Books for Teenagers and Young Adults: Featured Novel

Jane Eyre is the perfect coming-of-age novel, if you ask me. To read a 20th century retelling is a joy. And this is not just any retelling, but a beautifully written one that dovetails back and forth with the original, sometimes staying close, sometimes wandering farther afield. The Flight of Gemma Hardy is a great book in its own right, but it also offers the opportunity to ponder the author’s choices and what they say about women’s lives and independence in the 1960s compared to the mid-1800s. There is also great pleasure to be had in the correspondence between the title and the text. As a young girl, Gemma would “fly away into the pictures” of her uncle’s birding book. She is attuned to the natural world, and birds in Read more…

Arthur and Kel are both isolated and lonely, and that is about all their stories seem to have in common for much of this novel. Arthur is a morbidly obese adult; Kel is a teenager whose life is just not going very well. Kel’s story doesn’t launch until about 80 pages into the novel, which may test the patience of some readers. On the other hand, Arthur is a great narrator of his own story, and teens may find themselves drawn in by his condition. Liz Moore is both a writer and a musician; her debut novel The Words of Every Song (Broadway Books, 2007) was based on her experiences in the music business. You can read excerpts of Heft on her blog (scroll down to find them). San Francisco Chronicle reviewer Katie Crouch expounds on Kel’s Read more…

Shannon Hale’s first adult novel, Austenland (Bloomsbury, 2007) is a fast, fun romantic comedy, well-reviewed in SLJ’s Adult Books for High School Students column. In the sequel, we’re back in Pembrook Park resort with a new heroine, hoping for romance Darcy-style. Shannon Hale is well-known by younger readers for The Goose Girl, Princess Academy, and Book of a Thousand Days. Teen fans of both Hale and Jane Austen looking for a different kind of Austen experience will enjoy this romp. They may be aware of it already, thanks to an interview with Hale published on Twilight Lexicon over the weekend. A movie version of Austenland is in post-production, scheduled for release this year. In fact, Hale came up with the inspiration Read more…

Drusilla Campbell writes fiction around contemporary issues, including post partum depression (The Good Sister), surviving the loss of a child (Blood Orange) and losing a family member to a drunk driver (The Edge of the Sky). Although teen characters appear in these novels, Campbell’s latest has full-blown appeal for teen readers, echoing stories of abduction in the news (a là Jaycee Dugard, and her memoir A Stolen Life) or popular fiction (think of Emma Donoghue’s Alex Award-winning Room). The first 6 chapters of Little Girl Gone are available on the author’s website. By the end of chapter one, teen rebellion, losing her father, drugs, and the wrong friends have lead Madora to make some scary choices. Five years later, Madora Read more…

J.H. Trumble’s debut began as a NaNoWriMo novel. It was also written with a YA audience in mind. In an interview on Lambda Literary the author is is asked how she feels about Kensington’s decision to publish the novel as adult, and I thought her response was quite smart. Yes, teens are likely to find it anyway — especially if librarians hear about it and buy for the teen section — and if it made her more comfortable writing an honest gay love story, it undoubtedly resulted in a better book. Music is a big part of the story, and Trumble provides a playlist on her website. (Any playlist that includes Rufus Wainwright is OK by me!) TRUMBLE, J. H. Don’t Let Me Go. 337p. Kensington. 2011. pap. $15. ISBN Read more…

Prolific science fiction author John Shirley calls his latest novel “an anti-teabagger political metaphor” and “near-future thriller.” Just yesterday, Shirley wrote a piece on his blog about a possible reaction against the politics of the novel by those he chose to satirize. Very interesting, and something I had never head of before. SHIRLEY, John. Everything Is Broken. 288p. Prime. 2012. Tr $14.95. ISBN 978-1-60701-292-4. LC number unavailable.   Adult/High School–This terrifying story examines what happens when a town whose mayor does not believe in government is hit by a tsunami. Lon Ferrara, mayor of the small town of Freedom, CA, believes that privatization means efficiency; he has even dismantled “wasteful” public Read more…

from graphic novel guest blogger, Francisca Goldsmith: As experienced readers even in traditional print formats, we all know how the size of a page, the presence or lack of margins, font choice and color can be relevant to something beyond merely our enjoyment or comfort with reading.  These factors can also tinge how we judge what we read, where we find ourselves holding the book, and how deeply our noses may be pressed into the narrative figuratively as well as anatomically.  The choice of binding, paper stock and ink aren’t just matters of economy, but also lights and textures we experience physically as we read glossy coffee table pages, cheap paperbacks, “book club” editions that, although encased in board covers, nonetheless Read more…