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August Debut YA Novels

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The summer tends to be a slower time in the book world, and that’s reflected in the fewer number of debut novels there seem to be to talk about these last few months. But there are some in August, and it’s a great time to catch up on the titles out earlier this year before the fall season brings them out in abundance. 
As always, I define debut novel as the author’s first book within any category, not just YA. If I’ve missed anything from a mainstream publisher, let me know in the comments. All descriptions are from WorldCat, unless otherwise noted. 
Gates of Thread and Stone by Lori M. Lee: To save Reev, Kai must unravel the threads of her past and face shocking truths about her brother, her friendship with Avan, and her unique power. She will leave the only home she’s ever known and risk getting caught up in a revolution centuries in the making.
The Girl From The Well by Rin Chupeco: Okiku has wandered the world for centuries, freeing the innocent ghosts of the murdered-dead and taking the lives of killers with the vengeance they are due, but when she meets Tark she knows the moody teen with the series of intricate tattoos is not a monster and needs to be freed from the demonic malevolence that clings to him.

Wordless by Adrianne Strickland: After helping Khaya, the Word of Life, escape from her prison, seventeen-year-old trash collector Tavin Barnes joins her on the run, attempting to prevent Khaya’s captors from using the Words for world domination.
The Islands At The End of The World by Austin Aslan: Stranded in Honolulu when a strange cloud causes a worldwide electronics failure, sixteen-year-old Leilani and her father must make their way home to Hilo amid escalating perils, including her severe epilepsy.
Let’s Get Lost by Adi Alsaid: During her cross-country adventures following the tragic death of her family, Leila touches the lives of four strangers — Hudson, Bree, Elliot, and Sonia. While forever changing the lives of these four, Leila also discovers an important truth about herself.
The Revelation of Gabriel Adam by S. L. Duncan: Seventeen-year-old Gabriel Adam is used to moving a lot. When a mysterious assassin burns his home to the ground Gabriel’s father reveals the truth of why they are always on the move: Gabriel is one of four Archangels, born human and sent to stop Armageddon. Now, Gabe must set aside dreams of attending NYU to try to fulfill his newly discovered role as protector of mankind.

Ferguson, Race, Civil Rights, Social Activism, and YA Fiction: A Round-Up of Reading

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Rather than write a “This Week in Reading” post this week, I thought it would be more worthwhile to instead round-up and share some of the great book lists and discussions I’ve seen centering around good reading for those interested in discussing and thinking about the situation in Ferguson. The bulk of these resources are geared toward children’s and young adult lit, though some posts go a bit beyond than, as well as a bit beyond books. Topics include race, civil rights, social activism, and privilege.

There are countless angles working here, but they are all important and worth thinking and talking about.

I can’t add anything new or thoughtful to this discussion, but what I can do is give space to those who are generating much-needed and valuable resources and elements of conversation. If you know of additional book lists or topical guides worth mentioning, please drop them into the comments. I’m happy to continue revisiting this.

  • Lyn Miller-Lachmann talks about two YA titles — one out now and one coming out this fall — and the ways that writers and artists respond to social justice. I’m including this post specifically because I cannot get Kekla Magoon’s forthcoming How it Went Down out of my head these last couple of weeks and hope it shows up on your to-read lists. 

  • At Book Riot, Brenna Clarke Gray suggests 5 good books about race in America. These are all adult titles, but teen readers who are interested should be able to read and think about them. 

Both images are from the Ferguson library. 
The left, from the director, and the right, from their Instagram account.

Female Sexuality in YA Fiction: A Look at the Landscape

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The more I write and think about YA, the more I find holes within it. Part of it is knowing I haven’t — and can’t — read everything. But part of it is that there simply are holes in the category.

I turned in a draft of the Q&A that will be a part of Amber Keyser’s The V-Word last week, and after having spent almost a year now reading and thinking critically about the ways that female sexuality are rendered in YA, there are definite places where YA can and should do better. I’ve been keeping an eye on this since writing about positive portrayals of female sexuality last summer,  and more, I’ve been keeping an eye on the discussions about sexuality as it’s depicted in YA.

The depictions of sexuality in YA matter because these are safe spaces for readers — teen readers, especially — can think about, explore, and consider what it means to be a sexual being. We don’t talk openly or honestly about sex as a culture, and we certainly don’t talk about it in positive, affirming, and empowering ways with teenagers.

