Genre-fication: Now Making YA Books Easier to Find!

Are you tired of sifting through ten paranormal books to find the historical novel you've been longing for?  Really like horror but can never find any because there are too many mushy romances in the way?  Not in Newport Library's revamped YA section, not anymore!

Young adult books are now categorized in different genres to make it easier to browse for the kind of books you like to read.  All the fiction is color-coded into twelve categories, which are alphabetized on the YA shelves.  Can't get enough Hunger Games? Go Dystopian.  Love your rewritten fairy tales?  Try Fairy.  Looking for something light about friendship and romance? Sweet & Sassy is for you.  

There's a guide to genres posted on the YA shelves, explaining what all the categories are. For example, AA is Action-Adventure: spies, thrillers, and daring tales of survival.  And PARA equals Paranormal: where the weird and magical happen in your everyday town or high school.

Deciding on the genre of certain books can be a little tricky: what to do with action-packed historical paranormal romances, or time-travelling mysteries set in post-apocalyptic dystopias?  We tried to decide based on the strongest or most important feature of the book, but that's often subjective.  If you read a book and discover that it's much more of a Sweet & Sassy than a Mystery, or that it's more Science Fiction than Horror, please let us know!

As a matter of fact, we'd love to hear what you think of all of the ongoing changes at our community library.  Chat with a staff member, contact us online, or slip a comment into our suggestion box by the circulation desk.  Thanks!

Dangerous Young Nuns

I am not exaggerating when I say I have pretty much read (or started to read and decided I didn't want to finish) every young adult fantasy novel in our library system that features smart and strong female protagonists.  Seriously, I have read more books about girls wielding swords than I care to count. So. Many. Swords. 

This being said, you can imagine my delight when a taut, muscular (I love it when books are described in those terms) trilogy of books about teenage nun-assassins rocking out in fifteenth century Brittany arrived at the library. These girls know their stuff and manage to successfully deal with the respective missions they are assigned to with major craftiness, or, failing that, righteous fighting moves. 

Author Robin LaFevers totally nails historical fantasy fiction in these books. Her skill at seamlessly weaving fantasy elements into straight historical fact is on par with Marion Zimmer Bradley, Libbra Bray, and Diana Gabaldon. As strange and unlikely as this series' premise of murderous novitiates exacting vengeance sounds, it is most definitely worth your time if you're any sort of fantasy fan. I recommended this series to both my refined, literature-loving mom and my wild, pink-haired artist friend and they both gave rave reviews. Here are the publisher's rundowns:

Grave Mercy

Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where she learns that the god of Death has blessed her with dangerous gifts--and a violent destiny.

Dark Triumph
 
Sybella's duty as Death's assassin in 15th-century France forces her return home to the personal hell that she had finally escaped. 

Mortal Heart 

Annith's worst fears are realized when she discovers that, despite her lifelong training to be an assassin, she is being groomed by the abbess as a Seeress, to be forever shut up in the convent of Saint Mortain. 






For more Newport Library staff favorites, click here!

A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness

From the title, it sounds like this could be horror, but it's not. A Monster Calls is a tearjerker, a full-tissue-box-at-your-side kind of book, but please, don't let that scare you away. This is a short, powerful, beautiful story that will appeal to those who find that fiction sometimes holds the deepest truths.

 Brian is thirteen, and his mum is undergoing chemo. His dad moved to America a while back with his new wife, and they have a new baby-- visits have been becoming rarer and rarer. So it's just Brian and his mum. But he can handle it. He thinks he can handle everything, despite the nightmare that lurks in his every sleeping hour and the pity-filled isolation that's sprung up around him at school.

Of course, he can't handle it, not at all. Not the grandmother who wants him to live with her. Not the father who leaves. Not the part of himself which knows things he doesn't want to know. In the end, it's his nightmare that will break him-- or save him.

