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For The Boy Who Hates To Read...

9/29/2014

I started reading young adult fiction in an effort to spark my son’s interest in reading. I continued because I fell in love with the genre. One of the things I’m most proud of as an adult reader of YA is that I've been able to guide my son (AKA The Boy Who Hates To Read) to books he's truly enjoyed. Here are a few that got us through the read-a-book-a-month middle school years.

EVERYONE SEES THE ANTS
by A.S. King

Lucky Linderman didn't ask for his life. He didn't ask his grandfather not to come home from the Vietnam War. He didn't ask for a father who never got over it. He didn't ask for a mother who keeps pretending their dysfunctional family is fine. And he didn't ask to be the target of Nader McMillan's relentless bullying, which has finally gone too far.

But Lucky has a secret--one that helps him wade through the daily mundane torture of his life. In his dreams, Lucky escapes to the war-ridden jungles of Laos--the prison his grandfather couldn't escape--where Lucky can be a real man, an adventurer, and a hero. It's dangerous and wild, and it's a place where his life just might be worth living. But how long can Lucky keep hiding in his dreams before reality forces its way inside?

A MONSTER CALLS
by Patrick Ness

The monster showed up after midnight. As they do.

But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming...

This monster is something different, though. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.

PLAYING TYLER
by T.L. Costa

Tyler MacCandless can’t focus, even when he takes his medication. He can’t focus on school, on his future, on a book, on much of anything other than taking care of his older brother, Brandon, who’s in rehab for heroin abuse… again.

Tyler’s dad is dead and his mom has mentally checked out. The only person he can really count on is his Civilian Air Patrol Mentor, Rick. The one thing in life it seems he doesn’t suck at is playing video games, and, well, that’s probably not going to get him into college.

Just when it seems like his future is on a collision course with a life sentence at McDonald’s, Rick asks him to test a video game. If his score’s high enough, it could earn him a place in flight school and win him the future he was certain that he could never have. And when he falls in love with the game’s designer, the legendary gamer Ani, Tyler thinks his life might finally be turning around.

That is, until Brandon goes MIA from rehab and Tyler and Ani discover that the game is more than it seems. Now Tyler will have to figure out what’s really going on in time to save his brother… and prevent his own future from going down in flames.

YAQUI DELGADO WANTS TO KICK YOUR ASS
by Meg Medina

One morning before school, some girl tells Piddy Sanchez that Yaqui Delgado hates her and wants to kick her ass. Piddy doesn’t even know who Yaqui is, never mind what she’s done to piss her off. Word is that Yaqui thinks Piddy is stuck-up, shakes her stuff when she walks, and isn’t Latin enough with her white skin, good grades, and no accent. And Yaqui isn’t kidding around, so Piddy better watch her back. At first Piddy is more concerned with trying to find out more about the father she’s never met and how to balance honors courses with her weekend job at the neighborhood hair salon. But as the harassment escalates, avoiding Yaqui and her gang starts to take over Piddy’s life. Is there any way for Piddy to survive without closing herself off or running away? In an all-too-realistic novel, Meg Medina portrays a sympathetic heroine who is forced to decide who she really is.

For more reading suggestions from my teen boy to yours, click here.

A Cover Reveal and a Contest: THE DEVIL YOU KNOW by Trish Dollar

9/10/2014

I'm a couple of days late with this post but there's still plenty of time to enter the contest. Hop on over to NOVEL NOVICE for the official reveal, including an except of THE DEVIL YOU KNOW and the Rafflecopter link to enter for a chance to win an ARC of Trish's brand new book! She's also including copies of her amazing books, SOMETHING LIKE NORMAL and WHERE THE STARS STILL SHINE. The contest runs through midnight (PT) on Sunday, September 14th. U.S. only.

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW
By Trish Dollar

Eighteen-year-old Arcadia wants adventure. Living in a tiny Florida town with her dad and four-year-old brother, Cadie spends most of her time working, going to school, and taking care of her family. So when she meets two handsome cousins at a campfire party, she finally has a chance for fun. They invite her and a friend to join them on a road trip, and it’s just the risk she’s been craving-the opportunity to escape. But what starts out as a fun, sexy journey quickly becomes dangerous when she discovers that one of them is not at all who he claims to be. One of them has deadly intentions.