With those thoughts in mind, I thought it might be worth talking about where we’re doing okay and where we could and should be doing better when it comes to sexuality in YA. What are we seeing? What aren’t we seeing? More specifically, I’m talking about female sexuality (and that extends, of course, to gender identity on a larger scale) and I’m talking about more realistic novels than fantastic. Which isn’t to say fantasy or other genre fiction doesn’t add to the discussion. It’s just not my strongest area of knowledge. I’d love any input or thoughts other YA readers may have on this topic, so feel free to think with me in the comments. This isn’t meant to be comprehensive but instead, something that spurs some thinking and discussion.

I’m fully aware there are presses publishing books that explore some of these topics — but accessibility is an issue, especially for teen readers. If it’s not something that’d be easily found on a library shelf, in a classroom, or in a bookstore, getting these books can be a challenge.

Virginity & Sexuality As Choice


When I was working through the books I’d read and doing research on sexuality in YA, one of the topics I had a really tough time with was virginity. It seems counterintuitive for virginity to be a tricky topic to find in YA, but it is. There are a few books in mainstream YA which tackle virginity — Terra Elan McVoy in Pure is an example, as is Purity by Jackson Pearce — but there aren’t many more.

Could it be because if sex and sexuality aren’t addressed in the novel in some capacity that we default our thinking to virginity? In other words, if we don’t know the character is sexually active or that she is living a pure life and that’s one of the subplots, if not the main story plot, do we just assume she’s a virgin and that’s it?

Not every book in YA is going to address sexuality, nor should it. It’d be silly to have these topics shoehorned into every novel and it’d be disingenuous to story, to character, and it’d be unfair to readers who’d be given something that doesn’t need to be there (which then makes reading a chore and makes it feel like a lecture, rather than a pleasurable pursuit). But what I want to know is why virginity outside of a religious/spiritual choice isn’t more common in YA? There’s nothing wrong with that choice, and I know it appears with some frequency in fiction geared toward that readership, but it seems to be the biggest piece of the virginity puzzle in YA when I’m not sure it’s the only piece we should be seeing.

Perhaps the best example of this I could find in fiction was Melina Marchetta’s Looking for Alibrandi. This book is 22 years old, and yet, it did something really progressive and powerful that I’d like to see in a lot more YA today: Josie, the main character, is being physical with her boyfriend and enjoying it, but she then tells him she’s not ready to have sex with him. He goads her a bit about it, saying that she’s being ridiculous, especially since they’re having a good time, but she pushes back and tells him that her body and her choices about sex are her own and right now, she’s not feeling like she’s ready to have sex for the first time. This is a really powerful scene in the book, and one that made me pause and wonder why we don’t see more of this.

Where are girls who are choosing virginity because it empowers them to do that, outside of a religious choice?

I’d like to see more girls who are choosing virginity because that matters to them and because it makes them feel good to take and have that ownership over their own bodies and their own sexual lives. Not out of fear, nor out of duty. But because it’s exactly what they want.

Prude Shaming

The last few years have offered up a solid array of titles that explore slut shaming. Jillian and Mariko Tamaki do a great job of this in This One Summer, and there’s an especially good scene when the younger girl, Windy, tells Rose she’s unfairly labeling and judging other girls she doesn’t know — and she’s doing so in context of the sexual lives she knows nothing about. Jennifer Mathieu digs into slut shaming in her debut novel, The Truth About Alice, as well. There are other books that look at it with less focus than these two, but the important thing is that it’s there.

Is prude shaming though?

Perhaps because it’s tied into the fact we don’t see enough virginity-as-choice in YA (whether because of a religious reason or not!), but there’s also little exploration of what happens when you’re shamed because you’re choosing virginity.

I’ve seen bits and pieces of it — and even in Marchetta’s novel, Josie’s boyfriend picks on her when she stops him in that moment — but we need more. I’d love a book like Mathieu’s but showing the reverse: what happens when a girl’s choice of virginity becomes her downfall or the reason that she’s seen as any number of unsavory things? What happens when she asserts her right to choose not to do something makes her the center of bullying or the target of a community’s rage? Or what about when someone is asexual and simply isn’t interested in sex at all?

Even more, there are times when being a virgin isn’t a choice for teens. The opportunities for teens to have sex are far more limited than they are for adults. There’s a lot of ground to cover when it comes to virginity in YA, and I think prude shaming is a large facet within it.

