Author: Kelly Jensen

Hey YA Readers!

The good news is we’re already more than half way through this work week, meaning we are thisclose to curling up with some excellent books. The great news is there are so many new titles out this week that you’ll have tons and tons to choose among.

We’re light on news this week, but don’t worry — this is the season where we’ll begin seeing more and more news come out. Fall is traditionally a busy publishing season.

Grab your PSLs, your apple pie, and any other seasonal goods and let’s catch up on the latest in YA.

YA Book News

• A fascinating peek at the history and future of teen TV (with shoutouts, of course, to book adaptations!).
• Alicia Keys’s song “Girl on Fire,” will be made into a young adult graphic novel.

New YA Books

Please note: these are very long lists, both in paperback and in hardcover. Some dates may have shifted because of the pandemic, because of paper sourcing issues, and because of the general supply chain challenges. If something has been pushed back, preorder it and enjoy the surprise when it arrives — a gift from your current self to your future self!

Hardcover

Act Cool by Tobly McSmith

Battle of the Bands edited by Lauren Gibaldi and Eric Smith

Beyond the Blue Border by Dorit Linke, translated by Elisabeth Lauffer

Bones of Ruin by Sarah Raughley

The Buried by Melissa Grey

The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros

A Clash of Steel by C.B. Lee

Code Name Badass by Heather Demetrios (nonfiction)

Displaced by Dean Hughes

Finding Refuge by Victorya Rouse (nonfiction)

The Girls Are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh

The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (series)

Hello (From Here) by Chandler Baker and Wesley King

The Jasmine Project by Meredith Ireland

The Last Legacy by Adrienne Young

Lies Like Wildfire by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez

Mary, Will I Die? by Shawn Sarles

Never Saw You Coming by Erin Hahn

The Problem With The Other Side by Kwame Ivery

The Scratch Daughters by Hannah Abigail Clarke (series)

So Many Beginnings by Bethany C. Morrow

Tides of Mutiny by Rebecca Rode

We Are Not Broken by George M Johnson (nonfiction)

We Can Be Heroes by Kyrie McCauley

When Can We Go Back to America? by Susan H. Kamei (nonfiction)

Where I Belong by Marcia Argueta Mickelson

Your Life Has Been Delayed by Michelle I. Mason

Paperback

I mentioned that this was a huge release day, right? A bounty of YA! Note you may need to toggle to the paperback edition when you click through the link.

Before We Were Blue by E.J. Schwartz

The Bridge by Bill Konigsberg

Crownchasers by Rebecca Coffindaffer (series)

Even If We Break by Marieke Nijkamp

For Better or Cursed by Kate M. Williams (series)

His Hideous Heart edited by Dahlia Adler

I’m Not Dying With You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal

Iron Heart by Nina Varela (series)

Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco (series)

The Last Beautiful Girl by Nina Laurin

Lightbringer by Claire Legrand (series)

The Light in Hidden Places by Sharon Cameron

The Pick Up by Miranda Kenneally

Queen of Volts by Amanda Foody (series)

Recommended for You by Laura Silverman

Small Town Monsters by Diana Rodriguez Wallach

Something Happened to Ali Greenleaf by Hayley Krischer

Toil and Trouble edited by Tess Sharpe and Jessica Spotswood

Where We Are by Alison McGhee

This Week at Book Riot

• Get ready to be glued to these YA heist novels.
• These feel-good speculative YA novels are perfect for when you need something up-lifting.
• A brief and personal history with Wattpad.
• And then sink your teeth into some dark dystopia.

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As always, thanks for hanging out. We’ll see you on Saturday with your new weekly deals roundup and then again on Monday! May your reading be good.

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram.

Hey YA Readers!

This will be the last “big” roundup of ebook deals for your Saturday browsing pleasure. Starting next week, the deals will hit your inbox weekly (!) with fewer titles in each edition. It’ll even out to these longer roundups over the course of the month.

Another thing before getting to the deals, if you’ve ever wanted to work for Book Riot, we’re hiring! We’re looking for an Ad-Operations Associate. This full-time position is open to applicants until September 30, and we are committed to building an inclusive workforce and strongly encourage applications from women, individuals with disabilities, and people of color. All of the details and how to apply are here.

Now onto deals! All of these are current as of writing.

Emily Henry’s A Million Junes is pitched as Romeo and Juliet meets One Hundred Years of Solitude which makes it sound like a heck of a read! $3.

Magical-fantasy Lobizona, first in a series by Romina Garber, is $3.

Slasher novels up your alley? Grab There’s Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins for $3.

