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books

Hardcover to Paperback: Five to Check Out

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One of my favorite things to look at in publisher catalogs each season are the titles being released in paperback and the changes that the covers may have undergone in the process. Sometimes it’s a huge change. Other times, it’s really subtle. Sometimes, it nails the story better than the original or highlights a different aspect of the story than the hardcover image did. And other times, it’s way off the mark.

In this edition of hardcover to paperback, most of the titles I wanted to talk about didn’t have huge changes. Many maintained a look they’d had in hardcover with slight tweaks (though one of the covers below got an entirely new look). None of these are bad changes, but some of them make me wonder what the change intends to do for the book in terms of selling it. If it’s not that different from the original, it makes me wonder why the change happened at all.

Let’s start with the big change.

The hardcover edition of Tiffany Schmidt’s Send Me a Sign is graphic and text driven — it plays into the idea of superstitions, which is a big element of the book. Mia, the main character, believes in signs. To me, the cover has a small element of sadness to it. While it’s bright, when you know what the book is about, the cover may suggest that there’s not necessarily a happy ending to the story. It’s a book about a girl diagnosed with cancer, and the white dandelion with its petals floating away may suggest death more than it does life. In many ways, the cover doesn’t tell you a whole lot about the story, though I think it does look like a YA novel. The swirly font may play into that a little bit. Note that there is a blurb.

The paperback cover of Send Me a Sign is something completely different. While anchored by one image of a boy and a girl, rather than font and a non-person image, it doesn’t do away with the original design completely. The font for the title is still swirly, and there is an homage to the signs and superstitions element to the plot with the four-leaf clover as the dot in the “i” for sign. Although I think the image itself isn’t entirely memorable — the couple looks like a couple that graces many a YA cover — what I love is that this cover speaks a lot more to both the content of the book and the readership of the book. There is a big romantic element to the story, and this image drives that message much more than the hardcover does. Teen readers who see this cover will know much more readily whether this is a book they want to read or not because it looks like many other books featuring similarly appealing story lines.

I happen to like both of the covers for this one. The first because it’s different from a lot of YA covers out there, and the second because it speaks better to the story.

Send Me a Sign will be available in paperback on January 14, 2014.

Jennifer McGowan’s Maid of Secrets is getting one of those makeovers I’m not sure I completely understand. On the left is the original hardcover. It’s not necessarily the kind of cover that stands out, but it also speaks to the content of the book. The girl has a great look on her face, including a fierceness in her eyes with just enough of a smile that it’s not a scary look. I love the dagger in her hands, since it offers up a little bit of an idea of the time frame of the story and even a little bit about what may be at stake. The font for the title isn’t necessarily memorable, but it works with the image to allow that image to stand out. And note that there is a blurb on the cover — a simple “Winning,” from Robin LaFevers, who is probably the perfect name to have gracing the cover of a book like this with a blurb. In many ways, I’d say the look of this particular cover suggests it’s a worthwhile read alike to LeFevers’s own series. I’m a big fan of cover alikes, since it does a lot of service to readers who want a book like one they’ve read before but don’t necessarily want to ask for help. It’s passive and easy.

The paperback look of the cover isn’t bad, but it also doesn’t do anything different. Sure, there are now three girls instead of a single one. What’s weird is that this cover seems to remove a lot of the power that the hardcover had, making it almost more of a story about the three girls than about power or intrigue. The girl in the middle is having her hair brushed, and the focus of the image is no longer on the expression on one girl’s face — it’s instead on the dresses the three girls have. I think in many ways there is a removal of power in this cover. There is still a dagger in the girl on the right’s hand, but look at how it’s much more an accessory to her dress than it is a tool she plans on using. The new cover changes up the title font, and I quite like it, though I think there is a lot more artistry at play with it than there is necessarily power. There’s no longer a blurb on the cover, as it’s been replaced with a note that this book is the first in a series — I actually find that helpful to be on the cover, since it will help readers know there are other books to come.

That said, will readers think that the paperback version of Maid of Secrets may appeal to readers who liked Robin LaFevers’s series? I’m not entirely sure. I don’t think they’ll be turned off by it, but I think they may not make the connection as readily. While I like both covers, they convey much different things, and I think the hardcover edges out the paperback for me.

The paperback edition of McGowan’s book will be available June 24, 2014.