Diversity


The biggest — and I mean biggest — failure in YA fiction when it comes to female sexuality is in diversity. And I mean diversity of every make, shape, and form possible.

Books that are doing a great job of portraying female sexuality have whiteness in common. It’s exceptionally rare to see a YA novel that tackles sexuality in a positive light that features a character of color. Hannah Moskowitz’s forthcoming Not Otherwise Specified (March 2015) features a queer character of color who is open, honest, and proud of her sexuality. She’s portrayed as enjoying female and male partners. Nina LaCour offers us a mixed race main character in Everything Leads to You, where she’s the center of a lesbian romance.

Both of these are rare sights.

In thinking about sexuality in YA, I had a near impossible job pulling out characters who were disabled discovering sexuality. Indeed, disability in YA already commands but a tiny part of bookshelves as it is, but the only discussion I could think to talk about in terms of a disabled person owning and exploring her sexuality was this powerful post by Kayla Whaley at Disability in KidLit. That isn’t a novel, though. It’s her life. Why aren’t we seeing more books like that?

If we consider mental illness a disability, we might be able to add more titles to the positive portrayals of female sexuality in YA mix — and even then, we’re not getting very far — but for stories featuring physically disabled main characters, the landscape is bleak.

More, we don’t have much diversity in terms of sexual choice itself. I noted above that we don’t see asexual characters (and asexuality is not the same as when we consider a default virgin narrative). We don’t see pansexual or demisexual characters. We don’t see many bisexual characters, though we’ve seen a few more in recent years, including Sophie in Tess Sharpe’s Far From You. We don’t see characters often who make choices outside of the one partner model — there is one I can think of but won’t spoil since it’s a semi-recent title. We also don’t see characters who see their sexuality as fluid and shifting; a lot of that may simply be because the teen years are about exploration and they’re a relatively short period within one’s lifespan, so discovering that fluidity can be tougher.

Female Masturbation


I’d actually begun an entire blog post titled “Going There: Female Masturbation in YA” a couple weeks ago, after reading this tweet from Andrew Karre:

I’m not sure if it’s because I was paying more attention over the last year or if it’s because I’ve come to dig out the cute way we talk around girls masturbating in YA, but this is something I think we’re seeing more than we believe we are. Could we do better? Absolutely. We can do better in not just seeing it happen more frequently, but we can do better in not being shy about describing what’s going on when a girl’s enjoying solo sex (fading to black or being euphemistic in a way that only those who are clued in know what’s happening).

When I served on Outstanding Books for the College Bound last year, one of the titles I nominated for one of the subcommittees I was on was Rookie: Yearbook One. It seems like a bit of an odd ball choice, but it’s an amazing resource. Besides diving into music and film and fashion and culture, this particular volume offered a really honest and blunt piece about why masturbation is important and why girls can feel empowered by knowing their bodies.


Rookie might not be hitting mainstream YA readers, but the fact that one of the biggest publications for teens, spearheaded by a teen, tackled this topic and found it important enough to feature in their print edition says a lot to me about how this is a topic teen girls are interested in and are talking about.

Beyond Rookie, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see masturbation pop up not just in Sarah McCarry’s All Our Pretty Songs, which I noted in my prior post on this topic, but I’ve seen it in other recent reads. There’s Julie Halpern’s The F-It List. There’s Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky (an older title, but a book that is entirely about female sexuality and highly recommended). There’s the classic from Judy Blume, Deenie, as well as Kody Keplinger’s The DUFF.

Then there’s Fiona Woods’s Wildlife, too, out in September, that I can’t recommend highly enough. Beyond featuring masturbation, Wildlife explores numerous facets of sexuality, and it’s empowering and validating in a way teen girls need to read and see, whatever choices they make for themselves.

We can keep doing better with this aspect of sexuality, and I hope that we do. Let’s see more diverse representations here. The majority of these stories are middle class white females — and we know there are many, many more types of girls than that. Let’s see this become a normal thing, rather than something that has to either be danced around or something that, when we read it, sticks out because seeing it called as much is a pleasant surprise.

Or, as I noted in the Q&A, it’d be great if we didn’t have to keep calling it female masturbation, as if it’s something wholly different than masturbation, period.

If you’re still thinking about this, I highly recommend reading Andrew Karre’s follow-up blog post to his tweet, regarding the comments teens in the workshop he and Carrie Mesrobian had. It’s insightful and I think not only shows what is and is not being seen by teen readers, but I think it speaks to why we can and should be having these conversations with teens.

