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Yeasayer

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OK so I've really been trying to read a lot more YA contemporary lately. I've always been pretty turned off by it but I've found if you find the write books it can be an amazing genre!

What would you guys recommend for contemporary ya novels?
(btw I've already read all John Green novels...that's what gave me this new found interest in contemporary lol and I've read Perks of Being a Wallflower as well)

Let me add to your growing TBR pile. Contemporary YA is my thing too.

Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
The Sky Always Hears Me: And the Hills Don't Mind by Kirstin Cronn-Mills
The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd
The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
The List by Siobhan Vivian
Love and Other Perishable Items (aka Good Oil) by Laura Buzo
Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick
Anything by Sarah Dessen
Anything by E. Lockhart, but especially the Ruby Oliver books
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl (Not technically YA, but its narrated by a teenage girl and brilliantly funny)
Wonder by RJ Palacio (Technically MG, but a couple of the narrators are teenagers and it's so worth reading anyway)
 

missesdash

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All right, this is super specific, but thought I'd ask. Anyone know any YA books set in Appalachia? Any genre, and present or past is fine.

If not that, then something in a very rural, very impoverished area in the US. Rural as in no running water, growing and hunting for food. Etc.

Thanks :)
 

frankiebrown

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All right, this is super specific, but thought I'd ask. Anyone know any YA books set in Appalachia? Any genre, and present or past is fine.

If not that, then something in a very rural, very impoverished area in the US. Rural as in no running water, growing and hunting for food. Etc.

Thanks :)

Child of the Mountains.
 

Yeasayer

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All right, this is super specific, but thought I'd ask. Anyone know any YA books set in Appalachia? Any genre, and present or past is fine.

If not that, then something in a very rural, very impoverished area in the US. Rural as in no running water, growing and hunting for food. Etc.

Thanks :)


Here's a list I found. A lot of them seem like historical YA/MG.

It's not YA, but I highly recommend The World Made Straight by Ron Rash. All of his books take place in Appalachia (including Serena which is being made into a movie starring Katniss herself, J.Law), but the MC of this particular one is a seventeen-year-old boy.


And you could always watch MTV's reality show Buckwild for "research" purposes. ;)
 

adipose

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Here are my contemporary recs:

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket!) and Maira Kalman
This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
 

adipose

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Also I know they are more MG and pretty old but you cannot beat Walk Two Moons or Bloomability for contemporary goodness imho
 

missesdash

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Here's a list I found. A lot of them seem like historical YA/MG.

It's not YA, but I highly recommend The World Made Straight by Ron Rash. All of his books take place in Appalachia (including Serena which is being made into a movie starring Katniss herself, J.Law), but the MC of this particular one is a seventeen-year-old boy.


And you could always watch MTV's reality show Buckwild for "research" purposes. ;)

Thank you for this! It's perfect
 

Smiley0501

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missesdash, there's also a 2014 contemp YA coming out about the Appalachia...I know that doesn't help you right now but to add to your TBR. :)
 

jennarielly

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Thank you all for all of the contemporary recs! I have a pretty good list now to go from which is awesome! I can't wait to read them!
 

JustSarah

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Does anyone know of any good,

Young adult book examples, of a crime dystopia. Where crime is out of control, however a special team of police increasingly use extreme measures to deter crime?

The only one I could think of at the moment is A Clockwork Orange. I often find it sometimes overlaps with cyberpunk fiction, though it's not really required that it be cyberpunk. It could also be a citizens life in Starship Troopers (novel version).
 

jennarielly

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Well, this doesn't really have a special police team using extreme measures to deter crime but All These Things I've Done and Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin are the first two books in a dystopian series about a girl who is part of a crime family(think mobsters). It does kind of have some government figures who are working to deter the crime. It was one of my favorite reads last year!
 

JustSarah

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Thanks, I'll check out some copies. Especially since Bianca is running away from her Mob stepfather, this could be helpful.
 

sarahdalton

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Mystery

For my Nano last year I wrote a draft for a paranormal/mystery book, but I think I'm a bit out of date when it comes to YA mysteries. I used to read Point Horrors and Christopher Pike books that always had an element of mystery. Obviously they're about 20 years old now (God I'm old).

