stories represented in the last year than in the first year, but it’s still a very small percentage. As I noted yesterday, only 2 books featured stories where the main character identified as LGBTQ and a person of color. I think it’s about damn time we saw more of these stories and about time we saw more of these stories being recognized. 
What can be said, though, is these numbers are still tiny. 
Final Data and Thoughts


There’s not a lot else to dig into when comparing the data that’s particularly useful — I note every year that Candlewick seems to have a good number of titles on “best of” lists for a publisher as small as they are, and I also note every year that books published as hardcovers have a markedly better time of being recognized as “best of” titles than paperback originals or split run titles. Books published in April, May, September, and October have better chances of landing on lists than those published in November, December, January, July, and August. 

Journals have been changing their number of titles selected each year, and that’s been interesting to see. A few years ago, Kirkus selected 100 titles; this year, they selected 50. Not all of them ended up in my count, since they included fiction and non-fiction, but Kirkus still has the largest number of titles on the list, and the titles Kirkus selects more often only end up on the Kirkus list, as opposed to showing up on numerous lists.

Another worthy element to consider, which I haven’t here but could if I were to dig up all of my original spreadsheets, is whether there are authors who are perennial favorites. I have a suspicion, for example, that Maggie Stiefvater and A. S. King are two authors who have appeared every year on these lists (in fact, I know that they have!). Anyone who is up for the challenge of ferreting that out is more than welcome to do so, and I’d be happy to include that work in a link round-up feature here.

So, with all of this data now here, what’s surprising? Is there anything worth thinking about or any conclusions worth drawing? What sort of picture does this paint about what is considered the best in any given year? What is going on in science fiction?

I’d love to hear thoughts and ideas about this, or anything else noteworthy in the “best of” lists, as there’s now a four-year look at data.

“Best of 2014” in YA Fiction List Break Down

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Every year, I like to dive into the “best of” lists and look at the similarities and differences between and among the lists. More, I think it’s worthwhile to dig into what the books that comprise these lists do or don’t have within them — how diverse are they, how are they representing sexuality, what sort of gender make up are the characters and authors, and so forth. Because the “best of” lists offer a glimpse into the year of reading for YA, this is an interesting and worthwhile way to see what is and isn’t happening.

This is the fourth year I’ve done this, and previous data sets can be found here, here, and here. I do plan on looking through them all and comparing across years, since I am curious whether things are looking any differently now in 2014 than they were in 2011. Look for that in the next week or so.

To look at the numbers, I broke apart the “best of” YA lists from the following professional publications: Kirkus, Horn Book, School Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. In previous years, I also used Library Journal’s lists — first a “Best YA” list, then a “Best YA for Adult Readers” list — but they didn’t have one this year. From those lists, I pulled out only the YA fiction, meaning that they were titles designated for those readers 12-18. I did not include graphic memoirs, though I did include graphic novels when they were fiction. In the past I’ve eliminated graphic novels, but this year there were only two, so I kept them. This led to a total of 55 titles being tallied in the data. There were 59 authors considered here, as well. I included translators and illustrators in the author category because their work is as important and worth considering. When I get into the charts and designations, there will be further notes about this, as I could not track down information I’d hoped to and had to leave it out in some places.

Using my own knowledge from reading the books or reviews, I determined whether books featured a main character or main arc that included LGBTQ themes. I double-checked that data with Malinda Lo, who will be posting her 2014 round-up of the year in LGBTQ YA this week. I also looked at whether main characters were people of color or an author was a person of color, as determined through my own reading, reviews, and/or easily researched information. I did have to ask about a couple books and authors, and that information was verified for me. In addition to these analytical pieces, I’ve made notes in my data where other elements of diversity were part of a story; this includes mental illness, disabilities, minor roles for characters of color, and so forth. I did not tabulate this data, but it is all available to look at in my giant spreadsheet. Because writing out titles would make this post very, very long, I encourage having that open while looking at the data, as it’ll make referencing which books were counted where easier.

All information about starred reviews came through Jen J’s exceptionally well-done spreadsheet. There is one note to make about this, which is that I also went through Horn Book’s January/February starred reviews to be completist about it, which led to one title on this list having an additional star yet to be noted on her spreadsheet.