They aren’t dumb.

Protagonists of Color in YA SFF

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One of my goals for this year in my blogging life is to highlight books featuring people of color, especially in science fiction and fantasy. I don’t need to rehash what a problem the whiteness of SFF is for the genre – if you’re reading Stacked, you’re probably aware of it already. I know a lot of our readers are on the lookout for titles with characters that reflect the diverse racial makeup of our world, and I haven’t always been great at mentioning this facet specifically in my past reviews, so I thought it might be helpful if I collected them all in one place here. These are all titles I’ve read since I started blogging. They’re also all titles I recommend (some more highly than others) and I hope if you haven’t already read them, your to be read pile grows a little.

I’ve summarized my reviews in a paragraph or two beneath each title, but if you’d like to read the full reviews, they’re linked as well.

While We Run by Karen Healey
This is the sequel to Healey’s “pre-dystopia” When We Wake, which is also fantastic. While We Run focuses on Abdi, a black teenager from Djibouti who moved to Australia to attend school and got caught up in Tegan’s story. Both he and Tegan begin this story in captivity, but they’re separated both by space and by experience.

From a thematic standpoint, this book rocks it. From a craft standpoint,
it’s terrific as well. Abdi’s narrative is heartbreaking at times. I
feel like sometimes writers of dystopias will have their characters go
through really horrible stuff and then gloss over any sort of lasting
effects it may have. Healey refuses to do this – it’s obvious Abdi is
traumatized by his time in captivity and Healey lets him go through it.
She makes us as readers feel it, too. And of course, the plot, which
features cryonics and lots of government secrets, is exciting and
well-paced, too.

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Johnson’s beautiful writing tells the story of June Costa, who lives in a futuristic Brazil in a city called Palmares Tres. It’s a story about art and power and the many ways we love – and destroy – each other. The world-building is fascinating and its cast of characters is entirely people of color. I never reviewed this one in full at Stacked, but we did choose it as our winner for the Cybils last year. Read why here.

Prophecy by Ellen Oh
Kira is a demon fighter, blessed (or cursed) with the ability to see the
demons that have killed humans and overtaken their bodies for their own
evil ends. To everyone else, though, it just seems like Kira is
attacking innocent people, especially since the king, Kira’s uncle, has
commanded her to keep the presence of the demons secret.

The book is set in a version of Korea, which is interesting and makes it
pretty unique in this aspect. Unfortunately, it still seemed a bit too
much like the world of Graceling, a similarity that was enhanced
by the plot parallels (warrior girl with strange eyes and special
abilities must work for her uncle the king). I also felt the writing was a bit young for the intended audience, but that shouldn’t stop readers hungry for high fantasy from enjoying this one, even if it won’t be their favorite.

Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst
Liyana has trained her whole life to be the vessel for her tribe’s
goddess, Bayla. When Liyana dances and a magician speaks the correct
words, Bayla will be called and inhabit Liyana’s body, displacing
Liyana’s soul.
Liyana is prepared to sacrifice herself to save her tribe, but although
the ritual is performed flawlessly, Bayla doesn’t come. Her tribe
decides that Bayla decreed Liyana unworthy of her, and they abandon her
to the desert. Then a young man approaches her, claiming to be the trickster god Korbyn, and they set off on a quest that gives Liyana’s life purpose once more.

It’s clear from the gorgeous cover that Liyana is of Asian ancestry. The desert setting is one of the best parts of this book and is completely realized with beautiful descriptions that never bog down the forward momentum of the story. The magic system and religion are unique, Liyana is a fascinating and complex character, and the story never led me exactly where I expected. This is a well-executed, engrossing novel.

Shadows on the Moon by Zoe Marriott
Fairy tale re-tellings are a dime dozen, but this is a standout in a crowded field. The setting is feudal Japan – if feudal Japan were a place where a young
woman like Suzume, our protagonist, could transform her appearance with
a thought. The book is divided into three parts: the first is violent, where almost all of Suzume’s family is killed on the emperor’s orders, and her mother re-marries a man who will become the story’s evil stepfather. Parts two and three delve into Suzume’s newfound ability as a shadow weaver, which enables her to change her appearance. This ability comes in handy
when she’s on the run from those who mean to do her harm, and it paves the way for her plan for revenge.

