Dear Teen Peeps,
Like in 2017, I haven’t read nearly as much YA as I wanted to/should have, due to a number of tedious, adult-ing reasons. So in the category of better late than never, here is a leaner, meaner list of my top five best YA reads of 2018. I mean, I could have dragged the list out to ten, but that would have taken away from the absolute awesomeness of these five, utterly top-notch books. Please note that there has been absolutely no attempt to balance this list by age, gender or genre. These are just my “from-the-gut†favorites of the books I read this year. Also, since I am lucky enough to get paid to review in publications other than this lovely blog, I reviewed some of my favorites elsewhere. In fact, I reviewed THE POET X, which was my hands down, favorite book of 2018 in every way, shape and form, for The Horn Book Magazine, a professional publication for librarians and other people who still dig kids and YA lit. Click on the title to go right to the review and happy New Year!
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World by Penelope Bagieu
Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi
Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl
Speak the Graphic Novel by Laurie Halse Anderson and Emily Carroll
I loved Poet X and Emergency Contact so so much, too! I haven’t read the other 3 but Speak is on the #2jennsbookclub twitter chat for June so I will read it then and am very interested in Nerverworld Wake, thank you!