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Riley Rose. What a name and what a personality.

She’s complex, beguiling and difficult for others to understand. Her outward appearance and verbal flippancy belies the depth of her emotions. She charmed me with her always unexpected and often cynical insights.

In Everything Beautiful, Australian author Simmone Howell created a character who’s a seemingly tough teen with a rough exterior, yet inside is soft, tender and vulnerable.

She’s overweight. She’s experiencing an acute loss after the death of her mother. She’s having difficulty adjusting to her father’s new love, a Christian woman who’s a radical contrast to everything that was her family. Riley Rose is experimenting with sex. She’s found a great new friend who’s a perfect partner in any new adventure they embark on.

In other words, Riley Rose is one vulnerable teenager.

Jun 29
Jun 29 {Book Matchmaker} Victoria Would Love Some YA with a Dash of Mystery

Book Matchmaker

Mystery is supposed to be the next paranormal, right?

Well, our latest Book Matchmaker victim participant, Victoria, wants a bit of both, plus some quality contemporary reads— only YA need apply, please. And add in a dash of romance for good measure!

Victoria’s Book Matchmaker Responses

YA or Adult: YA

Genres: Contemporary, Dystopia, Romance, Paranormal, Mystery/Thriller

POV or Narrative Style: First Person, Third Person, Multiple POV, Epistolary, Male POV, Main Character or Narrator, Female POV, Main Character or Narrator

Likes: Patrick Ness, Courtney Summers, Sarah Dessen, JK Rowling… probably my favourite authors EVER!

Dislikes: Instant love

Smut Factor: 2

Fluff Factor: 2

Swoon Factor: 4

Gross Out Factor: 3

We had a ton of fun with this matchmaker, since all of us love YA.

The Results

Stolen: A Letter to My Captor by Lucy Christopher

This is a genre-bending psychological novel that’s very challenging. It’s YA, but mature, and told in second person, in the form of a letter from a kidnapped girl to her captor. It takes place in the Australian outback and the landscape adds to the atmosphere of the novel.

{Buy at Amazon | Add on Goodreads}

Jun 22
Jun 22 {Book Matchmaker} Kate Needs Some Quality Reads with Deep Themes

Book Matchmaker

Our latest book matchmaker victim participant is Kate, who loves good young adult fiction. This is one of the most fun book matchmaker posts we’ve done, since Kate’s tastes appear to be very similar to Laura’s and mine. She’s looking for YA novels that have either historical or contemporary settings and have some depth.

The biggest challenge was finding books to recommend that Kate hadn’t read yet!

Kate’s Responses

Adult, YA or Both: YA

Genres: Contemporary, Historical, Romance

Narrative Style & POV: First Person, Multiple POV, Present Tense, Past Tense, Male POV, Main Character or Narrator, Female POV, Main Character or Narrator

Swoon Factor: 4

Gross Out Factor: 1

Fluff Factor: 3

Smut Factor: 3

Likes: “Favorites include: The Summer books by Jenny Han, Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, Nicholas Sparks. But I also books with deep themes, such as dealing with death, etc. I’m really up for anything. Just not a huge fantasy fan!”

Dislikes: Vampires, made-up creatures, really improbable plotlines :)

The Results

All the Broken Pieces by Ann E. Burg

This is a novel in verse recommended by Laura that deals with several big issues and has a semi-historical setting (the 1970s—which I can’t really comprehend as “historic,” but oh well). This is an emotional book in which the author makes every word count.

Jun 12
Jun 12 {Review} The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour

When we are young, we are whimsical dreamers.

Our parents and the adults in our lives encourage this fanciful mindset. They tell us that with hard work, we CAN INDEED be elected President of the USA, possibly even without winning the overall popular vote. We WILL INDEED see our favorite football team win the Super Bowl in our lifetime, since there’s no way they could possibly lose 4 years in a row.

But as we get older, we are encouraged to break up with our dreams in favor of “attainable goals”. Instead of President, what about Mayor’s administrative assistant? Instead of a Super Bowl win, how’s about rooting for a playoff berth? Scratch that. How’s about rooting for a .500 season? And so on.

About the same time we begin to realize that all the smizing practice in the world won’t make us skinny or tall enough to fulfill our dream of competing on America’s Next Top Model, we realize that we have to figure out what to do with ourselves with our limited 5’2” frames, we have no idea what that should be, and the combination scares us shitless, though we are loathe to admit as such.

