I Become Shadow by Joe Shine

by Rebekah Layton | Jul 23, 2015 | 0 comments

I Become Shadow

by Joe Shine

Ren Sharpe was abducted at fourteen and chosen by the mysterious F.A.T.E. Center to become a Shadow: the fearless and unstoppable guardian of a future leader. Everything she held dear—her family, her home, her former life—is gone forever.

Ren survives four years of training, torture, and misery, in large part thanks to Junie, a fellow F.A.T.E. abductee who started out as lost and confused as she did. She wouldn’t admit it was possible to find love in a prison beyond imagining, but what she feels for Junie may just be the closest thing to it.

At eighteen they part ways when Ren receives her assignment: find and protect college science student Gareth Young, or die trying. Life following a college nerd is uneventful, until an attack on Gareth forces Ren to track down the only person she can trust. When she and Junie discover that the F.A.T.E. itself might be behind the attacks, even certain knowledge of the future may not be enough to save their kidnappers from the killing machines they created.

#2 in YALSA’s Teens’ Top Ten 2015

YALSA’s Teens’ Top Ten Nominees 2015 YALSA’s Teens’ Top Ten Winners 2015

science fiction YA fiction

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

by Rebekah Layton | Jul 23, 2015 | 0 comments

Grasshopper Jungle

by Andrew Smith

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Sixteen-year-old Austin Szerba interweaves the story of his Polish legacy with the story of how he and his best friend , Robby, brought about the end of humanity and the rise of an army of unstoppable, six-foot tall praying mantises in small-town Iowa.

To make matters worse, Austin’s hormones are totally oblivious; they don’t care that the world is in utter chaos: Austin is in love with his girlfriend, Shann, but remains confused about his sexual orientation. He’s stewing in a self-professed constant state of maximum horniness, directed at both Robby and Shann. Ultimately, it’s up to Austin to save the world and propagate the species in this sci-fright journey of survival, sex, and the complex realities of the human condition.

YALSA’s Teens’ Top Ten Nominees 2015

GLBT dystopian science fiction YA fiction

The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

by Rebekah Layton | Jul 23, 2015 | 0 comments

The Geography of You and Me

by Jennifer E. Smith

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Lucy and Owen meet somewhere between the tenth and eleventh floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they’re rescued, they spend a single night together, wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is restored, so is reality. Lucy soon moves to Edinburgh with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father.

Lucy and Owen’s relationship plays out across the globe as they stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and — finally — a reunion in the city where they first met.

A carefully charted map of a long-distance relationship, Jennifer E. Smith’s new novel shows that the center of the world isn’t necessarily a place. It can be a person, too.

#10 in YALSA’s Teens’ Top Ten 2015

Ratings and Reviews from the Librarians

Bekka rated it ★★★★ and said, “Really fun! I enjoy Smith’s books for their feel-good quality, and this one is no different. I really enjoyed the vast amount of locations this time. I think she did a great job with Owen and his dad and their wanders. The characters are memorable and the romance is sweet. This is a fun light read for pretty much anyone.”

Miranda rated it ★★★★ and said, “Another cute story from Smith. I really enjoyed all the traveling they did while still being able to see each other.”

YALSA’s Teens’ Top Ten Nominees 2015 YALSA’s Teens’ Top Ten Winners 2015

travel romance YA fiction

Boys Like You by Juliana Stone

by Rebekah Layton | Jul 23, 2015 | 0 comments

Boys Like You

by Juliana Stone

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IF
If I hadn’t fallen asleep.
If I hadn’t gotten behind the wheel.
If I hadn’t made a mistake.

For Monroe Blackwell, one small mistake has torn her family apart–leaving her empty and broken. There’s a hole in her heart that nothing can fill. That no one can fill. And a summer in Louisiana with her grandma isn’t going to change that…

Nathan Everets knows heartache firsthand when a car accident leaves his best friend in a coma. And it’s all his fault. He should be the one lying in the hospital. The one who will never play guitar again. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness, and a court-appointed job at the Blackwell B&B isn’t going to change that…

There’s No Going Back

Captivating and hopeful, this achingly poignant novel brings together two lost souls struggling with grief and guilt–looking for acceptance, so they can find forgiveness.

YALSA’s Teens’ Top Ten Nominees 2015

romance YA fiction

We Should Hang Out Sometime by Josh Sundquist

by Rebekah Layton | Jul 23, 2015 | 0 comments

We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly, a True Story

by Josh Sundquist

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A bright, poignant, and deeply funny autobiographical account of coming of age as an amputee cancer survivor, from Josh Sundquist: Paralympic ski racer, YouTube star, and motivational speaker.

Josh Sundquist only ever had one girlfriend.
For twenty-three hours.
In eighth grade.

Why was Josh still single? To find out, he tracked down the girls he had tried to date and asked them straight up: What went wrong?

The results of Josh’s semiscientific, wholly hilarious investigation are captured here. From a disastrous Putt-Putt date involving a backward prosthetic foot, to his introduction to CFD (Close Fast Dancing), to a misguided “grand gesture” at a Miss America pageant, this story is about looking for love–or at least a girlfriend–in all the wrong places.