A Monster Calls was conceived by Siobhan Dowd, who died of terminal cancer before it was completed, and written by Patrick Ness. It won the Carnegie Medal and the Greenaway Medal in 2012. The Newport Library keeps in it the Young Adult section, but this is a story for adults as well. It's also available as an ebook, which includes the beautiful illustration by Jim Kay, and as an audiobook, through Library2Go.

Spinoff series from an old favorite

I’ve always admired Harlan Coben’s writing, and enjoyed many of his stand-alone mysteries and thrillers, like Gone for Good and Six Years. But I’ve largely avoided his well-known and popular Myron Bolitar series. I have no interest in the world of celebrity athletes, and Bolitar runs a sports agency, so I assumed the plots would be too sports-centered. However, Coben is a great writer, and I like books with teen protagonists, and so I’m edging up to the Bolitar series from the other side—from the point of view of Myron’s fifteen-year-old nephew, Mickey.

In Shelter, the first book of this spin-off Bolitar series, Mickey has just moved in with Uncle Myron and started attending high school as an incoming sophomore. His parents are out of the picture, but not out of his thoughts-- Mickey’s dad died in a car crash the previous year, and his mother, unable to cope, turned to drugs and is currently in rehab. Grief, confusion, and self-loathing run underneath Mickey’s generally easygoing exterior as he tries to move forward. He has a few things common with his newly-found uncle—one is, they’re both very tall, gifted basketball players. But an old rift in the family has left them awkward with one another, and Mickey keeps Myron at a distance, even as Myron tries to respect his space and be a responsible guardian at the same time.

Alas, Mickey and Myron are not left in peace to work things out. When Mickey’s new sort-of-girlfriend stops showing up at school, and her parents claim never to have heard of her, Mickey tries to track her down, drawing three new friends from his high school into the search. They learn that Ashley wasn’t at all what she seemed-- and she’s in danger that’s way over their heads.

Meanwhile, a neighbor known as “Crazy Bat Lady” tells Mickey that his father’s not dead. She locks herself back into her house before he can react. It drives Mickey crazy with heartache and curiosity, leading him to break into the bat lady’s house in a desperate attempt to find out if she's just loopy, or if she might know something. This makes him the target of a great deal of interest from an intimidating bald man in a black car, who turns up wherever Mickey goes.

Coben deftly draws out the multiple plot-lines, focusing on Mickey’s new friendships, which are a source of great strength as events force him into crisis mode. One of his new friends is annoyingly two-dimensional, but otherwise the secondary characters are well-developed. Coben is big on principled heroes, and Mickey is no exception, showing an idealistic devotion to standing up for others and seeing through outward appearances. But he’s also hotheaded, confused, and willing to break rules when necessary—someone most teenagers—or heck, most adults—can relate to. Mickey’s a likeable character, and when you reach the end of Shelter, you’ll be glad to know the second book, Seconds Away, is also available.

As a matter of fact, I liked this book so much, I think I’m going to have to set aside my sports-agency aversion and give the older Bolitar a chance.

Inner Beauty Wants Out!

Mirrors are more dangerous than guns or cars or crystal meth, because they’re cheap, readily available and everyone’s addicted. 

 Hankering for a clever, funny, and whimsical read? Look no further! Gorgeous, longtime New Yorker writer Paul Rudnick’s first attempt at young adult fiction, is part fairy tale, part gossip magazine, and part Laverne and Shirley.

Recent high school grad Becky Randall has always been average, not particularly tall or thin or pretty. Her life is totally upended one afternoon when her much beloved (and morbidly obese) mother dies in their trailer in East Trawley, Missouri. She soon learns that her mother had quite a past; far from being just a small-town woman, she was once a world-famous supermodel. Becky is contacted by Tim Kelly, a formerly reclusive fashion designer and old friend of her mom’s, who offers to make her three dresses that will magically transform Becky into Rebecca, ravishing model and actress extraordinaire.

