What YA book are you reading RIGHT NOW?

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Smish

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An Abundance of Katherine's is my favorite, but it does have a similar overall theme as LFA and PT (boy obsesses over girl). It's awesome, though.

And so is Will Grayson, Will Grayson. I'd recommend reading both. :D

I think his next book to be released is going to have a female protag. I'm looking forward to that.
 

Lydia Sharp

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Finally got to read Sister Mischief. As predicted, it was so good I want to marry it. Loved pretty much everything about it--the characters, the rhymes, the story, the message. Can I PLZ have more books like this?

Awesome. I've been waiting to hear what people thought of this one before reading it, and so far, I've heard only good things.
 

Momento Mori

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I finished THE FEAR by Charlie Higson, which I really enjoyed although it is more back story to the events in book 1 (THE DEAD). I'm really looking forward to the next book because I think that everything should now start pulling together.

I'm going to start MIDWINTER BLOOD by Marcus Sedgewick next. I was at a SCBWI conference last November where he read some extracts, which sounded great.

MM
 
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Chanelley

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Reading Eve by Anna Carey. Not what I expected and can't decide if that's good or bad.
 

mellymel

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Those are the only two John Greens published in the UK - Bloomsbury put out Paper Towns last year, two years after it was published in the US. (Having said that, I've seen import copies of An Abundance of Katherines at several branches of Waterstone's, and more recently import copies of Will Grayson, Will Grayson too. I haven't yet read either of these.)

I did read Looking for Alaska first. And while I did enjoy Paper Towns, I did notice how it was thematically very similar to the earlier novel. You have a male (first person) protag who is clever but not as clever as he thinks he is, an enigmatic and quite possibly unknowable female lead and her effect on him, especially when she disappears (for reasons I won't reveal, to avoid too many plot spoilers) partway through the novel, causing him to search for her, literally and/or metaphorically.

Oy...and on that note, I will put it aside because i'm just not sucked into it and if she's going to "disappear" then i will really feel like it's a been there done that kinda story. sigh. Maybe i'll read it again when there's nothing left for me to read...which will be a long time from now.

Off to read Bumped by McCafferty. Have heard mixed reviews about this one, but I need something different.

ETA: the thing I loved about Paper Towns was the hilarious relationship/banter between the guys. I could really care less about their search for the girl. It was a good read, but a little silly in concept. To me.
 
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SillyMom25

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Paper Towns in my least favorite John Green novel too. I liked it but I wasn't happy with the ending.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson is my favorite JG book. I can't even express how much I loved it.
 

Momento Mori

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I'm over half way through MIDWINTERBLOOD by Marcus Sedgewick and I hate to say it but I'm quite disappointed. It's THE WICKER MAN meets FALLEN, but the writing just feels incredibly flat and I'm completely unengaged by it. There are some creepy elements - the recurring apperances of hares, weird herbal tea and so on - and structurally it's interesting, consisting of a number of interconnected short stories that occur over several thousand years, but I really don't give a monkey's about any of the characters. It's definitely not a patch on REVOLVER.

I'll carry on till the end, but I had really high expectations of it (and maybe that was the problem).

MM
 

adktd2bks

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Oy...and on that note, I will put it aside because i'm just not sucked into it and if she's going to "disappear" then i will really feel like it's a been there done that kinda story. sigh. Maybe i'll read it again when there's nothing left for me to read...which will be a long time from now.

Mel - In LFA she doesn't really disappear. It's quite different than that, but if you're not caring for the characters right now then what does happen may not have as much emotional impact on you. *shrug*

I finished Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer last night. Read it almost all day long and was not expecting to finish it yesterday, but I did. :) Which is to say that I was hooked by the story and loved it, but there were little things that bothered me. Like all the banter between the searchers when things seemed to be really dire/serious, it deflated the tension and got old after awhile. And I really hated that she used the phrase "she clucked" like 4 or 5 times. I feel like that phrase ought to be reserved for mothers or something, but when teenage girls are using it, it just sounds WRONG. Haha, so that's my senseless rant. Otherwise loved it. :)

Will probably start A Need So Beautiful tonight.
 

Parametric

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I finished Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer last night. Read it almost all day long and was not expecting to finish it yesterday, but I did. :) Which is to say that I was hooked by the story and loved it, but there were little things that bothered me. Like all the banter between the searchers when things seemed to be really dire/serious, it deflated the tension and got old after awhile. And I really hated that she used the phrase "she clucked" like 4 or 5 times. I feel like that phrase ought to be reserved for mothers or something, but when teenage girls are using it, it just sounds WRONG. Haha, so that's my senseless rant. Otherwise loved it. :)

I was pretty unsure about W0LFSBANE. It creeped me out that both love interests were equally prone to kissing and touching the teenage heroine while she asked them repeatedly to stop (since she'd be brutally murdered by her fellow werewolves if she had sex before marriage). Neither her lack of consent, nor the extreme danger they were putting her in, was enough for them to keep their hands off her. What's up with that?
 
