This week’s “So You Want to Read YA?” guest post comes to us from Daniel Kraus.

If someone says, “I don’t read YA,” I have the same reaction as if they said “I don’t read science fiction” or “I don’t read fiction” or “I don’t read.” It’s their prerogative, of course, but it pains me to know what they’re missing. It works both ways. I don’t read a lot of comic books. I don’t watch a lot of TV shows. No doubt there are brain-melting tour de forces coming out right and left that I am a sad little fool for skipping. But I think we understand each other, right? There are only so many hours. So I’m going to limit this list to a few outright masterpieces. No, even that would take too long. A few recent masterpieces. I respect your time.

33 Snowfish by Adam Rapp

You probably have a thing for Cormac McCarthy. That’s okay, most of us do. Was it The Road? It was The Road, wasn’t it? Oh, it was Blood Meridian? Even better. Here’s a book you can sit right alongside those decorated tomes. So raw it’ll burn the flesh off your fingers.

Andromeda Klein by Frank Portman

It’s a love story, I guess, but one of (romantically?) deep conviction that risks losing wide swaths of readership with its (romantically?) tireless catalog of what it’s like in the tar pit of a young woman’s obsessive brain. Things get stuck down there. You will too.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation; v.1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson

You’ve heard of this one, dearest non-YA reader? Maybe not? Let me assure you it won just about every award a young-adult book can win. No doubt you’re rolling your eyes imagining the stultifying groupthink that led to such a feat, but fear not. This book punches naysayers and uppity-ups in the face and is riveting from the first paragraph. Riveting.

Nothing by Janne Teller

This book exists out of time. It feels like something foisted upon your great-grandparents in a one-room schoolhouse back when books came in cloth-bound readers with tiny print—and there were rulers that would crack down on knuckles if you looked away from the text. Which you would because, page by page, your stomach would twist and your skin would sweat as you became convinced by Teller’s calm logic that you and your children and your grandchildren were doomed—and always had been.

The Watch that Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic by Allan Wolf

Historical fiction. Written in poetry. In two dozen different voices. And one of the voices is an iceberg? Kill me now. Wait, don’t. This is no gimmick. This has the heft and passion of a life’s work. I don’t know Mr. Wolf but as far as I’m concerned he can retire and spend his days contemplating his brilliance because that’s what I’m doing. How can someone write so many words in a row and not screw up any of them?

To kick off this round of “So You Want to Read YA?” posts is from a blogger at one of the blogs I’ve been reading since I started reading YA book blogs: Little Willow. 

In addition to being a bookseller, blogger, and writer, Little Willow is also an actress, singer, and webdesigner. She always has a script or a book in her hands and a song in her heart. You can find her at http://slayground.livejournal.com and http://www.rocktherock.com.

So you want to read YA and you need some recommendations? Twist my arm! Here are a dozen books to get you started.

Body Bags by Christopher Golden begins with the line:


“It was a beautiful day to grow up.”


Body Bags is the first in a line of ten novels – collectively known as Body of Evidence – which follow Jenna Blake as she begins college and starts working as an assistant at the Medical Examiner’s office. I highly recommend this series. Both adults and teenagers will discover plenty to relate to and enjoy in this line. Readers will find Jenna visiting crime scenes and autopsy rooms nearly as often as she’s in her dorm. Her relatives, friends, and studies factor into the books just as much as serial killers and detectives.  Throughout the series, Christopher Golden – and, later, collaborator Rick Hautala – created characters who are believable but anything but cookie-cutter. The quality of Body Bags is above and beyond most suspense novels, and it continues throughout the series, versus other series which lose the momentum after a few books, or series in which the books become carbon copies. If you enjoy medical thrillers with great characters, especially if you watch(ed) television series such as CSI or Profiler, or read or watch Rizzoli & Isles, then you need to read these books right now. You won’t be sorry.


The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart is, dare I say, a coming-of-age story. It’s not about breaking the rules, nor it is about controlling others. It’s about daring: daring to be yourself, daring to stand up for yourself, daring to step outside of your comfort zone, daring to change the world. This novel possesses all of the elements necessary for a good bildungsroman, following the protagonist’s journey through her formative years. Both snarky and serious, this History is written by the victors: the memorable narrator and the author. Frankie is smart, grounded, and direct, but she also has a quirky side. Author E. Lockhart (The Boyfriend List, Dramarama) writes with heart and authentic feeling. History has an incredible conclusion, and Frankie becomes a remarkable young woman.