What follows is funny, absurd, unbelievable, and totally charming. She’s on the cover of Vogue, she catches the eye of the Prince of Wales (no, not Charles, a much younger and appealing stand-in), she stars in a blockbuster movie. And she has an awesome best friend named Rocher (yes, like the chocolates) who keeps the laughs coming. Give Gorgeous a try—once you start it, you won’t want to put it down!

The Diviners by Libba Bray

The Diviners is the frog’s eyebrows, I mean, it’s posi-lute-ly the cat’s pajamas. Evie O’Neill’s a live wire who gets zazzled and splifficated and spills the beans on a high society dewdropper who knocked up a squiff. (OK, sorry—I can’t keep that up. Flapper-talk is the bee’s-knees, baby, but it’s Greek to me. Let’s try again.)

The Diviners is a rollicking fun historical-paranormal novel, set in Prohibition-era Manhattan. Our heroine, Evie, is a privileged seventeen-year-old girl who lost her beloved brother to the War, and she wouldn’t be a teenager if she didn’t rebel against the pain and her broken family. Turns out liquor is even more attractive when wrapped in the forbidden glamour of speakeasies and flapper fashion, and Evie’s become a little of out of control. Her paranormal talent comes out during a drunken party, and she airs secrets that she has no right to know and no way to prove. But she won’t apologize, and so her parents send her from Ohio to New York, to stay with her fusty old museum-curator uncle.

Being sent to Manhattan is not quite the punishment it was intended to be. Turns out Uncle Will doesn’t run just any old boring museum: he runs the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, and is consulting with the police on a bizarre murder which included supernatural symbols on and around the body. Evie manages to befriend a cabaret dancer and hang out at speakeasies—but she also talks herself onto the crime scene, where her talent comes into play, giving her an unwanted peek at the intimate details of truly horrific killing. Should she come clean about her special ability, to stop a serial killer?

Evie’s the protagonist, but the book alternates among several featured characters, like Memphis, a handsome young poet with terrible dreams, and Theta, an orphan who’s reinvented herself but can’t escape her past. They all have secrets or paranormal talents or both, and their lives all collide with the terrible plans of the killer.

Between the atmospheric Roaring Twenties, the creepy murders, and the vivid characters, Libba Bray’s The Diviners is truly hotsy-totsy and the darb! (If you have no idea what I just said, check Dewey 427 in the nonfiction section for slang dictionaries, or see Slang of the 1920’s online.)

The Deplorable State of Young Adult Fiction

It seems that every month brings another article about how terrible books for young adults are. I won’t link to any of these articles, but you’ll find some if you do a Google search. They argue that YA books are full of violence and profanity and abuse and bullying and sex and drugs and suicide and cancer. YA fiction is frighteningly dark, and it’s harmful to kids.

The articles all have something in common: they’re wrong. *

YA lit is so good right now. I’ve read a lot of great, inventive, passionate, mind-expanding novels in recent years that were marketed towards teenagers. And to be clear, YA lit is not a genre – it encompasses everything from realistic literary fiction to science fiction to fantasy to mystery; often YA books blend genres in intriguing and startlingly original ways.

Sure, some YA books are dark. Some of them aren’t dark. Some of them deal with scary issues. Some of them are lighthearted stories about kids making friends and doing fun things. Even the darkest books are often stories of resilience and survival; the tone is uplifting, rather than depressing.

If you're interested in what's hot in YA literature, click here for a guide to the library's YA books.

And here is list of YA books we loved. (That is to say, we didn’t just examine these books and say, “Ah yes, a teen might enjoy this.” We read them ourselves, and loved them.)

Give one a try, and see what you think about the state of YA fiction.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Feed by M.T. Anderson

The Diviners by Libba Bray
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
If I Stay by Gayle Forman
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
Awaken by Katie Kacvinsky
In Darkness by Nick Lake
Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by David Levithan and John Green 
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson 
Sprout by Dale Peck
The Bekka Cooper series by Tamora Pierce
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco Stork
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

* For more about why they're wrong, see this excellent essay by Sherman Alexie. 