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban fascinates me from a cover perspective. It’s not entirely memorable, but it’s also not entirely forgettable either. There are a lot of elements in the cover that make it both: it’s a guy running away from something in a wooded area. There’s snow on the ground and snow falling. I feel like this describes a ton of covers, but I also feel like it describes this cover. I find the font for the title distracting and hard to read because it’s been made to look blurry and jagged. Since it’s white, that only adds to the challenge of not feeling like my eyes struggle to focus on it (basic design principles suggest that white font on a dark background is simply harder to read, no matter what). Note that the blurb for this book comes from an adult fiction author — Jennifer Weiner. That says a lot to me, too, particularly that this book may be aiming to be a crossover hit, as well as a book that is trying to be on trend with blurbs from well-known, New York Times Bestselling adult authors (see John Green’s blurb of The Fault in Our Stars from Jodi Picoult). The cover is being packaged in such a way that it looks like the kind of book that will receive award consideration or recognition. It’s an iconic-like cover with a blurb from someone well-known in the business, even beyond the YA world. This is not a bad cover.

But that paperback. Let’s talk about a cover that is meant for adults and not teens.

The cover for the paperback looks like a movie poster, and not in a good way. There is far too much going on in terms of design, with the original boy running through the woods layered on top of a girl who is looking away with a sadness in her eyes. I have a hard time believing the model looks like a teenager, too — she looks like a twenty-something, if not even older than that. But back to the boy running through the woods layer. I’m curious why it is he’s suddenly blurry now, too? And why did they choose to make the title font even more blurry than they were in the original hardcover look? I think they did a service in not making the author font blurry and also by making it not white, though that might be the strongest aspect of this cover. Also note that the blurb from Weiner was relocated to a position that makes it more prominent — upper right-hand corner. The Tragedy Paper‘s paperback cover looks like an adult trade paperback much more than it does a YA paperback. It loses an iconic YA look to it with the layering and further blurring of font, though I think that this book looks like one more adults would pick up than the one on the left.

That said, I am not a fan. I prefer the hardcover look of this one without question. The Tragedy Paper will be available in paperback on February 11, 2014.

Here is a makeover I don’t necessarily understand but I really, really like. Phoebe North’s Starglass is getting a new look in paperback. On the left is the original hardcover, and I think it’s a pretty good cover. I love the way the girl looks; even though her back is to the reader, we know there’s something she wants and she’s determined to go after it. It’s entirely in her body language, her stance, and even the wind in her hair doesn’t make her look like she’s anything less than ready to conquer the challenge ahead of her (because what she wants is ahead of her there). I love that she is dressed like a teenager, too — she’s wearing a longer coat and pants. I think the font for the title is fun and fitting, and you really get a nice sense of the book’s genre from the cover as a while. It’s science fiction. Likewise, I think the violet coloring of the cover as a whole helps it stand out on the shelves. Few covers are that color, and fewer still within science fiction are that color. The Veronica Roth blurb running along the top only helps make a case for readers to pick up the book.

On the right is the newly designed paperback of Starglass, and I really like this one, too. I may even like it a little bit more than the hardcover. In many ways, it looks like Beth Revis’s series, and I think the redesign tells readers that if they liked Revis’s book, they’ll probably want to give North’s a shot. The new cover makes it even more obvious this book is science fiction, but it’s not off-putting in any way. This is a girl looking down on Earth, and it’s clear from her body language that she, too, is determined to take advantage of her future (but maybe in this case, without forgetting the place where she may have came from). Again, I love the choice in how the model is styled here, too: she’s wearing pants and a killer pair of boots. Where I really liked the font for the title and author name on the hardcover, I love it on the paperback. There’s something about the clear glass look that really ties this cover all together. Again, the Roth quote is included, though I do find it interesting that Roth’s name is larger and much more obvious than North’s name on the cover.

While both covers do it really well, I prefer the paperback just a tiny bit more.

What I really appreciate about this particular cover makeover, though, is that the second book in the series, Starbreak, fits with either the hardcover or the paperback look:

Readers and librarians who purchased the hardcover of Starglass don’t have to worry about the second book in the series not looking like the first one at all. That is a huge reader service in the face of a redesign and one that as a librarian, I appreciate so much. It makes it clearer that these books belong together.

The paperback of Phoebe North’s Starglass will be available July 15, 2014.

