This Versatile Layer collection by Thomas K Davis includes a fun set of science fiction novels. Not young adult, exactly, it still contains great coming-of-age stories. It's reasonably clean, so I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it for teens. This sweeping space opera follows stories of people stuck in a conflict…
Marie Lu's Skyhunter isn't quite as good as her The Kingdom of Back. But it's still an incredible book, and I'll be looking for the sequels. The book stars a talented young woman from the wrong side of town. Her superpower seems to be her inability to speak--a relic left…
Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me is a beautifully written book that walks a tightrope strung between reality and fantasy--or maybe sci-fi.Miranda is a latchkey kid, and the neighbor boy she's been friends with forever seems to suddenly want nothing to do with her. An exploration of friendship follows. Miranda…
Jack Gantos's Dead End in Norvelt is a funny middle-grade book about a young man growing up in a town founded by Eleanor Roosevelt. Jack gets in trouble with his parents and spends the rest of the book grounded. His only amusement is helping the eccentric neighbor woman, Miss Volker.…
The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate is a sweet, well-written book. It features a gorilla who makes art (and throws his own scat) in a small cage in a run-down mall circus. The story is told from Ivan's point of view (Ivan is the gorilla). Instead of being…
JL Kaiser's Aeon The Sands of Undal has a great main character, wonderful world-building, and lots of food for thought. Caiia Shadi is smart, resourceful, a bit unconventional, and exceptionally loyal to her family--and to friends. I love how she makes her own path in a world that leaves no…
In A Voice that Thunders, Cully Mack plays around with that weird bit from Genesis 6. You know the bit--where Nephilim are on Earth, and sons of God are having children with daughters of men.That bit is a mysterious and intriguing glimpse of something odd going on in ancient times.…
Theresa Kay’s Broken Skies is a young adult science fiction novel about Jax, a traumatized young woman, living in a post-apocalyptic world. Disease has decimated the human population, and aliens are colonizing Earth.Then some of those aliens kidnap Jax’s brother, leaving one of their own behind, wounded. Jax makes a…
I picked up The Raven and The Dove from a sales promotion that Songs of Healing was also in, and I was glad I did. This story by Kaitlyn Davis has great world building, interesting magic, good pacing, fascinating political intrigue, and romance. Plus, people can fly!Seriously, I love the…
Invisible–another great book by Cecily Anne Paterson.The book stars Jazmine Crawford–a young lady who actively avoids attracting attention. Since her father’s death, she has perfected the art of becoming invisible.But then, Jazmine gets in trouble. To stay in school, she agrees to help with the school play. Soon, everybody sees…
Midnight Sun, as you probably already know, is the latest book in the Twilight series. It covers much of the same ground as the original books–but from Edward’s point of view.I admit I liked it, but that might be at least partly nostalgia. Still, some of Edward’s behavior feels a…
The Captain’s Boy is the newest release from one of my critique group members–Don Callaway.This story follows a Pennsylvania farm boy from the period of the American Revolution. When Isaiah and his father return from a supply-gathering trip, they find that Hessians have looted and burned their farm.With the rest…
I’ve often heard that Sarah, Plain and Tall is a very good book, but somehow I hadn’t read it before.It’s a deceptively simple story, short, with easy-to-read language. Despite its simplicity, the story packs a big emotional punch.Sarah, who is in fact plain and tall, comes from her home near…
Fran is starting over at a new school because of some tragedy in her past, and at first we’re not sure what that is, but we can see that it’s affecting everything about Fran.I love the voice here, and I love the way that Fran struggles to move past her…
Adelaide and the Dragon Castle has a lot of my favorite things in YA fantasy–great characters, coming of age, dragons.I love the way Adelaide finds her own solutions in a world that glorifies violence. And I love that these solutions don’t come instantly, but take some trial and error.I’m not…
I found this, strangely enough, when I was researching ways to format text messages in a book. (If you’re stressing about that, btw, this book does it seamlessly.)In the process of looking at the formatting, I got hooked on the story. Then I had to read the whole thing.Find Layla…
They call this type of fiction realistic–and I guess it is, if you use “realistic” to mean that any given event in the story could conceivably happen in the world as we know it. There’s no magic, and no not-yet-invented technology.On the other hand, I often found my plausibility stretched…
