This week’s guest post comes from the blogger/librarian who actually inspired the first incarnation of this series, Heidi Zweifel. She’s a local-to-me middle school librarian who asked me simply where to tell teachers they should begin if they wanted to give reading YA a shot. 


Of course, I had to ask her to weigh in and round out the second batch of posts on this very topic. 

Heidi is a middle school library media specialist. She gets to spend her day with seventh and eighth graders so she never knows what to expect. The best part? Getting to talk about books with teens at least once a day! Heidi is passionate about reading and young adult literature. Her goal is to show her students that even if they don’t love reading they can find books that are interesting to them. Her passion of young adult literature is expressed on her blog YA Bibliophile. Follow her on twitter for ramblings on YA lit, pictures of her adorable nieces and nephew, and far, far too many tweets about nothing in particular.

When I think of how I fell in love with young adult literature it’s not individual books that come to mind. It’s authors. I’m the kind of obsessive reader who finds an author they love and must read everything that author has ever written right now. This was especially true when I first started reading YA. Below you’ll find a few of the authors that showed me YA lit can be smart and clever and not “speak down” to it’s readers. They showed me that books can tackle the real issues that teens deal with and not have an “after school special” feel They showed me that YA books can be fun and light or dark and twisted or some combination of the two and still be authentic. If you’re looking at trying out young adult literature I highly suggest you start with any thing by any of these authors.

Other authors I read when new to YA lit: Lisa McMann, Melissa Marr, Robin McKinley, Scott Westerfeld, Maureen Johnson, and Meg Cabot.

This week’s So You Want to Read YA? post comes to us from author Brandy Colbert.

Brandy Colbert grew up in the Missouri Ozarks, holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism, and has worked as an editor for several national magazines. She lives and writes in Los Angeles. Her first novel, Pointe, is forthcoming from G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers/Penguin in April 2014. You can find her at brandycolbert.wordpress.com or hanging out on Twitter @brandycolbert.

I love recommending books to people, whether they’re avid readers or haven’t picked up a novel in months. And even better when I’m introducing someone to YA. Young adult novels have changed a lot since I was a teenager, and for the better. They’re much more prevalent, and YA covers such a wide range of topics that there’s truly something out there for everyone. Yup. Even for the snobbiest of book snobs. My list of favorite YA novels is constantly growing, but here are some of my top picks to get you started:

Nothing Like You by Lauren Strasnick is a book I think about often. The protagonist, Holly, starts out making incredibly poor choices from the first page, and yet I found her a multi-layered, sympathetic character from beginning to end. Strasnick’s writing is quietly edgy, and she’s a master of providing depth and emotion in her lovely, oh-so-spare prose.

I was irrationally nervous about This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers before I’d even picked it up. I’m a huge fan of Summers’ books, but zombies? No. And then this book made me care. The situation is bleak: The zombie apocalypse has arrived and we’re thrown into the story of six teens trapped in their high school while the undead rage and tear apart their town. But this is one of the most remarkable character studies I’ve ever read—which made me completely forget I wasn’t interested in zombies after the first chapter.

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott is majorly tough to get through, despite the fact that it’s less than 200 pages. Scott went there. She wrote a novel from the perspective of an abducted child that leaves no questions about the horrors of such a life. It’s stark and disturbing and the kind of book that will make you set it down mid-scene to get a grip. Alice’s story is impossible to shake, but I think that’s what is so brilliant about this book. Through Alice, Scott deftly reminds us to watch, to care, to never look away from a situation that doesn’t seem right just because it’s easier to ignore.

In Hold Still by Nina LaCour, Caitlin’s pain is palpable as she tries to make sense of why her best friend committed suicide. But this book is also hopeful and rewarding, as we see Caitlin heal and learn to trust again. This is a quiet novel that deeply explores grief, love, and forgiveness with beautifully nuanced writing.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson uses lyrical, unconventional prose to tell a story that’s unlike any other book I’ve read about anorexia. What I find most engaging is that Anderson truly digs into Lia’s soul, and we’re drawn into her mental illness with no reprieve—which is exactly the type of terrifying, uncomfortable, and heartbreaking experience I love as a reader.

I haven’t stopped talking about Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King since I put it down two years ago. It’s everything I look for in a story: Vera has a fantastic voice, and her world is serious and funny and painful and weird (there’s a talking pagoda—which somehow works?). This book is real and raw and uncomfortable and so very special.

This week’s guest post comes from a blogging duo who write some of the best, most thoughtful reviews and posts in the book blogging world: Sarah and Laura of Clear Eyes, Full Shelves.

So you want to read YA?

This week’s post for our “So you want to read YA?” series comes to us from author E. C. Myers.

E.C. Myers was assembled in the U.S. from Korean and German parts and raised in Yonkers, NY by his mother and the public library. His young adult science fiction novels Fair Coin and Quantum Coin are out now from Pyr Books. You can find him all over the internet, but especially at http://ecmyers.net and on Twitter @ecmyers.

