Today marks the beginning of #IReadYA Week and we here at Scholastic want to share with you nine reasons why we love to read young-adult books. If you love YA as much as we do, be sure to stop by the #IReadYA Week Prize site and join the celebration! We invite you to take part in daily social media challenges and you can even enter to win the #IReadYA prize pack.
Here are nine of our top reasons to love YA:
1. The Bewitching Stories You Can’t Wait to Devour (Even Though You’ll Hate to See Them End).
The Raven King is the much-anticipated fourth and final book in the Raven Cycle series by bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater. This series is the perfect blend of lore, magic, and modern-day adventure as it follows Blue, a young woman who has been warned all her life that she will cause her true love’s death. Don’t miss the spellbinding conclusion to this truly spectacular series.
2. To Learn That Even in Your Darkest Hour, You’re Never Alone.
Francisco X. Stork, author of Marcelo in the Real World, brings a deeply moving new novel with The Memory of Light. Inspired in part by the author's own experience with depression, the story presents Vicky Cruz, who wakes up in a hospital to find that her suicide attempt was a failure. When she enters group therapy, she meets other teens who are also plagued by mental illness. With honesty and courage, they travel down the road to recovery together. When all that’s left is living, they must find the strength to carry on. Click here for the discussion guide for The Memory of Light.
3. Two Friends. One Wild Weekend. One Last Chance.
Paul Rudnick follows his supremely funny novel Gorgeous with the brand-new: It’s All Your Fault. This novel tells the tale of the buttoned-up good girl, Caitlin, who is asked to chaperone her wild-child superstar cousin, Heller Harrigan. What starts as a weekend of staying serious and sober quickly devolves into a hazy forty-eight hours that ends in jail. Rudnick offers up a raucous journey into all the things can go wildy awry in just two days. And whose fault is it? You’ll have to read to find out.
4. The Stories that Show Finding Yourself Can Happen at Any Age.
Unbecoming by Jenny Downham explores the lives and relationships between three generations of women. Katie’s life is a mess: her friends think she’s a freak and her mother wants to control her every move. Suddenly, her estranged grandmother moves in and causes even more of a stir. Katie finds herself tending to her grandmother, who has dementia and requires a lot of care. As she helps the older woman sort through the fragments of her memories, Katie gains new understandings that might help put her own difficulties into perspective.
5. The Dark Humor of Delightfully Twisted Tales.
Debut author Goldy Moldavsky explores the world of boy bands, superfans, and all the things that can go wrong when love turns to obsession. In Kill the Boy Band, a group of four fangirls want nothing more than to be close to their favorite boy band. When they find out the band is coming to town, the girls spring into action. But then things get a little out of hand and somehow, one of the boys ends up tied to a chair in their hotel room…. How did things get this far? Read the darkly comical Kill the Boy Band to find out!
6. The Outsiders Who Find Acceptance (Especially from Themselves).
In Drag Teen, we meet an insecure gay teen, JT, who dreams of escaping small-town life and going to college. The big hitch—he doesn’t have the money. When JT’s friends hear about a drag competition awarding a college scholarship, they convince JT to go for it. This debut YA novel from gay icon Jeffery Self is a fantastic and funny look at finding acceptance and the courage to be yourself.
7. Heartbreaking Romance.
Ellia Dawson doesn't recognize the handsome boy who sits in tears by her hospital bed, even though he says he’s her boyfriend. Meanwhile, Liam is devastated that Ellia, the love of his life, suffered an accident and has lost her memory. Keep Me in Mind is a captivating story from Jaime Reed of the faded romance between a girl who doesn't remember and the boy who can't forget her.
8. Awfully Big Adventures.
Peter Pan just got a whole new look. This novel is so much more than a retelling of the classic story—it’s a total gritty reboot. Forget everything you think you know—in Everland, the only way to grow up is to survive. With a dash of steampunk and a soupcon of dystopia, debut author Wendy Spinale delivers high-stakes epic fairytale that is sure to thrill.
9. Friendships That Will Save Your Life.
Run is a stunning new novel from bestselling author Kody Keplinger about the intense friendship between two vastly different young women. Bo is the town “bad girl,” with a deadbeat father and a drug-addicted mother. Agnes, being legally blind, finds herself in quite the opposite situation, as she is stifled by her overprotective family. Despite their differences, the two women form an intense bond. When Bo shows up one night, sirens wailing in the distance, Agnes don’t hesitate to go on the run with her truest friend.
- C. M. Reedy, Library & Educational Marketing
