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Every Line is Worth Savoring in These 5 YA Books
There’s nothing quite like a perfect sentence, the kind that demands to be taken in slowly and that lingers long after you continue on. The best lines have a way of nestling inside you, filling you, grounding you. They’re the ones you highlight or underline or write down on scraps of paper, just in case you ever need reminding that beauty can come from a simple string of words. The books on this list are composed entirely of such sentences. These stories—and the beautiful lines they’re made of—deserve to be savored.
The Weight of Feathers, by Anna-Marie McLemore
Lace Paloma, like every Paloma, knows to stay far away from the Corbeaus. The two families used to be mere professional rivals—the Palomas attracting audiences with their mermaid exhibitions, and the Corbeaus with their tree-top tightrope walking—but the rivalry became a full-fledged feud after a death decades ago. When disaster strikes the town both families are performing in, Lace is saved by a Corbeau boy and unwittingly thrust into the enemy’s world of wings, feathers, and magia negra. This debut, a magical realist Romeo and Juliet, is filled with writing as complicated and tender as its central romance.
The Star-Touched Queen, by Roshani Chokshi
Maya, cursed with a horoscope that promises death and destruction should she marry, is happy to live out her life reading her way through the kingdom’s library. But when her father, the Raja, arranges a politically convenient marriage for Maya despite her horoscope, she finds herself facing first self-sacrifice, then a mysterious rescuer, on her way to somewhere wholly unexpected: a seat on a throne. She thrives as Queen, and her feelings for her husband grow quickly…but her new kingdom is full of locked doors, whispers, and secrets. Maya’s husband asks only for her trust, but as her unease becomes suspicion, trust is the one thing she doesn’t think she can afford to give.
The Minnow, by Diana Sweeney
The flood came on Mother’s Day, and it left with Tom’s parents and sister. She’s been living with Bill, her father’s friend, ever since, but now she’s pregnant with Bill’s baby and it’s time to move out. As the Minnow grows inside her, Tom navigates various relationships: with Bill, Nana, the carp in the pet shop, the catfish that might be her sister, her dead grandfather, and with the Minnow herself. Told with a temporal fluidity that reads the way a beam of light in water looks, Sweeney presents a delicate story of loss, grief, trauma, and love.
The Brides of Rollrock Island, by Margo Lanagan
Rollrock Island is home to fishermen, seals, and magic. The men of Rollrock go to the witch Misskaela for their brides, beautiful women coaxed out of seals. Every boy grows up knowing that one day he’ll approach the witch, and she’ll demand her payment—one he’ll owe long after he takes his new wife from the sand and onto sturdier ground. But the seal-women still feel the pull of the waves, despite their feet, their lungs, their stolen coats, even their land-born sons. A whole host of narrators, over the course of several generations, tell of their relationships to the sea brides and show how Rollrock is capable of incredible cruelty—and incredible love.
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Delicate Monsters, by Stephanie Kuehn
Sadie Su is back in town after being kicked out of boarding school (again) for nearly killing her classmate. Her arrival isn’t good news for Emerson Tate, because Sadie knows his secrets—the dark ones, the shameful ones, the ones he can’t seem to forget. And torment is Sadie’s favorite pastime. As the two circle each other—one eager, one wary—long-hidden truths surface, bringing monsters to light with them.