I’m going to put this redesign of Sarah Skilton’s Bruised into the category of not understanding the intentions behind the redesign. On the left is the original cover, which is pretty excellent. I love the broken trophy of a tae kwon do girl — it’s a perfect representation of the story inside the book. The title font is nicely done, and I feel like the little splatters of blood hovering above the “i” tie into the reason why the tae kwon do girl is broken so well. The cover is fairly gender neutral, aside from the pony tail on the trophy, and it conveys the entirety of the story with very little. There is a tag line which reads “She failed to save his life. How will she live her own?” Again, a nice way to tie the cover together and tie it all right back to the story. Note that the author’s name is large and across the bottom, and there are no blurbs on the front cover (something that carries over to the paperback, as well, but it’s noteworthy because of how rare that seems to be).

The paperback redesign of Bruised is a head scratcher for me. It’s essentially the same cover, but with the title made to be a lot bigger and in a different style and stretched diagonally across the cover, rather than centered through the middle. It’s a nice font, but it’s lacking the sort of tie-in to the story that the original has with the blood splatters. The author’s name is now stacked on top of the title, and it’s been made smaller, but brighter. I think it might be easier to read, but it’s not as easy to find. As far as the image itself, we still have the broken trophy but it is not easy to identify as a broken trophy. The pieces are spread too far apart, and without studying it or having reference to what the original cover was, it’s not entirely clear what the image it supposed to be. It definitely loses its identity as a tae kwon do trophy, since there aren’t even legs in the shattered remains.

I can’t comment on the color change from bright blue to a deep blue, since I think both work fine and both are not the memorable aspect of the cover. For me, hands down, the hardcover is the winner here.

Sarah Skilton’s Bruised will be available in paperback on April 15, 2014.

What do you think? Which covers in these pairs do you prefer? Have you seen any other noteworthy hardcover to paperback changes lately? I keep a list of changes when I see them because I love thinking about the whats and whys of redesign.

October Debut YA Novels

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It’s October, so let’s take a look at the debut novels out this month, some already release and some to come in the next couple of weeks. As usual, I define debut as actual first-published novel, so I’ve done by best to leave out those first-time YA novels or those books by authors who have published before but under other names. You can check out prior installments of the debut roundups by checking out September’s list and going backwards from there. If I’ve missed a traditionally-published debut YA novel out in October, let me know in the comments! I’ve also tried to link up to our reviews. As usual, all descriptions are from WorldCat, unless otherwise noted.

Fault Line by Christa Desir: After his gilfriend, Ani, is assaulted at a party, Ben must figure out how he can help her to heal, if he can help her at all. Reviewed here.

Red by Alison Cherry: In a town that values red hair above all else, someone threatens to expose pageant contestant Felicity’s secret about her coppery locks.

Sex & Violence by Carrie Mesrobian:  Sex has always come without consequences for Evan. Until the night when all the consequences land at once, leaving him scarred inside and out. Reviewed here. 

Entangled by Amy Rose Capetta: Seventeen-year-old Cade, a fierce survivor, feels alone in the universe until she learns that she was created in a lab in 3112 and entangled at a quantum level with a boy named Xan, sending her on a galaxy-spanning journey toward a real connection.

Reclaimed by Sarah Guillory: Jenna Oliver doesn’t have time to get involved with one boy, let alone two.  All Jenna wants is to escape her evaporating small town and her alcoholic mother. She’s determined she’ll go to college and find a life that is wholly hers—one that isn’t tainted by her family’s past. But when the McAlister twins move to town and Jenna gets involved with both of them, she learns the life she planned may not be the one she gets. Ian McAlister doesn’t want to start over; he wants to remember. Ian can’t recall a single thing from the last three months—and he seems to be losing more memories every day. His family knows the truth, but no one will tell him what really happened before he lost his memory. When he meets Jenna, Ian believes that he can be normal again because she makes not remembering something he can handle. The secret Ian can’t remember is the one Luke McAlister can’t forget. Luke has always lived in the shadow of his twin brother until Jenna stumbles into his life. She sees past who he’s supposed to be, and her kiss brings back the spark that life stole. Even though Luke feels like his brother deserves her more, Luke can’t resist Jenna—which is the trigger that makes Ian’s memory return. Jenna, Ian, & Luke are about to learn there are only so many secrets you can keep before the truth comes to reclaim you. (via Goodreads).  