More than this by Patrick Ness

Seth dies. And then he wakes up, in a hell with no food, no water, no people. Or is it not hell, but something else?

I hesitate to give away even one more little thing, because this is a book of subtly shifting perceptions, of Seth’s slowly growing understanding—maybe—of what’s really going on, with his surroundings, with himself, with others.

I'm not fond of simplistic books with easy answers. I can't stand supposedly uplifting books with everything all tied up neatly at the end.  This book is not like that.  More than this is more deftly written, more exciting, more suspenseful, and more meaningful than you expect.

(Not to be coy. I guess I can at least tell you this is a YA book that might be called science fiction, by Patrick Ness, an author who has the rare distinction of being awarded two Carnegie Medals, one in 2011, one in 2012, for best new children’s or young adult book published in the UK.)

Banned Books Round Up

"There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running around with lit matches." — Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

http://rachelmoani.com/?p=434

We’re nearing the end of Banned Books Week, and what a week it’s been! Our events and displays have garnered attention and sparked quite a few conversations at the circulation desk, but there has also been a wider dialog happening in the media around the continuing attempts to censor literature for children and young adults (e.g., banning and unbanning Invisible Man, cancelling a young adult author’s speaking engagement, banning Dreaming in Cuban).

Many interesting pieces about banned and challenged books for youth have been making the rounds on the internet, so I’ve decided to put together a little collection of them for you mull over: 

 A Dirty Little Secret: Self-Censorship

A Plea for Book Censors to Stand Down 
  
Could Banning Books Actually Encourage More Readers?

Darkness too Visible 

True Love, Book Fights, And Why Ugly Stories Matter
 
If after looking through these links you feel like picking up a banned book, come swing by the library—we have plenty!


 



 

Chronicles of Nick

Paranormal young adult tends to be heavy on female protagonists in the midst of an adolescent maelstrom of difficulties, complicated by magic, which will lead them to become strong, self-directed young women who’ve survived tough situations and learned how to make hard choices. It’s refreshing to throw a male main character into the mix once in a while-- although, because this is young adult fiction, the boy will of course be in the midst of an adolescent maelstrom of problems, complicated by magic, which will lead him to grow into a strong, self-directed young man, yadda yadda yadda.

I make fun, yes, but Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Chronicles of Nick series takes this formula and runs with it, fast. Fourteen year old Nick Gautier (go-SHAY) has a mom who’s a Bourbon Street stripper and a dad in prison for murder. Despite his academic scholarship to a prestigious school, Nick just can’t stop getting into trouble. Nick’s mom loves him to pieces, and he’s devoted to her, but that’s not enough to keep him on the straight and narrow. Getting into fight after fight at school, usually when someone disrespects her, has put him one step away from being kicked out of his only chance for a better future.

 Then everything changes. Nick makes one small choice that gets him shot and hospitalized: but which also wins him the patronage of a Darkhunter, a modern-day paladin devoted to fighting supernatural evils for the ancient goddess Artemis. The good news: Nick’s new friend is on the side of good and will do everything in his power to make sure Nick and his mom have the opportunity to change their lives. The bad news: Nick learns he has a destiny that’s thus far been hidden from him. He’s fated to grow up to be the Malachi, an evil figure that will bring the apocalypse down on humankind. New and strange powers start to manifest, zombies attack his school, he meets a very sweet demon, and the plot gallops ahead in unexpected but always entertaining directions.

 Sherrilyn Kenyon is the author of the Darkhunter series of popular and steamy paranormal romances, but although the Chronicles of Nick take place in the same fictional world and have overlapping characters, the “steamy romance” part is tamed down in this young adult subseries. Nick’s a fairly convincing teenage boy, possibly a tad more self-aware emotionally than most, but likeable in his struggles to resist the low expectations people have for him based on his parentage and his dire supernatural destiny. This isn’t literature: the prose is sometimes purple, and high-stakes emotional drama is on every other page. But if you enjoy Kim Harrison’s Rachel Morgan, Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse, or Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy Nick Gautier too.