Damselfly by Chandra Prasad — Lord of the Flies-ish but with a cast of female characters — is on sale for $2.

Queer romance If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan is on sale for $2. Also snag Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel for $2.

The just-released short story anthology Up All Night edited by Laura Silverman, packed with stories that take place in the night by some incredible authors, is on sale for $2.

Nina LaCour’s classic and award-winning Hold Still is on sale for $3.

Finally, snap up The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner for $3.

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you on Thursday. For those of you with a long weekend, enjoy the extra reading time.

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram

Hey YA Readers!

Welcome to a brand new month. September is right up there with June as my favorite of the year, and we’re in for a whole host of great new reads this month to celebrate.

Let’s catch up on the latest in news and new titles this week.

YA Book News

• The adaptation of Lois Duncan’s I Know What You Did Last Summer has a release date.
• The Vampire Academy is getting a television series and here’s everything to know so far.
• February will bring us a new Ruta Sepetys novel.
• The founders of Cinco Puntos Press talk about their vision as a company as they say goodbye — it’s been sold to Lee & Low, which will give these vital books even more opportunity to thrive.
• Your Canadian YA fix for fall is here.
• A peep at the adaptation of Jenny Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty.

New YA Books This Week

Hardcover

Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain

Forestborn by Elayne Audrey Becker (first in a series)

Last Witnesses (Young Reader Edition) by Svetlana Alexievich

The Last Words We Said by Leah Scheier

A Psalm of Storms and Silence by Roseanne A. Brown (series)

Take Me With You When You Go by David Levithan and Jennifer Niven

The Woods Are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins

The Witch Haven by Sasha Peyton Smith

Paperback

The Assignment by Liza Wiemer

Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare (series)

Disclose by Joelle Charbonneau (series)

Flyy Girls: Tobyn by Ashley Woodfolk (series)

Sanctuary by Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher

Sisters of Sword and Song by Rebecca Ross

This Week at Book Riot

• More than 30 years later, a suspect confesses to murdering Lois Duncan’s daughter.
• Get to know the teen pulp comic magazines of the 1950s. You’ll be surprised how, err, not chaste they are.
• The Hunger Games’s 3-finger salute is being used as a symbol of resistance to tyranny throughout Asia.
• YA books for classic rom-com lovers.
• Read your way into some dark YA dystopia.
• And finally, make plans to catch The Baby-Sitters Club season 2 on Netflix this October.

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Thanks for hanging out, y’all. We’ll see you on Saturday with ebook deals for your long weekend — and that long weekend means no newsletter on Monday so you can enjoy the extra reading time.

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram

Hey YA Readers!

I’ve been on a comics reading roll lately. YA horror comics have been my biggie, but I’ve definitely also been stacking up a number of sports comics, too. My brain isn’t able to deeply invest in a novel or work of nonfiction right now, and comics have been the perfect way to read a great story and appreciate art. It’s a win-win.

I played basketball in middle school, followed by badminton in high school. Both sports were ones I just adored while playing, but being a short person, I knew basketball wasn’t a long-lasting sport competitively for me. Badminton was, until I found myself burned out and unwilling to tolerate a sexist, belittling coach any longer. I quit junior year, and though I don’t regret it, to this day, I wish I had a local badminton organization locally to get back into the sport (and before you say it’s not a sport, it is — you run more than a football player, your body becomes riddled with bruises and marks from throwing yourself on the ground, and whether playing singles or doubles, strategy is key to success, just like any other sport).

This week, I thought I’d highlight some outstanding recent YA sports comics. These cover a wide range of sports and are both fiction and nonfiction. Some of the books will be fairly familiar, while others will, I hope, be new ones for your reading radar.

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Though none of these books feature badminton, I’m hopeful some day we’ll see an excellent badminton graphic novel or memoir. Until then, the good news is there are dozens of outstanding sports comics to pick up.

Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you on Thursday.

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram

Hey YA Readers!

We made it through most of the work week, so let’s catch up on the latest in YA news and new books.

YA Book News

• This was an interesting look at how a publisher created a bestseller through its marketing and publicity.
• Some casting news for Rebecca Serles’s When You Were Mine adaptation.
• The forthcoming graphic novel Squad has been optioned for adaptation. This book looks like a lot of fun.
• Books you may have missed during the pandemic.
• There are a lot of things not addressed in this piece — the lack of understanding how broad YA is, how it’s far more inclusive that it used to be, that these books are quite homophobic, these “normie” girl stories referenced are all white — but readers who like to take a walk down memory lane will enjoy this look back at the Georgia Nicholson series.

