Books shelved under “Young Adult”

Lizard Radio is a lovely, messy, very queer book with queer characters. I enjoyed it and also didn’t, if you know what I mean—I’m glad I read it, but reading it was a bit of a chore, because Pat Schmatz’s style is quite distinctive. This feels more like a novella than a novel to me, despite its length, because it doesn’t quite have the narrative completeness I desire, personally, in my novels. Nevertheless, Kivali’s journey…

Code Name Verity was some of the best WWII fiction I’ve ever read. So I’ve had this prequel on my to-read list for a while. Elizabeth Wein in general seems like an author I should watch, and I finally tackled The Pearl Thief with no small amount of trepidation: how could this possibly measure up to Code Name Verity? Indeed, if that’s your metric, you will necessarily be disappointed. Obviously this book is…

Oh, you American YA novels and your obsession with Homecoming … sigh. At least in this case, I.W. Gregorio puts it right at the beginning of the novel and gets it over with. It is one of the many stock elements of None of the Above, a novel featuring an intersex protagonist coming to terms with her identity while navigating her final year of high school. I was very nervous to read this book,…

I was excited to read a YA novel with an Indigenous protagonist, because there aren’t enough of those. Killer of Enemies is an action-packed dystopian thriller from Joseph Bruchac. Yet what it gains from tense action sequences it loses in sloppy writing elsewhere.

Lozen is the eponymous Killer of Enemies, a post-apocalyptic job position that involves being sent on hazardous missions away from the haven of Haven to kill dangerous beasties that might otherwise threaten…

Not sure what motivated me to add this to my to-read list at some point, but I did, and my library had a copy, so here we are. Enter Title Here is a metafictional novel about an extremely ambitious, driven, single-minded young woman who will stop at nothing to achieve her goals. Rahul Kanakia asks us to consider the current ways in which we rank, judge, and evaluate students in the American education system, and…

Longtime Twitter follower of Hannah Moskowitz, first time reader. Why did I pick Not Otherwise Specified? No idea! This was the one that came up and got added to my to-read list. No regrets.

Trigger warning, obviously, for discussions of eating disorder and weight loss. Also for use of potential queer slurs, bullying, and depictions of controlling/manipulative behaviour from friends.

Etta Sinclair is a Black, bisexual girl at an all-girls school. Her decision to…

Um, wow. Full Disclosure caught me by surprise. I was doing a library run, and after hearing this book hyped on Twitter I checked on a lark to see if my library had a copy—not expecting one, because it was so freshly published. Yet my library did have a copy, and I borrowed it, and I read it, and this book is quality. I was expecting to like the book, but honestly, I loved…

Every time I start another Holly Bourne book, I’m scared. I think, “Is this the time? Is this the book where Bourne lets me down, and I have to be disappointed??” And the answer is always no, as it is with The Places I’ve Cried in Public. I read this mostly in private, but otherwise there would have been some public tears, let me tell you.

Trigger warnings in this book for discussion and…

SLAY in the story is a MMORPG where players duel using in-game cards that derive their names and powers from elements of various Black cultures. Kiera Johnson is 17 years old and should be worrying more about whether or not she’s getting into her first choice college. But she’s also the secret creator and developer for SLAY. She wanted a gaming world that embraced players’ Blackness rather than punishing it. She wanted a space where…

Welcome one and all to another instalment of Fangirling About Holly Bourne. I read Are We All Lemmings and Snowflakes? mostly on a flight to Montreal to visit my friend Rebecca, on whom I foist all the Holly Bourne books after I read them, finishing the book at her place while I waited for her to come home from work. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the spartan description on the back—but having read…

Reading this book was a surreal experience in a few ways. I read a lot of contemporary YA, so I’m used to feeling a lot older than the characters. Speak was originally published in 1999, when I was ten years old. So I was younger than Melinda when this book first came out, and the high school setting actually predates my own high school experience. Yet I’m older than her now, when I read it.…

I was 22 when I first moved away from home for a significant period of time. Even at that age it was hard to be away from everyone and everything I knew for so long. So I can understand Suzette’s apprehension, returning home to LA following a school year in New England. On top of the distance, she has to renegotiate her relationships, particularly with her brother. Little & Lion is a moving story about…

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the eARC!

Maren is seventeen years old and ready to strike out on her own. Well, not exactly on her own. She has a girlfriend, aka a heartmate, Kaia, who is the more adventurous of the pair. They are head-over-heels in love for one another—but when an elite group of Aurati, women who do dirty work for the repressive Emperor, show up and abduct Kaia for purposes…

So I had to read Our Own Private Universe in the space of a single morning. It was due that same day at the library, no renewal permitted because someone had it on hold (good for them!), and because I've broken my elbow, I can't drive, so I had to have it done in time for my mom to drop it off at the library when we went shopping that afternoon. Challenge accepted, but oh…

Let’s start with this: The Paper & Hearts Society is the kind of book I would have definitely loved as a teenager. Lucy Powrie combines her love of contemporary young adult fiction and classics with a captivating story of moving on from fractured friendships and bullying to create a great story brimming with allusions.

Tabby Brown is a fifteen-year-old book nerd moving to a new town over the summer. Somewhat introverted and anxious, Tabby isn't…

This review will be shorter than usual because I broke my elbow and have one hand in a cast. For my future self looking back to see what I thought of this book: Janani's review is very detailed and concurs with much of my opinion. And, as ever, Julie's review eloquently explains my dissatisfaction with the romance.

Children of Blood and Bone is a Nigerian-inspired fantasy novel about two pairs of siblings wrapped up in…

Life is unfair. It’s even more unfair when you get tangled up with the justice system. One of the things that I’ve had to unlearn over my 29 years as a privileged white dude is my faith in the fairness and equity of the justice system. The Walls Around Us explores the cracks of the justice system from the perspective of youth, particularly young girls of colour. I was nearly tempted to give up on…

Just over a year ago I read What’s a Girl Gotta Do?, the last novel in the Spinster Club trilogy featuring teenagers Evie, Amber, and Lottie figuring out life, feminism, mental health, and the tricky transition into adulthood. Each of those three books examines slightly different facets of these motifs. Holly Bourne has proved herself, time and again, to be a sensitive, witty author whose writing finds the right tone to be edifying and…

I’m hardline New Historicist when it comes to critiquing hip hop. Hip hop is neither revolutionary nor corporate. Hip hop is a tool, and like any tool it can be wielded for ends fair or foul. One can appreciate hip hop without context, but to truly understand hip hop one needs to delve behind the lyrics into the context of the rapper’s life. Jay-Z’s Decoded is a great example of this: reading through his lyrics…

The light versus the darkness. Heaven versus Hell. Good vs evil. It’s a timeless story, yet one with so many variations. Cracked is yet another take on this idea. Eliza Crewe tells an intense and urgent story of a hybrid caught between two worlds. Perhaps the most intriguing idea that Crewe brings to the table is the way the main character has to consume souls. Beyond that, there isn’t much here that I haven’t really…