 1. Infinity 
 2. Invincible
 3. Infamous 
 4. Inferno

A Recycled Fairy Tale

Marissa Meyer’s Cinder is a recycled fairy tale that adds a dash of light science fiction and a whole lot of intrigue to the classic rags-to-riches love story. Most of the time-honored elements are here:

• Wicked stepmother: check. Audrey’s a small-minded, bitter, prejudiced woman who spoils her own daughters while sending Cinder out to support the family. 
• Wicked stepsisters: almost. One wicked stepsister and one who’s Cinder’s only human friend.
• Wicked queen: check. Oh, wait, that’s from another fairy tale—but it’s true nonetheless. The Lunar Queen who rules over the strange mutant population on the moon is truly evil, and she has her sights on charming Prince Kai, who is heir to one of the most powerful empires on Earth. 
• Pumpkin coach: check, seemingly courtesy of Volkswagen.

Half the fun of this read lies in identifying the fairytale elements—the other half is in finding the twists. The most obvious twist is Cinder herself: not just an unloved orphan with undersized feet, she’s also a cyborg. And only one of her feet is undersized—the child-sized prosthetic one that her wicked stepmother was too cheap to replace. Cinder’s not just a cleaning wench, either—she’s a mechanic, skilled in fixing everything from portscreens to magbelts to medbots. And fortunately, she’s not insufferably perfect-- Cinder’s got completely justifiable anger issues, and she’s not afraid to share.

Full of snappy dialogue and inter-satellite intrigue, Cinder is an amusing rehash of the old tale. It’s the first book of Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles:

•  Cinder, based on Cinderella 
•  Scarlet, based on Little Red Riding Hood
•  Cress, based on Rapunzel (not yet published)
•  Winter, based on Snow White (not yet published)

I enjoyed Cinder a lot, and recommend it to readers who like recycled fairy tales, and readers of young adult fiction. It did leave me with some questions—most notably, why does the populace dislike cyborgs so much? In Cinder’s world, so-called cyborgs are such second class citizens that they’re used for medical experiments, and it’s hard to imagine any society condoning such a thing when all it takes to be a cyborg is an accidental loss of limb. I hope there’s more background on this in the later books.

Looking for more recycled fairy tales? One of my favorites is Deerskin by Robin McKinley.  Or anything by Charles de Lint, (some based on fairy tales, all excellent.)  Or try Alex Flinn's Towering, a new take on Rapunzel.

Pure by Julianna Baggott

At the moment of the Detonations, a searing light flashed across the sky, and Pressia’s hand became fused with the head of the baby doll she was clutching. Everyone became fused with whatever was nearby: shattered glass, dying dogs, children. Strangers. Trees. Pressia and the other survivors subsist in grinding pain amidst the wreckage of the modern world, tyrannized by the OSR, a shadowy government which conducts violent purges and takes children away for an unknown purpose when they turn sixteen.

Inside the Dome, an elite or lucky minority were protected from the Detonations. Called Pure by the fused wretches on the outside, the Dome’s residents watch and wait for a time when the Earth will heal, edible food will grow again, and they will be able to take their place in the world. Partridge is a student in the Dome Academy, and he learns that his mother, who he’d always thought died in the Detonations, may be alive. He plans to find her, no matter what, no matter that only genetically altered Special Forces soldiers ever go Outside.

Pressia is about to turn sixteen. She and her grandfather, who breathes through the blades of a small fan fused in his throat, have a plan to keep her from the OSR. They both secretly know it will never work. She will have to run away, but there’s nowhere to go.

Unbeknownst to Partridge and Pressia, they have something in common. They are part of a larger plan, the plan of a man being eaten alive by his own hubris. Is there anyone he will not crush in his quest to live forever?