Hence…

The Stages of Upper Middle Class Adolescence

Jun 11
Jun 11 Amy Spalding on Cover Art, The Reece Malcolm List and Matt Saracen

Interviews

If you’ve ever checked out our policies page, you’ve probably noticed that we generally don’t take part in blog tours and cover reveals—it’s just not our thing. However, Amy Spalding made us a pitch we couldn’t refuse, in which she mentioned that both Friday Night Lights and Something Like Normal are favorites of hers. And then she told us her story of art directing the cover for her own book, The Reece Malcolm List. We’re all extremely interested in cover design (and have a lot of opinions about it), so it was great to chat with Amy about this project. We’ll be revisiting Amy on the 13th to see what the final cover looks like.

First off, I know your book, the Reece Malcolm List, won’t be released by Entangled Teen until next year, but I’d love to hear a little bit about your debut young adult contemporary novel.

Absolutely! The Reece Malcolm List is about Devan, who—after the death of her father—is sent off to Los Angeles to live with the mother she’s never known. And, oh right, who’s a bestselling and semi-reclusive author. Figuring out her new family situation is tough, but at least she’s attending a performing arts high school where she lands one of the leads in the fall musical. And of course there are new friends, enemies, and boys to deal with, as she tries to figure out the seemingly impossibly-complicated Reece Malcolm.

Jun 8
Jun 8 {Review} Bitter Melon by Cara Chow

Sandra

It’s been a long time since I’ve been as emotionally invested in a book as I was in Cara Chow’s Bitter Melon.

It’s a difficult story of a Chinese-American mother and daughter living in San Francisco, yet it could be about any family where the parents do not allow their children to fly free, to find a life that will give the child joy and satisfaction. It’s about caging the soul of a beautiful mind as a battle ensues to find the sweet taste of freedom.

There are jewels of truth, of humanity, of hope and of sorrow glittering throughout this lovely book. Regardless of what touches your heart when you read, it will be found in Bitter Melon, including a beautifully-crafted story, realistic characters, a plethora of emotions, finely-tuned language.

Fei Ting, the daughter, holds two names. Fei in Chinese means fly. Ting means stop. Fei Ting tinkered with the meaning of her name, its nuances.

In Chinese, she thought, if she should try to fly, she would be stopped.

Her English name Frances means freedom. Fei Ting wants freedom, wants to soar with nothing holding her back but is held in emotional bondage to her mother. Her mother’s controls were built methodically, mooring every move and choice Francis sought to her angry mother’s dream of wealth and success via her own daughter’s efforts to satisfy her insatiable mother.

You will makes lots of money and buy us a nice house so I can quit my job and tell your father’s family to go to hell.

Frances hears such phrases over and over from her mother’s harsh lips, as if she is being beaten into submission with the strength of words,

You will become a doctor. You will support me, care for me.

Francis has always been the obedient daughter, bending to her mother’s will, to her wishes.

Imagine living the first eighteen years of your life fed by a vitriolic and hateful analysis of your qualities by your own mother. You’re not smart enough. You’re not pretty. You’re too fat. You’re ungrateful.

This is the way Frances’ mother teaches her child to achieve.

May 29
May 29 {Rookie Reads} Finding Sarah Dessen

Rookie Reads

I began harassing Sarah (not Dessen) for book recommendations via twitter about a year or so ago. Among her earliest recommendations were 3 contemporary young adult novels. Since then, I have read 31 contemporary young adult novels. As I continued to add contemporary YAs to my Goodreads shelves, I noticed a certain name pop up with increasing frequency: Sarah Dessen.

Eventually, Goodreads recommended…all of her books. Goodreads also recommended all books which include any and all variations of the proclamation “Fans of Sarah Dessen will love this one!” in the jacket description.

Of course, I couldn’t just blindly follow my Goodreads recommendations.

I absolutely had to get the advice of Sarah, who, in addition to being Queen of Everything, is my Super Special Book Doppelganger (SSBD). So upon meeting in person for the first time —for a contemporary YA book handover, of course—we browsed around an adorable specialty children’s bookstore. When we came upon a rack dedicated solely to Sarah Dessen books, I pointed and said,

Goodreads keeps telling me to read Sarah Dessen. Do YOU like Sarah Dessen?

At this point, my SSBD’s eyes crinkled and her voice went up an octave as she shrieked reverently declared,

I LOVE Sarah Dessen.

May 21

May 21 {Early Review} Something Like Normal by Trish Doller

But what has been done can’t be undone. My best friend is dead and I’m never going to be the same Travis Stephenson.

Trish Doller’s remarkable debut, Something Like Normal, is one of those rare books that I recommend to nearly everyone. It’s an important, timely novel—one that’s lingered with me in the months since I read it.

Well before SLN was published (it’s out on June 19), I found myself on seemingly every social media site insisting the everyone—absolutely everyone—read this novel about 19 year-old Marine Travis Stephenson, who’s home on leave in Florida following a tour-of-duty in Afghanistan where his best friend, Charlie, dies before his eyes. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (a fact kept hidden from the Marines, as that would torpedo his military career), Travis finds himself feeling like and outsider in his own home and hometown.

