Anyone enjoy reading YA books? If so, what are your favorites?
Anyone enjoy reading YA books? If so, what are your favorites?
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Anyone enjoy reading YA books? If so, what are your favorites?
Beautiful Creatures series, Infernal Devices series :Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Princess, Clockwork Prince, Shadowhunter series
One of my most recent favorites is Victoria Laurie’s When! She just announced she’s starting on the sequel!
Oh yes! Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books, Garth Nix’s Abhorsen series, almost anything by Diana Wynne Jones, and so many others that I can’t think of right now.
Yes! I second the Tamora Pierce books. They are charming and inspiring. I reread them every year!
Love Tamora Pierce!
And the Harper Hall trilogy by Anne McCaffrey.
Station 11. Futurist, fatalistic yet so life affirming. The Book Thief is a favorite. The Hunger games books, no mystery there but the books are so good.
Robin McKinley is a favorite YA author. You can’t beat Hero and the Crown, a Newberry winner. I also loved Beauty and Deerskin. She always writes strong female characters.
Anything by Judy Blume!! I loved her as a kid and I still love her!!
Just As Long As We’re Together is my all time FAVE Judy Blume book.
From The Mixed Up Files.
My Side Of The Mountain.
Ooh I Love those! While I have Zero desire to go live off the land or raise a peregrine falcon, I love reading this book. I’ve never read the sequels, have you?
The Giver
MODERN: Anna and the French Kiss, 20 Boy Summer, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, Catching Jordan, Anna Dressed in Blood series, An Abundance of Katherines FROM MY YOUTH: The Amazing and Death Defying Diary of Eugene Digman, Invincible Summer, Interstellar Pig, Singularity, The Pinballs, Class of ’88 Series
I’m a big fan of YA! The Hunger Games trilogy (from “The List” really is well written, especially the 1st — & HP is, of course, great), The Earthsea series by LeGuin, His Dark Materials by Pullman (aka, the series that starts w/ The Golden Compass/Northern Lights), many of Cynthia Voight’s books (like Dicey’s Song & The Wings of a Falcon) are favorites. I just picked up Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum last week on a whim & devoured it, thoroughly charmed.
I loved Tell Me Three Things.
I enjoyed the Hunger Games trilogy.
Eleanor & Park. Everyone I recommend it to absolutely loves it.
I’ve read Eleanor and Park about six times and it is just as amazing the sixth time as it was the first time.
@Kyra – it’s the book I recommend the absolute most. It’s a wonderful book.
Ah! I have this on my “to read” shelf! Will have to move it up in the queue.
Great book and the audio is good as well.
Yes, Eleanor and Park is amazing! I recommend it all the time, too!
All of Rainbow Rowell’s books are great!
Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon.
I liked The Sun is Also a Star even better!
Newbery list, YRCA, OBOB. Btw, I like lists.
The False Prince series by Jennifer A. Nielsen. They are so good!
Have you read her other series as well? And stand alone books? They are just as amazing as The False Prince. She is one of my favorite authors.
@Sam yes. I’ve got her latest book on hold at the library. She’s an amazing writer!
Everything by Ellen Hopkins, Keira Cass, Jennifer A. Nielson, Han Nolan, Sharon Draper. My love for YA is extensive and these are just a few of my favorites.
The Lunar Chronicles (Cinder, Scarlett, Cress & Winter) by Marissa Meyer. A retelling of sorts of Cinderella, where Cinderella is a Cyborg mechanic from New China. Such a fun series.
I read a lot of YA to stay in touch with what my kids read, but I also like YA because 4, maybe 6 books and it’s done. None of this bumbling bounty hunter book 25 stuff where it’s the same story each time but a different crime (I’m looking at You, Janet Evanovich).
Another series I enjoyed was The Selection series (Kiera Cass), sort of romance-light with suspense mixed in, however The Lunar Chronicles are really the best we’ve read so far.
The Lunar Chronicles series is that very rare series where every novel is BETTER than the last! Outstanding series, IMO.
@Amy agreed!!
Lol…stephanie plum will never choose between Morrelli and Ranger
@Laurie and why they stick around I have no idea
I liked Marissa Meyer’s book, Heartless.
Really? That’s interesting, as much as I loved The Lunar Chronicles, I couldn’t slog through Heartless. Honestly Renegades was a struggle too. (In fact I read it as a part of a deal, daughter would read The Witch of Blackbird Pond and I would read Renegades).
What did you like about Heartless?
The twist of the Alice in Wonderland story, the struggle to break from overbearing parents and simply that I found it an entertaining read. But we have different tastes probably as The Lunar Chronicles don’t appeal to me. ?
