The 12 Days of Bookish: Teen Dream

Teen readers are so! lucky! The Young Adult literature scene is ah-mazing—so amazing that adults dip into it constantly (especially when something huge comes along every couple years). With more and more young adult books being optioned and made into blockbuster movies, teen reading is not really in a dire situation. In fact, teens and young adults read more books than older people do. So buy a teen a book! They're not going to hate it, we can assure you of that, particularly if you choose one of the stellar titles we've selected below.

From left to right, top to bottom...
1. Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo // Best described as Russian Harry Potter minus all the school parts and plus constant action. Buy it with Shadow and Bone for full awesomeness.
2. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black // A vampire book by a veteran author is actually scary and contains no sparkles.
3. Homeland by Cory Doctorow // Fans of Doctorow's Little Brother and conspiracy lovers will adore this novel.
4. QB 1 by Mike Lupica // This veteran sports author knows how to narrate a football scene.
5. Far Far Away by Tom McNeal // Very Grimm, perfect for teens who are into modern takes on fairy tales.
6. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel by Ransom Riggs and Cassandra Jean // Get this for the teen who is anxiously awaiting the 1/14/14 publication of Hollow City.
7. Allegiant by Veronica Roth // The final book in the Divergent trilogy blew everyone's minds this year. It's totally worth it to get a teen all 3.
8. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell // A really great love story with some heart-wrenching substance. All the feels!
9. The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson // Part dystopia, part magic, it's all we could ask for in an epic adventure.
10. The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater // The 2nd book in hugely popular author Stiefvater's Raven Cycle. Super, super good.
11. The 5th Wave by Richard Yancey // With so many zombie apocalypse books out there, this title about an alien apocalypse is extra spooky.
12. Boxers & Saints by Gene Luen Yang // This 2-part graphic novel set melds history and mythology into an unbelievably readable package.

Blood-curdling Teen Reads

To cap off Teen Read Week, we've created a short list of terrifying teen reads — it is, after all, October and Halloween is on the horizon! 'Tis the season to be a little freaked out about being alone in a dark house, right? These books range in terror index from "the uncomfortable feeling someone is watching you" to "hiding in the shower while being stalked by a deranged murderer with a sharp knife." How much horror can YOU handle?

From left to right, top to bottom...
1. Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake // In which a teenage boy carries on his father's work, killing the dead.
2. The Monstrumologist by Richard Yancey // Apprentice teen monster hunter must stop monsters which feed through horrible teeth in chest.
3. Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry // In which a teen boy must seek gainful employment as a zombie bounty hunter.
4. The Diviners by Libba Bray // A teen girl and her museum-curator uncle investigate creepy occult murders.
5. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman // In which a young boy is raised by ghosts in a graveyard after his entire family is murdered.
6. Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore // An otherwise ordinary teen girl from a witchy family finds herself suddenly plagued by a nasty ghost.
7. Lord Loss by Darren Shan // In which a teen boy witnesses the brutal murder of his entire family and dodges demons left and right.
8. I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan // Four teens try to hide their involvement in a hit-and-run, but find themselves stalked by a mysterious revenge seeker.

Book Light ON "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown"

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

It's Teen Read Week and I'm celebrating by doing something I do on the regular: reading YA lit and encouraging you to do it, too! Why adults wait for a novel to become inescapably huge (the Twilight, Harry Potter, and Hunger Games series come to mind) before reading them mostly because everyone else is, I'll never understand. The entertainment value of the area is clear, with more and more YA novels and series being picked up by major studios and being converted into movies. I'm not saying that all YA literature is good, because I have read the Twilight series and I was sincerely unimpressed (though I get why the story really carried people away). But several YA authors continuously blow me away: Leigh Bardugo, Holly Black, Maggie Stiefvater, and countless others. This week, I'm devouring (vampire pun!) The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black, bestselling author of the Spiderwick Chronicles and Doll Bones.

