Jenny is the funny and insightful co-host of the Reading the End bookcast. She blogs about books and other sundries at the very entertaining Reading the End, where you can go for even more book reviews, lists, and interviews! She is also an excellent goal setter and loves a hot plate of cheese fries.

In honor of April Fool’s, I’m highlighting YA protagonists who will fool the heck out of you! And so that you won’t think I’m cliché and repetitive, I haven’t even included Eugenides. I have read books not written by Megan Whalen Turner, and the rumor that I only care about books by Megan Whalen Turner is hurtfully false. ( Read more... )

( Anticipated YA Releases )

Jenny is the outstanding and percipient co-host of the Reading the End bookcast. She blogs about books and other sundries at the very entertaining Reading the End, where you can go for even more book recs in genres other than YA. She is also a champion citizen and loves a good order of cheese fries.

February can be a tough month for ace and aro friends, and I’d like to take a quick sec to say that I see and love y’all. And so for this February, I wanted to share a rec list of YA books that don’t have any sex or romance in them at all. Consider it a companion piece to my February 2018 column in which I made a list of YA novels where the youths bang and it still works out okay. ( Read more... )

( Anticipated February YA Releases )

Jenny is the splendid and prodigious co-host of the Reading the End bookcast. She blogs about books and other sundries at the funny and entertaining Reading the End, where you can go for even more book recs in genres other than YA. She is also a champion library patron and is kind to all librarians.

Did y’all enjoy that inadvertent summer break from my YA recs? Summer is a quiet time for American YA releases, so I improved the shining hour by staying inside and sulking about the heat that makes it impossible for me to walk anywhere and the humidity that turns my hair into a tumbleweed. But now it’s September, which means it’s still hot as hell but I at least have college football and the prospect of coolish weather someday. As such, I am now able to return to YA excitement—and just in time, because L. L. McKinney’s A Blade So Black deserves to be screamed about!



A Blade So Black is a black Alice in Wonderland, which is probably enough to bring you in on it, but in case not: Alice’s father has just died when she stumbles across a Nightmare from another world. She’s saved in the nick of time by the sexy, mysterious Addison Hatta, who trains her as a warrior and defender of Atlanta (and like, all of earth!); she’s brilliant at it, but being a Nightmare warrior doesn’t mean she’s not on the hook for schoolwork, supporting her friends, and keeping to her protective mom’s early curfew.

And now, Five Questions for YA Authors (and one just for L. L. McKinney!)

( Read more... )

( Exciting releases! )

Get at me in the comments for the YA books you’re anticipating this month!

Jenny is the splendid and prodigious co-host of the Reading the End bookcast. She blogs about books and other sundries at the funny and entertaining Reading the End, where you can go for even more book recs in genres other than YA. She is also a champion library patron and is kind to all librarians.

Happy spring, my YA-loving friends. I hope that you are in locations that experience pleasant spring weather, and that April is not bringing you too many showers or too many of those caterpillars that fall from trees in your hair and sting your hands when you scream and try to remove them. This month, we’re welcoming the fabulous Tomi Adeyemi to talk about her debut novel, the fantasy epic Children of Blood and Bone.

And now: Five Questions for YA Authors (and one just for Tomi Adeyemi)

( Read more... )

( Exciting release! )

Please hit me up in the comments to scream about that cliffhanger in Children of Blood and Bone, or hit me up on Twitter if you want the Lady Business readers to live spoiler-free lives.

Happy 2018, YA lovers! I hope that everybody has made an assortment of manageable resolutions for the New Year, and that one of them is "be kind to myself." 2017 was very hard, and 2018 promises to be hard as well, although hopefully we’ve all gotten stronger and will be better equipped to handle it.

In honor of the New Year, I’ve made you a rec list of YA (and YA-ish) books about new beginnings. Some of these belong to my perennial favorite subgenre, “goes-off-to-live-with,” while others are about characters launching themselves into the unknown, or endeavoring to reclaim lost versions of their lives.

( YA recs: New Beginning )

( new releases )

Welcome to The YA Agenda, a monthly column that’s mostly just an excuse for me to squee over young adult novels new and old. For my inaugural column, I’m delighted to welcome S. A. Chakraborty, whose debut novel City of Brass comes out this month from Harper Voyager. It’s not technically YA, but one of the items on my eponymous Agenda is that I get to decide when adult fiction is YA-ish enough to be included.



City of Brass tells the story of a con artist and healer in eighteenth-century Cairo who accidentally summons a djinn and has to cope with everything that comes next. It has an extravagantly beautiful cover and a cast full of complicated, angry, interesting characters trying to find their footing in a rapidly changing world.

And now: Five Questions for YA Authors (and one just for S. A. Chakraborty)

( Read more... )

November Releases

Every month here at The YA Agenda, I'll be highlighting a few new releases that I'm excited about. Have you read any of these yet? Are there other YA books that have caught your eye? Get at me in the comments and let me know!

Rosemarked by Livia Blackburn
The marketing copy compares this book to Melina Marchetta’s Lumatere Chronicles, so I was sold right away. Rosemarked is about a girl stricken by the rose plague (what is a rose plague??? I do not know but I am so excited to find out!) and a boy determined to free his people from the oppressive rule of Empire. Together they infiltrate the capital city as spies. I love a political fantasy and can’t wait to read Rosemarked.

The November Girl by Lydia Kang
This book is about a girl who is a literal, non-metaphorical storm and who falls in love with a boy who is a regular human and not a weather phenomenon. That is amazing. I will just be listening to Neko Case’s "This Tornado Loves You" on repeat until I can get my hands on this book.

Not Now, Not Ever by Lily Anderson
I have deeply failed the universe in some way that it did not let me know until just now that there’s an Afro-Latina author writing teen drama adaptations of literary classics. Lily Anderson apparently has a book called The Only Thing Worse than Me Is You, a retelling of Much Ado about Nothing, and now there’s a sequel called Not Now, Not Ever, which is inspired by The Importance of Being Earnest. Assuming this isn’t all an Oscar Wilde fangirl fever dream I’m having.

And that’s a wrap for the inaugural installment of The YA Agenda! Hit me up on Twitter any time you want to scream about books, or stop by my blog, Reading the End, to be relentlessly enthused at over every book I love and every episode of Black Sails that broke my heart.

Jenny is the charming and effervescent co-host of the Reading the End bookcast. She blogs about books and other sundries at the delightful and educational Reading the End, where you will gain many excellent book recs and also learn of books about various parts of Africa that you didn't know existed before Jenny brought them into your literary life. She also makes a mean plate of cheese fries.