The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen is about grief, acceptance, and everything in-between. It’s about running – running for fun, running out of fear, running from yourself, running from the truth. It’s also about to-do lists, kitchen messes, and really good waffles. It’s about long conversations and comfortable silences. It’s about forever, which is yesterday, today, and tomorrow – and forever is never long enough. Dessen is always good, and this is Dessen at her best.

Deb Caletti writes really fantastic realistic novels. My favorite Caletti novel to date is The Nature of Jade, about an overachiever who has developed panic disorder. Jade doesn’t know yet that she wants something more out of life – and that she is about to meet someone that will change her life. 


Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is an absolute staple of modern YA fiction. This story is an example of how to use first-person narration to connect readers to a largely silent and introverted protagonist – and how to reveal things slowly, to connect actions and emotions. This book is gritty and real without being gritty for the sake of it. Often imitated, never replicated, this book is what inspired the wave of YA books that tackle tough issues. 


The Alison Rules by Catherine Clark. Wow, wow, wow. After her mother passes away, Alison is reluctant to confide in anyone other than Laurie, her long-time best friend. She pulls away from pretty much everyone else and decides to quietly lives by the rules she’s made for herself. Read it, then share it. 

I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak, which you should go into completely spoiler-free, so I’m not going to tell you anything about it. Go read it, and when you’re done, tell me what you think, because you will definitely have a reaction to how this story unfolds and how it turns out.


Feathered by Laura Kasischke tells the story of two best friends who travel to Cancun for Spring Break. After an auspicious start, the unexpected happens, and their dream vacation turns into a nightmare which they can’t simply escape by waking – which, perhaps, they cannot escape at all. Feathered wonderfully captures that feeling of freedom one gets while far from home, when it’s possible (easier?) to be uncharacteristically impulsive. Fueled by the toxic intensity of perfect strangers, fast friends, and foreign cultures, the girls find themselves in an extremely dangerous situation, and, in the blink of an eye, everything changes. Every high school student who is planning a big-deal trip for Spring Break (or for any break) needs to read this book – and so do their parents, teachers, and chaperones. So do writers who aspire to craft stories with alternating points of view.


Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan is not your typical boy meets girl story. Sure, it starts when boy meets girl – but then boy asks girl to pretend to be his girlfriend for the next five minutes, and girl agrees. Over the course of one night, two perfect strangers fall in and out of love with life, music, friends, cars, food, the city, and maybe – just maybe – each other. This book definitely popularized multiple narrators in modern YA fiction.

Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers shows that sometimes, what you don’t do can be as consequential as what you do. Parker was a good girl. A nice girl. A cheerleader. A straight-A student. Then something happened. Something which changed Parker completely. Something she wishes she could change. Her mood, her grades, and her spirits have all plummeted. Haunted, Parker is no longer the girl she once was – and she doesn’t want to be, not anymore. Courtney Summers’ debut novel is not to be missed. When the characters speak, they sound authentic: some kids swear and some kids laugh while others toss out a word or two while swallowing down what they really want to say. Adult readers will quickly be transported to the halls of high school and feel as if they never left. Pick up Summers’ other novels while you’re at it, but start with this one.


The Fallen by Thomas E. Sniegoski led the pack of immortal/angel fantasy/action stories that now line the YA shelves. The premise: Aaron has always known that he was adopted, but he never suspected he was half-angel – or that he could be a hero in the ultimate fight between good and evil. Fun fact: Before he portrayed Stefan Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries, Paul Wesley starred as Aaron Corbet in the film adaptation of Fallen – and Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad played Lucifer!


Looking for Alaska by John Green has energized a new generation of readers, writers, and all kinds of people searching for their great perhaps. It’s thought-provoking, poignant, and lovely. Please read it.