There’s so much of interest here that sets it apart from a standard
re-telling. Marriott has created a unique culture in Suzume’s world as
well as that of Otieno, her love interest from Africa. It was lovely to read a story
that was not only NOT set in a Western locale, but that also featured
two non-Western leads.

Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry
Zombies are people, too. Or at least, they were. That’s the lesson Benny Imura learns the first time he goes out zombie
hunting with his older brother Tom. Tom’s a zombie bounty hunter (he
prefers to call himself a “closure specialist”) and has agreed to take
Benny on as an apprentice when Benny’s other attempts at holding down a
job fail. Benny’s just turned fifteen, and in the post-apocalyptic world
he inhabits, where zombies outnumber humans, all fifteen year olds must
work a part-time job or have their rations cut in half. Hunting zombies isn’t all this book is about, though – the real conflict is with other living, non-rotting humans. When Benny’s friend and possible love interest is abducted by a gang of bad guys, Benny and Tom set out to rescue her.

If a zombie book can be fun and terrifying at the same time, this one is it. It’s funny, too, and Benny – whose father was Japanese-American – has a terrific voice. This was another Cybils winner, though it was before my time as a judge.

Tankborn by Karen Sandler
Kayla and Mishalla are GENs, genetically engineered non-humans. Unlike
other people who were born to mothers naturally, Kayla and Mishalla were
gestated in a tank. Not even considered human by the trueborns, GENs are created for a specific Assignment, which they take at age 15 and from then on are treated as slaves. The book alternates between their perspectives, but most attention is given to Kayla, who is pictured on the cover.

Sandler has created a unique society (set on an entirely new planet
called Loka) ruled by a strict caste system: trueborns at the top,
lowborns at the bottom, and GENs beneath even them. The
trueborns themselves are divided into castes. The ideal skin color is
what most would consider medium-brown. The farther away from this color a
person’s skin deviates (darker AND lighter), the lower caste they hold. (Kayla’s skin is light brown and Mishalla’s is pale white,
so even if they were trueborn, they would both be low trueborns.) It’s a
unique take on the caste systems in our own past and present worlds,
and Sandler makes it believable. 

This is a science fiction story for readers who like science fiction. What I mean by that is it
most likely won’t hold the interest of casual science fiction readers.
Sandler’s world-building is complex, involving a string of new
vocabulary, complicated social structures, a completely new religion,
and a giant backstory that unfolds over the course of the book. It’s
necessary for the reader to understand all of this world-building to
comprehend the story, and it’s too easy for casual SF readers to give up
when they stumble across yet another unfamiliar element. Readers who
enjoy SF naturally, though, will relish this aspect.

The Shattering by Karen Healey
Keri’s beloved older brother Jake has just committed suicide. Jake had
always seemed like a happy young man, and the suicide is both unexpected
and traumatizing for Keri and her family. Because of Jake’s suicide,
Keri reconnects with her old friend Janna, whose brother had also
committed suicide some years ago. Only Janna doesn’t believe the deaths were suicides. She introduces Keri
to her friend Sione, whose brother had also committed suicide recently.
Janna and Sione have been researching the suicides that occurred in
their New Zealand town of Summerton, and they determined that there was
one suicide per year, always around the same time. They are also curious
about the fact that Summerton is always prosperous, always sunny at the
turn of the year, and no one ever really seems to leave. Janna believes there is magic at work; the other two aren’t so sure.

The book tells the story from all three characters’ alternating points of view, though only Keri’s is written in first person. Keri and Sione are both non-white: Keri is half-Maori and identifies as such, while Sione is Samoan visiting New Zealand for the summer. The story is mainly a mystery with some fantasy elements, and the ending – the big reveal of the whodunnit and why – was such a punch to my gut in the best possible way. Even after the main thrust of the book has been resolved, Healey has
more to say about life and love and death and grief. It’s moving, and
despite the fantasy elements of the novel, it’s also true.

Bonus Middle Grade: The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex
If you haven’t read this book or listened to it on audio, please do yourself a favor and check it out from your local library as soon as possible. It’s so funny, so poignant, so good. It has an alien race called the Boov and one of them is named J. Lo. It has phrases like “pink squishable gaputty” and funny little drawings throughout. It features a brave black girl named Tip who has a huge sense of humor and an even huger heart. This may the best book about an alien invasion you’ll ever read. (Haven’t actually read any books about an alien invasion? Now is a good time to start.)

