What I’m excited about in YA books for 2011
With school starting on Sunday, I realized that I will have to do what I can to organize my reading. (Hence the fun little widget on the right hand side.) And, with all of the top 10 lists of books for 2011, I’ve been putting together my own list. Some of it isn’t even YA…shocking but true. This is, of course, in addition to books that I didn’t get to in 2010. Well, it is always good to have a goal isn’t it, even if one already knows that it is madness…
Here they are in no particular order:
1) Cassandra Clare has TWO books. That is right, TWO BOOKS! Clockwork Prince (December 6, 2011,) the sequel to Clockwork Angel and City of Fallen Angels (April 5, 2011), the fourth book (or second cycle) in The Mortal Instruments Series.
2) Libba Bray‘s Beauty Queens.(May 24, 2011) The cover looks campy and I suspect that so will the book. The premise is that a plane full of teen beauty queen contestants crash onto a desert island. I honestly don’t care what it is about. If Bray writes it, I will read it. I adored her Gemma Doyle Trilogy and Going Bovine was definitely one of my favourite books in 2009.
3) Sarah Dessen‘s What Happened to Goodbye. (May 10, 2011) When I read her last book, Along for the Ride, I enjoyed it so much that I ended up reading most of her other books. I think that I missed two. I have them waiting for me. I think that I will possibly read them after this one. Dessen reminds me of Judy Blume because her stories are so complexly human. She also reminds me a bit of Montgomery because she has created an Avonlea of sorts – but hers in the town of Colby. She often does fun things for her fans where a character from one book might have a “guest appearance” in another.
4) Maggie Steivater’s Forever. (July 22, 2011) Because I need to know what happens to Sam and Grace. That is all.
5) Wendy McClure‘s The Wilder Life (April 19, 2011) I’m sure this is an obvious one. Given my recent road trip. Melanie + Book about Laura Ingalls Wilder = Heaven.
6) Maureen Johnson The Last Little Blue Envelope (April 26, 2011) Because I have been waiting for an excuse to read the other books in this series and now I have one.
7) Alan Cumyn’s Tilt (Fall, 2011) which I know very little about except what was quoted in Publishers Weekly: “a coming-of-age novel about a teenage boy’s obsession with basketball—and sex..” Cumyn was the person who ran the writing workshop in Banff and encouraged me to apply to VCFA. His encouragement has been instrumental to my writing path. I am excited to read his first YA novel.
8) Carrie Ryan The Dark and Hollow Places (March 22, 2011) I’ve read the other two in the series mostly because I enjoy a good post-apocalyptic zombie novel tied up in religious and political upheaval. Ryan left the last book, The Dead Tossed Waves with a bit of a cliffhanger, so I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next.
9) Lauren Oliver, Delirium (February 1, 2011) You will recall, that Oliver’s Before I Fall one of my favourites from 2010. As I understand it, this is the first in a dystopian fiction series.
10) Judy Blundell‘s Strings Attached (March, 2011) Blundell won the National Book Award a couple of years ago for her novel, What I Saw and How I Lied and was a personal favourite in 2009. I remember Blundell’s crisp tone and the how well she set a mystery and coming of age story against the backdrop of Post-World War II Florida. In this novel, a young woman flees to New York City after a bad breakup only to find herself in a worse situation.