As we head toward the beach I notice the differences in the landscape of the city. New businesses that weren’t there last year. Old businesses that are gone. It’s like a whole chunk of time has just … disappeared. The songs on the radio are different. The faces on the celebrity tabloids at the airport newsstand were people I didn’t recognize. There’s even a new American fucking Idol.

May 5
May 5 {Review} Exposed by Kimberly Marcus

Verse Week, Books

It’s the fall of senior year.

Elizabeth Grayson is focused.

On her camera.
Her portfolio.
Her art school applications.

Her life.
Her photos.

Are clear.

She’s focused along with Kate, touchingly dubbed by Liz as,

The straight line to my squiggle,
my forever-best friend.

But everything changes after one night at their monthly sleepover, when the cloudiness of life and the people Liz thought she knew, is exposed.

At first assuming Kate’s ensuing distance to be the result of an argument about Kate’s future that occurred during their sleepover, Liz repeatedly attempts to apologize. However, as Kate’s distance from Liz continues, Liz begins to unravel the events of the evening, which results in a stunning accusation.

The fallout sharply veers Liz’s life out of focus in every way.

May 2
May 2 {Review} Because I am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas

Verse Week, Books

Thalia Chaltas’ Because I am Furniture exemplifies the unique power of novels in verse. There are a lot of yougn adult novels about family violence, and many of them are excellent. However, in Because I am Furniture, the verse form allows the reader to experience the house of horrors in which Anke, the main character, lives.

Fourteen year-old Anke’s siblings are terrorized by their abusive father while her mother passively watches, seemingly accepting the violence and sexual abuse of her children. Anke, however, is simply ignored.

I am always there.
But they don’t care if I am
because I am furniture.

I don’t get hit
I don’t get fondled
I don’t get love
because I am furniture

Suits me fine.

Apr 26
Apr 26 {Early Review} Unbreak My Heart by Melissa Walker

Melissa Walker’s new novel had an uphill battle with me.

You see, it managed to remind me of The Worst Earworm Ever. During my sophomore year of Professional Nerding School (aka college at American University), Toni Braxton’s Un-Break My Heart was everywhere I turned. I’d hear it playing on MTV in the dorm lounge, on the radio in the cafeteria, blasting on “boomboxes” (yep, we still had those in the nineties)… everywhere.

Toni’s soulful crooning* drove me nuts for months on end.

However, don’t let this book fool you like it did me.

Unbreak My Heart is a charming, heartfelt read about friendship, family, first love and second chances.

Apr 24

Apr 24 {Early Review} The Year of the Beasts by Cecil Castellucci + Nate Powell

Book Art, Books

I don’t know what I was expecting from The Year of the Beasts, but I definitely didn’t anticipate having my heart ripped out and stomped to bits in this slim, heart-wrenching novel-meets-comic.

Young adult novelist Cecil Castellucci and comic artist Nate Powell teamed up to create a fascinating story told in alternating chapters. Castellucci’s chapters are straight-forward narrative about the changing relationships between two sisters as they both navigate their first romantic relationships; Powell’s chapters are beautifully drawn comics of an alternate reality in which a girl with snakes for hair navigates a new school year.

Eventually the two storylines merge, and that’s when the heart ripping and stomping hit.

I can’t write a review of The Year of the Beasts without first discussing the format.

Apr 11
Apr 11 {Review} Fracture by Megan Miranda

Usually I hate taglines on book covers,* but the tagline on the cover of Megan Miranda’s Fracture says it all,

A lot can happen in eleven minutes.

That line is from this early passage in the novel, which creates the premise of this fascinating debut,

A lot can happen in eleven minutes. Decker can run two miles easily in eleven minutes. I once wrote an English essay in ten. No lie. And God knows Carson Levine can talk a girl out of her clothes in half that time.

Eleven minutes might as well be eternity underwater. According to the lessons from health class, it only takes three minutes without air for loss of consciousness. Permanent brain damage begins at four minutes. And then, when the oxygen runs out, full cardiac arrest occurs. Death is possible at five minutes. Probable at seven. Definite at ten.

Decker pulled me out at eleven.

Apr 9
Apr 9 {Early Review} The Princesses of Iowa by M. Molly Backes

Every now and then, a young adult book reminds me that I am not the target audience for YA authors.

The Princesses of Iowa is one of those books.

However, for the target audience of teen girls and their parents (you know, the people who pay for the books that their teenage daughters read), I’d say that The Princesses of Iowa is the perfect book. Except for ONE MAJOR ISSUE that I address at the end of this review for the sake of emphasis.

