5 Reasons September Is an Amazing Month for YA
I know, I know, EVERY month is an amazing month for YA, but this one is especially bursting with red-letter release days, of heart-wracking love stories, a backstage pass into YA heaven, a gripping meditation on bullying and suicide, and one book that will have you snort laughing in public then reading every other line out loud to anyone who comes near you. Here is your sexy, hilarious, heartbreaking, brilliant month in new young adult reads:
I’ll Give You the Sun, by Jandy Nelson
Twins Jude and Noah were once as close as could be, she a fearless surfer girl, he a passionate artist who sees in technicolor—and is falling helplessly in love with the boy next door. But their mother’s sudden death rips them apart, leaving Jude a shuttered shell of herself and Noah in denial of both his sexuality and his art. Three years later, a new mentor and a damaged boy enter Jude’s life, blowing open her creativity and loosening the latches on her self-hatred. You’ll hold your breath at the beauty of her journey back to Noah and herself.
Afterworlds, by Scott Westerfeld
Teenaged Darcy Patel writes a paranormal romance novel in a 30-day haze of inspired speed-writing, and rapidly finds first an agent then a publisher. The story of her entrance into the New York publishing world—rewrites, overpriced apartments, first love, meeting her idols, figuring out how to write the elusive sequel, hanging out with a thinly veiled fictional version of John Green—is told in alternating chapters with her novel, which opens with a crackerjack scene of terrorism and semi-death at an airport, and jumps between the real world and an eerie Afterworld from there. It bursts with cleverness and a free-fall love of writing (and reading) that will send you straight back to the languishing manuscript draft on your own laptop.
How to Build a Girl, by Caitlin Moran
Johanna Morrigan is an overweight, sex-obsessed virgin living in a British council estate with four siblings, a wrung-out mum, and an expansive alcoholic dad. Her journey from unkissed schoolgirl to Dolly Wilde, a hard-drinking, sexually dynamic rock journalist is the funniest ride you’ll take all year. Based loosely on Moran’s teenaged self, Johanna/Dolly is the funniest, most smashingly shameless heroine you’ll ever meet. Every page of this book is filled with hilarious lines you’ll want to read out loud, and you’ll be recommending it to everyone before you’ve gotten halfway through.
Falling Into Place, by Amy Zhang
Author Zhang is herself a high-school student, and her gorgeous debut novel takes an utterly fresh look at the strangling effects of bullying—from the perspective of the bully. Liz is her school’s queen bee, the kind of girl who can explode someone’s reputation between lunch and English without breaking a sweat…but that ability has all but killed off her will to live. When she drives her car into a tree on an icy road, it’s an event carefully engineered to look like an accident. The book jumps around between the days before and after the crash, as her life goes to shreds, then her body battles to cling to it. It’s sad without being maudlin, and life-affirming without being treacly. Readers still riding high off the month of If I Stay should pick this up posthaste.
100 Sideways Miles, by Andrew Smith
Finn Easton is an epileptic kid whose novelist father wrote him into a controversial sci-fi book, one that Finn’s not sure he’ll ever really escape. Cade Hernandez is his foul-mouthed, magical best friend. Julia Bishop is the complicated dream girl who moves to town and becomes Finn’s first love. In trying to get out of the book, and become more than just an epileptic his parents can’t set free, Finn visits with ghosts, buys condoms, tries to untangle his feelings toward Julia, and finally hits the road, becoming, unexpectedly, a hero. He measures time in miles and strives for self-understanding, and his story unfolds at a mellow pace that makes every incident feel gilded with emotional importance. And he’s funny: Smith does teen boy dialogue better than anyone.
What new releases are you reading this month?