My Top Ten YA Books
Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell
Wow, can Rainbow Rowell write! Scenes
from this book will stay with my for life. I'll never forget the
part when the school bullies cover Eleanor's locker with sanitary
pads that they've coloured with red marker. She's so poor that she
saves some of these pads for her next period. This book is tense and
gritty from the get go. It never loses its hold.
Twilight, Stephanie Meyer
Probably an obvious one but I love the
attraction between Bella and Edward. It starts off as as slow burner
then it gets to the point where she becomes addicted to him. I mean,
who wouldn't? Stephanie Meyer makes him so hot!
The Curious Adventure of the dog in
the night time, Mark Haddon
One thing I love about books is that
you get to climb inside other people's minds. Here, we're in the
head of 15 year-old Christopher, an autistic boy. The book tricks us.
We think that we're just learning about him. But really we're
learning about his parents and the pressures that they have looking
after him. The book is funny. It's very English too, which I love.
The Girl Who Could Fly, Victoria
Forester
This is a fun, escapist read told
through the hill-billy voice for Piper. My favourite part is when
Piper is taken to a so-called school for exceptional children, which
turns out to have a sinister agenda. She sees the experiments that
they are doing on animals like a swan that is forced to swim in
bleach.
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
There's no need to go over the plot of
this book. Surely everyone knows the story. One of the clever things
is that the author does, is to set the stakes so high from the onset.
Not only is Katniss's life in jeopardy but we realize that she might
be forced to kill other children. I mean, who wouldn't want to keep
reading?
The Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
An old one but a good one. Be warned,
the first 20 pages are slow. But then the book really gets going as
we follow Lyra's quest to find out what's happened to the
disappearing children. The character of Mrs Coulter – played by
Nicole Kidman in the movie – is chilling.
The Book Thief, Markus Zusack
You have to work to read this book but
it's worth it. It feels like a beautiful piece of art.
The Fault in Our Stars, John Green
OMG. I think I used up ten year's
worth of tears over this. I knew that a book about a girl with
cancer wouldn't be a walk in the park. But I never realized that it
would make me cry so much. John Green kept twisting the knife
further and further into me during this incredibly compelling novel.
Holes, Louis Sacher
A classic that definitely deserves a
nod. We follow the story of Stanley, who's been sent unfairly to a
boy's detention centre. The centre is so awful that you can't stop
reading. Plus, there's more to the camp than we first imagine. I was
hooked as the mystery unravelled.
The School for Good and Evil, Soman
Chainai
I love the concept of this book. Two
girls are kidnapped and sent to adjoining schools in a village where
they groomed to become fairy tale characters. They will feature in
story books that appear mysteriously in local book shops. But is the
good girl so virtuous? And the bad girl so evil? Get ready for tons
or twists and turns.
***
FOR
HER SISTER
by Lara
Sleath
YA
Paranormal Suspense
Evernight
Teen Publishing / 61,000 words
Eighteen-year-old Bresha
blames herself for her younger sister's death. She knew that Arlene
was gullible and fragile. Yet she still let her tone-deaf sister meet
with Saul Sanderstorm, a
record company mogul whose charisma is as big as his temper.
When
Arlene is found floating in Camden Lock canal, the police call it
suicide. But Bresha knows different. She knows that sleazy Saul is
somehow to blame. And so does Arlene's ghost. Why else would she fog
up mirrors and trace the letter S for Saul through the condensation
on the glass? Now, Bresha has to find a way to prove that Saul's
guilty.
When
Bresha discovers that Saul is getting a kick out of mentally breaking
singers, she wonders if this happened to Arlene. The truth has to be
ugly and shocking. Because why else would Saul be prepared to
do anything to
conceal it?
Bresha
faces a choice. Risk her life to unearth the facts. Or drop the case
and be forever tormented by her sister's ghost.
Buy Links: Evernight Teen Amazon ARe
Excerpt:
Someone was screaming. She
realized that it was her. She found herself on her feet. She took off
down the path, her breath jagged, her shoes pounding over the gravel.
Fire flashed against her legs, as the nettles stung her.
She ran a few more steps.
She had to be faster than him. Surely, she was faster. He was paunchy
old man. Her feet hit a boulder and she stumbled. She felt his hands
on her back. Slam. He
pushed her down. A burning pain shot across her cheek, as her face
smashed into the gravel.
She scrambled up and ran
on. He sprang on her from behind. Again, he brought her down. She
twisted around. He threw himself on top of her, his weight crushing
her. She reached up and tried to claw his face, but he caught her
hands and pinned them down by her sides onto the path.
“You will not to
do this to me,” he snarled. “You will not ruin
me.”
Bresha tried to speak, but
her tongue was frozen. She gazed into his eyes, hoping to reason with
him on an unspoken level, human to human. She’d read somewhere that
eyes were supposed to be the view point into people’s souls. Now
she saw his soul. It looked like the photograph of a cancerous organ
on the side of a cigarette packet, black and festering.
He brought his head toward
her lips. Was he going to kiss her like he might have been trying to
do that day on the couch? She turned her head away, pushing one side
of her face into the grit. He’d never kiss her. She’d die before
he kissed her.
She felt him bite into her
neck. He was giving her a love bite, the sick pig. She screamed as he
drew blood.
***
About the
Author:
British
born Lara Sleath has been writing stories - on paper and in her head
- for as long as she can remember. But gave up on the idea of
becoming a writer because she believed that the idea was too
far-fetched. Instead she took the only slightly more sensible option
of working in the music industry.
But
even that proved too dull for Lara. In her mid-twenties, she set off
from London with her boyfriend in a battered VW van. Their aim was to
drive to India. They arrived a quarter of a year after adventures
with warlords and after having seen many mind-blowing sights.
Today,
the boyfriend in the beaten-up VW van is Lara's husband. She lives
with him and their two children in Vancouver, Canada close to the
ocean and the mountains. Lara writes every day surrounded by an army
of cats. For Her
Sister is her debut
novel.
***
Giveaway: $10
Evernight Teen Gift Card
I love love love this cover! I totally love your YA book suggestions! I'll have to check some out!
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