New YA Books

Hardcover

Bad Witch Burning by Jessica Lewis

Beyond the Mapped Stars by Rosalyn Eves

Both Sides Now by Peyton Thomas

Burden Falls by Kat Ellis

Devil in the Device by Lora Beth Johnson

Edie in Between by Laura Sibson

Eyes of the Forest by April Henry

Vampires, Hearts, and Other Dead Things by Margie Fuston

When Night Breaks by Janella Angeles (seies)

Paperback

Cold Day in the Sun by Sara Biren

The Companion by Katie Alender

Darius The Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram (series)

The Girl in the White Van by April Henry

Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis

Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen (first in a series)

Now That I’ve Found You by Kristina Forest

Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

The Whitsun Daughters by Carrie Mesrobian

This Week at Book Riot

It’s been quiet on the YA front the last week at Book Riot, but there are a couple of solid reads for you!

• Lord of the Flies is one of those perennially-read high school “classics.” But here are 8 things you might not know about the book and its author.
• Five YA books about being the new kid.

Pop this great Young Adult Reader enamel pin to your tote bag and let everyone know what you’re hauling. $11.

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As always, thanks for hanging out. We’ll see you again on Monday!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram.

Hey YA Readers!

I’ve been thinking a lot about the recently released TIME 100 Best YA Books of All Time list, which works to both update their previously messy list, while also noting the ways YA has changed dramatically since 2016. The list, created in collaboration with YA authors Kacen Callender, Jenny Han, Adam Silvera, Elizabeth Acevedo, Jason Reynolds, Angie Thomas, and Nicola Yoon, was developed by three TIME staffers, along with a number of the publication’s team members.

It is, without question, a much better list than the previous one. Part of that is not allowing it to be a free for all nomination system, and part of it is that the team of YA authors included in this project better represent YA books and the diversity of readers.

But the list is still flawed and raises more questions than it answers.

In their methodology, the creators explain that this list is geared heavily toward very recent titles. The growth of diverse voices is the primary factor, which is why more than half the list is from the last decade. 2017 is particularly represented.

The creators also express the amorphous nature of the label “young adult,” permitting the list to include adult titles that teens have classically picked up in schools, as well as a not-insignificant number of middle grade titles. For anyone who has spent time with YA, the amorphous nature cited by TIME from Michael Cart is less about permitting any book with an adolescent protagonist to be given the label. It’s instead meant to explain why many books with adolescent themes are not YA books. YA is something wholly itself, something understood best by those with a broad scope of knowledge about the category. That scope means a wide one, stretching back to when YA became a category in and of itself. When teens were seen as a separate designation of human development (and capital).

Though the authors who took part in this collaboration are indeed writing some of the most powerful and moving work in YA, it’s worth pausing to consider that all of them are writing in the same period of time: right now. They were not authors in the 2000s, the 1990s, the 1980s, and so forth; certainly they are more representative of today’s world, but that’s the point precisely. They represent today’s world.

And the three TIME staffers who spearheaded the project? They’re mid- to late- 20s and early 30s.

There’s a notable lack of nonfiction on this list, which exemplifies a regular problem in discussing YA. I come back, again and again, to a simple Tumblr post from YA author Malinda Lo in 2015 (Lo’s work not on TIME’s list). Nonfiction for teens has represented the world in tremendous ways, even when fiction lagged behind. So a “best of all time” list including only 7 nonfiction titles — two of which are part of the same graphic memoir series, and one of which is arguably middle grade — does disservice to the entire category of YA, as well as disservice to the talent who have been writing knockout books, and to readers who don’t get exposed to these titles.

Ninety-two percent of the list being fiction, one would expect to see some evergreen titles here. Indeed, Catcher in the Rye lands on the list, as does To Kill a Mockingbird. Neither are YA books.

Missing is Annie on My Mind, one of the most influential books of the 20th century. It’s a classic of queer YA literature and it has never been out of print since its debut in 1982. But it’s not on the list.

Missing is The Outsiders, a book many consider the first “real” YA book and the start of the entire category. It is indeed a complicated book and author, especially in today’s world — SE Hinton has pushed back many times, alienating readers who see queer subtext in the story — but the TIME list notes in their methodology books they did include have been damaging and yet “for as long as they will be passed along to young readers, it will remain essential to recognize where they fail as well as where they succeed.”

Hinton’s book was published in 1967.