YALSA’s Teens’ Top Ten Nominees 2015

romance memoir YA non-fiction

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

by Rebekah Layton | Jul 23, 2015 | 0 comments

Lies We Tell Ourselves

by Robin Talley

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In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever.

Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. An honors student at her old school, she is put into remedial classes, spit on and tormented daily.

Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town’s most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept “separate but equal.”

Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another.

Boldly realistic and emotionally compelling, Lies We Tell Ourselves is a brave and stunning novel about finding truth amid the lies, and finding your voice even when others are determined to silence it.

YALSA’s Teens’ Top Ten Nominees 2015

GLBT historical YA fiction

The Princess Spy by Melanie Dickerson

by Rebekah Layton | Jul 23, 2015 | 0 comments

The Princess Spy

by Melanie Dickerson

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A new suitor. A shocking discovery.

Margaretha has always been a romantic, and hopes her newest suitor, Lord Claybrook, is destined to be her one true love. But then an injured man is brought to the castle, claiming to be an English lord who was left for dead by Claybrook’s men. She convinces herself “Lord Colin” is just an addled stranger, until Colin retrieves an heirloom she lost in a well and asks her to spy on Claybrook as repayment. Margaretha knows she could never be a spy—not only does she tend to talk too much, she’s sure Colin is completely wrong about her potential betrothed. But she soon discovers her romantic notions may have been clouding her judgment about not only Colin but Claybrook as well. She soon finds herself running for her life–and it may be up to her to save her father and her family from one man’s wicked plot.

book 5 in the Fairy Tales series

#9 in MLD Teen Choice Awards 2015

MLD Teen Choice Award Nominees 2015MLD Teen Choice Award Winners 2015

romance fairy tales fantasy YA fiction

Hunt for Jade Dragon by Richard Paul Evans

by Rebekah Layton | Jul 23, 2015 | 0 comments

Hunt for Jade Dragon

by Richard Paul Evans

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Michael and his friends must rescue a child prodigy as the thrilling action continues in this electrifying fourth installment of the #1 New York Times bestselling series!

Michael, Taylor, Ostin and the rest of the Electroclan head to China in search of a girl who may have discovered why Michael and his friends became electric. Her name is Lin Julung, or Jade Dragon, and she’s a child prodigy with an IQ higher than Einstein’s—and Ostin’s.

But Hatch gets to her first, and the Elgen are holding her prisoner in their Taiwan Starxource plant. Now the Voice wants Michael and the Electroclan to go to Taiwan and free her before Hatch can realize his dreams of an army of electric children.

The hunt for Jade Dragon is on, and it’s a race against time!

book 4 in the Michael Vey series

#4 in MLD Teen Choice Awards 2015

MLD Teen Choice Award Nominees 2015MLD Teen Choice Award Winners 2015

fantasy YA fiction

Dangerous by Shannon Hale

by Rebekah Layton | Jul 22, 2015 | 0 comments

Dangerous

by Shannon Hale

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Maisie Danger Brown just wanted to get away from home for a bit, see something new. She never intended to fall in love. And she never imagined stumbling into a frightening plot that kills her friends and just might kill her, too. A plot that is already changing life on Earth as we know it. There’s no going back. She is the only thing standing between danger and annihilation.

From NY Times bestselling author Shannon Hale comes a novel that asks, How far would you go to save the ones you love? And how far would you go to save everyone else?

#7 in MLD Teen Choice Awards 2015

Ratings and Reviews from the Librarians

Bekka rated it ★★★★ and said, “Thanks to Netgalley.com and Bloomsbury USA Childrens Books for early access to this title. I really enjoyed this read! It was suspenseful and interesting pretty much throughout. I think the characters were quite well done, and I love Maisie Danger Brown (her actual name)! The parents were good, and the villains were appropriately evil. The romance was great, and I liked the triangle which had me guessing for a while. This was a great, fast moving plot, and I would Recommend this to pretty much anyone who enjoys a good sci-fi adventure story with a great, strong female lead. A nice departure for Hale, who is so great with the re-told fairy tales! This is a new area for her to excel in.”

Miranda rated it ★★★★★ and said, “Thanks to Netgalley.com and Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books for allowing me access to this. 4.5 stars. I went into this completely blind. I had no idea what to expect. This is NOTHING like her other books, and yet the writing and story are still just as amazing. I thought the little jokes the father told were pretty funny and helped show the positive relationship she had with her parents. I could have done with a little less of the teenager-y angst, “he loves me, he hates me” stuff, but it mostly came together for me and worked in the end. And it was nice to have a love triangle appear and get squashed just as quickly. It gets really old when they drag out, and sometimes friends are just never more than friends. Overall, I think fans of Hale’s other works will enjoy this one. I would also recommend it for fans of Pittacus Lore as it has a similar feel.”

MLD Teen Choice Award Nominees 2015MLD Teen Choice Award Winners 2015

romance science fiction YA fiction