Twistrose Key by Tone Almhjell: After finding a mysterious key, eleven-year-old Lin Rosenquist finds herself in the wintery world of Sylver where all the inhabitants were once either beloved pets or tamed wild animals, and must find the missing Winter Prince before she can return home. 

Freakboy by Kristin Elizabeth Clark: Told from three viewpoints, seventeen-year-old Brendan, a wrestler, struggles to come to terms with his place on the transgender spectrum while Vanessa, the girl he loves, and Angel, a transgender acquaintance, try to help.

How to Love by Katie Cotugno: A tumultuous love affair between Reena and Sawyer ends when Sawyer abruptly abandons their Florida town, causing Reena to bear their child alone and struggle with mistrust when Sawyer returns three years later.

The Brokenhearted by Amelia Kahaney: When seventeen-year-old Anthem Fleet is suddenly transformed into an all-powerfull superhero, she must balance her old life with the dark secret of who she has become. 

Eat, Brains, Love by Jeff Hart: New Jersey teens Jake Stephenson and Amanda Blake are turning into zombies and, having devoured half of their senior class, they are on the run, pursued by teen psychic Cass, a member of a government unit charged with killing zombies and keeping their existence secret.

Six Months Later by Natalie D. Richards: Chloe didn’t think about it much when she nodded off in study hall on that sleepy summer day. But when she wakes up, snow is on the ground and she can’t remember the last six months of her life. Before, she’d been a mediocre student. Now, she’s on track for valedictorian and being recruited by Ivy League schools. Before, she never had a chance with super jock Blake. Now he’s her boyfriend. Before, she and Maggie were inseparable. Now her best friend won’t speak to her. What happened to her? And why can’t she remember?

The Million Mark.

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Dearest readers of STACKED,

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We started this blog 4.5 years ago (to the day). We wanted a place to share our thoughts on books, and since then, we have found an amazing community of readers, of advocates, of people as passionate as we are about books and sharing them. We’ve made some incredible friends, and we’ve been lucky enough to write and write and write and have people not just share their thoughts with us, but they’ve shared our thoughts with other people.

It is an incredible feeling to know people want to hear what we have to say.

Today marks our 1 millionth hit since we began our blog. ONE MILLION UNIQUE HITS since we began this blog 4.5 years ago. That’s an incredible number, and it’s made even more mind-boggling to know that half of that has been from the last year alone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We want to thank you not just in a post, but we want to thank our readers — long-time loyal ones and brand new readers alike — with a pair of giveaways that we are very excited about. We’ve never done something like this before, but we are excited to give it a whirl.

The first giveaway is what you may consider fairly straightforward. We’ve got a pile of YA books (and some advanced reader copies) we want you to have. There will be between 8 and 10 titles total up for grabs, a mix of genres, including the following:

  • Yesterday by CK Kelly Martin & the brand-new sequel Tomorrow
  • What Goes Around by Courtney Summers 
  • The Burning Sky by Sherry Thomas
  • Half Lives by Sara Grant
  • Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage on audio
  • The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder on audio
  • An advanced reader’s copy of Tin Star by Cecil Castellucci
  • An advanced reader’s copy of Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira
  • Any 2013 hardcover or paperback YA novel of the winner’s choice

As well as a handful more. Kimberly and I want to build a really nice mix of stuff to give away, so we’re scouring our brains to give away some favorites, as well as some new things we think our readers would like.

The only restriction for this giveaway is that you are a US or Canadian resident, since we’ll be covering shipping.

Our second giveaway is a little bit different, and we aren’t entirely sure how this will go over, but it’s one we’re VERY excited to try out. We’re going to give away a 30 page manuscript critique. Kimberly and I will both read the first thirty pages of your middle grade or young adult manuscript and offer a boatload of feedback for you — what we think is working, what we think could be improved, and more. We’ll include not just a letter, but marginal commentary throughout.

Because we can do this one electronically, we’re happy to offer this giveaway for anyone who has a manuscript in English.

You can enter either giveaway or you can enter both. We’ll choose our random winners Monday, November 11.

Thanks for being such supportive and amazing readers — we really appreciate all of your feedback, your sharing, and your thoughts on our blog.