After you’ve checked out some of these recommendations, I hope you’ll drop by http://slayground.livejournal.com/“>my blog, Bildungsroman
, and let me know what you think! I primarily review YA novels, hence the blog title –


Bildungsroman: A novel whose principal subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a usually youthful main character. (dictionary.com)


– and I have a slew of booklists I hope you’ll check out, including:


Tough Issues for Teens
http://slayground.livejournal.com/74061.html


Coming-of-Age Novels
http://slayground.livejournal.com/178045.html


Transition Times / Set in School
http://slayground.livejournal.com/78353.html

Last year, we ran a very fun, informative, and popular series here at STACKED called “So You Want to Read YA?” It arose out of a question that we receive often as librarians and YA readers: “Where do I start?” The series asked that very question to a variety of people in the kidlit world, ranging from teachers to librarians, to authors and bloggers, to editors and marketing folks.

Following the presentation about running a blog series at KidLitCon, I was asked if I would consider doing the series again but with a new set of guest bloggers. I thought about it for a long time, and I thought why not?

So it’s coming back!

Starting next Monday, March 4 and running through the last Monday in July, we’ll be featuring a guest post on the topic of where to start in YA fiction. The posts come from a range of people like before, including authors, editors, soon-to-be-published authors, bloggers, librarians, and teachers. I’m so excited about each and every one of them. Nearly all of the guest writers for this round of posts have never been featured here before on STACKED, so we’re excited to spotlight some new-to-us voices (and, in some cases, not so new-to-us voices who we’d never approached before).

If you haven’t read or caught up with last year’s posts, feel free to dive in here. Prepare to expand your to-read piles significantly.

A huge thank you goes out to each and every one of this round’s contributors, and a special thanks goes out to Nova Ren Suma, who not only encouraged revisiting the series at KidLitCon, but she offered some wonderful suggestions for contributors.

Five months. Twenty guest posts. Hundreds of recommendations for where to start if you’re looking to dive into YA fiction as a new reader or if you’re a seasoned YA reader and are looking to fill in the gaps you may have missed. Putting together this series has been such a great experience, and we are beyond grateful to both the guests who took the time and energy to write such thoughtful, creative, unique and insightful posts about YA books and to everyone who took the time to read the posts, comment on them, and share them. To say we were blown away would be an understatement.

We’re sad to see this series end because we learned about a ton of new-to-us titles, and we loved seeing just how differently everyone approached the question posed.

So my original idea in wrapping up the series was to create a massive list of every title mentioned, but about three posts in, I realized that was way too ambitious. Instead, I’m going to link to everyone’s posts here and hope you take the time to catch up on any you may have missed:

OUR picks: Kelly Jensen, Kimberly Francisco, & Jen Petro-Roy

Kathleen Peacock (author of Hemlock)

Liz Burns (blogger at A Chair, A Fireplace, and A Tea Cozy)

Laura Arnold (editor at Razorbill)

Julie Cross (author of Tempest)

Janssen Bradshaw (blogger at Everyday Reading)

Susan Adrian (writer)

CK Kelly Martin (author of My Beating Teenage Heart and more)

Lee Wind (blogger at Lee Wind)

Victoria Stapleton (director of school and library marketing at Little, Brown)

Sarah Andersen (blogger at YA Love Blog)

Nova Ren Suma (author of Imaginary Girls)

Catie, Flannery, and Tatiana (bloggers at The Readventurer)

Courtney Summers (author of This is Not a Test and more)

Andrew Karre (editor at Carolrhoda)

Kate Hart (blogger at Kate Hart / YA Highway)

Swati Avasthi (author of Split)

Brian Farrey (editor at Flux)

Trisha Murakami (blogger at The YA YA YAs)

Kirstin Cronn-Mills (author of The Sky Always Hears Me and the Hills Don’t Mind)

Lenore Appelhans (blogger/author of Presenting Lenore and Level 2)

When the end of June rolled around and I saw our posts were getting fewer and fewer in the series, I started brainstorming what to do next. I had a lot of requests for continuing this particular series of bringing it back again next year with new voices. I’ve got a couple of ideas in the works for this year, but seeing how “So You Want to Read YA?” was really designed out of answering a question I was asked by others, I thought I’d throw out the opportunity for our readers to weigh in on what they’d like to see in the future here on STACKED. If you read this series, participated in it, or have an interest in anything YA-related on the blog, chime in.

Thank you all again — and we hope you enjoyed the series as much as we did.