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adktd2bks

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I was pretty unsure about W0LFSBANE. It creeped me out that both love interests were equally prone to kissing and touching the teenage heroine while she asked them repeatedly to stop (since she'd be brutally murdered by her fellow werewolves if she had sex before marriage). Neither her lack of consent, nor the extreme danger they were putting her in, was enough for them to keep their hands off her. What's up with that?

Spoilers: In Nightshade that definitely seemed to be the case with Ren. Shay didn't seem to know so much about the "rules" (if I'm remembering correctly, it's been 6 months since I read the first one). In Wolfsbane I don't think there was that danger you're talking about because she had basically left the pack and its rules. But at the same time you're right that she asked Shay to stop once or twice, but then things would resume at a later time. I know you're not supposed to blame the victim, but she also seemed to be sending mixed messages. Stop, I'm not ready, and then an hour later she's all over him again, unzipping his jeans and then a second later she says once again, stop. What's up with that?? Honestly if I were the guy, I would have been pissed off at her. What bothered me most about Wolfsbane was the scene with Ren where it's implied that he's going to break her/rape her and she still says that it's not his fault and she loves him. Despite these problems, I still enjoyed both books, though if my daughter were to read them someday, I'd be sure to talk with her about it, same as I would with Twilight.
 

mellymel

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Okay, okay, I will finish LFA! I do like the characters, especially the MC and his roommate. I like Alaska, but find her borderline obnoxious, but I like them all enough that I will trudge through it. :)
 

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Without spoiling anything, let's just say you'll be waiting a while. :)

I enjoyed Looking for Alaska much more than Paper Towns, but I think that's partly because I read it first. They cover a lot of the same ground and the same themes, so whichever one you read second suffers for it.

Cheers.

I had the exact same feeling about it. Those are the only to John Green books I've read and after Paper Towns I was just like, "Oh, OK, he's one of those authors whose characters are always going to be exactly the same. I think I'm done with him now." Not that the characters hold zero appeal or anything, but I don't need to read them more than once.

As for me, currently (finally) reading The Luxe.
 

Smish

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I'm reading The Monstrumologist now. Really good, so far. Gross, though. :D
 

Kitty Pryde

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I read Putting Makeup On Dead People. Really interesting perspective from the MC, who decides senior year that being an undertaker is the ideal profession for her. Though she did spend far too long Senselessly Dating Unsuitable Sleazy Jerk Even Though Really Nice Perfect Guy Is Completely Available And They Haven't Even Had A Stupid Misunderstanding Or Anything. Other than that I found it very fresh and fabulously written.

Then Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children. I enjoyed it, though as fantasy tropes go there was a lot of veering into cliche territory--fantasy for people who don't read much fantasy, seemingly written by someone who doesn't read much fantasy. F'ing loved the pictures though--does anyone know, are those really all found photos? Freaky!

And now onto Island's End, about an indigenous culture living on an island off the coast of India. They've lived the same way for thousands of years, but now outsiders are showing up in the 21st century. Really fascinating so far--reminds me of Pratchett's Nation. But mostly based on a specific real culture.
 

KTC

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Then Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children. I enjoyed it, though as fantasy tropes go there was a lot of veering into cliche territory--fantasy for people who don't read much fantasy, seemingly written by someone who doesn't read much fantasy. F'ing loved the pictures though--does anyone know, are those really all found photos? Freaky!


Ooh! I bought this one last weekend at my own book launch. (-; My wife is reading it now and LOVING it. I can't wait to get into it. PS: We are both non-fantasy readers. (-;
 

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I just finished the hunger games trilogy. And like millions of others, I loved it.
 

Momento Mori

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I finished MIDWINTER BLOOD by Marcus Sedgewick and it's okay, but never really came alive for me. I would reccomend it though to anyone who's looking to have adult protagonists in their YA books, because the two central characters spend most of their incarnations as adults and I think it shows you the positives and the negatives of that approach.

I've just started D4RK INSIDE by Jeyn Richards (the 4 is included in the title, incidentally, in case anyone thinks I'm trying to fool the searchbots), which I've seen described as THE ROAD meets 28 DAYS LATER. I'm literally only a couple of pages in and it's a bit slower and vaguer than I'd like, but not bad enough to put me off completely.

MM
 
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