More Recent Comments

im so pleased to hear you say this- i'm 1/2 through and can't keep up with numerous characters and side-trails and how they're contributing to the story. Having read your review, i'm abondoning the book! Phew!

One of my all-time favorite books that just happens to be considered YA is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. My mother-in-law recommended it to me, and I've always been grateful she did. I don't have my own review of...

I see her pretty frequently in town and I always have to be like, don't be a creep. She doesn't know you or want to be friends with you. I'm going to just casually hang at our new local bookstore...

Really enjoying this comment discussion. So many suggestions. Since I love fairy tale retellings and YA fantasy, lots of good suggestions to add to my list.

In my book club, when we have pretty much come to the agreement that if the protagonists are still teenagers (which is the case in The Scholomance), then it seems likely they were meant to be YA. If the protagonists...

Like so many others here, I'm a sucker for Tamora Pierce. Is Robin McKinley YA? Because I love her books, too. If you're looking for a Harry Potter alternative, may I recommend the Wildseed Witch series by Marti Dumas? Just...

I didn’t find it funny, and I’m not sure if my sense of humor doesn’t mesh with his or if it went over my head. But I still liked the book. The other one I have is Sister Svangerd and...

Oh, see I definitely read it as, “give your teens this magic school book instead.” Maybe because I remember The Magicians being marketed as “Magic school for adults” and compared to that one, this felt more YA. I was actually...

Interesting with Scholomance, I very much read it as the adult book for former YA magic school book readers

I went and found on eBay the Alanna covers that I remembered from childhood when I had the hankering to re-read them during COVID-ish times. Lots of the imagery -- esp of Thom's corroded dried blood colored magic -- was...

One think I appreciate about Naomi Novik is how different her books all are from each other. I feel like a lot of author's stay in the same "lane," and have a similar voice, even when writing books in different...

Thank you for reminding me about the Dark Rise series. I loved the first two so much, but sad that book 3 isn't out yet.

I'm a Teen Services Librarian, so I read a lot of YA, and I'm still finding new books to be delighted by. I've also been able to see the category really develop from the time I was an older teen...

Reading Tamora Pierce in middle school was a pretty formative experience for me. I re-read the Alanna books a year or two ago, and they mostly still hold up. I feel like I would have enjoyed Legendborn a lot more...

I've loved YA for years, but the ones that got me back into the category, and back into reading during covid, were Maria V. Snyder's Poison Study and Chris Weitz's Young World series. The series that held my attention and...

I've loved everything I've read by KJ Parker, but his work is definitely different. Most of it strides the line between fantasy and historical, with no actual magic, but in a secondary-world setting. I also find his work both very...

I hadn't realized how young until this.

I figure it played a part in her passing

I've read both and they seem to be unrelated.

I saw that book and wondered too, but no idea because they are both posted as stand-alone titles. Plus reading the synopsis of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches doesn't synch up with the world building in this one....

Ugh, she was so young!

Oh no, this is tragic. I wasn't aware her husband had died either.

That is a problem!

I used to read YA a lot more, but have been drifting away from them a bit in the last few years. I've been thinking about this challenge for a day or two, and to help my poor, memory-challenged perimenopausal...

Exactly what I was thinking. To lose this voice so young!

I think the first two or three books in the Tiffany Aching series could be classified as Middle Grade, while the final two (I Shall Wear Midnight and The Shepherd's Crown) are more YA. My husband read the first three...

Me three. I had the entire trilogy, and donated all of them to a flea market without reading books two and three.

Mandanna also wrote about magic and witches in The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. I had the impression that this was a sequel of sorts, at least set in the same world, but I might be wrong.

Oh no, that's so sad. Persepolis is such an eye-opening read, and more important than ever, considering the current events in Iran.

Tiffany Aching would be at the top of my list. When I taught middle school (25 years ago), there were two boys in my seventh grade class who were always reading Pratchett books and quoting them to each other. I...

I think Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching novels are considered YA; the rest are that category of “for adults but fine for kids” - like they might miss some of the jokes because they aren’t the target but totally fine for them...

Thank you so much for reviewing my book. I really appreciate. Wishing you a happy Pride Month! 💜

When my daughter was in middle school and high school it was one depressing book after another (both assigned classroom reading and summer reading). They did one Shakespeare every year in HS - 4 tragedies. Her sophomore English teacher had...

I can understand why people do not like the depressing stories, but I can appreciate the realism to them. And yes, lots of great non-classics!

I have Red Sister - I picked it up on sale ages when I kept confusing/conflating Lawrence and Abercrombie. So maybe I’ll check that out based on your response. Will likely wait a while before I pick up an unfinished...

I'll confess, I was sort of the same; I really did like the first installment, but by the time we hit the third third one I had no idea what his intentions were. It was one of my very few...

I’m still holding a grudge against Lawrence because of the Library trilogy - I really liked the first one and how he set up this harsh but magical world with interesting characters. But the second novel already was a drop...

It really does!

I have really liked Tiffany D. Jackson’s novels (Monday’s Not Coming, Allegedly, Grown). Last year I read Randi Pink’s historical fiction Angel of Greenwood, which was outstanding. I do like historical fiction and I’ve read a couple of Ruta Sepetys’...

This one does have a great found family.

I don't like The Knife of Never Letting Go either! You're not alone!

I always say a good book is a good book- same as you. I have one librarian friend who is very widely read and we always come back to this. If it is well written, has well drawn characters, a...

I've been reading YA as long as I can remember. I did take a break during college (I didn't have a lot of time to read for fun). Then I became a bookseller (almost 30 years ago!) and I LOVE...

And Twelfth Knight by Alexene Farol Follmuth – Halbs Book Review – Cannonball Read 18

Ooh, in addition to this fun YA I humbly recommend Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce – Halbs Book Review – Cannonball Read 18!

Naomi Novik is an interesting one because I feel like she kind of went the opposite direction - and some authors also successfully write in multiple age categories, like you mentioned. I think she started very much in the adult...

I think this classification thing for female fantasy writers is very true. I attended a YA author panel back in 2016. It was Naomi Novik and VE Schwab, at the time their fantasy books were strictly marketed as YA. Schwab...

I always felt like such an odd one out for like The Knife of Never Letting Go but not the trilogy as a whole. Man, the YA trilogy trend of the 2010s had so many disappointing follow ups to amazing...

Since I read a lot fantasy, I am going to go on a bit of a tangent here. I don’t think I have been reading as much YA recently as I have in previous years but I think it’s more...

I love Tamora Pierce something fantastic, and re-read those novels quite often when I want to be transported back into her worlds (especially Emelan!). I think her books are YA because we're given the interiority of her main characters pretty...