I was riding the New York City subway one day, standing with one forearm braced against a pole — I didn’t want to fall, but I also didn’t want to touch anything on the train — and holding onto an open YA novel with my free hand. I don’t remember exactly what I was reading, but it might have been Candor by Pam Bachorz. Anyway, I did this pretty much every day, but this time, a woman struck up a conversation with me.

Now, I’m one of those people who don’t like to be bothered when I’m reading. In fact, and this might be bad to admit, sometimes if I see an acquaintance on the train, I might pretend not to notice and maybe try to hide a little to avoid them because I would honestly rather just read — especially if I’m really hooked. My commute guaranteed me ninety minutes of reading a day, and I jealously protected my daily time with books, alone among strangers. So I wasn’t happy to be interrupted, especially by this odd question: “How old are you?”

Um. I guess I was 30-something and I told her so, and she looked surprised, which was only briefly flattering. “So you’re regressing then?” she said, eyeing the YA novel I held.

It took me a moment to figure out what she meant by that, and then I really didn’t want to talk to her. I got the vague impression that she might have been trying to chat me up, not that I had much experience at noticing things like that. But just a tip to everyone out there: If you want to pick someone up, directly or indirectly insulting their taste in books is not the best conversation starter.

I explained that actually I write books for teenagers, and no, I’m not just reading it for research, and that’s when she lost respect for me. I saw it happen! So there’s another tip. If you’re too polite to tell a stranger you aren’t interested, just tell them you’re a writer, and better yet, that you write YA.

My point is that as a reader and a writer, I encounter a lot of ignorance about YA, which is disappointing but inoffensive, but there’s also some snobbery out there. Writing science fiction and fantasy on top of YA is a kind of double whammy if you’re looking for your work to be understood and/or respected. (I’m not in this for respect, but having to defend your genre does get tiresome.)

So I’m overjoyed when anyone asks me to recommend a middle grade or young adult book to get started with. I almost always like talking about books (see above for the exception) and evangelizing for the ones that I love. I suppose some people intentionally avoid reading YA because they have these preconceptions about it, but I believe that anyone who claims to love reading needs to give it a chance. And one of the things I appreciate most about YA fiction is that there’s something for everyone.

Anyone who is interested in sampling YA can find at least one book that they like, whether they typically read literary fiction, science fiction, fantasy, horror, historical, romance — whatever. You name the genre, and there’s a wealth of YA fiction that falls into it, and there’s also frequently a blending of genres. (But if you like romance, you’re especially in luck, because it seems many, if not most YA books have some element of romance.) First and foremost, I believe YA is about people, and we can all relate to good characters… Unless perhaps you’re a robot, demon, mermaid, alien, vampire, werewolf, or zombie, and even so, there are books out there for you!

This variety in genre gives me some loose guidelines for recommending a title to someone, but whether you’re looking for YA or books targeted for older audiences, I think we can all benefit from reading as broadly as possible. I love books, and YA books in particular, because of the diverse experiences they offer—lives I couldn’t possibly lead in worlds that may never exist. Just keep an open mind to all the possibilities out there.

A lot of people are surprised (or shocked) at how dark/sexy/disturbing YA books can get, so if you want to quickly change your assumptions about what’s appropriate for kids, check out Boy Toy by Barry Lyga, After by Amy Efaw, Before I Die by Jenny Downham, and Dirty Little Secrets by C.J. Omololu. The most shocking thing about these books is how much truth there is in them. It’s possible that some adults don’t want kids reading them because they’d rather not accept that kids have problems like this in real life.

Okay… Well, by that I assume you mean you only like books that are well-written? Or something?Yeah, me too, that’s why I read YA. But if you want some books that may appeal to your refined sensibilities, get started with Looking for Alaska by John Green, Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma, Hate List by Jennifer Brown, Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King, and Ordinary Ghosts by Eireann Corrigan.

A lot of my friends prefer reading science fiction but they assume that YA SF is somehow more simplistic or less well-developed than the books they’re reading, or classics by Heinlein or Asimov. These novels will change your mind, possibly quite literally: The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer, The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, Incarceron by Catherine Fisher, and Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve. These are also stellar examples of books that are firmly grounded in compelling and complex characters, which aren’t lost in the excellent world building.

I know I’ve been guilty of saying this in the past, until I discovered that I just hadn’t found the right ones to read. Not all fantasy novels are rehashes of Lord of the Rings or epic doorstoppers that run for ten or more volumes. If you want something fresh and original, I recommend Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst, The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson, and Graceling by Kristin Cashore.

I could go on and on, recommending my favorite middle grade books (The Truth About Smekday by Adam Rex and When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead), books for fans of the TV show Supernatural (The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan and Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake), and books with unexpected twists (Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson and Epic by Conor Kostick).

