I breezed through three reads this week in anticipation of tomorrow’s Anderson’s YA Conference. All three are the latest by authors who will be attending. They are all available on shelves now.

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White: Chick lit meets paranormal. Think Sophie (Hex Hall) style sass with a taser. Although I think there were some holes when it came to explaining paranormal elements, I thought the romance was well developed and our main character was a good female character. She was more than simply a love-struck woman. Read Jen’s review for a longer review. I’m not thrilled to hear there are 2 sequels planned, since this could stand alone with just a bit more development. Pass this off to fans of Gail Carriger’s “Parasol Protectorate” series and fans of Hex Hall.

Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel: What happens when you go from one side of Canada to the other and need to start over in a new school and make new friends? Oh, add to that the fact your father has just adopted a new brother for you, too, who will be his research project at the university for which he’s now working. Imagine that brother is really a monkey. This is a heart-felt story about family and what it means to connect with one another wrapped in some really cute moments of monkey love (in an innocent way, kids). A total departure from Oppel’s other titles, and this has real appeal to middle grade readers. This one’s for fans of realistic fiction and those who like stories where the kid is the hero.

Halo by Alexandra Adorenetto: Much as I wanted to avoid the angels “thing” going on in YA, this one kept calling to me. It’s nothing new or spectacular in terms of plot, but the writing is pleasant to read, and this book flies! It’s a hulking 450+ pages, but I breezed through this in just a few hours. Our main character here, Bethany, is an angel sent with her brother and sister to do good deeds in Venus Cove. Alas, she falls in love with a mortal and things get a little sticky. What bothered me about the book was that Bethany lets her friendship with Molly fall to the wayside for Xavier and pretty soon, he’s all she lives for or cares about. It’s annoying when I know there’s a lot more to Bethany than that. Again, I can’t believe this is a trilogy since this stands alone (except for the end paragraph which will be the hook into book #2 and could totally have been chopped out). Hand off to fans of Twilight or Shiver. This one’s fine for youngerish teen readers, too, especially given the discussions of sex that happen in this book and it will appeal to your readers of spiritual/Christian books.