Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Listmania: My Top 4 YA books read in 2012


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Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler
About: Sixteen-year-old Min Green writes a letter to Ed Slaterton in which she breaks up with him, documenting their relationship and how items in the accompanying box, from bottle caps to a cookbook, foretell the end.
Why I Recommend It: I felt like Min was walking around in my head. From Min's cinephilia, quirky view of the world, to her romantic troubs. Recommended listening since Hawk Davies is fictional: Michael Hurley & Ted Hawkins.

Every day by David Levithan
About: Every morning A wakes in a different person's body, in a different person's life, learning over the years to never get too attached, until he wakes up in the body of Justin and falls in love with Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon.
Why I Recommend It: Levithan deserves the genius award for writing this book. With all the forseeable plot problems I didn't know how he was going to pull it off but, he does. Every day is masterfully written, inspiring, and caused me to cry a million tears.

Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby
About: Portia Remini, a normal among the freaks, on the run from McGreavy's Home for Wayward Girls, where Mister watches and waits. He said he would always find Portia, that she could never leave. Free at last, Portia begins a new life with the traveling circus while she seeks answers concerning her father's disappearance.
Why I Recommend It: Portia is unique, charming, adventurous, and wildly imaginative. I kind of felt like I was reading an Olivia (the pig) book but, for a more mature audience.

The Diviners by Libba Bray
About: Seventeen-year-old Evie O'Neill is thrilled when she is exiled from small-town Ohio to New York City in 1926, even when a rash of occult-based murders thrusts Evie and her uncle, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, into the thick of the investigation.
Why I Recommend It: If you enjoy giving yourself nightmares, The Diviners is the book for you. With the child sacrifices, demons threatening Armageddon, cult fanaticism, and roaring twenties cultural perspective well, I couldn't put this book down.