As always, caveats: none of this data means anything. I’ve not tried to draw conclusions or suggest certain things about the books that popped up on these lists. Errors here in terms of counting, in how I’ve marked books LGBTQ or POC are my own, and so forth, are all my own. Since I haven’t read all of these books, some of these are educated guesses.

Now…what do those “best of 2014” YA fiction lists look like this year?

Gender Representation In “Best Of” Lists


When it comes to male and female authors, who has more slots on the “best of” lists?

Out of the 59 authors represented, 18 were men and 41 were female. This isn’t a surprising ratio at all, though it certainly looks a lot different than the ratio we see on the New York Times Bestsellers List. While I’m not going to draw comparisons in this post, I can say that this ratio is smaller than in previous years of looking at this data — there are more men represented in 2014 than in previous years. 
It’s really challenging to look at how main character gender breaks down, but I gave it a go. To make it a little easier, I’ve broken the data into three pieces: male main characters, female main characters, and a third segment, cast of characters. For books with two main characters alternating voices, they’ve been counted in their respective categories. For books with more than two main characters — How It Went Down and The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone, for example — I’ve put them into the cast of characters category. Those books all featured multiple narrators, multiple “main” voices, and both male and female perspectives. I counted a total of 63 main characters (“cast” was counted as a single number here) and the breakdown looks like this:
There were a total of 37 main characters who were female, 22 who were male, and 4 books featured a cast of each. For what many like to believe of YA being a “female dominated” category, these numbers really do not suggest that. These “best of” lists represent a slice of YA, of course, but they represent a vetted and respected slice of YA — one professionals deem to be the most solid or remarkable of the year (or as the case might be in some places, the books that had really nice marketing budgets and got into the right hands). There were more female-driven narrators for sure, but they were not entirely out of line with male narratives here. 
Last year, I wondered if the perspective was that male-led narratives were “better” or more respected than female-driven ones. This is something I’m still curious about, given how much talk there is that there aren’t books out there with male voices or that there aren’t male YA authors. Both of those claims are false, as anyone who knows anything about YA can tell you, but looking at the hard numbers from these lists only confirms those claims aren’t truths. There ARE more female led books, but it doesn’t mean male led books don’t exist. They make up 35% of the “best of” lists this year! 
Debut Authors 

How good are the chances of making a “best of” list when you’re a debut author? Note that all four of these lists appeared before YALSA’s announcement of the five Morris finalists. That, I think, is a good thing, since there could be no influence.
As always, my definition of “debut” is purist. This is a first book. My one exception to this is the same one made for the Morris — if it’s an author’s first book in English for a US audience, I consider it a debut. This was the case in one title included. I included authors as “debut” if they had published in or edited an anthology in the past, as that was the case in a couple of authors. 
More than 1/4 of the books on this year’s lists were written by debut authors, for a total of 16 books written by debuts. This is a really nice showing of new voices within “best of” lists. It’s been my suspicion this year has been a great one for debut authors, and I think that has been playing out in these lists, as well as other year-end round-ups. 
What about gender of debut authors? 
One-quarter of the debuts this year were male, while the rest were female. That breaks down into 4 men and 12 women. 
Back to the note on Morris titles: of the books that landed on the Morris list, four out of five of them also appeared on the “best of” lists: The Story of Owen, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, and The Carnival at Bray. 
“Best Of” By Genre

Every year, this is the hardest breakdown for me, since genre is so fluid. How do you decide exactly what category a book belongs in if you haven’t read it? Or even if you HAVE read it, the breakdowns can be really challenging. One thing is for sure, though: there are zero paranormal titles hanging with the “best of” crowd this year. 
I took a stab at making these genres make sense, and from looking at the titles, my own reading knowledge, as well as other reviews, I pulled out eight main genres: realistic (which includes those books inexplicably set in the 90s, a trend that I have been over for a couple years now), science fiction, fantasy, horror/fantasy, mystery, historical, magical realism, and historical fantasy. 
A caveat here: there are 56 titles being considered here, rather than just 55. Because Scott Westerfeld’s Afterworlds could fall into either the realistic or the fantasy category, depending on the reader, I didn’t want to make a call. I decided to include it in both.
Realistic fiction had a strong showing this year, but it’s also a little bit deceiving. Because there were a number of subgenres of fantasy represented, it could easily be said that fantasy held its own, too. In fact, let’s look at this genre breakdown as we collapse the subgenres into the larger one. All of the books within the “horror/fantasy” subgenre are more fantasy than they are realistic, so I’m putting them in that grouping. 
And if I went ahead and made magical realism a subgenre of fantasy, then it looks like this:
Fantasy outpaced realistic fiction by one book. The two genres eclipsed science fiction, mystery, and the single, lone book in the historical fiction genre. 
Frequency of “Best of” List Appearances