I also didn’t love Heartless as much as the Lunar Chronicles. But I did enjoy Renegades.
The Hate You Give, Dear Martin, Harry Potter series, Speak, Little Fires Everywhere – just a few I can think of right now.
Speak is unforgettable.
Oh, and Holes by Louis Sachar! A magic book for turning kids who think they don’t like reading into readers!
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Mysteries of the Universe
Albertalli’s Simon and Leah
House Arrest – K. A. Holt
Booked and Solo – Kwame Alexander
Long Way Down and Track series- Jason Reyolds
Dear Martin – Nic Stone
Piecing Me Together- Renee Watson
The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner
American Street – Ibi Zoboi
THUG – Angie Thomas
In some ways I think classifying books as YA is a shame sometimes they are tense but they’re often great and de-stressing for older folks
The Georgia Nicholson book series by Louise Rennison. A Bridget Jones’ Diary for younger girls.
John Green’s books are great.!
I was about to tag you in this post, @Kristen!
LOVE Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicals, and pretty much everything else she writes!
Anything by Sarah Dessen or Chris Crutcher.
Find Ruta Sepetys and read all three of hers!!!
Everything John Greene
The Magic Misfits
Maggie Stievefater
John Grisham ‘s Theodore Boone series.
Eliza and her monsters
I loved The Maze Runner series. In fact, I refuse to see the movies because I loved the books so much.
I’ve come across several that I’ve really enjoyed!
It all started with The Book Thief, which I bought not knowing it was YA. As soon as I started reading it, I realized what it was, but I pressed on anyway, and I’m so glad that I did!
Since then, I’ve read Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave trilogy as well as Madeleine Roux’s Asylum series.
M. T. Anderson’s ‘Symphony for the City of the Dead’
About the siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and Shostakovich’s Symphony.
A wonderfully written powerful book with a lot of history not necessarily taught today.
The selection series!
Harry Potter series, Captains Courageous, Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer. When I was a kid, I loved Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, & Encyclopedia Brown
Wonder is probably my top pick but there are many I have enjoyed.
I’m currently reading Cassandra Clare, Kiera Cass, and Marie Lu. I loved the Lunar Chronicles.
Rainbow Rowell
I just read Tiffany Jackson’s Allegedy. VERY good!
Chaos Walking series
Marissa Meyer’s books, Scythe
The Dark is Rising Series
The Hunger Games, Monster Blood Tattoo, Ready Player One. Lots more!
Recent books I’ve read and liked:
Moxie – Jennifer Mattheiu
Girls Made of Snow and Glass (great twist on a fairy tale)
The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
The Jewel Trilogy – Amy Ewing
Girl of Fire and Thorns – Rae Carson
The Queen of Tearling – Erika Johansen (this trilogy is WILD. Such plot twists!!)
Just finished reading The Secret Language of Sisters, which was good! Books by Rick Riorden or Rainbow Rowell. I Will Always Write Back is another good one!
.
More Than This by Patrick Ness completely caught me by surprise. Excellent read.
Eleanor and Park, The Fault in our Stars, Finding Alaska, Turtles all the way Down, The Hate U Give, One of Us is Lying are all good.
I want to read The Hate U Give.
My favorite YA is…and remains…Twilight ❤️ I also enjoyed Everything, Everything, The Fault of our Stars and Eleanor and Park. I enjoy YA novels. They always transport me back to just being a carefree young person. Plus, they are a nice break between “heavier”, more in depth reading.
Any book written by Rainbow Rowell!
I loved Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle.
Looooooove them. All times favorites are I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson, The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer, Aristotle ans Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamine Alire Saenz, and anything by Marie Lu.
The Binti series by @Nnedi great series I can’t get enough!
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir!
Uprooted by Naomi Novik!
Recently read The Hate U Give. Excellent book!
In my TBR pile!
A Long way from Chicago by Peck. Newbery book winner
Looking through those mentioned so far, I don’t see anyone mentioning Laini Taylor. Her creativity and imagination are topped by none. I also love Veronica Rossi’s adventures.
I’m reading Strange the Dreamer right now. I don’t want to put it down!
Hunger Games, The Fault in Our Stars, Twilight books, Harry Potter
The Giver series
Salt to the Sea; The Hate U Give…
I do enjoy YA. Some of my favorite YA authors are Maggie Stiefvater, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, Melina Marchetta, Rick Yancy and Moira Young.
Currently reading…..Hillbilly Elegy. J.D. Vance
Great. This is a very interesting and short read.
Scythe is so good.