— Kelly & Kimberly

A Roundup of Our Reader’s Advisory Posts

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We’ve done a number of reader’s advisory related posts at STACKED, and I thought instead of reiterating the value of RA and how much it matters, I’d round some of our older posts up in one place for easy access. I’ll include some of our RA guides, as well as some of the visuals of reader’s advisory projects I’ve done in my libraries, too. I’d like to show the practical, applicable stuff, too. We’ll be back with our Saturday Links of Note post next week.

If you’ve done any reader’s advisory posts or have links to displays, book lists, shelf readers, or any other tools you use as a reader’s advisor, I’d be happy to see them. Leave ’em in the comments — the more that are shared, the bigger a resource this becomes.

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“Why does good readers’ advisory matter? Because getting a list of random books that you might like based on arbitrary qualities like publication date stinks. Because there are millions of books out there, and each one has a reader. Each reader has something they want from a book. Because reading matters, and being able to connecting the reader to his/her book and that book to his/her reader only furthers that. Because there is nothing better than seeing a 14-year-old boy walking out of a library with exactly the kind of book he wants to read because you took the time to listen to what he likes and offer him something that makes him excited about reading.” — from Why Good Reader’s Advisory Matters, September 2012.  

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I’m a big proponent of passive reader’s advisory. One of the projects I finally got to finish recently at my own library are shelf talkers. They began as a collaborative effort with a former coworker, and together, we wrote short “hooky” descriptions of ten books, and it’s my goal to swap the books out every couple of months. I like to think of this as “surprise” and “delight” reader’s advisory; readers discover them when they’re browsing and maybe pick up something they didn’t know they were looking for. You can read more about the project, including what holders I purchased, over here. 
And then you can read some more about passive reader’s advisory and the value of it in the piece I wrote with Jackie Parker about passive programming.  

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Maybe my favorite part of librarianship — or at least one of them — is making displays on whatever topic strikes my fancy. I tend to swap them out about once a month and I try to stick to something thematic to the month, though I don’t make it a requirement. The library I’m at now has space for teen displays. It’s the first library I’ve worked at that has had such dedicated space, and I use it to my advantage. Here’s a look at a handful of displays I’ve done at my current library and at a former one. 

This display was from March this year and one of my favorites: it’s a display of dynamic and interesting girls in YA fiction. In honor of women’s history month, of course.

At the end of summer, I borrowed an idea from a tumblr librarian and made a display of books for fans of Supernatural. You can see the idea and the subsequent booklist over here.

This display was at a library I used to work at, in a space I had to carve out. The theme is simply yellow covers, and I made the signage a smily face to mimic the book beside it.

Before I carved out the space above for displays, this is what I was working with. This display was one I loved because the topic was fun — books featuring bands or music — and because I got a teen volunteer to decorate those old albums for me to jazz up the look of it. She got to have a bit of ownership in the display, too. 
Don’t have a space to do displays in your library? I’ve utilized bulletin boards to make it happen, too. This was my favorite, a bulletin board reader’s advisory tool all about the Cybils:

If you want to see some of the other displays I’ve done — I’m trying to take a photo every month and update it for my own records — you can check them out over here.

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Want reading guides to YA fiction by genre? You probably know about our “Get Genrified” series. Kim’s post this month about dystopia has links to our prior guides and reading lists, which include horror, romance, science fiction, high fantasy, contemporary, novels in verse, mysteries and thrillers, and graphic novels. 
Since passive RA matters to me as much as active RA, I’ve made it a goal to develop reader guides to various topics and genres at the library. You can check out out my most recent ones, as well as ones that are a few years old, over at Scribd. You’re welcome to adapt and modify as you wish. (Yes indeed, I have made lists “for boys” and “for girls” in the past, but note that aren’t labeled as such. I took the idea and spun it a bit. I don’t think I’d do that now — I made those lists over three years ago — but there’s one way to take a twist on the problematic trope.)
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“Sure, know those best sellers. Know the books that your readers are asking for. But it’s as important — if not more important — to know about those other books. The ones that aren’t getting a lot of press for them or that are backlist titles and have sort of fallen out of the sphere of memory in light of those shiny new titles and those easy reaches. It’s important to go beyond the end cap titles and explore the shelves. To browse. To discover.