In Pure, Baggott paints a truly grotesque apocalypse and shows that all the elements that make up hope, beauty, and love can survive the end of the world. The plotline and the characters are compelling and well-written, making this dystopian novel stand out from the slew published after Hunger Games became so popular. I found that the bizarre and unlikely visuals were best imagined in a noir graphic novel style; otherwise, the fused world is too painful-looking to visit, even in imagination.

The second book in the planned trilogy, Fuse, has just been released and added to our collection.

The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George

Elizabeth George is well known for her series of mysteries featuring British Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley, which has been made into a popular BBC television series, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries. George’s newest book is something different, a young adult novel with a paranormal twist, but her trademark excellent writing makes The Edge of Nowhere required reading for her adult fans as well.

Fourteen year old Becca King has always heard “whispers,” tidbits of thought that overflow from other people’s minds. When her stepfather finds out, he forces her to use her talent for his benefit, until she hears a secret that he’ll kill to protect.

Unable to go to the police, Becca and her mother Laurel flee California, struggling to find a safe haven and new identities. Laurel plans to set up a new life for them in northern Washington, and drops Becca off to stay with an old friend who will keep her safe while Laurel gets everything in place. But when Becca arrives at the friend’s home on Whidbey Island, the woman has suffered a heart attack. Becca can’t get through to her mother, and is stuck with no place to stay, no friends within a thousand miles, and hardly any money.

Things become even more complicated, as the kindness of strangers both protects Becca and draws her into their problems. When a boy is hurt in the woods, his sheriff father is determined to find out who’s responsible. Becca knows something, but should she risk drawing the attention of the police with her stepfather still after her? And when will her mother come back?

The Edge of Nowhere is the first in a series of Whidbey Island books, and I look forward to the next.

The right note

I love books that take me to other worlds, be it the Middle Earth of Tolkien, the deep space of C.J. Cherryh, or the wide, unpopulated Wyoming of Craig Johnson.

Marcelo in the Real World is one of those books. Author Francisco Stork takes the reader into the world of Marcelo, a seventeen year old boy with Asperger Syndrome. Asperger Syndrome is on the high functioning end of the Autism Disorder Spectrum.

 Marcelo is comfortable with his life. He attends a special school and in the fall he’ll be starting his senior year. He's excited about his plan to spend the summer working with the school’s therapy horses. He has a doctor friend who likes to study him and he’s paid a small amount for allowing special tests on his brain.

Marcelo lives in a world where he is liked and understood; but suddenly everything changes. Marcelo's father tells him that he won't be going to the special school in the fall. He'll be going to a traditional high school instead. When Marcelo protests, his father insists that he needs to deal with the "real" world.

The two finally reach a compromise. Marcelo will work for his father for the summer and if he succeeds at his job, he'll be able to go to the school of his choice. Marcelo agrees unhappily, and girds himself to do the best he can.

All perhaps would be well if his job wasn't in a law firm. Marcelo is thrown into the shark tank of a highly successful legal partnership, where he is forced to deal with multiple distractions and people who aren’t what they seem.

 How Marcelo learns to cope with the “real” world is fascinating. His character is very likeable, and I was deeply engaged by his problems and the evolution of his understanding. I also admired the author’s beautiful control of voice and plot. Marcelo in the Real World is a compelling read.

Rory and the Whitechapel Killer

Louisiana native Rory Deveaux is excited to have the opportunity to spend her senior year in a London boarding school. The classes are tough, the kids are competitive, and she has to play field hockey - but it's London. Rory’s not even bothered by the fact that a crazy Jack the Ripper copycat has murdered someone near the school. Well, not at first.

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson starts out as a funny fish-out-of-water high school story. It gradually morphs into a very suspenseful supernatural thriller with a truly nail-biting climax that had me awake at midnight, reading instead of getting my beauty rest.

Rory settles in to life at Wexford Academy. She adjusts to her new schedule, befriends her new roommate, and wows her new peers with tales of her weird southern family.