Was there a big spread of titles across this year’s “best of” lists or did many titles end up on many lists? This is a little bit of a false category in that some of the publications — Horn Book, for example — had a very tiny number of titles that fit the criteria I set. Other publications, like Kirkus, had a big number of titles on their list that fit the criteria. 
Some publications that put their lists out very early, like Publishers Weekly, always fascinate me because I wonder how much it may (or may not) influence the appearance of titles on other lists. In other words, is there a “first!” pride in naming a title the best? These numbers won’t shed light on that, but they do show whether some titles were really popular among all of the “best” lists.
Only two books appeared on all four of the “best” lists — We Were Liars by E Lockhart and This One Summer by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki. The vast majority of books landed on one list, and that list would be Kirkus’s. 
Out of curiosity, I wanted to know how the books on the “best of” list shook out when it came to starred reviews earned. I used Jen J’s spreadsheet, as noted above, which includes starred reviews from Kirkus, Booklist, The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, School Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, and Horn Book. That means titles have the chance to have up to six stars. 
Most of the books on the “best of” list earned 1 or 2 starred reviews. Out of the 55 books, only two earned six stars: This One Summer and Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future. 
This One Summer by the Tamakis landed on all four lists and earned six starred reviews. It is, by this measure, the most decorated and distinguished YA novel in 2014. 
As for the entire breakdown of starred reviews and list honors, here’s the spreadsheet:
Sometimes the more stars earned means the more likely the book will appear on multiple “best of” lists and sometimes, it doesn’t. In general, this year looked to be more spread out in terms of the titles being given a “best of” designation. 
“Best of” By Publication Date

One really interesting thing I read in the reports by YALSA committee chairs for an upcoming board meeting was that books published in the latter half of the year had a distinct disadvantage when it came to being considered for the Morris award, which announces its finalists in early December. This is something I have always thought about, especially when it comes to these “best of” lists. While it’s great to announce them in early November or even the first week of December, what about the books that are published later? Reviews are obviously reading all year long, but how easily would a smaller title from a smaller publisher with a not-so-huge marketing budget fall under the radar? Most people know that “big books” are published in the March – May range, as well as the September – October range. That’s not a hard-and-fast rule nor universal, but spend a little time looking at publication frequency, budgets, when book publication dates change, and so forth, and you see the patterns. 
Here’s when the books published each month:
If you look at the first half of the year against the last half of the year, the divide is almost exactly even: 28 of the “best of” titles published between January and the end of June, while 27 published between July and December. October was the most frequent month — how much is that due to fresh memory of titles when list-making time happens? There were zero books published in December on these lists, and there was only one title from the months of November and June. 
Again, nothing can be said about this, but it is interesting to speculate. 


“Best of” By Publisher

How diverse were the publishers represented on the lists? Did we see Candlewick doing really well, as seems to be the case every single year?
I’ve collapsed imprints into their bigger house, so First Second, Tor, and St Martins fall under Macmillan. 
This chart is difficult to read, but breaking it into two charts throws off scaling, which is even more problematic. Everything to the right of Macmillan, which reaches 6 and is in dark blue, lands at one title each. These are primarily smaller publishers, like Pyr, Soho Teen, Holiday House, Algonquin, and so forth. 
Penguin had the most representation on this year’s lists, with 8 books, followed by Random House at 7, Macmillan at 6, and — as always, this makes me so happy — Candlewick had 5. 
While Penguin and Random House are now one publishing house, I chose to keep them separate. Putting them together is really fascinating though: they certainly dominate then, with a total of 15 titles on the “best of” lists. 