Other obvious exclusions from the “best of” list include YA titles like The Pigman by Paul Zindel, Finding My Voice by Marie Myung-Ok Lee (the first YA book by an Asian American author with an Asian American lead), anything by Robert Cormier (how do you leave The Chocolate War off a “best of all time” list?), anything by Norma Klein, Paula Danzinger, Lois Duncan, Norma Fox Mazer, or Virginia Hamilton? His Own Where by June Jordan is missing, as are books by Mitali Perkins, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Sharon G. Flake, Angela Johnson. That the how of the list paints a broad stroke of what YA literature of the 70s, 80s, and 90s looked like further marginalizes the authors who were — and still are — putting their books out there.

YA marketing has failed in highlighting diverse books from years prior to We Need Diverse Books, and it’s absolutely true that publishing has not been welcoming to BIPOC creators. But those books exist prior to today’s era, and they were forerunners, groundbreakers, and worthy of inclusion on a “best of” list. Is it fair to call a new author’s debut book among the “best of all time,” when books which hit shelves prior by beloved, classic authors of color are missing? That puts tremendous pressure on a single book, while simultaneously ignoring the groundwork laid before it.

Can you have a “best of all time” list that ignores global literature? TIME’s list fails to include works in translation, and it’s almost entirely books originally published in the United States (there are a few exceptions, including The Book Thief, which wasn’t even published as YA in its home country).

Building a best of all time list is a tremendous task, and we saw how it failed in 2015. TIME’s new list attempts to make amends for it, but in the process, it raises far more questions than anything. Is it even possible to really create a “best of all time” list, when that list is outdated the moment it’s published? How do we know a book published in 2021 is among “the best of all time?” It hasn’t had time to make an impact.

Can it be a “best of all time” when there are not critics or academics or librarians who study this category of literature to provide their input? Today’s authors have a finger on the pulse, but their scope of knowledge would only be enhanced by those who’ve dedicated their lives to studying the entire scope of the category.

This is a good list, but it’s not the “best of all time.” It’s extremely limited in what it offers, doesn’t meet its own criteria, and only represents a fraction of the YA category.

No list can truly be a “best of all time.”

Perhaps it’s time to stop trying to create something unique and instead, celebrate a category as a whole, with its challenges, its flaws, its triumphs, and its standouts. It’s been long past time to talk about outstanding backlist titles by marginalized writers on a platform of TIME’s scale, and a platform like that would do wonders for the bounty of YA nonfiction. It’s time to dig into why some books are classics, why some are consistently called YA when they’re not, and why it’s important, as TIME itself said, “to recognize where [YA classics] fail as well as where they succeed.”

Let’s appreciate YA for what it is: expansive, creative, groundbreaking, and life-changing.

YA doesn’t always need to be culled into a best of all time to give it validity.

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Thanks, y’all, for hanging out. We’ll see you again later this week!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram and ardent defender of YA nonfiction

Hey YA Readers!

Get ready to load up your ereader with some outstanding ebook deals this weekend. You’re going to find something here you love.

I love the idea of a futuristic Sleeping Beauty, which is the premise of Lori Beth Johnson’s Goddess in the Machine. $3.

Lord of the Flies, but of actual interest to teens, Damselfly looks awesome. $2.

If you haven’t read the award-winning, genre-bending Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, grab it now for $3.

Editor Dahlia Adler’s anthology of Shakespeare retellings, That Way Madness Lies, is on sale for $3.

Want a contemporary spin on Anna Karenina? Grab Anna K by Jenny Lee, first in a series, for $3.

By the Book by Amanda Sellet is a rom-com about a girl who takes advice from classic literature and tries to use it to win the heart of her crush. $2.

Magic schools and magic spaces your jam? Lobizona by Romina Garber is the first in a series and on sale for $3.

Kristina Forest’s I Wanna Be Where You Are combines ballet, a road trip, and romance, with a Black girl at the center of the story. $3.

Francina Simone’s Smash It! is on sale for $3.

For fans of fairy tales, The Hazel Wood is a must-read and comes in at $3.

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you again on Monday!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram

Hey YA Readers!

Let’s catch up on the latest in YA book news and new YA books this week.

YA Book News

• I didn’t realize there had never been an audiobook for Judy Blume’s classic Forever . . . now there is!
• If you haven’t yet seen the new Time list of 100 best YA novels of all time, here it is. We’ll dig into this more in next week’s newsletter.
• Akwaeke Emezi has a new YA novel, a companion to Pet, hitting shelves soon.
• USA Today has profiled a few big YA authors recently, and the last entry in the series is Sabaa Tahir.
• More YA (and middle grade and children’s) books you may have missed because we’re still in a pandemic.
• A giant roundup of the SFF YA hitting shelves this month.