But then another murder happens, this time on the school campus. It’s shocking and brutal, and Rory sees something that no one else saw. Worse, the murderer saw her, too. Now he seems to be seeking her out, and Rory isn’t sure if she can trust the strange trio of policemen who say they want to protect her. They are obviously not telling her everything.

The Name of the Star is the first in a series called The Shades of London, and it’s a witty, fast-paced, and exciting read. It has a charming heroine and an incredible cliffhanger ending. I’m craving the sequel.

Best teen novel?

I read a lot of fiction written for the young adult market, even though I am neither a young adult nor the parent of one. Why not? Some of the most fresh and creative novels I’ve read lately have been YA books.

That’s why I’m keen on the new poll that NPR Books is running right now. What is the best-ever teen novel? They polled readers on their favorites, narrowed it down to 100 choices, and are putting that slate of 100 to the vote.

You can vote for ten, which is good, because narrowing it down to fewer than that would be very hard. I love some of the books on there:

• Cory Doctorow’s brilliantly subversive Little Brother, about kids who find ways to assert their freedom in the tyrannical aftermath of a terrorist attack. 
• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart, about a smart girl who longs to prove to her boyfriend’s smart friends that she’s worthy of joining their boys-only secret society. She succeeds - sort of, with unintended consequences. 
•  Feed by M.T. Anderson, a genuinely frightening book about a dystopian society where everyone has entertainment and advertising constantly streamed into their brains. 
•  I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier, another truly scary book - I’m not even going to tell you what it’s about, because I don’t want to spoil the surprise. If you haven’t read it, read it. 
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the great Douglas Adams.  I literally fell off my bed laughing the first time I read it. 
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, one of the many controversial books on the list, a story about the trauma a girl suffers at the hands of a high school classmate, and how she copes.  
•  The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld, about a future society in which all teenagers get plastic surgery that makes them beautiful, but also compliant and obedient, is science fiction at its most exhilarating. 

And lots more! Best of all, the list is packed with fascinating-looking stuff that I haven’t read. NPR's listeners thought the books on this list were the best of the best, so I’ve taken notes for my to-read list.

 If you enjoy YA fiction, click here to see the list and vote. The results will be announced in a few weeks.

Reckless by Cornelia Funke

Cornelia Funke's Reckless takes place mostly in a Mirrorworld of grim fairy tales, where Sleeping Beauty died waiting for her kiss while more than one mummified prince moldered in the thorn bushes. It's a novel of few notes, but all of them true.

In the real world, Jacob Reckless’ father disappeared, and Jacob became the man of the house too young. Then he discovered the Mirror in his father’s study, that allowed him to escape his mother’s grief and his little brother’s neediness. He spent as much time adventuring in the Mirrorworld as he could, until he and his brother were both grown and their mother passed away.

Now, Jacob’s younger brother Will stumbles onto the Mirrorworld for the first time, drawing his girlfriend Clara behind him. They think they’ve discovered a beautiful fairy tale, but only Jacob understands the dark consequences of their mistake. The Mirrorworld has always been dangerous, but now it’s also in the middle of a civil war, as the long-despised stone-skinned Goyls are given new strength from the Dark Fairy, and the merest scratch of a Goyl’s claw can transform human skin to stone.

Funke’s book does not delve into the real world lives of Jacob, Will, and Clara: it maintains its fairy tale focus all the way through, playing on archetypes rather than specifics. Jacob's life in the Mirrorworld comes across as grim and empty, so that it seems he fled his real-world home for an adventure with as much meaningful human interaction as a video game. The characters develop only slightly over the course of the book, and if there is a happy ending, it’s the bittersweet kind.

Nevertheless, it’s a beautifully written dark fairy tale, which might appeal to fans of the movie Pan’s Labyrinth. Funke (FOON-ka) is a German author whose writing for children has been very well received in the United States, where she is perhaps best know for her Inkworld trilogy. Reckless is categorized as Young Adult, but will appeal to adult fans of fantasy as well.