Collapsing the publishers down by whether they’re a “Big 5/6” or smaller, the “Big 5/6” have a total of 32 titles on the list, while the mid-size and small publishers have 23. Not a bad split at all. 


LGBTQ and POC Representation on “Best of” Lists

This was a watershed year for discussion of diversity in the publishing world. While it’s always been there, this year, in comparison to prior years, it was a much bigger, more vocal discussion. But did it make any impact on the books on these lists? 
It would be a tease to compare to years past in this post, but the long and the short of it is that the answer is no.
As noted above, I used my own knowledge, research, and consultation with Malinda Lo to pull out the books which featured main characters who identified as LGBTQ or which had significant story lines that involved LGBTQ themes or situations. Where Malinda doesn’t count Sarah McCarry’s About A Girl since it’s not necessarily overt, I have included it, since I thought it was a big enough thread to merit inclusion. I do not look at author’s sexuality when looking at LGBTQ because this is too difficult to gauge without knowing the authors — it’s not obvious, sexuality is fluid, and not all authors choose to self-identify in their bios or information available about them. 
Out of the 55 books, a total of 6 books fit the LGBTQ criteria. That would be 10% of the list. 
What about representation of racial diversity? Because finding information about authors and their racial backgrounds is easier, I fold them into the same category as I do main characters of color. For books where the author is a person of color and their main character is a person of color, I counted it only once. Some authors, whose background may be difficult to distinguish, I reached out to them or to those who know them for confirmation. 
Out of the 55 books and 59 authors, there was a count of 14 writers/main characters of color. That’s roughly 24%. 
What about books that feature or are written by people of color that feature LGBTQ main characters or plot elements? 
2.
It’s still very straight and very white on the “best of” lists. 
It’s worth noting again, though, that some of the books DO feature secondary characters who aren’t straight or aren’t white; those have been noted in the spreadsheet. 

Miscellaneous Data

Let’s wrap this up with a couple more pieces of data that are interesting, even if they’re not necessarily important ones. 
First, there were a total of 49 books published as hardcovers, 3 published as paperback originals, and 3 published as split runs (meaning both hardcover and paperbacks published at the same time). 
Three of the books were novels in verse, and I include Jenny Hubbard’s And We Stay in this count, even though it’s only partially in verse. I did not include Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, though it does include poetry in it. This list also had 3 graphic novels and 1 book in an “alternative” format — The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone‘s interview-format made it worth putting into a category all of its own. 
I’ve always looked at country of origin on these lists, too, as they often seem like they feature a lot of books by authors who aren’t from the US. This year, there were a total of 40 authors who were from the US, and there were 18 from outside the US. I did not include information on one of the illustrators, as I could find nothing about her in my research and didn’t want to make assumptions either way in terms of her country of origin (I did find enough to know other data about her, as reflected above). 
Finally, I broke out books by whether or not they were stand alones or part of a series. There were 39 stand alone titles and 16 books that were part of a series. This included “loose” series, like Dirty Wings. Of the books in a series, I found where they fell within their series to be one of the most interesting pieces of data — where you’d suspect almost entirely first or final books in a series to hit these “best of” lists, it turns out that this year was a good year for books in the middle of a series-in-progress. There was one book that was a final in a series, 10 that were first in a series, and 5 that fell somewhere in the middle. 

So…What Now?


Nothing can be made from this data. It doesn’t mean anything, especially pulled from its context. But nevertheless, it’s interesting to look at and speculate upon because it does give a glimpse into the year of YA as deemed by professionals and experts on YA.

Were there any surprises in this data? Any titles that did or didn’t make the lists that were curious?

One thing I keep wondering about and have zero explanation for — and would love to read some theories about — is why Andrew Smith’s Grasshopper Jungle earned more acclaim from review journals and “best of” lists than his second release this year, 100 Sideways Miles, which was a title on the National Book Awards long list. I thought it was a more accomplished, literary, and full novel (not to mention it portrayed females as actual dynamic characters, rather than as props for use by the male heroes). It was surprising Smith didn’t have both books pop up on these “best of” lists.