I say that because while the book has a lot teenagers can relate to in a non-sugarcoated way, it’s still a message book that parents will like. It’s full of lessons about tolerance, the dangers of drunk driving and the virtues of being yourself, even if you don’t know quite what that is yet.

(If you think that all of these valuable lessons crammed into one book sounds like a long book, you’d be right, as The Princesses of Iowa clocks in at a hefty-for-YA 441 pages.)

Mar 26
Mar 26 {Review} Breaking Beautiful by Jennifer Shaw Wolf

I wonder how long until I’m allowed to be happy again.

That is the essence of Jennifer Wolf Shaw’s unique debut novel, Breaking Beautiful: Is there a point at which we can no longer heal?

Allie is the only survivor of a car accident that killed her boyfriend, town football star and golden boy, Trip. She has no memory of the accident, but is left with scar on her head and memories of the side of her relationship with Trip that no one else saw—or chose to ignore, in some cases. See, while Trip wore #33, he was no Tim Riggins. Allie suffered from Trip’s physical and mental abuse to the point where she has lost herself.

With Trip around, I was isolated from the rest of the school, but I was isolated with him for company. Now I’m just alone.

Following Trip’s death, Allie slowly rekindles a friendship with her childhood friend, Blake. As their friendship slowly moves toward being something more, the mystery surrounding Trip’s death grows as well. While the town memorializes Trip and vilifies Allie for trying to move on with her life, local police begin to investigate, and Allie begins to question what really happened the night her boyfriend died.

Breaking Beautiful fills a niche that’s largely missing in YA—it’s a dark, mature, contemporary mystery.

Mar 25
Mar 25 {List-O-Rama} 5 Contemporary YAs Worth the Wait

Listorama

Contemporary Young Adult fiction is a sub-genre near and dear to my heart.

I think it goes all the way back to my 13-year old self’s undying love for Judy Blume’s incredible novel, Tiger Eyes (Goodreads, Amazon). (Seriously, it is her absolute best, despite that it’s not nearly as widely read as Forever et al.) So, I watch Kirkus reviews, Goodreads lists and blog posts like a hawk for buzz about my favorite contemporary YA authors and new and new-to-me authors and then tap my fingers while waiting, waiting, waiting for these new releases. The following are five contemporary YAs that I’m eagerly anticipating.

In Honor by Jessi Kirby

Sarah Ockler raved about this book on Twitter, and since Sarah is amazing, I immediate but it on my “omigod I must read ASAP” list. Then, I discovered that one of the characters was inspired by Tim Riggins. After picking myself up off the floor, this rocketed into another level. (A note: I love Tim Riggins, but I will maintain forever and always that Coach Eric Taylor/Kyle Chandler is hotter than Tim Riggins/Taylor Kitsch. I dare you to try to change my mind.) In Honor takes place in the aftermath of the main character’s brother’s death in Iraq and the subsequent road trip (sa-woon—I looooove road trip novels) she takes with her brother’s best friend. It’s got to be awesome, right?

Simon & Schuster, May 2012

{Preorder In Honor as an ebook or hardcover.}

{Add on Goodreads.}

Mar 16
Mar 16 {Mini-Reviews} Three Recent DNFs

I have recently embraced the DNF (did not finish). I used to slog through books I hated simply because I, in some weird way, felt like I owed it to the book to finish it.

I now realize this is a ridiculous perspective.

If a book’s not working for me, despite that everyone else seemingly loves it, I drop it. These books go into one of two piles:

DNF; or
On hiatus.

On hiatus books are those I plan on revisiting—maybe I’m not in the mood for the genre, but I suspect I’ll enjoy it later. Or, perhaps it’s really long, but I care about what happens, but need to take a break from spending so much time within the space of that book. DNF’s are those I drop like a hot potato.

Mar 12
Mar 12 {review} Split by Swati Avasthi

So… domestic violence.

We are all peripherally aware of its unfortunate existence.

Especially when we read truly horrifying news reports like this.

Then we smile and celebrate the triumphs of stories like this.

But when it comes to repeated, cyclical abuse, we tend to,

Educate ourselves for two hours via the latest Lifetime Original Movie; or
Be cynical and blame the victim with thoughts such as, “Sure, the abuser is wrong for abusing and all, but the victim should have just left after the first time it happened, right? At least after the second time, for goodness sakes! Just follow the directions here!”

The realities of this ongoing societal plague are oh-so-much-more complex than either of the above sheltered attitudes, which author Swati Avasthi demonstrates in her absorbing debut novel, Split.

Mar 10
Mar 10 {I Love} The Fault in Our Stars by John Green