Readers who become the best reader’s advisors and the strongest advocates for reading and books are those who seek out the books which aren’t the easy reaches. They’re the ones who can see the value in those titles and know that they’re the books which WILL reach many readers because of their strengths or accolades or the endorsement from well-knowns (Oprah, for example, or in the YA field it’s someone like John Green). That’s not to discredit the books or those speaking on their behalf.

It’s just that they are easy reaches.” 

 — From Getting Past the Easy Reach, perhaps my favorite thing I’ve written on the topic of reader’s advisory. Of course, this ties back into about everything said all week long both by myself and those who wrote guest posts about their work and RA philosophies. 

Guest Post: Scott Rader on Fandom, Fanmixes, and Reader’s Advisory

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Scott Rader is the young adult librarian at the Hays Public Library in Hays, Kansas. He loves working with teens, listening to music, and watching TV . . . all of which he uses to improve reader’s advisory. He doesn’t have any pets or kids and he paints in his free time. He says reader’s advisory and policy are his favorite parts of the job. You can find Scott on Twitter @ScottyRader. He’s here to talk about how he uses his passions to fuel his RA skills. 

About a year ago I graduated with my MLIS. School killed me. It put me in a reading rut that I still haven’t recovered from, which sucks. Reading, recommending, and talking about YA books are a favorite part of my job. This slump, however, has led me to connect with books more personally.



So, let’s start with fandom. Fandoms are popping up everywhere in libraryland. Let’s be fair, fandoms have always (yes always) existed. Librarians have noticed and capitalized on them before this year. They just seem like a hot topic. Also, let’s be fair, being a fan of a book or author (or anything) can make your experience with that “thing” so much broader. 

We have a teen at my library who loves The Warriors books. She has a huge 3 ring binder, you know, the big one, filled with Warrior cats she’s drawn. She loves to show them to people and talk about the books. They are an easy introduction for people interested in the books to talk to her about them. They are also just a fun way for her to share her drawings. She’s interacting with the books much more deeply than if she read one and gave it 5 stars on Goodreads.



Now, I have always been mildly geeky. I like superheroes, comic books, science fiction, etc. I never really participated in any fandoms though. If I liked a book, I wrote a nice review and gave it 5 stars on Goodreads. Then, I “discovered” a few things simultaneously: 1. Spotify. 2. Tumblr. 3. Some authors are really awesome on Twitter and interact really well with their fans. 

So, I read a book, Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon, and I loved it. I wanted to show my love for this amazing thing that gave me all sorts of feelings. But I am not someone who can draw or paint “fan art” and anytime I write “fan fiction” I get embarrassed and delete it. However, fan mixes offer an easier way to show love and to geek out over your fandoms. So, I put together a reading mix for Silver Phoenix. And I shared it with the world. And Cindy liked it. And, since I have amazing taste in music, IMO, I felt I must share more. 

Fan mixes are just mixtapes for … anything (it really isn’t that complicated, make a mixtape for something you love). They are a great way to share feelings, through song, with characters, authors, OTPs, worlds, etc. I also think they create an interesting way to present Reader’s Advisory to your readers (any fan art, fiction, etc., really). I haven’t done much with my fan mixes at this point, besides sharing them on my personal tumblr and the library’s tumblr. I am squirreling them away until I have enough to make a display. I am also sharing them to encourage teens make their own for their favorite books. Those can go on display too! Teens can listen to the mixes. Maybe they like it enough to check out the book. Maybe they don’t. Either way, they know I like the book enough to make a fan mix for it. I think it also encourages them to show off their fandoms and to really connect with the media they consume.



It also brings up another important aspect of RA that we can sometimes forget: Connection. Are we listening to the readers coming to us and connecting them with the right book? Are we making sure we understand what they connect with in a book? 

For instance, when I first started my library job, Twilight was huge. Some readers really liked the supernatural element, some wanted sexy vampires, some were Team Jacob, some were invested in the love triangle. It’s important to tease out these connections with readers. I think the best way to do that, especially as a public librarian, is to consume everything and just enjoy the experience. 

I am not saying be a fan of everything, but be willing to be a fan. Listen to the teens around you and try out their suggestions. Maybe you will find a new love (mine are Vampire Diaries and One Direction) and maybe you’ll find a few duds (I just don’t get The Mortal Instruments or Pitch Perfect), but understanding what teens like and why they like it, understanding their connections and their fandoms, can make for more well-rounded reader’s advisory.