Definitely love anything by Cassandra Clare, Holly Black. My assistant just started getting me to read manga. Through much whining I can now read it in the right direction (back to front). Read the entire Library Wars series in a week
Titles that particularly remain with me include Rascal, Swiftwater, Saturday Night, Bambi’s Children, Joy in the Morning, Little Women, The Enchanted, Robin Hood, Ivanhoe. I read all the Gary Paulson Hatchet series to my son.
Read A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN now that you’re ad JOY IN THE MORNING.
Also Black Beauty, of course!
We Are Ok
The Hunger Games was enjoyable and the movies pretty much followed the books.
Redwall is another series.
Love YA!
The Book Thief
The Lunar Chronicles
John Green’s books.
Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart Series.
Twilight Saga, Harry Potter series, books by Lois Lowry, books by Cassandra Clare, Trixie Belden mysteries series,
Wonder! Everybody should read it and the movie was great too!!
I enjoyed Hunger Games, all of John Green’s books, and also Divergent series.
Rita Sepetys……all 3 of her books are great!
Code Name Verity is an outstanding book. I’m currently reading Strange the Dreamer, and it’s been excellent so far!
Love Strange the Dreamer! Laini Taylor is an amazing writer!
Redwall series.
A 3 book series by Isabel Allende – they are really riveting.
When I worked in a high school library a couple years ago, anything by Sarah Dessen or Marie Lu was hard to keep on the shelves.
Maggie Steifvater, Laini Taylor, Cassandra Clare, Holly Black, Jay Kristoff, Amie Kaufman, Ally Condie, Marissa Meyer, Kiersten White, Scott Westerfeld…. I could go on and on. So many amazing authors!
Throne of glass series by Maas
D.M Cornish Monster Blood Tatoo series, Leigh Bardugo, and Allison Croggon The Books of Pellinor series.
“Wonder” by Palacio.
Rachel Hartman Seraphina and Frances Hardinge.
Definitely got an obsession going over Leigh Bardugo??
Wonder by Palacio gets my vote too. Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper was recommended by my granddaughter and I enjoyed it too.
I like Alice Hoffman’s YA books; but generally I don’t read YA. I read Alice’s before I realized they were YA.
The Book Thief
Some of the best books are YA books. Anything on a Newberry list will be really good.
YA is one of my favorite genres! The best I’ve read recently was The Lightning Queen by Laura Resu,. Such a beautiful story!
Recently finished The Mostly True Story of Jack by Kelly Barnhill – a little tricky following different pre-teens but worth it by the ending.
I like YA from the 1970s. K.M. Peyton is a favorite. Her Flambards series and her Pennington series are my favorites.
Jackaby series, Casquette Girls series both are being enjoyed by YA and adult readers.
Jackaby!! I just finished that series. It’s one of my new favorites of all time. ❤️❤️❤️
Always have a YA in the stack. Recently have loved Counting by 7s and Love and Other Perishable Items.
One of my favorites.
Love this one too.
Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon is excellent. The Fault in Our Stars, of course, and I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson is another lovely one.
Eleanor & Park is definitely one of my all time favorites in this genre along with Before I Fall.
I was a YA buyer for 15 years and. Read so many. Anything by Sharon Creech, Catherine Cushman, Nancy Farmer to start with.
I am a sucker for Sarah J Maas’ books. Also loved The Hazel Wood by Michele Alpert. It was so clever and well written. It’s a book you could read with your preteen or teen and have a lot to talk about
I love YA! I echo the suggestion for Sarah J. Maas. I just read “Strange the Dreamer” by Laini Taylor and it was amazing!
Neil Gaiman
I enjoyed The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas.
This was just recommended to me.
The daughter of smoke and bone trilogy, strange the dreamer, the raven cycle
Echo.
Well, since my youngest daughter is named Lyra, I have to say His Dark Materials is my favorite. 🙂 But I also enjoyed Inkheart very much.
The Book Thief
I love all of John Greens books. Have all of them signed.
Susan Cooper series, C.S. Lewis, the Search for Delicious, the original 101 Dalmations, and the Amulet of Samerkand to name a few.
I just finished The Hate U Give, it was good
Hatchet series
Following
Yes! Retired YA librarian. Recent favorites. The Hate You Give, Long Way Down, Refugee, Down and Across, Far From the Tree, Brown Girl Dreaming, We Are Okay.
Well I loved wrinkle in time when I was a YA going to reread it. I also liked the movie
I greatly enjoyed Jonathan Maberry’s Rot and Ruin series. Harlan Coben also has some YA titles. Good stuff!
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is simultaneously funny and sad.
Feed by MT Anderson, sci-fi freaky future that’s close enough to life today that you believe it could actually come true.