--Posted by Stacy

Black fantasy

Not for you, the golden glades of Lothlórien, where the elf-queen rules amid the dream-flowers? Looking for something grittier? Try White Cat and its sequel, Red Glove, by Holly Black, for fantasy that owes a lot more to the shadowy world of The Sopranos than to Tolkien.

Cassel Sharpe is a smart teenager, trying to stay out of trouble and fit in at his expensive boarding school. But that's not easy for a kid from a family of con artists, killers, and curse-workers.

You see, magic is illegal but available through organized crime channels; if you want curse-work done, you need to make a bargain with the mafia. Cassel is inextricably connected to the mob by blood, even though he doesn't do work himself. He'd like to avoid the business, in spite of his complicated loyalties to his family.

Most fantasy novels present magic as basically neutral - a tool that can be used either for good or evil. But in these novels, it's hard not to see the inherently malignant implications of curse-work: you can tamper with someone's memories; or make them feel emotions that they otherwise wouldn't; or, you know, murder them, in either straightforward or devious ways. This seems to be dark power. Maybe people who can't do it are right to be afraid of those who can.

The more we learn about Cassel, the more we suspect that someone has been working on him. He's in up to his neck - he just doesn't know it.

White Cat and Red Glove present a malevolent and dangerous world, in which no one is innocent and no one can be trusted. I'm excited to grab the third book, Black Heart, but unfortunately I'll have to wait - it's not out until April.

Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce

Alianne of Pirate's Swoop is bored. Daughter of the legendary Lioness of Tortall, she's sixteen and ready for adventure - only her protective parents won't let her go find it.

Then she is seized by pirates, sold into slavery, and confronted by a trickster god, who makes her a wager: if she can keep her current master's children safe for one summer, she will be freed and returned home. Aly thinks it sounds like an easy bet - how hard could it be to keep four kids alive for a few months?

But the children of Duke Mequen Balitang are special. The eldest girls, daughters by his deceased first wife, are the last of an ancient royal line. Prophecy suggests they may come to power in the Copper Isles, ousting the current, fading Rittevon monarchy. With plots and conspiracies swirling around the girls, how will Aly win her wager and get home again at last?

Trickster's Choice is an action-packed fantasy adventure that takes place in the well-realized Tortall universe. Author Tamora Pierce has already explored Tortall in several other fantasy series, like Song of the Lioness and Protector of the Small.

It's delightful to read a fantasy novel led by a smart, capable, brave heroine like Aly. If I have a complaint about Trickster's Choice, it's that Aly's a little too capable: she knows how to speak several languages fluently, pick locks, break codes, fight with daggers, sew, read lips, play chess, herd goats, and catch thrown knives from the air. In fact, Aly never encounters anything she can't do in this whole book. You can't have much of a character arc with a character who already knows everything. Even Indiana Jones was afraid of snakes.

Nevertheless, Aly's humor and spirit help make Trickster's Choice an exciting and fun read. It's the first of a two-part series: I'm going to start its sequel, Trickster's Queen, today.

Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol

Anya is a sullen teen who hates school and isn't very nice to her family and friends. She's sort of a portrait of me at sixteen, except with more cigarettes. And oh yes, a ghost.

Anya acquires the ghost when she accidentally falls down a well, where a girl named Emily died ninety years ago.

Emily the ghost seems lonely. She hangs around with Anya, asking questions and demanding attention, and soon she proves her worth by providing Anya with a lot of nice things. She's a friend and a supporter, and she helps Anya cheat on tests, and keeps watch while Anya sneaks cigarettes, and helps her manipulate a cute boy. Actually, you start to wonder if maybe Emily's not a very good influence on Anya after all.

Anya's Ghost provides a funny and real glimpse of high school life, with expressive drawings and a sweet, surprising ending. Neil Gaiman calls it a masterpiece, and I think it's pretty wonderful, too.