New YA Books

Hardcover

Cazadora by Romina Garber (series)

Dagger Hill by Devon Taylor

Ebonwilde by Crystal Smith (serires)

The Endless Skies by Shannon Price

How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao

Living Beyond Borders edited by Margarita Longoria

Moth by Amber McBride

Phantom Heart by Kelly Creagh

Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko (series)

Paperback

If These Wings Could Fly by Kyrie McCauley

Lobizona by Romina Garber (first in a series)

The Scapegracers by Hannah Abigail Clarke (series)

The Secret Runners by Matthew Reilly

Vicious Spirits by Kat Cho (series)

This Week at Book Riot

• New and forthcoming YA disability nonfiction.
• A huge list of books like Six of Crows.
• How many of these nostalgic ’90s teen series do you remember?
• Four YA books about races.
• Leander ISD in Texas has pulled even more books from their classrooms.
• This is a manga-related post but because much of manga has teen appeal, I wanted to include this fascinating look at why manga is so hot right now in North America. It had a huge popularity spike around the time I was working in libraries, then cooled for a while, but it is back!

This bookmark tells nothing but the truth. Snag one for $3.

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you on Saturday with some great YA ebook deals.

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram.

Hey YA Readers!

Did you know August is Women in Translation month? Starting in 2013, the month-long event celebrates voices of women, trans, and nonbinary writers whose work has been translated into English. By highlighting these voices, readers not only are able to make their reading lives more inclusive, but it’s a reminder to the publishing world the need to bring more international stories to English readers.

You may or may not know that books in translation experience what many call the 3% problem: only about 3% of books published in English are translations. If you boil this down further, that means the fraction of those who aren’t men in translation is even smaller, and looking at what this means for children’s and teen literature, well, you can imagine how minuscule the number is. These are realities that the Women in Translation and the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative are working to bring light to and change.

In honor of this month, let’s take a look at some of the recent YA in translation by women — in this roundup, all of the writers in the original language identify as women or use she/her pronouns, per their English-language biographies. Not all of the translators do.

Note that this is also a very white list. Despite being a global initiative and these stories being international, whiteness still dominates translation, at least in YA. The bulk of these are from European counties, showcasing how there is always still more work to be done, even in an area where there has been slow progress.

If you’re eager to learn more, there’s a fabulous piece from Publishers Weekly about the challenges of children’s and teen translation from the perspective of the translators and publishers.

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As always, thanks for hanging out. We’ll see you again on Thursday!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram

Hey YA Readers!

Before launching into this week’s book news and new books, an apology. In the deals newsletter on Saturday, I attributed The Monarchs to Dhonielle Clayton and Kass Morgan, when it should be attributed to Danielle Paige and Kass Morgan. Dhonielle is the author of books like The Belles and coauthor of the outstanding Blackout.

Let’s catch up on this week’s YA book news and new YA books.

YA Book News

• Here’s what Amazon’s called the best new YA this year.
• Anti-Critical Race Theory parents in Putnam, New York, are mad about The Hate U Give now.
• YA nonfiction for the rest of 2021.
• I’ve never heard of Nightbooks, but this YA title is being adapted by Netflix and slated for a late-fall release (starring one of my favorites, Krysten Ritter).
• Speaking of never heard of it before YA book adaptations, here’s another one.
• And another one!
• The Hunger Games prequel will begin filming next year.
• More pandemic missed connections (aka: editors talk about the books they wish got more attention last year).
• USA framed this story weirdly, about Midnight Sun getting a new look in paperback, when the real story is how many copies the book sold!

New YA Books This Week

Hardcover

The Champion by Taran Matharu (series)

The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino

How Moon Fuentes Fell In Love With The Universe by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

In The Wild Light by Jeff Zentner

Mark of the Wicked by Georgia Bowers

Rainbow in the Dark by Sean McGinty

Rise Up From the Embers by Sara Raasch and Kristen Simmons (series)

Sisters of Reckoning by Charlotte Nicole Davis (series)

Paperback

Call Me American by Abdi Nor Iftin

The Challenger by Taran Matharu (series)

The Glare by Margot Harrison

Girl From Nowhere by Tiffany Rosenhan

The Hoodie Girl by Yuen Wright

The Lightness of Hands by Jeff Garvin

Red Hood by Elana K. Arnold

Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

This Week at Book Riot

• Some horror graphic novels for YA readers.
• A look at the best new YA books featuring female athletes.
• Create your dream food tour and get a recommendation for a new YA book.
• Some of the best YA books hitting shelves in August.

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you Monday.

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram