What YA book are you reading RIGHT NOW?

I just finished Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma - loved it. Very thought provoking and strange.

Next up is Sloppy Firsts by Megan Mccafferty (a bit late to the party!).

maybegenius said:

ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD. It's good so far. Nice and creepy.

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TOR sent me this one for review. I can't wait to get to it. It's coming up soon on my list of reads.

Trying to read Eragon. Going slooooowly.

Forget to mention on my previous post, just starting Eve by Anna Carey.

Kats said:

I just finished Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma - loved it. Very thought provoking and strange.

Next up is Sloppy Firsts by Megan Mccafferty (a bit late to the party!).

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I also loved Imaginary Girls. Very surreal. Beautifully written. I blogged about it here

Sage said:

I'm halfway through ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS, but I left the book at work, and it's due back at the library on Tuesday, so I'm just going to call it a DNF. It was a fine book, but I didn't really fall in love with it the way so many other people have. I liked it enough that I would have made an effort to finish it if I had time (and the physical book during that time), but it's not really going to bug me if I don't finish it.

Next up will be WHITE CAT by Holly Black

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Ah, sad that you didn't like Anna. I just read White Cat. It was kind of a slow starter, but around halfway I really got into it. Loved the ending.

I'm finished Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Now I'm on to Will Grayson, Will Grayson. I'm totally loving it. It's incredibly funny; it's 7 a.m. and only sheer and utter exhaustion is making me put the book down. If I'd started this earlier in the evening I'd likely stay up and finish it.

EYES LIKE STARS by Lisa Mantchev.

Lydia Sharp said:

I picked up EYES LIKE STARS by Lisa Mantchev, planning to read the whole series. Loved the concept.

Unfortunately it's a DNF. My brain went on strike after two or three pages -- dialogue overload and too many characters introduced all at once.

Still nibbling at SHINE by Lauren Myracle. It had a strong first half but the middle is starting to lose me.

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DNF?

I'm curious what you will think of Shine. I enjoyed it, but I had it pretty much figured it out by the middle. There was one part towards the end that I really didn't like, but no one has ever mentioned it in any reviews that I've read. Thinking I ought to do one myself, just to put it out there and see what people think.

Am rereading "The Golden Compass" by Philip Pullman. Loved it the first time, fully intend to go through the whole trilogy again, though the end of the third volume was a bit of a let down first time I read it.

Momento Mori said:

I've started THE FEAR by Charlie Higson, which is the third in his zombie novel series and it's as brutal and scary as the last two. Fab - I love it! He kills all your favourite characters. He's like an abusive parent, but in a good way.

MM

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Thanks to you posting this, I went out and bought the first book in the series! Hope I like it :]

Pealuh:
Thanks to you posting this, I went out and bought the first book in the series! Hope I like it :]

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Oh I hope you do. It's honestly one of my favourite YA series at the moment.

MM

Because I'm such a Westerfeld fangirl - Goliath. Only complaint is that it's almost over.

I finished THE GIRL IN THE STEEL CORSET. Felt like I won a race, or something.

Started DARK MIRROR by M.J. Putney. It's moving very quickly so far, almost too much so, but I'm enjoying it otherwise. Reminds me a bit of Marissa Doyle's Leland sisters.

Just started SHIP BREAKER by Paolo Bacigalupi. It took me the until the end of the first chapter to get me feet grounded in the world, but now I'm hooked.

KateSmash said:

Because I'm such a Westerfeld fangirl - Goliath. Only complaint is that it's almost over.

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Does his Leviathan series read differently than his Uglies series? It took me a whole summer to get through Uglies, about two years ago the intrigue threshold for me was like 100pgs and only then the story only got slightly better. I bought Pretties during my borders haul 3 months ago and I tried to read it today and saw the "I just can't get into this" feeling coming a mile away.

I liked Uglies just fine, but something about the covers of Leviathan and Goliath turn me off...

Finished DARK MIRROR. Some of the dialogue was a little clunky, but the pacing smoothed out after the first few chapters and I especially liked how the characters developed over the course of the story. Always nice to see that a "mean girl" disposition needn't be permanent! I was also relieved to see Putney sidestep what I was worried would become a love triangle. This wasn't the sort of book that had room to handle one, so I'm glad that never came up. Enjoyed it well enough that I'll definitely keep an eye out for DARK PASSAGE.

Starting WITHER. Wondering if it will pair as well with BURNED as my sleep-deprived self believes it could

LauraAnnSwanson said:

I liked Uglies just fine, but something about the covers of Leviathan and Goliath turn me off...

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I like the UGLIES series a lot, even the fourth companion book.

Leviathan was interesting... but ends in a cliffhanger. It doesn't stand alone, at all. I have a copy of the second book, but haven't read it, yet. I eventually will.

Lovely Decadence said:

Does his Leviathan series read differently than his Uglies series? It took me a whole summer to get through Uglies, about two years ago the intrigue threshold for me was like 100pgs and only then the story only got slightly better. I bought Pretties during my borders haul 3 months ago and I tried to read it today and saw the "I just can't get into this" feeling coming a mile away.

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It depends on what you mean by differently. It's definitely still in Westerfeld's to-the-point style, but there's no "pretty speak" (which I understand turned a lot of people off to The Uglies series). The Scottish slang of one of the point of view characters might not work for some, but I found it and the character perfectly lovable.

Leviathan kind of gets off to a slow start - and like Smish says, ends in a cliffhanger - but Behemoth and Goliath are excellent and tidy adventure stories (far and away better than the first book which mostly feels like set up in hindsight). I think overall the character are better, but it might be hard for some readers to suspend disbelief and get into the at times zany alternate WWI he's created.

Me? I loved them all to bits. Worth it just for the illustrations and Bovril.

I love, love, love Scott Westerfield. I have yet to read a book of his that I didn't at least like. I will say, however that Uglies, although it introduced me to him, is my least favorite of his series. Midnighters is excellent--it's more my speed than the other ones. (Well, that I've read so far. Haven't gotten 'round to Peeps yet.)

Currently reading: Genius Squad by Catherine Jinks. Easily on par with the first one so far. And it didn't even register with me on first glance, but I think this is the ONLY YA book I've read recently with a realistically and fairly portrayed character who has a major disability. (The MC's best friend is paraplegic. And also a genius, like most of the kids in the book.)

Went through a bit of an adult kick for the past few weeks, but now I'm (finally) about to start Suzanne Young's A NEED SO BEAUTIFUL. Have heard good things about it!

adktd2bks said:

DNF?

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DNF = did not finish

Lydia Sharp said:

I'm almost done with SHINE (less than a hundred pages to go), but it's still slow-going. I keep putting it down after each chapter because I think I have the whole thing figured out already so it's kind of annoying to read. Also, I almost threw the book across the room when there was a sudden slip into a giant infodump of backstory RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ARGUMENT in the front story.

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I read SHINE recently and I had the same reaction. I felt like the narrator's interiority wasn't balanced at all -- there'd be pages and pages of dialogue and action with no reflection on the part of the main character, and then, suddenly, 10-PAGE BACKSTORY PARTY! I think those flashbacks wouldn't have bothered me as much if they weren't such a departure from the fast-paced style of much of the rest of the book. I'll have to go back and analyze a few scenes to see how they were constructed, but that's my gut feeling right now.

Weirdly, despite my frustration, I enjoyed the book overall. I was craving a mystery, and while SHINE wasn't perfect, it scratched that particular itch.