Have you got any good recommendations to read whilst I edit my nano?
 

CharacterInWhite

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Romance seems to have saturated the YA market. Closest I can think to in relatively recent memory is something like Paper Towns by John Green, and even then...
 

wampuscat

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These aren't really mysteries per se, but books I've read with an element of mystery. (I would've put Christopher Pike into the horror/thriller column. I read them all when I was a kid.)

All the Ally Carter books are kind of mysteries.
Some of Sara Shepard's books.
The Name of the Star, by Maureen Johnson.
What I Saw and How I Lied, by Judy Blume
Ten, by Gretchen McNeil
I Hunt Killers, by Barry Lyga
13 Reasons Why, by Jay Asher

There might be others in the Recs thread, but I can't recall. http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=213055

ETA: I kind of missed the paranormal mark with these, but I can't think of any good examples off hand. Maybe Anna Dressed in Blood and it's sequel?
 

Yeasayer

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The Edgar Awards have a Young Adult category. I'd check out past nominees and winners.

The nominees this year are:

Emily's Dress and Other Missing Things by Kathryn Burak
The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George
Crusher by Niall Leonard
Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
 

eparadysz

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TETA: I kind of missed the paranormal mark with these, but I can't think of any good examples off hand. Maybe Anna Dressed in Blood and it's sequel?

Well, THE NAME OF THE STAR is definitely paranormal as well as mystery-ish. There's also SLIDE by Jill Hathaway and Kimberly Derting's BODY FINDER series.
 

sarahdalton

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Thanks! These all sound very interesting!

They don't have to be paranormal, and they don't have to be nancy drew either, I just want to remind myself how a mysterious story line is played out.

I think I remember Christopher Pike books being about ghosts figuring out their killers and things like that - which is why I mentioned it. I LOVED those books as a teenager :)
 

nightowling

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I think I remember Christopher Pike books being about ghosts figuring out their killers and things like that - which is why I mentioned it. I LOVED those books as a teenager :)

I don't know if it has a mystery aspect, but Velveteen by Daniel Marks apparently deals with a murdered girl in purgatory who is trying to haunt her killer and save other girls from him.

Other YA mysteries:

Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff. It has a paranormal aspect (the MC is being haunted by the ghost of her best friend). I read it recently and enjoyed it.

Deadly Cool by Gemma Halliday


Some contemporary novels have mysteries within them, like Jellicoe Road.
 

itsaplane

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Can I get some YA Sci-fi with a male protag that features a war, depleted Earth, good aliens(like, the ones not taking over the world kind of aliens--or aliens working together with mankind) or anything like that por favor? Does this even exist? Haha
 

JustSarah

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I'm with Itsaplane as well, this is sort of what I'm looking for as well. I have not seen to many YA military sf, I think this would be neat as well.
 

Kewii

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I'm looking for some YA historical fiction. At school, we're doing a historical fiction unit and it's gotten me on a bit of a kick.

I've read both Verity and Between Shades of Grey already.

Thanks!
 

Becca C.

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I'm looking for some YA historical fiction. At school, we're doing a historical fiction unit and it's gotten me on a bit of a kick.

I've read both Verity and Between Shades of Grey already.

Thanks!

Between Shades of Gray is fab.

I haven't read them yet, but just today at the bookstore I picked up The Lost Crown by Sarah Miller (about Anastasia and the Romanovs) and Cinders and Sapphires by Leila Rasheed, which is one of the Downton Abbey ripoffs I've committed myself to reading. I hope it's better than Wentworth Hall by Abby Graham. I don't really recommend that one.

The Agency series by Y. S. Lee (A Spy in the House, The Body at the Tower, and The Traitor in the Tunnel) is awesome. Victorian era girl detective, yay!

It's not particularly historically accurate or great literature, but I really enjoyed The Luxe series by Anna Godberson. Gossip Girl set in the 1890s, basically. Loads of fun to read. I haven't read her 1920s series, Bright Young Things, yet, but I'm betting it's the same.

And why not throw in some actual olde tyme-y books? :p anything by Jane Austen is amazing, and I love Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery.