#emma straub
Nine Books To Read Right Now: YA for People Who Don’t Read YA (but also still want to know what it’s about)
It seems like the YA buzz and controversy have continued over into 2015, and I’ve been seeing a lot of lists of “YA Books for People Who Don’t Read YA” and I’ve gotta say that I’ve been rolling my eyes a lot. Don’t get me wrong - I want people to read books that I love. I know the definition of YA is fluid, for the most part, but I’m pretty sure To Kill a Mockingbird wouldn’t be sold as YA, there’s a distinct line between middle grade and young adult, and there are books beyond The Giver and The Fault in Our Stars.
Herewith I present you nine of my favorite YA books published in the last decade or so, in no particular order. These aren’t necessarily superstars of YA, and not all of them are straight contemporary lit. Below I’ve listed the book, a short summary, and who I recommend it for.
Feel free to reblog and add on! I know I didn’t get everything and I know I haven’t read everything that could be on this list, so I’d love this to be collaborative.
Click below the cut!
The Walls Around Us - Nova Ren Suma
Violet, an eighteen-year-old dancer, is days away from the life of her dreams when something threatens to expose the shocking truth of her achievement. Within the walls of the Aurora Hills juvenile detention center, there’s Amber, locked up for so long she can’t imagine freedom. Tying their two worlds together is Orianna, who holds the key to unlocking all the girls’ darkest mysteries.
What really happened on the night Orianna stepped between Violet and her tormentors? What really happened on two strange nights at Aurora Hills? Will Amber and Violet and Orianna ever get the justice they deserve—in this life or in another one?
For fans of…Lauren Beukes, Shirley Jackson, Kelly Link
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before - Jenny Han
Lara Jean has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister’s ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all.
For fans of…Emma Straub, Jean Kwok, Rainbow Rowell
Lies We Tell Ourselves - Robin Talley
In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever. Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. An honors student at her old school, she is put into remedial classes, spit on and tormented daily. Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town’s most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept “separate but equal.” Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another.
For fans of…Zadie Smith, Harper Lee, Octavia E. Butler
The Miseducation of Cameron Post - Emily M. Danforth
When Cameron Post’s parents die suddenly in a car crash, her shocking first thought is relief they’ll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl. But that relief doesn’t last, and Cam is soon forced to move in with her conservative aunt Ruth and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in and leaving well enough alone (as her grandmother might say), and Cam becomes an expert at both.
Then Coley Taylor moves to town. Beautiful, pickup-driving Coley is a perfect cowgirl with the perfect boyfriend to match. She and Cam forge an unexpected and intense friendship — one that seems to leave room for something more to emerge. But just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, ultrareligious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to ‘fix’ her niece, bringing Cam face-to-face with the cost of denying her true self — even if she’s not exactly sure who that is.
For fans of…Cheryl Strayed, Jeanette Winterson, Alison Bechdel
Theo is better now.
She’s eating again, dating guys who are almost appropriate, and well on her way to becoming an elite ballet dancer. But when her oldest friend, Donovan, returns home after spending four long years with his kidnapper, Theo starts reliving memories about his abduction—and his abductor.
Donovan isn’t talking about what happened, and even though Theo knows she didn’t do anything wrong, telling the truth would put everything she’s been living for at risk. But keeping quiet might be worse.
For fans of…Jodi Picoult, Maria Semple, Misty Copeland
Addy Hanlon has always been Beth Cassidy’s best friend and trusted lieutenant. Beth calls the shots and Addy carries them out, a long-established order of things that has brought them to the pinnacle of their high-school careers. Now they’re seniors who rule the intensely competitive cheer squad, feared and followed by the other girls – until the young new coach arrives.
Cool and commanding, an emissary from the adult world just beyond their reach, Coach Colette French draws Addy and the other cheerleaders into her life. Then a suicide focuses a police investigation on Coach and her squad. After the first wave of shock and grief, Addy tries to uncover the truth behind the death – and learns that the boundary between loyalty and love can be dangerous terrain.
For fans of…Liane Moriarty, Tana French, Paula Hawkins
All the Rage - Courtney Summers
The sheriff’s son, Kellan Turner, is not the golden boy everyone thinks he is, and Romy Grey knows that for a fact. Because no one wants to believe a girl from the wrong side of town, the truth about him has cost her everything—friends, family, and her community. Branded a liar and bullied relentlessly by a group of kids she used to hang out with, Romy’s only refuge is the diner where she works outside of town. No one knows her name or her past there; she can finally be anonymous. But when a girl with ties to both Romy and Kellan goes missing after a party, and news of him assaulting another girl in a town close by gets out, Romy must decide whether she wants to fight or carry the burden of knowing more girls could get hurt if she doesn’t speak up. Nobody believed her the first time—and they certainly won’t now — but the cost of her silence might be more than she can bear.
For fans of…Roxane Gay, Alice Sebold, Laurie Halse Anderson
Everything, Everything - Nicola Yoon*
This innovative, heartfelt debut novel tells the story of a girl who’s literally allergic to the outside world. When a new family moves in next door, she begins a complicated romance that challenges everything she’s ever known. The narrative unfolds via vignettes, diary entries, texts, charts, lists, illustrations, and more.
For fans of…Emma Donoghue, Jami Attenberg, Jenny Offill
Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight - she’s a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king’s thug.
When she first meets Prince Po, Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change. She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace - or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away.The Graceling Trilogy as a whole really is required reading here.
For fans of…Erika Johansen, Diana Gabaldon, Naomi Novik
There you have it! Some of my recent favorites - what are yours?
Thanks to the indispensable reelbrains,dancinginodessa, and ellewceefor their help figuring out these comparable titles.
*Everything, Everything isn’t technically on sale until 9/1/15, but I still thought it was important enough to go on this list!
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The last two weeks have been totally amazing for readings of books that I’m obsessed with. New to me in this round is debut author Stephanie Danler, who I saw in conversation with Prune chef Gabrielle Hamilton (who called this the next great food book after Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, if that says anything to you). The other three I’ve been fans of for a few years, and seeing them again at their readings was as delightful as always.
Rufi Thorpe’s DEAR FANG, WITH LOVE is the story of Vera and her essentially estranged father, Lucas, who takes her to his family homeland of Vilnius, Lithuania, after she suffers a breakdown at her high school boarding school. A wise, skillful second novel that ponders the meaning of family and the stark reality of mental illness.
Stephanie Danler’s SWEETBITTER is a novel that feels like a memoir, in that it parallels Danler’s own experiences in many ways. Tess moves to New York and finds work in a Union Square restaurant, revealing the dirty, gritty life of the service industry in the city as well as the relationships that develop between those who live their lives in this lane.
Miranda Beverly-Whittemore’s JUNE, her fourth novel, splits the timeline between depressed twenty-something Cassie Danvers and the teenage years of her grandmother June. The stories become entwined after Cassie inherits a fortune from a golden age movie star, and his family comes to visit her in her recently-deceased grandmother’s house to find out exactly what she knows and how she got involved, which she would like to know, too.
Emma Straub’s MODERN LOVERS follows two families in Brooklyn neighborhood Ditmas. The parents have all known each other since college, and are now discovering what adulthood and growing up means as they parent their teenage children and remember their own passions.
Please check out all of these books, out in the world within the last month. Support these amazing women and their amazing books!
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