A road trip fling turns terrifying in this contemporary story that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Trish Doller is the critically-acclaimed author of Something Like Normal. Something Like Normal was chosen for the YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults list in 2013, as well named as an NPR Top 100 Teen Books finalist and 2012 Goodreads Choice nominee. Trish's second novel, Where the Stars Still Shine, was longlisted for the 2014 Australian Silver Inky Awards and was a Winter 2013-14 Indie Next List pick. Printz Award-winning author Melina Marchetta calls Where the Stars Still Shine"heartbreaking and powerful". Her third novel, The Devil You Know, will be released June 2, 2015 and she is currently writing her first novel for adults. Trish lives in Florida with her two dogs, two mostly-grown children, and a pirate. For more information visit Trish at: trishdoller.com.

Reading YA with Kristen-Paige Madonia

9/3/2014

Why do you read young adult fiction?
There are so many elements of YA Lit that appeal to me, but the strongest is the voice -- that raw, honest, and vulnerable voice of an adolescent wading through an experience, or series of experiences, after which their world will never be the same. It's the sound of the characters that draw me to the work, the way they unpack their emotions on the page. My favorite YA books are hinged by a strong narrative voice, typically a first person point of view. Of course the story and setting matter a great deal as well, the structure and subplots and sidekicks, but it always comes back to a strong authentic voice.

What YA book are you reading now?
I'm currently reading an ARC of the YA novel Fig (forthcoming April 2015) by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz; she's a Simon & Schuster author, too, and the story is one I haven't heard yet in the YA world, so I'm planning to blurb the book. In terms of other YA books sharing the nightstand with Fig, the new issue of One Teen Story and E. Lockhart's We Were Liars are currently in the stack.

When and where do you read?
If truth be told, I'm mostly reading board books to my son these days, so we read on the floor, on the couch, and in the cozy chair in his bedroom. He's ten months old, and reading has become one of his favorite activities. But when I can find the time to read for myself, it is often on the back deck, curled up on the couch, at my desk in my office before beginning my writing for the day, or in bed. I also read in airports, in parking lots, in coffee shops, in classrooms before my students arrive, at dog parks, standing up in the kitchen, and in doctor's office waiting rooms. I try to sneak it in when ever and where ever I can! And I can't fall asleep without reading for at least half an hour. It's my way of unwinding and closing up shop for the day.

What draws you to a book?
I rely heavily on word of mouth and recommendations from friends and other authors. When I was on book tour for Fingerprints of You, I collected books based off the suggestions of booksellers, and never left an event empty handed.

Do you ever reread books?
I absolutely do. One of the most wonderful things about reading is seeing a book in a new way depending on what you're bringing to the page at that time. For me, a book changes each time I read it, so I often return to my stack of favorites for inspiration, particularly when I'm struggling with something in my own work.

Which YA books have had the most impact on your writing?
I don't think I can pinpoint one book that has had the most impact on my writing. With each project, I have found a number of books that have helped me discover my own goals and strengths and have un-stuck me when I've struggled. The Outsiders taught me to write against the advice "write what you know," while John Corey Whaley's Where Things Come Back and Daniel Handler's Why We Broke Up encouraged me to experiment with structure. Recently, Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor and Park reminded me to write honestly about the sweetness and vulnerability we experience with first love, while David Levithan's Every Day encouraged me to be mindful of including diversity in my cast of characters.

Which books do you find yourself recommending over and over again?

John Green's Paper Towns, David Levithan's Two Boys Kissing, Claiming Georgia Tate by Gigi Amateau, and the literary YA magazine One Teen Story. Though it's not YA, I always recommend Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson, which is absolutely beautiful and is populated by a fascinating group of teenaged characters. I also often recommend Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer in terms of an authentic and emotionally honest adolescent voice, though it is not a YA novel.

Kristen-Paige Madonia’s debut novel, Fingerprints of You, was published August 2012 by Simon & Schuster and recent fiction can be found in Upstreet, New Orleans Review, American Fiction: Best Previously Unpublished Stories by Emerging Writers, and Sycamore Review. She was awarded a 2011 Sewanee Writers’ Conference Tennessee Williams Scholarship and has received fellowships from the Hambidge Center, the Vermont Studio Center, the Juniper Summer Writing Institute, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony. She currently lives in Charlottesville, VA where she teaches creative writing and is at work on her second novel, Invisible Fault Lines (Simon & Schuster, 2016). For more information, please visit http: kristenpaigemadonia.com

#readingYA

I read YA because it brings back memories. And sometimes, it helps me to understand the teenagers who live in my house. I read YA because the authors are brilliant. They tell stories that make me laugh and break my heart. They show me the world from a different perspective.