On Books Changing Titles

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Cover changes can be hit or miss for me. Sometimes, the redesigns are worlds better than the original and other times, the change doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. That’s why I love thinking about and writing about those changes — who will the new look appeal to? Does it better reflect the story? 

But one thing I can say I almost universally dislike is a title change. 
Titles are a marketing tool in YA. It’s what can grab a reader immediately. If you spend any time looking through author Q&As, you’ll see many of them talk about title changes that happened well before the book went to press. A number of authors have mentioned they’ve never once named a book themselves. 
So when a title changes, it’s most likely because it wasn’t selling well. The change in title, like the change in cover image, is an attempt to grab new reader attention in a way the original concept did not. 
But for anyone who works in a library or who works with readers in a bookstore, classroom, or similar situation, a title change is a big pain in the ass. Did you order the book already? Will readers be asking for one title and then be disappointed when they’re handed a book with a different one? While there are ways to indicate a title change — you see it on the cover itself and in most library catalog systems, there’s a line you can add for it — it’s not a change that’s necessarily beneficial to readers themselves. 
I know sometimes when an older title comes back into print, the title change can spark a new interest (especially with combined with a fresh cover). But over the last couple of years, it seems there have been a number of YA books getting the title change treatment when a book goes from its original hardcover to paperback. It’s getting sort of challenging to keep track of them at this point, especially when those title changes are paired with a cover change. Are you supposed to keep track? I suspect it’s not an issue to double order books, but it’s certainly not going to make confusion less of a problem. 
Here’s a look at some of the recent YA title changes. I’d love to know of others that you have seen or know about, so feel free to let me know in the comments. I’d also be curious what you think of this: pain in the ass or something you’re willing to deal with? Which of these changes do you think benefit readers better? And more, have you seen this happen much in adult fiction? While it’s not an arena I’m as familiar with, I can’t come up with any examples as I’m thinking about it. 
All descriptions are from WorldCat. I’m putting the original title and cover on the left, with the redesign and renamed book on the right.

Better Than Perfect is the renamed Wild Cards by Simone Elkeles. Interesting, this one is going to keep the idea of “Wild Cards” as the series name. 

Derek Fitzpatrick is kicked out of boarding school and must move with his stepmother to her childhood home in Illinois, where he meets Ashtyn Parker, who may be able to achieve her dream with Derek’s help.

Level 2 by Lenore Appelhans has been renamed The Memory of After. The same model who was on the original cover graces the redesign, too. 

Seventeen-year-old Felicia Ward is dead and spending her time in the hive reliving her happy memories–but when Julian, a dark memory from her past, breaks into the hive and demands that she come with him, she discovers that even the afterlife is more complicated and dangerous then she dreamed.

I Am The Weapon by Allen Zadoff is the renamed Boy Nobody in paperback. The cover changed a tiny bit and I actually think it made the retitling more confusing since they’re so similar. 

Teen assassin Boy Nobody is sent on a mission to assassinate the head of a domestic terrorism cell, but his mission turns up more questions about his job than answers.

Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher will be renamed Yours Truly when it comes out in paperback in October. This one’s keeping the same cover. 

Zoe, a teenager in Bath, England, writes letters to a death-row inmate in Texas, hoping to find comfort in sharing her guilty secret over the death of a friend with someone who can never tell her family.

Christopher Pike’s Witch World was renamed and repackaged as Red Queen. But the “Witch World” phrase sticks around as the title of the series. 

On a high school graduation road trip to Las Vegas, Jessie, still in love with ex-boyfriend Jimmy, discovers that she possesses extraordinary powers and the ability to exist in both the real world and an alternate one.

Here are some backlist books that have gotten ye old title change: 

Nova Ren Suma’s Dani Noir was originally published as a middle grade title and was updated and repackaged/titled as a YA novel, Fade Out.

Imaginative thirteen-year-old Dani feels trapped in her small mountain town with only film noir at the local art theater and her depressed mother for company, but while trying to solve a real mystery she learns much about herself and life.

The Babysitter Murders by Janet Ruth Young was retitled and repackaged as Things I Shouldn’t Think.

Imaginative Massachusetts seventeen-year-old Dani Solomon confesses she has been troubled by thoughts of harming Alex, the little boy she loves to babysit, triggering gossip and a media frenzy that makes “Dani Death” the target of an extremist vigilante group.

Maureen Johnson’s The Bermudez Triangle was rereleased as On The Count of Three. 

The friendship of three high school girls and their relationships with their friends and families are tested when two of them fall in love with each other.