One of the advantages of tutoring in English is that I sometimes get the chance to read books for young people that I hadn’t heard of before.This one is fun. It features an unconventional teacher and his students–several of whom narrate the book.The multiple narrators annoyed me a bit at…
Ivory hears music in everything–in birdsong, and wind chimes, yes, but also in the noise of traffic and the rhythm of a dishwasher. There is also music in her heart, making sense of the world and her feelings–much more sense of these things than she can make without it. I…
I enjoyed this fun, romantic YA, though it reminded me a bit more of Groundhog’s Day than I would prefer. (Yeah, I was never that fond of that movie.)Still, Jack is a great character, and I love how he grows throughout this book, figuring out what is important to him.Kate…
Charlie’s not like Coco.So, when everything seems to be going wrong, she’s determined not to be a drama queen. But keeping all her frustrations inside turns out to be a less than perfect plan.I like how Charlie insists on being herself, and love how she comes to evaluate what’s most…
Micah McKinney and the Boys of Summer was a fun read that reminded me of all the intense emotion of going into middle school.Micah may have more serious issues in her life than most young teens, but most will relate to her difficulties adjusting to the way her body, her…
In Love and Muddy Puddles, I don’t quite relate to Coco Franks’s quest to be popular, but I totally get what it’s like to have your parents tell you you’re moving away from the life you know, and your feelings about it don’t matter.Of course, my parents never moved me…
Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco is a good book. Jacinta and Miss learn a lot from each other in this sweet and sometimes sad foray into the life of a young woman and her “amiga.” At the beginning, neither one understands much about the others’ world, and that…
Such a good book–and if I found myself a bit disappointed in the end, it’s only because the rest of the book was so astonishingly intense. For hours, I lived in the mind of Sara Louise Bradshaw, a girl growing up in the shadow of her beautiful and talented twin–feeling…
I always enjoy reading works by the RMFW Writer of the Year nominees, and this little gem by Jeff Seymour is one of the reasons why. It has sparkling wit, swashbuckling adventure, and a delightfully idealistic heroine, who starts out a foolhardy tomboy, but ends up a thoughtful and courageous…
I admit that I read this because (a) it was on lots of bestseller lists and (b) I liked the dress on the girls on the cover. I mean, I wouldn’t wear it, but it looked cool.The story was as beautiful as the dress, with a great, spunky main character…
This is a story about Deanna, a small town girl whose dad caught her in the back seat of an older boy’s car three years prior to the story’s start. Her life (mostly unfairly) has been defined by that moment ever since, but this is the summer where she begins…
This book immersed me in a world of cold and ice, where devious politics threatened to overwhelm me–and the androgyny of the people seemed among the most normal things about them.As Le Guin says in her introduction,Yes, indeed the people in it are androgynous, but that doesn’t mean that I’m…
Recommended to me by K, this is a beautiful tale about a young girl whose family is weighed down by grief, and the lengths that girl will go to to show her mother love and earn her mother’s approval. It’s more serious than K’s usual fare, and that’s all to…
This Cinderella retelling by Demelza Carlton has an Asian setting and a warrior-trained girl as the main character. Mai manages to be humble and confident at the same time, a difficult, but believable mix in this environment. I enjoyed her story very much.
Does my Head Look Big in This is a frequently funny, occasionally poignant story about an Arab-Australian teenager who decides she’s going to start wearing the hijab full-time (including to her private school.)It dives right into serious issues without making them seem at all heavy (faith, women’s rights, cross-cultural communication,…
A nice little fantasy with interesting characters and some great description. I thoroughly enjoyed it up until close to the end.Then I got a bit weirded out by the bizarre religious rituals and the suggestion that thirteen is old enough to be a mother--of any kind.Still, a fun read, that…
I enjoyed The Mind Readers, which dips into the life of a young woman who can tell what everyone around her is thinking. I did find myself wondering why her grandma didn't prepare her better for the world she was getting into, and why she was so quick to trust…
I meant to get a book on writing children's lit from the library, but it wasn't in, and this was near the empty spot in the stacks (with the "chick lit" part of the title conveniently covered by the library's bar code). So, I picked it up. I'm glad I…
Mandy, the heroine in this book, manages to work through an overwhelming burden of grief and guilt without that burden overwhelming the reader–or becoming trivialized. Granted, she’s got magical help, but still, it’s an impressive feat.I’ll definitely be picking up more of Shawn Mcguire’s books in the future.