My belabored point is that there’s at least one YA book out there that’s just perfect for you, and it would be a shame if you missed out on it and the chance to discover just how wonderful YA is. Try one of the books mentioned in this blog series, or go start a conversation with one of the teen librarians at your local library, who have read even more than I have. Just don’t begin by asking their age.

This week’s guest post comes to us from Gwenda Bond, author of Blackwood and the forthcoming The Woken Gods (Strange Chemistry, September).

Gwenda Bond is the author of the YA novels Blackwood (out now), The Woken Gods (Sept. 2013), and Girl on a Wire (summer 2014). Blackwood is currently in development as a TV series by MTV and Lionsgate. She is also a contributing writer for Publishers Weekly and regularly reviews for Locus Magazine. Her nonfiction work has appeared in the Washington Post, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons, among others, and she has an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, author Christopher Rowe, and their menagerie. You can find her online at her website (www.GwendaBond.com) or on twitter (@gwenda).




The danger of being a serial book recommender (I am a book pusher, but hey, there are far worse things to be) is that when faced with the amazing posts that have already appeared in this series and the vast sea of my go-to recommendations, I froze up. You have no idea how many iterations of this I’ve started, how many different types of ways I’ve considered focusing this list. Because: I want to recommend all the great YA I love and think most anyone dipping an eyeball into the waters of YA reading would love as well.

But in the interest of space and time (and Kelly’s patient waiting for me to Finish This Up), I finally decided on a list of some of my favorites, most lesser known but some iconic, that I feel push at the boundaries of the kind of story the authors are telling or of people’s assumptions about what YA is or should be. Still, there are so many books I had to leave out, ghost novels in the shadows I’d love to recommend to you some other time. (In fact, I keep a running semi- up-to-date list of reading recommendations here.) Anyway, all of these are books I have continued recommending long after I first encountered them, a surefire sign that they belonged on this list.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by E. Lockhart. Here we have a feminist boarding school novel that is relevant, political, and fun. I would have become obsessed with this book as a teenager (shocking to no one, I’m sure, that I was quite the prankster), and was obsessed with it in an entirely different way as an adult. This is a novel that doesn’t take the easy way out, and subverts the narrative we expect at the beginning in such a pleasing way.

The Dreamhunter Duet by Elizabeth Knox. The two books that comprise the Dreamhunter Duet–Dreamhunter and Dreamquake–are Knox’s masterpieces to date, set in an Edwardian-era fantasyland inspired by New Zealand. There is a geographic anomaly known as “the Place”that only dreamhunters can enter, societal intrigue, and a girl with a sand golem. Also, one of my favorite friendships between girls. Majestic, sweeping, and imbued with rich oddity.

The Catalogue of the Universe by Margaret Mahy. Let’s go back in time a little to one of my favorite romances, period. This is the story of an unlikely pair of lovers, who start the book as friends–the beautiful and witty Angela May and the brilliant but nerdy Tycho Potter. A strange and satisfying book about the immensity of the universe and finding a place in it anyway.

Freak Magnet by Andrew Auseon. Another of my favorite romances, and one I’m mentioning because it’s criminally underknown. Did you love Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park? Do you love John Green’s work? Because I do, and Auseon is who I’d recommend if your answers are also yes. Freak Magnet follows Charlie Wyatt, aka the Freak (a Superman-obsessed stargazer), and Gloria Aboud, aka the Freak Magnet (a writer, she records the many who approach her in her notebook), as their relationship gets complicated. I cared about these characters so much and was surprised by them in ways that have lingered.

Valiant by Holly Black. I could recommend any of Holly Black’s books, because I love them all. You should definitely read her recent Curse Workers series, too. But I’m putting this one on because it’s one of my favorite reinventions of an old story. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast centers on main character Val’s journey as she flees an old life that’s falling apart and ends up in service to a troll named Ravus. The novel produces constantly raised stakes and memorable characters that result in a fresh and immersive faery tale.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson. This is one of those books that sometimes gets mentioned in “but is it really YA?”contexts, but I believe it is and that it’s also essential reading. I urge you if you haven’t read it yet and are about to: read nothing else about it. All you need to know is that a boy named Octavian lives in the strange world of the College of Lucidity, a household of men known by numbers instead of names, in which he is the subject of an experiment. Baroque, emotionally gripping, and thematically dense.

Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, edited by Leonard Marcus. You didn’t see this one coming, now did you? So, it’s more about children’s literature than YA, but I believe that Leonard Marcus (a giant of a scholar) is an excellent starting point for anyone who wants to understand this part of the literary world. And there’s no more enjoyable place to begin than with famous editor Ursula Nordstrom’s correspondence to authors and illustrators you probably remember well from your own childhood, no matter what age you are. She’s the Dorothy Parker of children’s literature, and if that doesn’t make you pick this up, well, then, I’m shaking my head, because no one can help you.