The world Black has created here is like a super creepy alternate reality: The world is basically the same except there are evil vampires lurking in the dark and everyone knows it. Teenagers have sundown parties where they hole up in a home all night, garlic and rose brambles strewn over entrances. Tana wakes up in a bathtub the morning after one such party, disheveled and embarrassed, and hopes to sneak out before any of her friends wake up. But the living room is pure carnage, bodies and blood everywhere, and none of her friends will ever wake up. Except her ex-boyfriend, who is tied to a bed and infected by a vampire's venomous bite. Chained in the same room is a red-eyed vampire who inexplicably warns Tana that the monsters who massacred her friends are still in the house, biding their time until sunset. Tana moves quickly, rescuing her infected friend and (crazily) the incredibly dangerous vampire beside him. What follows is a seriously tense, very unnerving trip from that death-reeking house to the local Coldtown, a government-established, self-contained community for vampires, infected humans, and normal humans who for their own reasons want to be used by the vampires. Tana is a wonderfully conflicted character: brave despite her fear; strong despite her frailties; simultaneously repulsed and drawn to the coldness. Her back story is touched with terror, which makes her current predicament even more harrowing.

Black's monsters are fairly consistent with the well-established vampire mythology of literature: cold, heartless, hungry, but capable of feeling some human impulses. Black's writing is strong and suspenseful; chapters alternate between Tana's present and what I'll just refer to as "side stories" (including Tana's story, the chained vampire's story, what is going on in the world around while Tana tries to save herself). For lovers of vampire fiction and YA lit, it's a strong recommend. With the rate YA novels are being turned into movies, I wouldn't be surprised if this gets optioned. Find it in print in the catalog!

- Abby, Reference Librarian

Book Light ON "Love in the Time of Global Warming"

Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

If you follow us on Twitter, you'll know about my odyssey through Francesca Lia Block's body of work. More often than not, I'll write tiny reviews on Twitter for the Young Adult titles I'm reading, but Block's newest novel (pub. date August 27, 2013) was a beautiful read that could be enjoyed by adults and young adults alike.

In the recognizable style of Block, Love in the Time of Global Warming tells the story of a North American (possibly global) apocalypse with plenty of magical realism. It's a modern-day pastiche of Homer's Odyssey, but instead of a war leading main character Pen (née Penelope) to her journey, it's the swelling of the Pacific Ocean that rises over her California home, robbing her of her family, friends, and comfort*. Fearing the worst has happened to her parents and brother, Pen hides out inside her pink family home until the vicious world outside barges in, disrupting her fear and forcing her to flee into the desolate wasteland around her. She quickly learns that the worst post-apocalypse terrors aren't other humans. After all, how bad are humans when giants, sirens, and witches abound? Pen doesn't travel alone, surrounding herself with a ragtag posse of outcasts who somehow survived the flooding and the fires and the flesh-eating giants. The posse intently searches for Pen's family with clues delivered by a harbinger, a mystic and of course, the Odyssey itself.

The allusions to the Odyssey are admittedly obvious, with pertinent passages being read almost immediately after an encounter with a Homeric character and a member of Pen's posse making an unsubtle statement pointing out how their life reflects the Odyssey. For someone unfamiliar with the epic poem, I can see these moments being helpful in drawing the necessary ties between Block's and Homer's work. (Block might have benefited from watching my favorite take on Homer, O Brother, Where Art Thou... generally though, everyone would benefit from watching it; it's awesome.) I found myself wishing the direct quotations would stop, but they didn't really detract from my enjoyment of Love in the Time of Global Warming. Block's prose is lyrical as ever and I'm nothing if not a sucker for magical realism. It's available in print throughout the catalog. Give it a read and stop by to talk about it!
- Abby, Reference Librarian

* Here, I should point out that the title is a little misleading. You'll have to read it to understand why, but global warming is not discussed in much depth at all.