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What's Up in YA

🌟 Just Bursting With YA Adaptation News

Hey YA Readers: It’s news o’clock.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Flatiron Books.

Welcome to Finale, the final book in Stephanie Garber’s #1 New York Times bestselling Caraval series! It’s been two months since the Fates were freed from a deck of cards, two months since Legend claimed the throne for his own, and two months since Tella discovered the boy she fell in love with doesn’t really exist. Tella must decide if she’s going to trust Legend. After uncovering a secret, Scarlett will need to do the impossible. And Legend has a choice to make that will forever change him. Caraval is over, but perhaps the greatest game of all has begun.

Happy Monday! Let’s launch this new week with some YA news. There is a whole lot of awesome adaptation news to highlight.

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Read These Books

Are you looking to read something different in the YA world? I just blew through Hanna Alkaf’s debut The Weight of Our Sky. The story, set in May 1969 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, follows the political uprising and surrounding riots that occurred in the country through the eyes of Melati, a teen girl who, in addition to dealing with the events going on around her, also struggles with obsessive compulsive disorder. That OCD is especially well-rendered and offered up in context to how Muslims in that time and place perceived mental illness — as an evil djinn one had. It’s an absorbing read and one I think is worth highlighting so more readers pick it up. It came out in February, so grab it now.

Although not a YA book, I’m going to give a little space to recommend that readers who love YA and who are passionate about teenagers pick up David Cullen’s Parkland. Cullen, best known for his incredible look at the realities of the Columbine shootings nearly 20 years ago, takes a different approach in his latest book, in part because he’s tired of being seen as the one writing about all of these tragedies. Parkland instead follows the teenagers behind the March for Our Lives movement, offering incredible insight into the work they’ve done, the time and energy they’ve poured into it, and the lessons and changes they’ve learned and made along the way. It’s a book that leaves you feeling hopeful, rather than defeated, and one that opens up a lot of information that hasn’t been shared by mainstream media. I was particularly impressed to hear how hard the teens worked to educate themselves on gun violence in Chicago, from Chicago teens, and worked to make their own group more inclusive and representative of their generation.

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Thanks for hanging out and we’ll see you again later this week!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.