What is your favorite YA novel that was published in the last five years?
All tagged YA novel
Welcome to the Dark Side: Endings
<SPOILERS> for those of us bookworms who sometimes skip to the ending while still in the middle of the book.
Yes No Maybe So
Young
Teen
Campaigners
In a Meet Cute
Every Day Is Mental Health Awareness Day
My favorite part of New Moon is still the scene in which Bella is staring out the window as the months go by. I thought it was the perfect visual depiction of the blank pages in the book.
First Pages: The Poet X
“The summer is made for stoop-sitting
and since it’s the last week before school starts,
Harlem is opening its eyes to September.”
The Poet X ~ Elizabeth Acevedo
First Pages: Frankly In Love
“Well, I have two names.
That’s what I say when people ask me what my middle names is. I say:
Well, I have two names.
My first name is Frank Li.
Mom-n-Dad gave me that name mostly with the character count in mind.
No really: F+R+A+N+K+L+I contains seven characters and seven is a lucky number in America.”
~ from Frankly In Love by David Yoon
Book Vs Movie: The Sun is Also a Star
“Carl Sagan said that if you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. When he says ‘from scratch’, he means from nothing. He means from a time before the world even existed. If you want to make an apple pie from nothing at all, you have to start with the Big Bang and expanding universes, neutrons, ions, atoms, black holes, suns, moons, ocean tides, the Milky Way, Earth, evolution, dinosaurs, extinction-level events, playtupuses, Homo erectus, Cro-Magnon man, etc. You have to start at the beginning.”
~from The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
What If It's Us
What I loved about What If It’s Us is that Albertalli and Silvera realistically portray the voices, the angst, the humor, the friendships, AND the awkwardness of teen relationships.
L.A. Times Festival of Books 2019 with the Bookworm Family
A belated recounting of our annual trip to the L.A.Times Festival of Books
Dear Evan Hansen
Every day I meet an Evan Hansen or a Connor Murphy or an Alana Beck. Or a Zoe Murphy. Every day I meet one of these kids in our office, whether they are teens or still toddlers.
For the Evan or Connor who is already a teen, I take a deep breath. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Evan and Connor are characters in the musical (and now novel), Dear Evan Hansen. Both of whom are struggling with feeling alone, with feeling anxiety, with feeling/being depressed.
First Pages: A Darker Shade of Magic
“Kell wore a very peculiar coat.
It had neither one side, which would be conventional, nor two, which would be unexpected, but several, which was, of course, impossible.
The first thing he did whenever he stepped out of one London and into another was take off the coat and turn it inside out once or twice (or even three times) until he found the side he needed.”
~ A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
Bookworm Family SHIPS
The Bookworm family shares their favorite ‘ships from fiction.
A Very Large Expanse of Sea Read-Along Part 1
Come join in our discussion/read-along of Tahereh Mafi’s A Very Large Expanse of Sea.
First Pages: Shatter Me
“I’ve been locked up for 264 days.
I have nothing but a small notebook and a broken pen and the numbers in my head to keep me company. 1 window. 4 walls. 144 square feet of space. 26 letters in an alphabet I haven’t spoken in 264 days of isolation.
6,336 hours since I’ve touched another human being.”
~ Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda VERSUS Love, Simon
Mini Me and Dr. Bookworm debate the movie versus novel version of Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda AKA Love, Simon by Becky Albertalli.
To All the Boys I've Loved Before/P.S. I Still Love You
Jenny Han, the author of To All the Boys and its sequels, wrote an op-ed piece in the NYT about what it means for teens to have an Asian teen role model like Lana Condor AKA the actor who plays Lara Jean Song Covey. Why is her full name important? Because Lara Jean is a mixed Asian-American. Just like my kids.
What's Your Go-To Book?
What's your go-to book? When I have nothing to read and no access to the internet (and fan fiction), there are a handful of books that I can always count on. Where She Went by Gayle Forman is one of them.
Long Way Down
There have been two school shootings since I started reading this book. Two.
And Long Way Down is a quick and easy read. However....I put it down after the first school shooting which was by a 12-year-old. Someone pretty much the same age as my Mini Me.
And then there was an even bigger shooting, more lives lost senselessly.
In Long Way Down, Jason Reynolds tackles gun violence in a different way—from the point of view of a teenage boy who feels as if he has no other choice but to avenge his brother's senseless death. It makes sense....and it doesn't.