YA and even children’s books! Lol. I love Alice Hoffman, and anything by Richard Peck! I love the Long Way From Chicago Series.
I’ll Give You the Sun, Caraval, Three Dark Crowns, Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, and Star Crossed are all amazing!!!!!
Everything by Stacey Lee.
Gary Paulson, The Luxe series by Anna Godberson
Oh yes and SE Hintons books, Tex is my favorite.
I read all the Gary Paulson books with my son. Many of them were in the AR reading and testing program for school. I miss those years of reading together with my son.
YA fan here, esp fantasy and some realistic. Some of my faves include Long Lankin, By These Ten Bones, and…oh, I know I’m forgetting a ton. Those are more horror than pure fantasy. I tend to love horror more in MG or YA, where it’s easier to find milder traditional type ghost fic like I like. 🙂
I just finished Mapping the Bones.
Sometimes, the YA books are better than the adult books.
Yes!
I liked the Aragon series by Christopher Paolini. Not fine literature but I love the dragons.
Me, too. Roran is one of my all -time favorite literary characters.
I started the series years ago, but my son just got into them and we’re finishing Inheritance right now on audiobook. Super excited!
The Book Thief, Emory’s Gift, The War that Saved My Life, The Outsiders, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, anything by Richard Peck, Gary Schmidt, Philip Gulley, and Jacqueline Woodson.
The Book Thief!
The Accelerati Trilogy
The GIver by Lois Lowry
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series – very good! I think it was the second one (?) that was so powerful it made me cry.
I really liked The Bone Witch, and now the second of the series is out. Gayle Forman’s book If I Stay and Where She Went were very different, but enjoyable books.
Love Ya. Taught 7th grade English for years. My school district holds a middle school battle of the books competition every year. 15 new books every year.
Explain Battle of the Books, please. ?
Aileen Pace Nilsen’s Literature for Today’s Young Adults, an excellent resource.
Try the books by new YA author A.M. Yates. I especially like “The Stealer” series.
my favorites!
Cinder was pretty good.
Rainbow Rowell’s books, esp Fangirl
The Hate U Give
Girl in Translation
All the Bright Places
The gift
YA books by Carl Hiassen or James Patterson.
Sarah J Maas has a great series
The Outsiders
The Giver series for more recent books
Still love Chronicles of Narnia
The pellinor series and Just Listen
Anything by Jasper Fforde
Me too. I haven’t run into many people who like or even know him.
@Debbie. It all started with the Eyre Affair. But I love his nursery rhyme crime series as well
@Marianne I read all the Chronology series. I will have to check out nursery rhyme crimes.
I loved The Mockingbirds.
And Breathing Underwater and Out of Nowhere
One for the Murphys. Heartwrenching
There’s tons of great YA SFF out now (and some mediocre stuff, too). Some of my recent favorites are: the Grishaverse novels by Leigh Bardugo; the Fairyland series by Catherynne Valente; the Seraphina series by Rachel Hartman; the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott; the Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage; the Tiffany Aching series by Terry Pratchett (part of his larger Discworld series); the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer; pretty much anything by Laini Taylor, Renee Ahdieh, or Roshani Chokshi; the Rebel of the Sands trilogy by Alwyn Hamilton; His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman; and of course, Harry Potter.
@Anne I liked THE DIRT EATERS by Dennis Foon but never got copies of others in series. Have you read them? (I think there are 3)
@Wendy No, I’m not familiar with that series. I’ll have to check it out!
The Book Thief is a considered a YA book. Can’t get much better.
@Heather is creating wonderful YA novels with Going Green, and soon to be released Greener.
I’m reading The Librarian of Auschwitz right now. Very good YA book
I want to read this book
I really like young adult books as long as the story line isn’t focused on looks and beauty. I know there’s a moral hidden in there but it’s just not my cup of tea. I am going to read through all the comments and check out the recommendations. So thanks to all for posting your favorites.
There are a lot of adult books like that as well, just have to be choosy choosing what to read, YA, adult, whatever genre appeals.
I loved Kiera Cass
Rachel Caine writes some pretty good YA and adult books. she has the Morganville Vampire series of 16 novels, another series called The Great Library book 4 comes out in July and a modern rewrite of Romeo and Juliet but by a different perspective. Honor Among Theives is here last book that came out this past February.
The Hate U Give was good, Dear Martin and pretty much anything by Rainbow Rowell.
Rainbow Rowell’s Landline was great. I also like Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series.
Ocean in my Ears and Ready Player One
The Outsiders
Aremis Fowl or anything by Eoin Coffer.
Kesha’s House by Helen Frost, an excellent book