So last week was the longest week ever, but it still didn’t allow me enough time to finish my post, so I’m combining two weeks in one. Except here I am at the end of the secondlongest week ever, again, and Daylight Savings Time has zapped any energy I had, Starbucks’ stock has probably risen because I’m basically mainlining espresso at this point, and even though I’m not particularly busy at work…
This week has been a garbage week of garbage things happening and it’s all just piling up and creating a giant garbage mountain and it’s all a bit much and I’d like it to please stop. BUT, since that isn’t how the universe works, and it’s snowing today (again) covering all that garbage in a layer of white nonsense, which is just adding to my irritation… here’s the list of shit I read this week.
I know I complained when work was slow about not having anything to do, but now that it’s busy and I have less time for reading non-work related things, I’m finding so many things I want to read. But also I’m finding that all I want to do is nap when I leave the office, so, make of that what you will.
A lot of my time, however, is spent reading about the awfulness of our world lately and I’m not…
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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?
If you haven’t read these books yet, you need to, and you need to do it soon. These are some of my favorite books by women about women that I’ve read over the last year or so, and they’re the ones that have stuck with me. I firmly recommend all of these, in no particular order.
A contemporary retelling of Jane Eyre set in NYC in 2001, Re Jane follows the titular character through not only her recognizable past but through a new future that tackles extended family relationships as well as contemporary woman- and adulthood.
Rufi Thorpe’s debut novel is out in paperback this summer, following the lives of Mia and Lorrie Ann, childhood friends whose stories diverge and meet again over the course of what feels like a young lifetime. As both women struggle with bringing family baggage into their adult lives, they learn what the reality of adult friendship can be.
After her father died, Charley Bordelonfound she’d inherited a sugar cane farm in rural Louisiana, so she packed up her life and her daughter to move from Los Angeles to reunite with her childhood family and friends. As she learns, moving back home after many years comes with its own challenges, not limited to the struggle she faces on the farm.
The second book in Tana French’s tenuously-linked Dublin Murder Squad series, The Likeness follows Det. Cassie Maddox as she revisits her Undercover days after the body of a young woman is found, with her former false identity - and a practically identical face. Cassie finds herself deep undercover after taking back on the identity, trying to determine who the killer is without finding herself in trouble.
Based on Bolick’s widely-publicized Atlantic article, Spinster is a non-fiction exploration of not only what it means to be a single woman in the 21st century but how women push to distinguish themselves in careers, particularly as writers. She ties in the stories of well-known “spinster” women writers from the last few centuries, giving historical context to what turns out to be a not-so-new struggle.
Inspired in part by Scottish myth, Kirsty Logan’s ethereal debut tells the alternating stories of North, who travels with a floating circus, and Callanish, a gracekeeper who presides over a watery cemetery. As circumstance brings them together, both young women wonder if they’re really satisfied with where their lives have taken them thus far.
Charlie Wong is a young dishwasher in Chinatown who dreams of a life that will let her see the rest of the world, or, at least, the rest of New York City. When she gets a receptionist job at a dance studio uptown, she gains confidence in herself, but as her mother’s talent as a ballerina comes out in her own life, Charlie must learn how to balance the two halves of her life.
Roxane Gay’s debut novel follows Mireille, visiting her Haitian family with her husband and young son. When Miri is kidnapped for ransom and her father refuses to pay, she is subjected to the brutalities of captivity and must rely on herself to survive. Not for the faint of heart, An Untamed State is a gut-wrenching insight into an infrequently-mentioned topic.
Celeste Ng’s debut novel begins with the death of teenager Lydia Lee in 1970s Ohio, and unravels a story of what happened to her and how her family deals with it. This is the story of a mixed-race family with some secrets laid bare and some secrets still to come.
